Ride Earth

Teghut Forest, Soon To Be Teghut Crater

ride-earth — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:26:00 GMT

Remember, if you will (or read if you’ve recently joined us) back to October 2007; a memorable month for all the wrong reasons. The loss of two bank cards and the disintegration of Andy’s rear wheel led to our bicycle voyage being becalmed in Istanbul for one whole month as we waited for replacements to arrive. As we finally departed that great metropolis in mid-November, I found myself wondering if I’d visit the city in the future in a more positive manner, or whether I would eventually find some place to make my home for more than just a few days or weeks.

It happened a little sooner than I expected, but I’ve now been living in Yerevan for almost 4 months - an unexpected part of my journey, but nevertheless a monumentally fulfilling one. I’m experiencing daily life in an environment that I would previously have considered quite alien. I know it’s not exactly Outer Mongolia, but what has really gripped me and here is the way in which social and economic development under the Soviet Union, together with the years of difficulty following its collapse, and modern technological and social influences from the West, have resulted in the kind of hybrid environment that we in the West might remember aspects of - if we’re old enough - from many decades ago.

On top of this is the unfathomable way in which the super-rich seem to be catered for out of all proportion to their tiny share of the population. I remember staring in disbelief at a sad, solitary punnet of out-of-season strawberries perched on the shelf of a high-street supermarket a few months ago. The price? 15,000 Armenian Drams. That’s 50 US Dollars. Pineapple in winter? $20. A box of chocolates, placed high-up in a grand location overlooking the checkouts? Six Hundred Freaking Dollars. (A magnum of Moet-Chandon champagne? Don’t ask.) Then there are the fashion boutiques in the redeveloped city centre (Versace, D&G, Lacoste, et al). My parents, who recently visited for a week, sat down for a coffee at an outdoor cafe. When the bill arrived, they queried a vague item for $10 marked ‘V.I.P.’. That $10 was the charge for sitting on the sofas, rather than at a table.

In the street outside my flat I can find a row of little old ladies selling vegetables. They buy these vegetables from a larger market outside central Yerevan, then sell them in the suburbs for a tiny mark-up. Further up the road is a little booth in which I see a man sitting at a workbench. Every day he is fixing a different household appliance - one day a music system, the next a hairdryer, the next the cooling unit from a fridge. The booth is overflowing with every imaginable kind of tool and spare part. Across the street from him is a second-hand shop, where you can buy a kilogram of clothes for $10. I don’t know how much these workers earn, but I’m sure they don’t spend it on pineapples and silk ties, or blacked-out Hummers.

So who buys these ridiculously-overpriced luxury goods? Would it make any difference whether the Swiss chocolates cost $600, $60, or $6000? Probably not - money is no object to the people who buy these goods. Most of the big business in Armenia is owned and run either by foreigner investors or by closed, elite groups of ‘business people’ and politicians (the boundary is distinctly blurred) who by most accounts seem to be above the law. Large-scale corruption is a problem in many post-communist countries, but some have taken control of the problem. Armenia, supposedly a country with a relatively rapid overall rate of economic growth, doesn’t seem to be one of them. The gaping void between the ultra-rich and those who can barely afford to support themselves is visible in every aspect of life here, and the competitive attitude of those who do have money suggests that things are unlikely to change.

In February, I heard numerous accounts of corruption during the presidential elections that were shocking to me. I’m used to living in a society where a citizen’s fundamental rights are for the most part respected. Then there were the tragic events of March 1st. The state-censored media officially reported 8 deaths of citizens who were protesting at the elections’ conduct, who were shot at in self-defence by the military. This official story was then reported in the worldwide media. At the risk of speaking the unspeakable, numerous reliable sources told me that the number of funerals in the following weeks was many times higher.

In a country where you can buy anything - even the right to violate basic laws and human rights - what chance do local environmental activists have at making their voices heard and understood? When a mining conglomerate announces governmental approval of plans to clear over 1,500 acres of virgin forest in the north of Armenia in order to begin an open pit strip mining operation, it’s natural to assume that money spoke significantly louder than the collective voice of the conservationists. That assumption becomes all the more viable when we consider the fact that the Armenian Ministry of Nature Protection (just take a moment to let that title sink in) approved the plans of this company, the Armenian Copper Programme (ACP), to destroy the natural habitat of 21 species of fish, 86 birds, 55 mammals, 10 reptiles, and 3 amphibians.

Almost half of these mammals and fish, and nine plants, are listed in the IUCn Red Book of endangered species. When the Armenian Ministry of Nature Protection decided that ACP’s proposal to reduce these species’ ecosystem to a 500-metre-deep hole in the landscape was an acceptable one, what other factors could have influenced them, other than the environmental considerations that they were charged to protect?

There is an extensive list of reasons to doubt the integrity of the process by which ACP obtained the government go-ahead for the mine. I could write at length on previous unkept promises made by ACP regarding their ecological impact, or the amount of capital spent on the detailed surveying of the site without concern that it would be lost if the applicatin was rejected. Consider ACP’s existing copper-smelting operation in the nearby town of Alaverdi. In 2006 and 2007, the operation produced atmospheric emissions of twenty times the permitted amount of sulphur anhydride under state regulations. A government-ordered 10% reduction by January of this year was not met, as admitted by the ACP’s director himself. The plant, which re-opened in 1996, also emitted (in 2006) 12 tons of arsenic, nearly 105 tons of dust, 41 tons of zinc, nearly 3 tons of lead, and 3 tons of copper into the atmosphere.

It’s no surprise, then, to hear that the health ministry recorded 121 cases of respiratory diseases among Alaverdi adults in 2005 and 295 in 2007. More sickeningly, the maternity hospital in the town, which before the reopening of the plant had experienced not one birth defect, reported 28 in 2001, and 107 in 2004. For a small town, that’s a lot of babies with birth deviations, development defects, deformations and chromosomal disorders. The hospital also reported numerous quite revolting occurrences of human foetuses with wholly- or partially-missing brains, others with two heads.

This sounds like science fiction. Of course, the ACP says that these defects could have been due to genetic reasons, and the government is unable to afford an investigation to explicitly prove otherwise. I wanted to find out exactly what was happening. So, I got on my bicycle, joined a group of Armenians who share similar and quite understandable concerns about what is happening in their country, and went there to see for myself.

The ride was organised by a group of young environmental activists from Yerevan. We rode north out of the city towards Vanadzor, where we spent the night, before continuing the following day to Alaverdi. The Armenian protestors marched to the factory gates with their banners and made themselves heard. Watching from a distance, I wondered if this approach was effective. Confrontationalism has gone down in my estimation as a way to provoke positive change. My experiences over the last few months made me realise that education is usually a more effective tool, as it creates understanding, establishes relationships, provokes individual thought, and enables future dialogue.

By education, I don’t mean children in a school - I mean any way in which teaching and learning can occur. In Vanadzor that morning, the group had spent several hours circling the town centre by bicycle, before distributing literature and discussing the issues with local people. Some, noticeably the younger generation of youths, appeared to consider the episode a source of great entertainment. The attitude that ignorance is somehow fashionable is one that I am somewhat familiar with from my own youth in England - I still don’t completely understand it’s occurrence. But others were surprised to see these young people making their opinions heard and targeting the public consciousness in this very direct way. In a post-Soviet society where people still feel that they have accept that things are the way they are, and feel powerless and voiceless to change them, perhaps this ignited a little spark of optimism, reminding them that they could still have a voice, if they only looked for the means to make it heard. For me, as an observer, this was at least as poignant as the specific issue that was being targeted on that day.

Leaving Alaverdi, we rode to the village of Teghut itself. Our unexpected arrival in the middle of this small community prompted most of the villgers to empty out into the street to see exactly what was happening. Although there were some raised voices, the meeting in general between those leading the action and the heads of the village was evidently more of a civilized dialogue than that in Alaverdi. I scanned the faces of those in conversation amidst the throngs of people, those watching from the sidelines, and the non-participants who stood at windows and in doorways. They variously wore expressions of concern, of nonchalence, of understanding, and of smug self-satisfaction. Although I could not understand much of the dialogue, there was far more happening here than simple verbal communication. I thought back to the articles I had read about Teghut and it’s plight, and the rumours that certain influential villagers had already been financially bribed by ACP to support the project. It was clear that there was a division of opinion in that small community, bought or otherwise.

This problem (and you can read one of the most comprehensive articles on Teghut and the ACP here) goes deeper than the simple decision of environmental protection versus destruction. Aside from the startlingly uneven distribution of wealth, Armenia as a whole is still in an impoverished economic condition. In 2004, nearly 40% of the population was unemployed. Even those who hold trained, professional positions often struggle to make ends meet. Tenny tells me that the relatively extortionate rates of living in Yerevan mean that almost everybody she knows is subsidising their salary with family contributions from overseas.

