First draft done!!

Lipah, Bali, January 30, 2018

2002:  Camped outside Xian beside a Han-dynasty imperial tomb

It has been a long time since I posted, but today is a good day for my Silk Road ride project, so it's time to share the good news.  This afternoon I finished the first draft of my book about cycling the length of the Silk Road.  I hit "save" on the last chapter and then added up all the word counts.  I have written just short of 168,000 words, which is probably about 50,000 too many, so there will be a lot of painful cuts to make over the coming months ("You've got to be willing to kill your babies", as my writing friend Kat used to say), but the hardest, longest slog is over.  I am very, very excited about taking the project to the next stage, and about undertaking the hardest task of all:  trying to sell the book to a publisher.  Stay tuned for further updates!

Older gentleman at the Yellow River bridge near Lanzhou, 2002

Perfect campsite in Kyrgyzstan, 2004

A few days ago, I found out that another book is being published today by a Canadian author, Kate Harris, about cycling the Silk Road.  When I first heard the news, I thought "Damn!  I've been scooped!", but now I think that the book sounds very different in its outlook and style, and that if it is successful, it will open up an ecological niche in the Canadian publishing market for another book (by me!) on the Silk Road.  It's acted as a bit of a kick in the pants for me, forcing me to get serious about getting the book published.

The spirit of bike touring:  northwest Kyrgyzstan, 2004

Grunting my way up the pass into Tusheti, 2009

It has been a fabulous few months for me, although it started with a very sad process, the decline and death of my father from March until June of last year.  I ended up here in Bali at the beginning of August, living in the fabulously situated house that my partner Terri has here on the northeast corner of the island, scuba diving and writing.  I started to write seriously near the end of August, throughout September and October and halfway through November.  I stopped mid-November in order to go do my dive instructor course and then to work as an instructor in Raja Ampat, only getting back here in mid-January.  The last two weeks have been very rainy here, so it has made it easy to buckle down and finish the final draft in one long push.  I have really enjoyed the project of turning my diary entries, my blog posts, my photos and my memories into something readable and, I hope, inspirational.

I hope to be done rewriting the book by July.  With any luck, I will have sold the book by then, in which case I can look forward to sharing it with you, my faithful readers, and (I hope) thousands of other readers.  Fingers crossed!

Magical Tusheti and its towers, 2009

Final Wrap-up

Leysin, January 2, 2011

Sitting here in my apartment in sunny Leysin, Switzerland, it's about time to draw the saga of the Silk Road Ride to a close and tie up a few loose ends. I've enjoyed just about every minute of the entire process (OK, aside from the six months spent recovering from rheumatic fever in 2002!) and I hope that this blog can help convey some of that excitement to you, my readers.

Here are a series of links that should help summarize this three-stage, eight-month, 17,750 km trip. There are maps, photo galleries, daily riding stats and a few news articles about the trip. I figured out that I rode for about 1185 hours at an average rate of 15.0 km/h, was in the saddle for 197 days (six and a half solid months), passed through 11 countries (and one semi-country, Nagorno-Karabakh), climbed an estimated 190 000 vertical metres (that's 22 times the height of Mt. Everest above sea level) and turned the pedals over 3 million times. Not bad!

These bare statistics, though, do not capture any of the essence of the trip. This trip was far more about the landscapes, the cultures, the ruins and the people along the way. Camping beside the Great Wall of China or beneath the tomb of Han Wu Di, traipsing awestruck through Bukhara, Samarkand, Esfahan and Ani, riding past emerald lakes like Sayram, Issyk Kol and Lake Van, crossing the Tien Shan and the Pamirs and the Elborz: these are what this trip was about. Staying with herders in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and townsfolk in Iran, crossing paths with fellow riders, having long conversations with people along the road, and feeling the connections between people and culture and history was what made this journey so worthwhile and helps explain why I stuck with it over the intervening years. The purely physical, while obviously integral to the trip, was really just a means to an end. I was confident that I could make it to the end of the Silk Road; what really mattered were the experiences along the way.

I hope that for some of my readers, this will inspire you to undertake your own dream voyages or projects. Life is short: play hard!!

Stay tuned to graydonstravels.blogspot.com for future trips!

Graydon

Google Maps

2002

2004

2009

Daily riding summary charts2002

2004
2009

Facebook photo galleries

2002: Xian to Urumqi

2004: Xinjiang and Kazakhstan

2004: Kyrgyzstan

2004: Tajikistan

2004: Uzbekistan

2004: Turkmenistan and Iran

2009: Kuwait and Iran

2009: Azerbaijan

2009: Georgia

2009: Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh

2009: Turkey and Iraq

Articles

An article by me in Verge magazine about the first two legs of the journey.

