Author: Johan Fleischer (Page 7 of 37)

Today was hard, very hard, you had to fight every kilometer to get it behind you, and we were not expecting it after yesterdays easy and trouble free ride in from the North. The day started well with jokes about who should drink from the special corner on our breakfast buffet where all the other juices were displayed, it started with the normal juice on the one side, then there were “slush puppy” juice machine with frozen juices, (as you gathered we spoiled ourselves by booking into a “5 Star Hotel” as they are so cheap this far from anything,) and then the special juices, the first had a Cobra at the bottom of the jar, the next one of those flying squirrels, the other was full of lizards and last full of baby sea-horses and an Eal.… Read More

We knew that China was not going to be easy, we knew we were not doing it for fun, we knew the Touring Tourist stopped at the border with Mongolia and will begin once again as we enter Laos, China is a country in between the fun countries and there is no other way but to bite the bullet and ride across it, moaning and groaning and fighting along each day.… Read More

I have ridden Adventure Motorbikes for the past 15 years and today rates as one of the top 3 most extreme, but not from a beauty, or scenic, or exciting perspective, but from an Adrenaline or “Dig Deep” perspective. It was a day filled with a litany of errors, all timed to let the pressure cooker slowly build up steam and slowly the temperature rose, ( not just the temperature of the midday heat, but the temp.… Read More

After our meeting we had it all figured out, we had made some decisions on how to roll with the punches and one of the 1st things we decided to do was to try and catch-up the kilometers we lost the previous day just so that we can be back on our schedule. So we left at 7h00, Breakfast is included but we cant stomach rice and dumplings that early in the morning.… Read More

We are slowly starting to “get China” and learning everyday, evolving, getting better, getting better at filling-up with fuel, better with our GPS’s (that we now hear are off with the 4 seconds (Degrees, minutes and seconds as measurements with regards to positioning yourself on earth,) on purpose so that the location can not be used for terror attacks, we just have to now find out if it is the owners of the satellites (we suspect they are the USA) or the Communist Chinese Government to blame for all our navigational issues,) we are getting better with communicating with the local people (and the police today) thanks to Tex, (the Bakkie is always behind us so Tony can only help us at night.)… Read More

We have addressed the Navigation fiasco (the cause for the frustration) from all levels. Last nights after communication with our-man at Garmin, Jaco, he asked us to send him the GPS Co-ordinates taken at an intersection, he can then determine how far the they are off, they might be able to do a calibration and mail us an up-date for the software??… Read More

Last night it was off to a Bar-BQ street “restaurant” after a stop at a wine shop selling only Chinese good wines and cheap copies of the good wine. We decided to drink the copy wine first and save the good wine for after dinner, but then the good wine under the table were knocked over and we just had the copy wines. … Read More

When we visited China about 10 years ago we were taken out to dinner every night and the dishes became less recognizable every night,  but one night I noticed we were eating Liver, (turned out to be Pork Liver) and baby cows oxtail (turned out to be snake and Eal.) I then asked our guide why we are now on organs and reptiles and he proudly said he had shown us almost everything they have to eat, the thought that was the plan, something different every night.… Read More

Today’s Blog is an Outside Broadcast !!! Looking back at the day it was almost an Inside-Jail-Broadcast. I am sitting on a street bench in the main road of the town we are sleeping in today, next to me on the bench are two Chinese Teenagers playing Donkey Kong on their new I-Phone (copies probably) and I am looking over the maintenance and running repairs happening to the Land Cruiser (getting an oil change and some other thinks) and to my dear Snowflake which has clocked over 50 000km, she is older than all the other bikes by about 15000km and what ever happens to her is due to follow soon, so I am using the spare parts from the parts we brought and then I re-stock when we return.… Read More

After the session we had the night before at the dinner table the air got cleared and all on the same page again, for now. Greg took this photo just before our Explosive Dinner, note that Peens is hot in all the sense of the word, plus eating piping-hot Chilly, no wonder the mood was tangible before we got half-way through dinner.… Read More