Today, over 1.5 million Armenians live in Los Angeles. Armenia’s entire local population is little more than 3 million. Elsewhere, sizeable Armenian communities exist in Boston, London, Manchester, Moscow, Aleppo, Tbilisi, Beirut, Athens, Tehran (including Tenny’s immediate family), Jerusalem, and other far-flung locations, with a total population of 8 million. Based on what I’ve learnt, it would not be inaccurate to postulate that the diaspora keeps Armenians in Armenia alive today. Every Armenian or part-Armenian I know has family abroad, or was born into a different nationality before coming to their homeland later in life. As I cycled into the country back in January, I stayed one night in the village home of a middle-aged beekeeper, and his mother, who said that she had lived in Los Angeles for 7 years. At the time, this had seemed somewhat bizarre, but it is clear now that this had not been an unusual thing to hear.

(The primary cause of this phenomenon was the Armenian genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey during the First World War; much less a part of the public consciousness than the Nazi’s extermination of the Jews, but certainly not forgotten by either the Armenians or the Turks. That’s a story for another blog post.)

What this means is that the natural priority of most individuals living in the country is to find employment to feed themselves and their families. There is little wonder that the salaries offered to the local population by the ACP were welcomed with open arms and closed minds. The Armenian government also puts economic development at the forefront of its local agenda. Although there are various government ministries charged with the responsibility to ensure that industrial and agricultural development is sustainable and does not wreak long-term environmental destruction for short-term economic gain, this is simply not happening. ACP’s exploitation of the Teghut area is not a precedent; it’s the latest in a series of short-sighted mistakes made by the country’s administrators and civilians, blinded by the need or desire for money now at the cost of a stable future, and there are more in the pipeline.

The Armenia Copper Programme, based in Liechtenstein and part owned by a Russian citizen, stands to provide short-term employment for a small community of poverty-stricken people, leaving the following generation with a polluted settlement surrounded by an environmental dead zone and no long-term employment prospects, while avoiding taxation and ensuring that whatever profit there is to be made from the mineral deposits is brought out of Armenia and into the pockets of its anonymous shareholders.

The difficulty is not with the logic of the problem - it’s how to combat the tactics of a company whose sole aim is profit and whose misleading PR campaign, previously unfulfilled environmental promises and weighty financial influence on governmental officials spell environmental, economic and social injustice at a time where these same considerations have finally been raised to the pinnacle of the developed world’s consciousness.

I admire these Armenians who are willing to give up their time and energy to petition these issues at all levels of their involvement - at the grass-roots level in the village of Teghut, in the sorry little town of Alaverdi which has already fallen victim to a similar fate, and in Yerevan outside the government policy-makers’ weekly sessions in Republic Square. However, I don’t think that their efforts alone are going to solve the problem. While deeply-ingrained social problems are something that will hopefully diminish over time, it requires pressure today, from numerous angles, to make those in power understand the hypocrisy of looking ambitiously westwards in the field of socio-economics while moving backwards in the field of sustainable development.

While some are calling for the ACP to conduct a closed mining operation, which would leave the forest intact, the director of the relatively new branch of the World Wildlife Fund, WWF Armenia, proposed a far better solution. Eco-tourism, although it has become somewhat of a buzz-word in recent years, is a prime economic opportunity for the sustainable exploitation of Teghut’s natural wealth, if carried out with due consideration. A growing industry in Armenia, eco-tourism enables simultaneous economic development and environmental protection, instead of gaining one at the expense of the other. It is part of the global paradigm shift we’re seeing over the last few decades, in which nature, to the human race, is moving from being considered an exploitable commodity to the respected underpinning of our civilization.

While this shift is by no means complete, we in the West are incresingly aware of our power not only to understand this idea, but to do something about it. Who amongst us has never felt the need to take a trip into the countryside, to walk or cycle amongst trees and mountains and experience the calm of a world free of ugly human developments? It is routine for us to escape the world we have built around ourselves in search of this peace, even if we continually return to our concrete boxes, never thinking about what part of our psyche this desire comes from. It’s one of the many factors that inspired me to take this journey in the first place.

The least you can do, sitting at your computer in your comfortable home or office, is nothing. Do nothing, look out the window at the pretty scenery, and continue to relegate Teghut and the rest of the world’s problems to someone else’s responsibility.

The second least you can do is help that ’someone else’ make their work more effective. Teghut’s plight is not the only environmental issue of which I’ve had first-hand experience on my journey - unusual summer weather conditions across Europe, illegal logging in alpine Romania, disgusting waste management shortcomings throughout Turkey, anecdotal evidence of gradual climate change throughout the journey - the list goes on.

I value the opportunity that working with the WWF has given me to see for myself and understand the problems created by complex socio-economic, political and institutional causes. Their work is only made possible by the continuing donations of you, the people. Whether £5 or £50, don’t forget that your individual contribution, no matter how large or small, is part of a bigger fundraising effort that makes it possible for the WWF to do its work. If you have the means to do so, make a one-off donation to the WWF. Take energy-saving measures in your home, and use the savings to donate monthly. Maybe this article has inspired you to send your help to the country of Armenia, in which case you can donate to the Armenia Tree Project, whose most recent work you can read about here, or one of numerous other NGOs that you can find out about for yourself with a little more effort.

Your help doesn’t have to stop there. Get involved as much or as little as you want, as locally or globally as you feel. If there’s something that disturbs you about the world, be part of the change you wish to see. Although petitions to the government remain unanswered, there is still hope here in Armenia - conservationists recently celebrated the successful lobbying of the government to redirect the building of a new highway to the Iraninan border, thus avoiding the destruction of an important protected area of woodland that harbours one of the last remaining habitats of the symbolic Caucasian leopard, amongst numerous other species. This shows that such activism can work, even under these unfavourable social and political circumstances.

Life in Armenia has been thought-provoking, and most of all it has highlighted how much help the world’s developed nations are able to provide to those in more difficult situations. If you can do something positive, why not do it now? That’s what my American-Armenian friend Ani did when she brought Andy’s long-since-jettisoned spare front wheel 2,500km from Istanbul via Tbilisi to Yerevan. Tenny now has a fine hand-built front wheel to add to her growing collection of bike parts. Ani, I extend my utmost thanks to you, and I’m happy that your journey was enlivened by carrying a bike wheel through three countries during your return!

I used to think that it wasn’t my job to worry about what was happening anywhere else in the world than on my own doorstep. I once was ignorant of my own membership of the apathetic sector of society. I would never consider donating money to a charity. What difference would it make?

It is difficult for me to imagine now my previous way of thinking, and I write now in order to help you, the reader, understand what it took me most of my life to realise - that by doing nothing, you simply create a void that another living person will take the responsibility of filling. Instead, you could fill that void yourself, and encourage others to do the same.

With Tenny’s final university assessments less than two weeks away, it won’t be long before we’re set to begin travelling again. Again I will be a stranger, drifting through somebody else’s world with all its joys and disappointments. I doubt I will see as deeply into a society as I have done by spending several months immersed in life in Armenia, living amongst Armenians, but doubtless it will happen again that I stumble upon a place and for one reason or another settle there for more than just a few days. I wonder where it will be!

Practicing What You Preach

ride-earth — Fri, 2 May 2008 02:07:00 GMT

Last night I went to teach my English speaking lesson at the ‘Georgian-Scottish-House’ in Tbilisi. Recently I have had another gear-change with regards to my thinking on how I can do my bit to help reduce the now widely accepted human-induced climate change that is happening.

A main aim of Ride Earth is to observe and document the effects of climate change and to promote bicycle use. My time in Tbilisi is allowing me to realign how I approach achieving these things. I have been researching climate change on the internet and did a search for climate change documentaries.

I found ‘Are We Changing Planet Earth’, a BBC documentary which is basically the equivalent of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but is presented by the irrefutable David Attenborough which really hits the message home.

If you don’t know who David Attenborough is, then you’ve probably never watched a nature documentary. He is one of the world’s most acclaimed broadcasters and naturalists. He has been the face of British natural history programmes for the last 50 years.

I got hold of the documentary and took it to my lesson. One activity of the lesson, was to make a list of what the students liked and disliked about Georgia. On the ‘like’ side included Khachapuri (cheesy pizza), and on the dislike side, I included driving and wreckless overtaking. Some more things were added and ‘beautiful countryside’ was added to ‘Like’ and disrespect for the environment to ‘Dislike’.

It’s easy to think that for a country like Georgia they have to follow the same path of development to reach the stage of ‘western development’ before progressing further. This is not true. In the west, we made the mistakes first, and now we have the technology to solve the problems of human-accelerated climate change. This technology must be shared globally to ensure that other developing countries won’t make the same mistakes.

My students are very engaged in the issues of climate change. 10 minutes before the end of the lesson they sat and watched the entire documentary for additional hour, completely engaged by it’s content. They can see the reality of the problem and are scared about it’s affect on their future.

They saw the effects of climate change such as the increase in extreme weather conditions and that there is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than in the last 600, 000 years.

They watched computer generated images of carbon dioxide as plume of black cubes being transmitted into the atmosphere and the greenhouse gas building up to thicken the blanket in our planet’s atmosphere.

And that every year we contribute an extra 25 billion tonnes to the atmosphere. That in the year 2050 38 degrees will be a normal temperature for London.