A brief article in English about my arrival in Venice in January, 2010.

Two more articles in Italian about the same thing.

La Nuova Venezia

Notizario Italiano.

The final, symbolic end of the Silk Road Ride

Carrouge, Switzerland, January 21

I'm sitting in my sister's apartment here in rural Switzerland, looking out at the freshly fallen snow and coming to terms with the fact that, after all these years, the Silk Road Ride is complete now. Although the ride really ended at the ended of October in Turkey, I had a much more symbolic closure to the trip a couple of days ago when I rode my bicycle, with its rebuilt rear wheel, from San Vito al Tagliamento into Venice, finishing at the site of Marco Polo's house in the Secondo Corte del Milion. It was a cold, cold morning, but a pleasant, flat, uneventful ride across the Veneto plain, skirting the Venetian lagoon, across the causeway and into the city that for so many centuries was Western Europe's trading window to the East. And while Marco Polo returned home from Turkey by ship, it was still nice to feel that I was crossing paths with the Silk Road's most famous Western traveller again.

My friend Manuel had set up a welcoming committee of journalists to take photos and talk to me as I pushed my bike along the streets and up and over the bridges towards my finishing point. So far, there are two stories that have come out in the Italian press:

this one (from Il Gazzetino, the main daily paper of Venice)
and this one (from Nuova Venezia)

They are in Italian but you can make amusing translations of them using online translator programs.

So the trip is over; now, after some time spent riding elsewhere (most likely Ethiopia), it will be back to Canada to start writing a book to turn this trip into an entertaining, informative read for the general public. I hope that you, my faithful readers, have enjoyed the blog, and will look for the book whenever it comes out.

Silk Road Bike-u Haiku

For those of you who have actual poetic talent, İ apologize. For the rest of you, İ hope you enjoy this poetic overview of this bicycle journey expressed in the form of a series of haiku. Matsuo Basho is doubtless turning over in his grave.