“We would all like to know for certain what will happen to our climate in the future whether we will be sweltering in a heatwave, or inundated by floods, but scientists can only give us a range of possiblities, and what they’re telling us is that our world will warm anywhere between 1.4 and 5.8 degree celcius.

To put it another way, the impact of global warming will be somewhere between severe and catastrophic.”

When you hear David Attenborough say that you know everyone, including your grandma, is going to take notice.

A visit is paid to the Hadley Centre in the MET office where they are using one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe which can do 10 billion calculations every second, a ‘flight simulator’ for the climate. It is predicting a bumpy ride. There are many climate models across the world. They all agree greenhouse gases will warm the system by similar amounts. No models dispute climate change.

The range of temperatures are between 2 and 6 degrees over 100 years. A change of 6 degrees would be so rapid as to cause irreparable damage. The forecast for the next 25 years is widely agreed on as being accurate and we can’t do much about the inertia of the change because it’s based on what we’ve already emitted in the past - a warming of 1-2 degrees across the UK, for example.

The students saw the footage of the ‘Boscastle Floods’ with streets underwater and cars being swept down the road like a river. They sat and watched intently as the film showed forest fires in Australia, and the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Half of carbon dioxide from mankind comes from domestic activities and the ‘Carbon Family’ is a fictional ‘average-suburban’ family in the film. The family looks like a typical UK or American family, using the microwave, kettle, cooker, owning 2 big cars, and using air travel.

I like the way the documentary makes the connection between the everyday appliances in the home directly to the power plant and to the collapsing ice shelf in the Arctic. In the Antarctic there was the complete disintegration of the Larson B ice shelf in 2002, indicating a ‘tipping point’, where more dark ocean is exposed to the sun and more heat is absorbed causing a feedback loop of warming.

The film covers species migration. It is difficult for species to migrate fast enough as the climate in their habitat changes so rapidly and that in 100 years over half the world’s species could be under threat of extinction.

I was aware that I was running well beyond the length of the lesson but everyone seemed very interested. The film goes back to the ‘Carbon Family’ and the emissions caused by buying food which is imported over a long distance.

Then they watched the changing situation in China where an average family currently uses 1/7 energy of a western family, but things are changing. China intends to build a coal fired power station every week for the next 7 years to the fuel the increasingly energy intensive lifestyle.

They saw the drought in the Amazon and the destruction of the forest which is the most biodiversity rich area on the planet containing many undiscovered species. The forest is considered ‘the lungs of the planet’ converting a huge amount of carbon dioxide in oxygen and water vapour which has a cooling effect.

The thing I was really glad to show them as they seemed to look increasingly worried and concerned, was the piece at the end on how we solve the problem.

The scientist Steve Bacala explains we have the technology to halt the rise of carbon emissions during this generation with his ‘7 slice model’. Each slice represents a method to cut out a contributor of greenhouse gas.

The first to cut is domestic use.

Turn down the thermostat 3 degrees to reduce 1 tonne of carbon into the atmosphere.
Turn gadgets/appliances/television off (not on standby) to save 10% of domestic energy use.
Use energy saving light bulbs.
Compost organic rubbish.
Use a gas hob.
Get better and more insulation in your house.
Clean your fridge to save 200 kg of greenhouse gas.
Buy locally grown produce.

The second is to drive differently.

The students, looked happier and relieved as they sat and watched the ‘Carbon Family’ switch to a nice shiny Toyota Prius instead of a gas guzzling 4×4. Get an energy efficient car (that does at least 60 miles to the gallon).

The 3rd slice goes if we use public transport.

The 4th goes on using alternative power (including controversial Nuclear). A solar power farm in China and gigantic wind turbines off the coast of the UK with their football pitch diameter turbine blades.

The 5th is the astonishing method of pumping carbon dioxide back underground on huge rigs in the sea (Geosequestration).

There is a general sigh of relief as their are more solutions put forward such as tree-planting in China, fuel cell cars, solar heaters and domestically living in an efficient and sustainable way.

Before we left I had to show them the part on how to make ‘an efficient cup of tea’! (don’t put more water than you need).

At the end the documentary hits you with the possibility of the complete destruction of the Greenland ice shelf causing sea levels to rise by as much as 7 metres over the next centuries condemning future generations to this disaster.

Something as simple as showing a documentary such as this to friends, school classes, or work colleagues is surely a good way to spread awareness about the major issues of climate change.

Click here for more information about the ‘Climate Chaos’ series of BBC programmes

Click here for 10 ways to reduce your carbon emissions

Interesting article on how much fuel in a car actually goes on transporting you and why bikes are great

Another good list of ways to cut back on emissions including ‘conference calling’ instead of driving for business

Bit late: Giving up carbon for lent

Armenia and Global Issues

ride-earth — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:07:00 GMT

Tom

Last night I revisited the venue in Yerevan where Andy and I gave a presentation back in February. Common Ground is the project of a local NGO to provide an open forum for interested people from all backgrounds to discuss today’s issues and attend presentations in English. The organiser, an Armenian woman who grew up in Manchester, England, introduced the event for this evening - a showing of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

However many awards it did or did not win, I think this might just be one of the most important films ever made. If you’re living in the England and you haven’t seen it, you might be surprised to hear that to view this film is now a formal part of our children’s education. I learnt only yesterday that a copy of the film had been distributed to every state-run school in the country. If you are a parent, and you haven’t seen it, maybe you should, so you know what your children are talking about when they come home talking about it, and so you don’t regret in the future what you are doing today.

Though I’d seen it before, I really wanted Tenny to see the film. I was interested to see what she thought of the issue which Gore has dedicated the last 30 years to propounding - global warming. It’s a frightening film. If you aren’t frightened by it, you probably don’t understand it. This is not a film that you sit around and talk about afterwards in the usual way (”The cinematography was nice…” “I really liked the music…”). This is a film that will lead to a lot of extremely serious discussions about the topic at hand, not the film-making itself. Most importantly, this film represents the best chance most people will have to understand the problems facing the world today, and to say “Yes, I can do something!”

After viewing the film, the 15 or 20 people in the small conference centre sat and discussed the issue. “You know, the most important thing is that people should learn to live basically,” whispered Tenny to me. I thought she had a very good point. Previously in these blogs, I’ve made the observation that it has been the people who live basic, rural lives, and have what they need to live simply - but, importantly, don’t suffer from the eternal desire for more - who have been the happiest, most welcoming, and most generous with what they do have.

In reality, the Western world (which is largely to blame for the present-day CO2 levels) would have a hard time reverting to a subsistence-level existence. And I think that most people’s biggest fear is that their relatively comfortable, stable lives would be turned upside down. This is simply not the case! Most people would be able to reduce their personal contribution to the global problem - and we all contribute - by making a few small changes to the way they live. And you can read about these changes right here at the WWF’s One Planet Living website, designed specifically to help you make these changes as easily as possible. Believe me, after seeing An Inconvenient Truth, you’ll be glad that resources like this are already out there.

On the way home, I talked with Tenny about everything that this journey represented to me regarding this immense global issue. Most people won’t be looking to reduce their carbon footprint quite as close to zero as I have done by choosing my current lifestyle of bike travel and bare-necessesities living. More realistic for the developed countries would be something like Masdar City, soon to be the world’s greenest city, being built by the government of the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi, a tiny pocket of affluence in the Arabian Peninsular. In the UK, BioRegional and the WWF are working on similar projects to demonstrate exactly how the developed world can operate in the future if global warming prevention measures are taken on board now.

So don’t be afraid to rent An Inconvenient Truth next time you go to the movie store. Better still, buy a copy (all of £5 from Amazon) and show it to everyone you know. I have a copy of my own which I am taking with me on my future travels to show to all those who I can convince to watch it. It’s not often that something like this comes along, when a serious worldwide issue is presented in such an accessible, even enjoyable way. You’ll finish watching it, feeling great that you can be part of the solution to the greatest threat that the human species has faced, since… well, ever.

Small is Beautiful

ride-earth — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:06:00 GMT

These are some quotes from E.F. Schumacher’s series of books, Small is Beautiful:

“The most striking about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one’s ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed.”

“Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”

“The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion – political or otherwise – which suddenly seems to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time.”

More here…

All Change

ride-earth — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:12:00 GMT

Tom

It’s spring again (in Armenia, at least - still snowing in England, I’ve heard)! The last of the ice melted away a couple of weeks ago, and all over the country grass and leaves are emerging from flower-beds and trees. Winter is finally behind me. Sitting in my standard-issue former-Soviet-Union flat, complete with regular water failures, no heating or gas, and dodgy wiring, I can relax.

Everything I need is right here - a small 2-burner stove, a bed with a couple of duvets to keep the cold away at night, a shower that half-works during selected hours of the day, and occasionally-running water to wash and cook with. My travels so far have taught me that I can be happy - happier than I’ve ever been - without all the material possessions and commodities that make life ‘easier’, thus characterising the ideas of ’success’ and ‘happiness’ in my previous life. I’m hoping to host as many travellers passing through Yerevan as I can accommodate over the next few weeks, having been inspired to do this by the countless people who have helped me on my travels so far. You can do this too, wherever you live, through the Couchsurfing website. It’s an adventure in itself.

I’ve rented this place for 2 months, because the path I’ve chosen to follow dictates that it makes sense to do so. Can I still be travelling without moving? I think I can! My targets for the time between now and the end of May are simple: earn some money to refill the coffers, find a bicycle for Tenny jan, get involved in life and environmental activities here in Yerevan, and prepare for the next chapter of my journey and my life. When I leave this city and this country, I will not be alone. I’ll be cycling onwards from Yerevan with a new companion, one whom I hope to share my future with; someone who shares my dreams and is open-minded and optimistic enough to make them happen.

In some ways, this will be a fresh start. It won’t resemble the idea that Ride Earth started out as, but that’s because things change, and something as fundamental to my life as travelling the world - the world! - should not be put in a box with a label on it. I remember back to Istanbul, where, as the autumn drew on and we waited in vain for bank cards to arrive (they arrived last week after 5 months in the post), Andy and I discussed the direction we’d head in after leaving the city. Would we go with the original plan to cycle directly to Iran, or remain true to form, throw preconcieved ideas out the window, and do something completely different?

We knew that taking the route through the Caucasus was going to test us. We knew that we weren’t prepared for a long, deep-winter journey through high mountains. And we knew that the Black Sea coast was going to be a tough ride. Despite all this, we did it, we ignored the people who told us every day that it was too cold or wet or hilly to cycle, and look at what it brought to us both, in terms of our individual lives and the expedition as a whole! If you travel with your eyes, ears and mind open and keep yourself receptive to opportunities, able to feel what is a good or bad road to take rather than striving blindly onwards come-what-may, anything can happen, and it probably will.

As a result of these lessons, I’m not afraid to say that I’ve met the love of my life. It’s the most significant thing that’s happened to me since I got on my bike and pedalled away from 10 Main Street, Middleton, without any idea what the world would throw at me, least of all falling in love with a girl who lived in a small, overlooked Near-Eastern country called Armenia! Back at the start of the trip, I was somehow terrified and impossibly excited at the same time. Now, I feel the same mixture of feelings once again. My life has opened out before me in yet another new direction, one in which for the first time I can see lifelong companionship and family and not be afraid. It’s impossible to describe how this feels. I feel as though I’ve taken a giant leap forward in life and accepted a brand new set of responsibilities that I’d always previously dismissed as ‘for the future’.

My cycling activities might now be confined to Armenia for a few weeks, but it won’t be long before we hit the road again in search of new lands and adventures. Maybe Andy and I will be heading in entirely opposite directions, or maybe we’ll follow the same route. All is not yet clear, but either way, our readers will have not one but two individual stories to follow and enjoy over the next few years.

Space and Time

ride-earth — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:58:00 GMT

I’m in Tbilisi and hopefully this blog will fill in what has been happening with me. As you may know I arrived in Yerevan for the first time, by bicycle, on the 24th January. I met up with Tom in the city after we had cycled alone from near the Georgian border. Fanny came out to visit me in Yerevan and we stayed with friends, Max and Irene. We had wonderful times which passed too quickly. Whilst bargaining for sweet and spicy paprika at the market, Fanny and I met a very interesting American Armenian called Manoog.

It turned out he is a very interesting person who is very active in the community in Yerevan. We met and exchanged stories and he took us to see some excellent jazz music in the ‘Stop Club’. He helped organise an event at a local NGO, where Tom and I made a presentation and showed our film footage from Turkey, Georgia and Armenia.

We were still waiting for our sleeping bags to be released from customs so I decided to hitch-hike back to Tbilisi. This was partly an exercise in hitch-hiking and partly to spend more time with friends in charming Tbilisi.

I left Yerevan the next morning and hitch-hiked around 150km to a road between Vanadzor and Ala Verdi. I got lifts on an out-of-service bus, with 3 Armenians who were going skiing for the first time, with an Armenian man who had worked as a computer engineer in the soviet era, and with a businessman in a flash Mercedes who drove incredibly fast and then gave me a free lunch at his restaurant.

The road after that was quiet and I found it hard to get a lift. Improbably, I managed to flag down a Marshrutka going to Tbilisi which had just 1 space left. I bargained for a reduced price which I wrote in the dirt on the window. This is just one serendipitous occurence of many so far on this journey. More on that later.

The Marshrutka ride wound it’s way through the mountains near Ala Verdi which I felt privileged to see but didn’t expect to see again (maybe secretly hoping I would). I arrived in the evening. It was like I’d never left.

The people I’d met before in Tbilisi were surprised to see me again. There was much dancing, consuming Georgian food and wine at numerous Supra’s (traditional Georgian feast). I spent the time during the day writing, exploring Tbilisi further, taking photos, and reading.

Ideas began to germinate about whether to stay for longer, get some work and see the city as the weather gradually got warmer. Fanny and I visited Gudauri which is in the mountains near Kazbegi (the highest mountain in Georgia) and the monastery and lake at Passanauri. There was still a huge amount of snow and the roads were covered in ice. There were 3 metre high snow drifts at the roadside on occasion reducing the road to 1 car width.

We visited Gurjaani where Fanny had spent 2 years teaching French staying with Nora (pictured below).

In Tbilisi, I visited the British Council where I took the opportunity to read English books and browse the magazines and papers. I asked about making a presentation and the following week I held a storytelling session with a group of 10-15 year olds. I spent the majority of the time answering questions like ‘what do teenagers do in England?’, ‘do you like England?’, and ‘Do you know 50 Cent?’.

It was time to go back to Yerevan. I did a video diary the day before in high spirits about future plans but something didn’t quite feel right. Now I realise in hindsight that there was a decision to be made, but I think I may had subconciously already made it at that time.

I sat in the sun drinking tea with Fanny talking about future travel plans. I felt really good, but also very melancholy at the same time - almost dramatically so - that it felt unreal or false. Could I have been talking myself into something? Was my decision out of my concious control? Was the inertia of the process and the journey carrying me and I didn’t have the presence of mind to take control?

I felt sad to be going but also a great sense of happiness and hope. As the Marshutka pulled away I let the tears run down my face, and that was it, I had left. - Please see ‘Marshrutka Experience’ for the ride to Yerevan.

When I got to Yerevan, I went to Manoog’s flat. He was doing his usual ‘laid back afternoon thing’ and hinted that he had plenty of new meandering and wonderful stories to tell me. He asked me “have you seen the email from Tom?”, to which I replied “What email from Tom?”. He proceeded to show me the email that Tom had sent about his venture away from and return to Yerevan. I was completely shocked and at the same time touched.

I made the decision in a split-second that I was going to go back to Tbilisi. Maybe it would have happened anyway, maybe it would have taken me to leave, and then to realise I wanted to turn around. Regardless, I thought it was funny that we were in this similar situation.

Whilst in Yerevan I met Arvin, a jazz musician, Vako, a Lebanese artist who had opened the nightclub ‘Cheers’ in Yerevan and Ana who is the president of the Catholicas NGO. She is involved in projects to build community and social services in Armenia. Vako plans to start a music night for young people in Gyumri with the help of Ana. We drove to Gyumri , is the second largest city in Armenia, to visit her home. It suffered widespread destruction and loss of life following a violent earthquake in 1988 - Read more about the Spitak Earthquake here.

There I met Arthur, an Armenian cyclist who plans to cycle from Armenia through Europe saying ‘Shaorakaloutsoun (or thank you)’ to all the countries and people who helped after the earthquake. I was thrilled by his ambitious, life-changing and noble plan and tried to give him all the encouragement and information I could from my experience.

On return to Yerevan I organised my kit and awoke bleary-eyed at 6 o’clock on Wednesday morning after a little farewell shindig with friends, to return by bicycle to Tbilisi. I went the alternative route via Dilijan, Vanadzor and Ala Verdi to return to Georgian.

The weather was dull and the sky overcast as I cycled up the long hill out of Yerevan. After hours of pedalling, the clouds cleared and I reached the 2700m mountain pass before the descent to Dilijan. I had been worried about being delayed at the military checkpoints that I would meet (in place because of the recent demonstrations in Yerevan) but bizarely I was saluted by the uniformed guards as I rode past!

I became really tired as I crawled up the last hill out of pretty Dillijan, my chest hurt and I started to feel sick from eating vast amounts of jelly sweets. I stopped and camped off a side road. I swiftly cooked a dinner of pasta, tomato, and butter and retired to the sleeping bag after around 100km of cycling.

The next day my bum ached but I set myself the target to get to Tbilisi which was 200 + km away. I cycled, eating only biscuits for breakfast, past the Russian village of Fioletovo and then descended through the ugly soviet tower blocks of Vanadzor and onto the winding valley road towards Ala Verdi.

I stopped at lunch to consume the rest of my food. I had run out of money so I decided to eat it all and make a push to get there that day. I cooked the rest of the pasta, butter and tomato sauce. The poor quality diesel in the stove clogged it up so it took ages. I lay back on the grass and took the opportunity to relax and soak up the sun.