2002

China

Buying ink brushes
Paying respects to Xuan Zang
Leaving from Xian

Chinese emperors
Lie in vast mausolea
Dead and forgotten

Buddhist cave temples
Honeycomb arid hillsides
Silk Road's eastern end

Cycling through cold mist
Tracing Gansu Corridor
Camped beside Great Wall

Homicidal bees
Pursue me across desert
Anxi oasis

Hot dry hurricanes
Dessicate a roadside corpse
Crossing the Gobi

Travel companions
Across the Taklamakan
Swift-riding Uighurs

Beziklik, Dunhuang
Frescoes adorn rock-hewn caves
Trail of spreading faith

Blazing heat hammers
Tourists in Gaochang, Turfan
Beer under grape vines

Pain spreads slowly through
Swelling joints in Urumqi
Journey suspended




2004

China

Return to deathbed
In rain-lashed grey Urumqi
Two long years later

Otherworldly blue
Propelled by gale-force tailwinds
Leaving Sayram Lake


Kazakhstan

Welcoming shepherds
As I ride across bleak steppe
Cold early springtime


Kyrgyzstan

Farcical frontier
Drawn across boggy valley
Of Scythian tombs

Warm sunshine lights up
Ancient rock-carved hunting scenes
Of Lake Issyk Kol

Mountain passes loom
Aching muscles climb all day
Cycling with Pushkin

Kebabs, beer, bread, borshcht
Filling my empty stomach
Chaikhana in Osh

Fast-moving blizzard
Freezes us on mountainside
Revived in warm yurt

Under Pamir peaks
Detained by bribe-seeking guards
Saved by football match


Tajikistan

Dead yaks mark border
High desert home to slaughtered
Marco Polo sheep

Lenin's statue stands
Above power-line fores
Rain-drenched Murghab town

Source of the Oxus
Defended by flood ramparts
We retreat, muddy

Cold rainy grasslands
Kyrgyz herders shelter us
Crossing the Pamirs

Along Afghan frontier
Hindu Kush towers above
We pedal hungry

Guest of expats
I eat, rest, eat, rest and eat
Break in Dushanbe

Alpine scenery
Crossing the Fan Mountains
Farewell dear Tajiks


Uzbekistan

Stung at border
Cheated times uncountable
Uzbeks rip me off

Floating dream-like blue
Above ancient mud brick domes
Samarkand awes me

Antique minaret
Glowers over timeless town
Gorgeous Bukhara

Ghostly empty streets
Open air museum town
Deserted Khiva


Turkmenistan

Golden statues stand
In soulless dusty towns
Damn Turkmenbashi

Heat like sledge hammers
Mongol-ruined cityscape
Camping inside Merv


Iran

Vodka and cherry
Homemade wine, date palm liqueur
Life in dry Iran

Carpets and pilgrims
Line streets beneath golden dome
Two days in Meshhad

Caravansarai
That once housed Marco Polo
My nighttime shelter

Flawless lines rise up
To a rocket-like apex
Gonbad e Kavus

Two day summit dash
Scotch on peak, hot springs after
Climbing Damavand

Endless traffic jam
Leads into smog-choked Tehran
My time has run out




2009

Iran

Smiles of real welcome
Curious conversations
Welcome to Iran

Sweating through dust haze
Battling traffic lunacy
I dream of water

Cold drinks on roadside
Picnics, dinners, veggies, fruit
Hospitality

Heineken and Scotch
Saadi's graveside poetry
Shiraz in summer

Persian capital
Tombs of long-dead emperors
Persepolis pomp

Tiles shimmer in sun
Mud brick towers, minarets
Esfahan wonder

Assassin castles
Lakeside picnics and swimming
Cycling the Elborz

Dashing cross the steppe
I spot a huge manmade shape
Soltaniyeh's dome

Torrential rainstorms
Kneedeep litter beside road
Caspian seashore


Azerbaijan

Water fountain burns
Gazelles frolic, headwinds howl
Riding to Baku

Oasis of ease
In Art Deco cityscape:
Hostess Natalya

Waves of green hills rise
Higher than the eye can see
Rainy Xinaliq

Returning from the hills
Slope and wind co-operate
Flying Baku-wards

Seki exudes charm
Kish village breathes history
Pedal self-destructs

Like a bad conscience
Huge faces loom by roadside
Cult of Iliev


Georgia

Rolling through vineyards
Past fortresses and castles
Kakheti charms me

Climbing to the sky
A sweat-soaked muddy goat track
The Abano Pass

Wine, khinkali, song
Horse-riding, mountain biking
Tusheti idyll

Good-humoured people
In historic countryside
Georgia's on my mind

Rushing stream waters
Orchards, meadows, village greens
Khevsureti jaunt

Towering ice peak
Backdrop for mountain freedom
Kazbegi sidetrip

Forty-first birthday
In Tbilisi old town
Cyclists' rendezvous


Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh

Deserted churches
Sport intricate stone carving
Armenian soul

Soviet greyness
Blights church-studded valleyscape
Debed Canyon ride

Like desert roses
Beautiful women light up
Ugly Yerevan

Dancing teenagers
Greek temple adorns bleak slopes
Geghard and Garni

Fruit and veg harvest
Ararat looms in background
Fleeing Yerevan

Roller coaster ride
Karahundj stones salute sky
Cycling through cold rain

Forested mountains
Soaked in blood of civil war
Remote Karabakh

Snow line creeps downhill
Industrial wastelands pass
Farewell Hayastan

Georgia (reprise)

Mud road to nowhere
Frozen forgotten highlands
Vardzia appears


Turkey

Fall colours glowing
Highlight volcanic landscape
On the road to Kars

Earthquake-shattered scene
Half-standing churches teeter
By Ani's chasm

Sneering begging brats
Hurl stones and bid dogs attack
True Kurdish welcome

Urartu fortress
Ancient temple hieroglyphs
Dust of history

Magic citadel
Old bridge, graceful minaret
Poor doomed Hasankeyf

Byzantine steeples
Where now few Christians live
Scenic Tur Abdin


Iraq

Comfortingly dull
Smiles of genuine welcome
Iraqi detour


Turkey (reprise)

Desert blooms cotton
Trucks thunder across lowlands
I near journey's end

Temples of the moon
Harran's eternal story
Lost limestone hamlets

Modern city growls
Around baklava cafes
Antep's mosaics

Ancient Antioch
Leaves little to be seen now
But Roman tilework

Armenian ruins
Hgih-perching castles look down
Cilician plain

Lightning and hailstorm
Herald my victory lap
Venetian Ayas

Watching rain pour down
Remembering journey highlights
Melancholic joy

The Silk Road Ridden!

Antakya, Tuesday, October 27

17,350 km from Xian

I made it!!! I rode into Antakya today at midday, outrunning a massive thunderstorm, arriving in what was once Antioch, the third-largest city in the Roman Empire and (more importantly) the western terminus of the cross-Asia caravan routes known as the Silk Road. The Silk Road has been cycled!

Now, it's true that Antioch declined from its apex after its harbour and river silted up, after a disastrous series of wars with the Sassanid Persians, and especially after a number of catastrophic earthquakes around AD 526. After that point, Antioch lost its pre-eminence and trading importance. While a bale of Chinese silk would have likely made its way overland to Antioch in the first century AD before being loaded onto a ship, by the time of Marco Polo (the 13th century) it would more likely have made its way either to Alexandretta (now called Iskenderun) or to Ayas, both ports with strong Genoese and Venetian trading presences. So, just to cover my historical bases, I am not stopping the bike ride here. Tomorrow I will ride out to the old port of Antioch (the city itself is some distance up the Orontes River from the Med), then continue up the coast to the old Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, where Ayas (modern Yumurtalik) is located. Ayas will be the last port of call for this bike odyssey.

The ride to get here, three days from Gaziantep, was almost anticlimactic. Very little climbing, kind of non-descript scenery, not too much to look at. The first day I rode south to Kilis, eulogized in the Lonely Planet as a must-see repository of historic architecture. Maybe I didn't find the interesting bits, but it was as modern and anodyne a city as you could imagine, and I stayed only as long as it took to order a take-out doner kebab. I camped in a reforested grove of pine trees that night and slept well.

Yesterday I pushed on, through a very Mediterranean landscape of olive groves that could easily have been in Spain, Greece, Tunisia or Italy. The historic interest of the day was the Hittite sculpture workshop at Yesemek, where big blocks of black basalt were shaped and roughly carved before being shipped to their final destination to be finished and polished. Lots of half-finished sphinxes, lions and mountain gods, with one enigmatic bear-man thrown in for good measure. The Hittites (1500-1150 BC) are one of the oldest civilizations whose traces I've run across on this trip. I pushed on, following a river valley downhill towards Antakya before camping in an olive grove. My sleep that evening, however, was badly interrupted by a series of spectacular thunderstorms, my tent fly leaking in the worst of the explosive downpour, and a small river flowing right under my tent and soaking me from beneath.

I awoke groggy this morning, but the prospect of making it to the end of the Silk Road got me going, as did the downhill and tailwind. I flew along into town, found a hotel, decorated its outside with my laundry and my bicycle, and set off to see more Roman mosaics at the museum. Unlike at the Gaziantep museum, these mosaics came from a variety of sites in the Antakya area rather than from one spot. Some of the workmanship and composition was spectacular, but the mosaics as a whole were far more heavily damaged than the Antep ones, making for less of a wow effect. It is still, however, one of the world's best collections of Roman and Byzantine mosaics anywhere, and I walked out pretty happy.

I strolled through the old town of Antakya, although few old buildings remain, mostly from Ottoman times. There is almost nothing of the physical fabric of the Roman or Byzantine city, or even from the Crusaders (who besieged the town for six months in 1097-98 before taking it and occupying it for over a century). The bazaar area, while extensive, is almost exclusively made of modern buildings with an unfortunate modern metal and plastic roof over the street, making it more of a modern shopping mall than an old-fashioned bazaar. Almost no hand-made goods are for sale these days; cheap plastic mass-produced junk (much of it, ironically, from China) is the order of the day. In comparison to Isfahan and Shiraz, or nearby Aleppo, it's nothing to write home about. However, the fact that this was where the bales of silk carried across Asia by countless caravans and merchants from Han Dynasty China ended up was consolation for the unremarkable architecture.

Antioch is also a major city in the history of Christianity. St. Luke is said to have come from Antioch, and Saints Paul and Peter both spent a lot of time here. Antioch had a huge Jewish population, and it was here that the new sect first prospered. I rode out to a cave that was supposedly used as the first Christian church, but was put off by the 8 TL admission charge so I looked at it from the outside, then went back to town to scarf down the scrumptious local dessert specialty, kunefe, a mixture of shredded wheat, white cheese, pistachios and honey.

So tomorrow the last 4 days of this long bike trip begin. I will write more from journey's end in Ayas.

Peace and Tailwinds

80	10/25	7201.0	76.5	471	496	4:29	17.2	50.9	past Kilis
81	10/26	7301.8	100.8	141	974	6:04	16.7	56.4	before Kizilhan
82	10/27	7353.1	51.3	63	189	2:32	20.3	36.6	Antakya