I felt refuelled after lunch. I made a travelling shot with the video camera cycling past the abandoned mine near Ala Verdi. It looked like a set from the film Total Recall or Blade Runner. Huge derelict concrete buildings, rusty iron structures and broken windows against a backdrop of black bare trees, arid ochre soil and copper green mountains.

I was moving fast and I got to the Georgian border at 3 o’clock. I was going to get there, but I had to deal with the pain as the miles took their toll. It really started to hurt on a long straight road next to a rail track. At this point the boredom was the difficult part. My brain was bored so my body started to complain even more.

When I got to the town of Marneuli, a sign read 48km to Tbilisi. It was possible to make it, but I desperately needed food. I remembered I had left some Georgian Tetrys (coins) in the pocket of my puffa jacket. I used it to buy a loaf of bread, some cake and I was given a bottle of water by a concerned shop attendant.

The sun went down as I got closer to Tbilisi. Just before I reached the city there was a steep hill to climb. My body was able to do it. My mind said ‘you have to be joking’. I chose the former. Car’s passed and I chose the gravel hard shoulder to ride on. I preferred the dirt to the tarmac- it made it slightly more interesting.

I reached the top and got my lights out. It was downhill from here, albeit in the dark. I floated along, not really aware of my speed. Occasionally a car headlamp would ruin my night vision so I couldn’t see at all.

On the way into the city I met a bizarre character on a bike with big riser handlebars with many horns and badges attached, wearing an old-fashioned leather ‘biggles-style’ pilot’s hat. He showed me some pictures of him with his bike and asked me to take a picture of him and send it to his house. I was exhausted and he gave me some stale tasting chocolate.

It was surreal to enter the city centre. I didn’t really acknowledge where I was until I was under the city lights and saw the bizarre twinkling lights on the TV tower. It felt very rewarding to have achieved what I set out to do. I even managed to sprint up through the cobbled backstreets to Fanny’s flat.

When I got there I did a video diary. I felt glowing with flow and endorphins, but very tired. Typically Fanny wasn’t in, but I met Paul, her new flatmate. Fanny returned and gave me 5 portions of noodles and spaghetti which I ate enthusiastically.

Since being in Tbilisi I have caught up with friends, continued the Georgian singing lessons, enjoyed having a sense of place and spending time with Fanny. I’m making the most of opportunities here and will be teaching English at the Georgian Scottish House, doing some bike couriering (the only pedal powered courier here) to promote bike use, and doing some website work.

The film company are working on a teaser episode of our film footage so watch this space.

Going back to Tbilisi reinforced a few thoughts. I wanted to immerse myself further in life in Tbilisi, and unique Georgian culture where I had felt good in the situation. I wanted to allow relationships to be given a chance to go deeper than they usually had done on the journey so far.

But I’m still looking forward to continuing and my time here is allowing me to reflect on the trip so far and think deeply about the future route possibilities and other riding partners. Anyone fancy a bike ride? :)-

Gallery: Ride Earth Month 3

ride-earth — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:27:00 GMT

Marshrutka Experience

ride-earth — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:39:00 GMT

The driver’s wearing a leather jacket, thick material. I think “that’s too hot inside this cramped vehicle - it must be for the look”. The driver looks like a gangster out of a Guy Ritchie film. Somehow I convinced myself to put my trust in this gold-teeth-laden man with gold ring and bracelet to match. He’s wearing his savings.

Across his weathered typically Armenian face adorn a pair of dirty gold tinted sunglasses so I can’t quite see the colour of his eyes in the rear view mirror. I’m sitting in the centre of a wide seat behind the driver. My legs are squashed against the faux-leather covering of the Ford Transit seating. I’m really trying not to think about how perfect my tradjectory would be through the windscreen if we crashed.

I feel a little like an astronaut on the first stages of take off, before they have any maneouvring control, with no other option than to hold on for dear life. The burning rocket thrusters carry the spaceship upwards until the thrusters are jettisoned into space. Then I can climb over the seat in front and wrestle the huge padded steering wheel out of the hands of the Marshrutka driver.

My mind wanders from thinking about other bicycle related things - my future route, Yerevan, Iran, and then suddenly jolted back to the reality that I may not live beyond today as I become increasingly aware that the Stig (minus helmet - far too sensible) has been writing a text message for the last 3 minutes, looking down at his phone and not at the road, only retaking control to swerve back out of the path of oncoming traffic.

Somehow I feel confident in this guy though. I think of things other people have said in the past unrelated directly to this situation- “I’d trust someone who drove for a living more than an average driver”, “It’s the way people drive here, if you don’t drive like that, that’s when there are problems”. I’m trying to tell myself the way the guy overtakes with one nonchalent glance is a reflection of his highly skilled and experienced driving ability. My mind makes up a story that he was probably a Soviet child prodigy racing driver now past those days and makes a living driving a Ford Transit at 70 kph round impossible corners on mountain roads. That’s why he taking the racing line.

He has a huge padded steering wheel, a packet of slimline cigarettes on the dashboard. He takes a cigarette out of the packet, places his elbows on the steering wheel whilst lighting up, then holds the cigarette up to the window. The smoke is sucked out.

I hang on as we fly along the thin roads. I’m thinking about the driving style. He drives really fast, or at least it seems that way because I’m not used to either being in a motorised vehicle or to these thin mountain roads or abundance of slow trucks. The gear changes are quick and he accelerates on the straight sections. I would definitely be slowing down more on this corner.

A slow Turkish lorry kicking up dust, an opportunity for a death-defying feat of overtaking. I clench my buttocks and grit my teeth, and think what I would actually do in the split second before my death. But then we emerge unscathed, the mood in the vehicles goes from one of tension to very mild but noticeable euphoria.

It doesn’t make sense- we come up to a rail track and he slows to a snail’s pace to protect the suspension carefully edging over the rails but then the vehicle almost takes off on a big dipper. The snaking road is lined by derelict ex-soviet factories and the cold river way below us. It’s one of many things which don’t seem to make logical sense about the ex-soviet system that exists here and the politics and bureacracy that goes with it. But along with it’s negative side, exists an incredibly sweet and alive people who are used to improvising and using their common sense.

It’s a beautiful day in these windy mountains. Spring is definitely on the way as there’s a warm edge to the breeze, the hills are clear of snow and the river has thawed. The driver returns, chewing a toothpick sticking out of his mouth to add to the look. Everyone’s back in the Marshrutka and we’re off again, pit stop complete.He spins the steering wheel left and right in the style of a rally driver to clear some enormous potholes in the road. He decides his sunglasses need a polish and neglects to look at the road whilst searching for a rag to clean them and making sure there are really spotless. Very ironic. I’ve lost count of the near misses - or is that highly calculated overtaking maneourves?

The big forehead crinkled in concentration, he hotches up the big jacket by throwing his arms forward, he’s entering a deeper level of focus. As the journey goes on I find I have a strange respect in his ability not to crash, then I chide myself for thinking it, quickly looking for something made of wood. My knees are white from being wedged against the seat and my abdominal muscles are getting a good workout as the rollercoaster ride bends left and right.

The sun burns up the sky, diesel, cigarette smoke and scorched film, the yellow landscape blurs past, my eyes squint - this is sunglasses country. Bare mountains, green rocks like dormant prehistoric animals perched on steep slopes near the town of Ala Verdi where a huge dilipidated mine exists, concrete and broken glass now being reclaimed by nature’s hand.

On approach to Yerevan I can see Mount Ararat towering above the haze from the city. I arrived safely in Yerevan, spent a week there and cycled back to Tbilisi where I currently reside. I will be posting more about cycling and my future plans shortly. The Marshrutka ride’s not over until it’s over, a bit like Ride Earth. Sometimes you just have to ride it out and trust things beyond your control.

Leaving Yerevan. And Then Returning

ride-earth — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 01:23:00 GMT

Tom

Believe it or not, I finally left Yerevan on my bicycle on Sunday 2nd March 2008. I pedalled south for 70km, through the Ararat region, and camped in a field after dark opposite the factory of a company called 'Abit Ltd', which amused me slightly. At 7am the following morning I was on the road again. I began to climb East, away from the Ararat plateau and up into the mountains.

At 3pm I was still climbing. My bike seemed unusually heavy, carrying amongst other things the minus-20-degree winter sleeping bag that I had been trying to get since the 26th of November 2007 (a quarter of a year ago). Yes, after over one month of bureaucratic wrangling, the sleeping bags were finally delivered to the British Embassy, the staff of which I would like to extend my most heartfelt gratitude for their patience and string-pulling expertise.

It was warm. Too warm. I had woken up sweating that morning. I stood at the top of the mountain after pedalling uphill for 6 hours. My legs were in quite a lot of pain.

I realised at that point that I had departed with several kilograms of unnecessary winter equipment. I also realised that I had departed mainly because I had a piece of paper in my passport that said I had to cross the Iranian border by the 11th March. Because of this little bureacratic detail, I had left behind me a girl who I had met only recently but who had left a very deep impression on me (everybody say "aaah"). I'd been in Yerevan for so long that I'd managed to find romance - the day before I was originally due to leave. It was probably the biggest surprise I've had since I left England.

So you will be pleased to hear that at 3:30pm yesterday, a long, long way from Yerevan, I turned round, pointed my bike down the mountain and cycled back to the city that I am evidently unable to leave, to spend more time with my unexpected girlfriend. I arrived at 11pm in more pain and more tired than I have ever been in my life. I was out of practice. I was soaked by several hours of sudden rain. I couldn't stop pedalling to put on my waterproofs, because stopping was when the pain in my legs was at its worst. I cycled down the highway in pitch darkness, using the light from other cars' headlights to stay on the road. I ate a kilogram of sweets and drank 4 litres of water. When I arrived, I checked my cycle computer to find that I had cycled 128km and had been pedalling for nearly 11 hours that day (6 of which were uphill).

What does this mean for the expedition? Well, for me, it means that the concept of travelling is exactly that - a concept. I realised that I didn't have to be physically moving every day to discover myself or to find goodness and adventure in the world. Of course the journey does not end here - the world is huge, and I've seen only the tiniest slice of it! But I would be a fool to throw away what's in front of me for the sake of a fundamentalist approach to Ride Earth. The trip was meant to be one of discovery of the world, and of the self. If I'd carried on down the far side of that mountain, I'd have discovered that I really was so stubborn that I'd let a burgeoning relationship slip through my fingers for the sake of a bike ride. This is my life now, and there is no deadline for completing this round-trip of the planet.

I plan to stay in Armenia until May, making presentations, lending a hand to the volunteers and their projects here, exploring the country and making the most of the opportunity to stop for a while in a small and beautiful land that feels overlooked by the rest of the world. In May, Tenny (my girlfriend) and I are planning to travel by bicycle through Iran and into Central Asia. We hope to cross Tibet as summer draws to a close, and from there... who knows?

My Little Letter to my M.P.

ride-earth — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:31:00 GMT

Tom

I might be a little way round the globe, but I’ve taken a little time to write to my local Member of Parliament in England. I’m writing from an area of the world where the wishes (and votes) of the citizens are routinely undermined by powerful, corrupt politicians. Living in a democracy where your voice can still make a difference is a luxury you may take for granted.

Dear Mr. Hope,

As a member of your constituency I have an important plea for your consideration, from my current location in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia.

I left my home in Middleton in June 2007 on an expedition to travel round the globe by bicycle. Over the last 8 months, I have pedalled my way through 14 countries, covering 7,500km by pedal power to my present location in the Caucasus. Although this is only a fraction of the total distance I expect to cover during the next few years, my journey has revealed in reality important worldwide issues that I was only previously aware of in theory.

I have dealt with the stupendously hot spring and conversely wet summer of Western Europe in 2007, picking ripe blackberries in June in Holland and again in October in Bulgaria, while reading news of tornadoes in London. I saw glaciers in Switzerland that were shrinking annually rather than advancing through the mountains. I heard an 80-year-old Turkish fisherman lamenting the rarity of snowfall on the Black Sea coast over the last two decades. I endured the freak minus-20-degree winter temperatures - the coldest in 25 years - in Georgia, and listened to the director of WWF Armenia telling me he hoped that his daughter would be able to play in the snow in the future. I thought back to my own childhood, when snow in winter was commonplace, and tried to remember the last time a significant amount had fallen in England.

These extreme weather patterns, changing climate trends, and effects on the environment itself, that I have now seen with my own eyes, in addition to the widepread evidence provided by the scientific community to anyone with the guts to listen, are the reason I am writing to you now. I implore you to add your vote to the Climate Change Bill which, based as it is on now-obsolete information, should be amended to include a carbon dioxide reduction target of at least 80% by 2050.

This is a global issue, and countries such as ours with the capacity to lead by example have a moral obligation to act NOW to prevent a future in which the generations of tomorrow must spend their time on the planet dealing with the consequences of our actions today.

Should you be interested, a website with more information on my journey can be viewed at www.ride-earth.org.uk.

Please add your vote to amend this Bill.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Allen

If you feel strongly enough to spare a couple of minutes of your time on Planet Earth, you can send your local MP a letter from a purpose-built website by WWF UK, which will find your local MP’s address based on your postcode, and even write a draft letter for you, before emailing it directly or making it suitable for printing and posting. These MPs are waiting to hear from you - that’s their job.

If you live in England but you’re still not convinced about this issue, you may be interested to read this article. More general information can be found at the WWF’s own site. And in millions of other places all over the world.

And if you want to find out how you can easily reduce your own demands on the environment, it actually could not be easier, thanks to the WWF’s One Planet Living project. Don’t feel bad for brushing it under the carpet. Feel good for doing your bit!

Why did we get so wet?

ride-earth — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:49:00 GMT

Last summer when we set off from England on our bicycles we had dreams of long wonderful summer days and leaving our waterproofs at home, replaced by an extra pannier of suncream. However, in practice we were reaching for the ponchos more than expected and precipitation was an often occurence. The rain fell in France, we got soaked in Switzerland, and really rather damp in Romania. When the sun came out it never lasted for as long as we hoped. It felt that whenever we starting turning the pedals again, raindrops starting appearing on the tarmac. This article on The Times website, provides some further insight on the phenomena that was last “summer’s” weather and also the Church of England’s stance.

Three Weeks In Yerevan

ride-earth — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:56:00 GMT

Tom

I’ve been in Yerevan for about three weeks and the hold-ups continue. My friends here like to joke that by the time I finally get this deep-winter sleeping bag and pedal south towards Iran, it’ll be spring and I won’t need it any more!

That may turn out to be the case, but in the meantime it’s still well below freezing by day and by night, and I’ve heard reports that temperatures in the deserts of not-too-far-away Turkmenistan are still approaching minus thirty - even the nearby Iranian city of Mashhad is currently experiencing nighttime lows of minus twenty-five, according to an Austrian cyclist. I’ll certainly feel much happier with this new sleeping bag whilst cycling towards the Tibetan plateau, where the altitude will have more effect on temperatures than the time of year.

It’s not a good idea to project too far ahead with this kind of travel, as it’s a recipe for disappointment when - by the nature of bike travel - events have a habit of taking their own unpredictable course, but I feel a strong urge to get back on the road and really make some progress eastwards. With only 1,500km of distance between the Iranian and Chinese borders, the incomprehensible idea of cycling from England to China is edging its way towards becoming a real, attainable accomplishment.

City life is so blinding and replete with facilities, commodities, employment and entertainment; it’s little wonder I hear people saying that you’d be hard pressed to find a passer-by here who had even ventured as far as Gyumri, the second-largest city in Armenia, a half-hour journey away by car or mashrutka (minibus). By the way, these little Transit vans zipping around the city are an adventure in themselves. I recently boarded one, heading for the centre of town, and after squeezing myself in amongst bemused-looking black-leather-jacket-clad men and full-length-fur-coat-clad women who seemed to consider my unruly, uncut hair and increasingly straggly beard a suspicious novelty, I realised I had flagged down the wrong one. After a moment of annoyance, I decided to let things take their course and stayed put, looking out of the window as the bus headed further and further into suburbia, passing street-sellers warming themselves by the flames of their empty cardboard boxes, 20-storey Soviet tower blocks with wonky staircases and even wonkier elevators, and invincible fringes of dirty ice and snow impinging erratically upon the road.

I found out later that growing a beard as an Armenian is a traditional indication that one is in mourning, which would explain the aforementioned reaction, but a few of the younger generation have decided to grow them as an expression of freedom and changing times. With countless building developments having sprung up over the last 5 years and helped by cash injections from abroad, Yerevan is in the process of transformation from a quiet, Soviet-styled state capital to an increasingly Western-looking cultural centre, where museums depicting the long and troubled history of the Armenian people, utterly ancient monasteries (some of which still host religious services) and roadside markets stand side by side with jazz clubs, fashion-designer shop-fronts and 24-hour supermarkets. The Vernissage weekend bazaar, where vendors sell mechanical parts salvaged from dumped machinery, stray puppies are sold as pets (to save you having to catch your own), and you can eat a hearty plateful of delicious dolma (cabbage-leaves stuffed with spiced rice and ground meat) for the equivalent of about 12 English pennies, is a two minute walk from the Porsche showroom.

Overlooking the city (when not obscured by air pollution or low cloud) stands Mount Ararat, dwarfing the rest of the skyline at more than five thousand metres in altitude. It’s not only a symbol of Armenian ethnic and religious identity, with streets, buildings, cognac brands and a town named after the mountain, but also a constant reminder of the effects of the increasingly-widely-recognised genocide of the early 20th century, during which estimates of over a million ethnic Armenians lost their lives by order of one particularly idealistic (and short-lived) Ottoman-Turkish leadership, and countless families were separated and forcibly re-settled. This has led to today’s situation where three million Armenians live in present-day Armenia and a further seven million are scattered across the globe, either as fully-fledged communities or as individuals and their descendants who started new lives in new countries. I was told that Princess Diana was one sixty-fourth Armenian. Los Angeles-based rock band System Of A Down are Armenian. The singer Cher is (you’ve guessed it) Armenian. (Unfortunately - if you’re a cynic like me, at any rate - an Armenian also invented the television.)

But the slopes of Mount Ararat now stand on the far side of the long-closed Turkish-Armenian border, surrounded by towns that were once part of Western Armenia under the Ottoman Empire, now Turkish by name and population, although a large number of Armenians chose to change their language, family name and religion in order to stay where they felt they belonged. In North-Eastern Turkey, the ethnic intermingling was quite noticeable. I’m pretty sure that the paramedic, who took me to get my face sewn up after a nasty crash near the Georgian border, was Armenian.

I’ve also met a huge number of people here who are partly or fully Armenian by ethnicity, having come to Armenia seeking their roots, from England, Lebanon, Canada, Dubai, Iran, Australia, and the USA, amongst others. A local Armenian girl explained that this romantic idea has in reality led to some differences in opinion as to in which direction Armenia should be developing, as those incoming Diasporan Armenians unavoidably bring with them distinctly un-Armenian ideas and world-views, coming as they do from entirely different social and cultural backgrounds, whether they share the same blood or not. But Westerners (for the most part) have already learnt of the consequences of economic growth without due consideration for the environment, so perhaps learning to listen is the key. Organizations such as WWF can make a difference, as shown by the successful lobbying of the Armenian government to change its plans to build a new highway through a nature reserve in the south of the country, but it’s also up to those in the driving seat of progress to take these considerations seriously.

As a traveller, I’m exposed to all of the opinions that people from town, village or city, native or otherwise, care to throw at me. This means I have to sit down sometimes and consider why a bee-keeper in a village in Armenia can brand the entire nation that lies just over his western horizon ‘bad’, because of what he knows of events that occurred nearly a hundred years ago. I’m still only getting going with this journey, and I’m loathe to try and formulate my own opinions on the conflicting histories of two neighbouring countries, because it’s not really any of my business. I’m firmly in agreement with the sentiment that a little knowledge can be dangerous.

What I am being forced to do on this journey is to collect common threads that, when tied together, start to explain why humans think and act the way they do and why the world is the way it is, and as the journey progresses, I suppose that more and more threads will be added.

Stillness and Realisation

ride-earth — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:43:00 GMT

I arrived in Yerevan last Wednesday. I have been staying with some wonderful new friends who work at the French Embassy here. From the first village after crossing the border into Armenia from Georgia, Tom and I decided to cycle alone to Yerevan.

Cycling alone gives one more freedom. I decide when to move, stop, eat, or continue. The decisions are my own without excuses. There is no-one else to blame but myself if things don’t go according to plan.

I am confronted with dealing with my own company which might sound strange if you haven’t spent time alone before. All the personality traits of being me become apparent. I am responsible for tempering and moderating my reactions, emotions and behaviour which is a rewarding experience. In addition, I only have my own frame of reference or paradigm to rely on to monitor my own behaviour. Which means if I’m acting like an “expletive deleted” there is no one else to tell me so.

I cant rely on the rappoir of 2 old friends to be lazy in a social situation. I have to deal with all the experiences and it is more difficult to take a step back and observe and let the other person look after things, which has it’s positive and negative sides. On another note we both have our own unique experiences so it’s great when we are able to share our stories.

There is a real stillness and realisation of being in the presence of the great world. This is especially clear when being alone in the mountains travelling to Sevan. I hope to be able to experience this feeling to greater extremes in more wilder environments such as Mongolia. This links well to the work of The Wilderness Foundation who aim to protect, conserve and promote the value of wild areas.

Tom and I met up again in Yerevan. We are dealing with more delays concerning picking up our winter sleeping bags which have been sent from the UK. They have been impounded in Armenian customs and we are seeking help from the British Embassy to get them released. They are important because they will allow us to wild camp again as we go forth into areas with a lower population density and less people to stay with.

We paid a visit to the Armenian office of the WWF-Caucasus on Tuesday. We learnt about the anti-poaching unit in place to stop illegal poaching of endangered species such as the Caucasian leopard. We heard about the WWF and fellow environmental NGO’s successful lobbying of the government to stop a highway to Iran which would have passed through protected conservation areas of high biodiversity. This prevented deforestation and habitat loss. We also learnt about the conflict between the booming mining industry and plans for ecotourism to boost the sector of the economy. The two are mutually exclusive as opencast mining has a highly negative impact on the visual beauty of the land which is incompatible with attracting new tourists to visit an area.

The first time I cycled passed Lake Sevan on the way to Yerevan I fought off the dogs chasing me propped up my bike and took careful steps through the snow down to the lake’s edge to take some photos. I had never seen a frozen lake before let alone one so huge. The scenery was stunningly impressive.

I took my camera and framed some compositions. The snow formed patterns of miniature drifts blown over the open ice which naturally lead the eye into the picture. Ice formations on the shore provided foreground interest. In the background above the snowy mountains high cirrus clouds trailed across a vast and glorious blue sky. I attempted to get some good pictures but none matched the shear multiplicity of the vista before me

I sat quietly for a few minutes listening to the ice which made an incredible noise like nothing I had ever heard before. It gurgled, belched and cracked as it morphed and evolved under the pressure and temperature changes acting upon it. It made me think of the book I recently read about the great British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s expedition in Antarctica aboard the Endurance ice breaking vessel.

Last weekend Fanny, Maxime, Irene and I visited the lake for a second time. It was possible to walk on the ice which we were told was a foot thick. I observed a local ice fishing for Sig which I later heard from the WWF is forbidden. In the afternoon we visited natural hot baths near Hrazdan. On arrival it looks like a ramshackle selection of farm outbuildings. On further inspection we were shown along a snow-dusted path past a large rusty tin hanger and steaming boiler contraption to a room without a roof. A woman was wrestling a rusty broken pipe, spraying high pressure hot water, down to the ground and attempting to hold it in place with two large rocks. The water was more or less heading into a bath which long ago had become a natural formation of thick sulphur deposits. The water was a gloriously warm 40 degrees and we periodically ran outside into the snow and back into the water which is rather masochistic but intensely stimulating. Highly recommended.

I am feeling personal frustration regarding the filming of our trip. Due to a lack of funds the podcast is on hold and hours of relevant mind blowing footage is gathering dust. Hopefully time will iron out the problems and allow the production to reach it’s full potential.

Armenia has been one of the most beautiful and friendliest countries I have visited. On numerous occasions I have been shown incredibly warm hospitality. However our stay is being marred by the frustration caused by the time it is taking to get through the bureaucracy concerning receiving a simple parcel. Lets hope we finally gel our sleeping bags soon and can finally make progress to Iran.

White Peaks and Red Tape

ride-earth — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:30:00 GMT

Tom

We knew that as we headed out of Europe and into the Middle East and Central Asia, we’d be cutting through as much red tape as we would snow and ice. So maybe it was a good idea that we’d expected it, as international bureaucracy is becoming a bigger pain in the proverbial than a brand new leather saddle!

Weeks ago, in Turkey, we applied for our visas for Iran, after spending countless hours looking at other people’s experiences with getting their papers in order for a cycling expedition across this part of the world. A few days ago, in Tbilisi, we finally received these priceless stickers in our passports, after trekking to and from the Iranian Embassy with passport photos, documents, and cash (no less than a hundred euros each). Cue much celebrating and leaping about in the snow, to the wonder of bemused pedestrians and security guards.

But the process itself bore no resemblance to the romantic idea of a sit down with the Ambassador in a luxurious office, having a chat over a cup of chai about the ins and outs of a visit to the Islamic Republic. Nor did it bear any resemblance to the stories we’d read of overwhelming Persian hospitality. No - we were relegated to the patch of pavement outside a small window next to some extremely forbidding-looking security gates, arguing with a bored old man about our ‘letters of invitation’ (which we never saw), supposedly faxed ahead to the embassy, and getting cold and snowed-on.

Finally, after 3 days, we returned to collect our passports, which were handed to us by an anonymous arm that emerged furtively from around the semi-opened mirrored window, which was then wordlessly closed and locked. It felt as though we’d received some kind of classified eyes-only document that would soon self-destruct in a dramatic but harmless ball of flame. (Thankfully, this did not happen.)

At the Armenian border, a day’s ride from Tbilisi, we received visas quickly, but not without an unexpectedly hefty charge of 15,000 drams each (around 50 dollars). This left us with the equivalent of about 20p each in cash for the journey to Yerevan. Luckily, we were fed and housed every night between the two cities, by astonishingly friendly (and often slightly drunk) locals. The elevation began to increase and our route through the sparsely-inhabited area near to the Azeri border was barren and rugged, but beautiful - and eerily silent.

We decided to cycle seperately for a few days to have some of our own space and to experiment with solo travelling by bicycle. I had made it through incredibly picturesque, quiet and snow-filled valleys as far as a quaint town called Dilijan in the north-east of Armenia when I received some unexpected news by email. It was from my dear mother, who has been to the ends of the earth to try and get some proper winter sleeping bags out to us. The intended recipient of the parcel in Yerevan had received an unexpected customs bill for the goods to be released. It was for 700 dollars.

In the grand scheme of things, that’s about 6 months’ worth of living costs for me as I cycle and camp every day in this part of the world, so I was undertandably taken aback, albeit in true English style, with plenty of muttering and frowning and as little a display of emotion as possible. I resolved to lock my bike in the back room of a cafe in the town, and hitch-hike to Yerevan with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, my wallet, passport, and camera.

This I succeeded in doing, and I met up again with Andy. We are now embroiled in a silent battle of diplomatic muscle - the outgoing British Ambassador heard our story and intervened with the help of the Armenian Foreign Ministry. We are now waiting in limbo (again) to hear of the outcome from our new friends at the British Embassy, who are attempting to get the parcel released free of charge.

Incidentally, I met some young Americans who were working here in Armenia with the Peace Corps, which I learnt is an American organization to place young Americans in (mainly) third-world communities as social workers, teachers and the like. Two of these people had just been put on a plane home to the U.S. after they overstayed their vacation allowance by a whole 3 days. That’s another example of petty bureaucracy. We’ve heard that the Armenian customs department is notoriously heavy-handed, and this has been backed up by numerous anecdotes from people I’ve met in the last few days.

So the winter riding is not the only challenge I’m facing. Let’s hope that I get a smoother ride for the next few weeks. Mind you, seeing as the road ascends to above 2,500m elevation and continues through mountainous terrain for several hundred kilometers on the Iranian side of the border, I’m not expecting it to be easy.

Tbilisi Beneath the Ice

ride-earth — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:45:00 GMT

When Sylvester, the Polish cyclist we met on Christmas Day in Batumi, was explaining that conditions were difficult here for local people in Georgia, coping with the cold midwinter, I remember thinking, surely it’s not as difficult as cycling round the world? What a weird comparison and abstract concept. People in places with extreme weather conditions, are obviously tough, live and learn to deal with it. Cycling round the world means something different to any person who cares to think of the concept. These 4 words represent, for someone who has already cycled round the world (or travelled a long distance by bike), a body of memories, a once experienced truth of a moment, part of a process. Memories, skewed and evolved over time, the mind puts it’s own spin on things, censoring some things, making it’s own story which makes some kind of sense, or is maybe useful to life.

On another note, cycling round the world, is definitely a difficult thing to do. We have barely scratched the surface of our adventure, this cycling lifestyle is starting to become my life. Tom and I are getting used to it. We are toughening up to the elements, and hopefully opening ourselves to, and dealing with events that come our way. I know there is something deeply satisfying about it, this life, and future prospects for us. We are amassing a body of extraordinary experiences, memories, documents, colours, pictures, sounds which blend into each everyday adventure, meeting people and seeing new places (for example, today we hitch-hiked to the house of a Georgian cyclist adventurer called Jumbar Lezhava, who has travelled to 237 countries, and spent 9 years travelling by bike and holds 7 world records for push ups- and he’s 68). Yesterday we met a Georgian painter, Rezo Adamia, in his studio, just round the corner from where we are staying. Each day is as full as I want to make it, and I am happy to keep investigating and trying to learn and develop myself. The other day coming into Georgia where so much is completely new to me, I had a strange feeling, that I can only compare to that of being a child again (from some distant hazy memory).

The Georgian people love a good sing-song and a dance. They have traditional songs which all Georgian people know the words to and each song has a particular dance to accompany it. On a number of occasions I have witnessed a Georgian ‘feast’ in a restaurant consisting of copious amounts of hot fatty food, washed down with lashings of fresh wine (with long-winded toasting, of course), and the music starts. Last night, for example, I witnessed a dance where the lady parades up and down with her arms outstretched in a graceful fashion. The man then comes in, arms swinging like crazed windmills, slamming one foot forward and then stepping out, twisting his torso at the same time, repeating on the other side, moving around his partner. It appeared that the objective was for the man to get as close as possible with the violent but well-timed movement without causing severe injury to his partner. All-in-all it was a thoroughly excited, energetic and rousing performance. It puts English-ritzy-nightclub arbituary-jigging-about-after-a-few-pints totally to shame.

Its -18 at night here in Tbilisi. The pavements and roadsides are covered with inches thick of lethal glass ice. Men dressed in heavy leather coats with flat caps, or thick fur lined caps with flaps covering the ears. Women dressed in fur coats and high heels navigate the treacherous urban conditions with impressive ease. The undertones of poverty and difficult social conditions are never far away. On leaving a cafe and walking down the pavement we were approached by a group of begging children with dirty hands outstretched, one manically rasps ‘money’ at me. Its disturbing and it evokes mixed emotions. I look up and see a 60 ft tall picture of a glamour model draped over a new European style high street development.

Last week we visited the WWF Caucasus office in Tbilisi. We interviewed Nugzar, the Conservation Director there. We learnt about the new national parks in Georgia, set up since the collapse of the USSR. We learnt about how the WWF integrates the local populations into the conservation process through visiting and talking directly to local people and stakeholders, involving and educating them on use of local natural resources. Many people in Georgia are still reliant on direct access to natural resources such as firewood. With the work of the WWF, protected areas in Georgia have risen from 2.4% in 1990, to 7.0% in 2008. We asked Nugzar about how they are observing climate change in Georgia. One phenomena is a reduction in the size of glaciers reflecting global trends. The Greater Caucasus has 2050 glaciers. One glacier, Kirtisho, has retreated by 247m between 1960-2001, another, Glacier Tbilisa, by 360m. Glacial melt affects the availability of fresh water for local residents, and plants and animals which rely on it. In the longer term it can affect the level of oceans. Glacial retreat is a good indicator of global warming. Read more here.

We are leaving tommorrow to cycle to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It’s going to involve cycling over some big mountains and the conditions are really cold at the moment, abnormally cold. It’s a new experience for both of us, cycling in such temperatures, but we’re prepared and I’m looking forward to getting back on the road again.

A Cold Start to a New Year

ride-earth — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:22:00 GMT

Tom

After a week of relentless and sometimes masochistic cycling covering almost 500km, we arrived in the snowy Georgian capital of Tbilisi on New Year’s Eve. At 2 a.m.

This wasn’t the way we would usually have gone about our journey. I prefer to take it slow, to explore a little more off the beaten track, and to get off my bike from time to time when the opportunity arises to meet locals or enjoy the landscape - as it generally does very often. But we’d found a temporary cycling partner from Poland, whose travels by bike took a very different form to our. For those few days, we lived his lifestyle.

It was Christmas Day - for us at least - in the coastal town of Batumi, just north of the Turkish land border we’d crossed the day before. I was attempting to fathom out the Georgian public phone system in order to speak to my family, to wish them a Merry Christmas, and to tell them that it was another 12 days until the Orthodox Georgians celebrated it (on our Epiphany) and that would they please put my Christmas dinner at the bottom of the freezer until I returned?

Sylvester had spotted our bikes and luggage and came over to find out who these other cycle tourers were who had also decided that crossing the Caucasus in deep winter would be a good idea. We ate a traditional Georgian meal of spicy, fatty meat soup and khachapuri (imagine a deep pan pizza base stuffed with cheese), promising ourselves a traditional roast dinner as soon as we could find somewhere with a kitchen.

Today - the 12th of January - I plan to realise that promise. After I leave this internet cafe, I’ll be jumping on the Metro (costing about 15 of our English pennies) to the huge market district, where it is quite common to literally get lost for hours amongst vast grids of identical stalls that stretch up to the rafters and destroy any sense of direction within seconds. I hope to find at least a chicken and some vegetables.

Tonight I’ll hopefully cook at the flat of one of the many French ex-patriots amongst whom we’ve unexpectedly found friends and hospitality for the time we’ve been in Tbilisi. As two Georgian men told us across the cafeteria over a lunch-time toast, it’s a positive thing that people of two nations historically at war with each other can sit and enjoy the food, drink and company of one another. Cheers, or gaumarjos as they say here!

Our ride through Georgia was direct and fast. The Polish chap, Sylvester, usually a lone cyclist, was very self-driven, and this together with his ability to speak Russian meant that Andy and I took a back seat in most social situations, and indeed for most of the usual daily decisions, such as when and where to stop, the route to take, and where to sleep. This was something of a relief for a while, but quickly it became apparent that the ideas of teamwork and group decision-making that we’d had to learn so quickly at the start of the trip were still lost on the solo traveller we accompanied. I was reminded of the high tensions between myself, Andy and Mark during the first weeks of the journey. We had quickly learnt that compromise, patience and tolerance were all necessary if we were to all enjoy the shared experience, and that the support and companionship gained were worth the trade.

I found myself wanting to stop, to slow down, to get off the main road, and I wasn’t particularly bothered about the idea of getting to Tbilisi for New Year’s Eve. However, I allowed myself to be swept along. We covered over 100km a day on mixed gradients - an unheard of distance for us, usually - and it showed that at least if we needed to cover great distances quickly, that this kind of distance had come within our range. On the final day, I was fairly astonished to find that we had travelled 128km, but the point of tiredness had long passed.

We didn’t miss out completely, though. The night after we left Batumi, we found hospitality with a Georgian family, who fed us some delicious home-made food. We also participated in the very traditional act of toasting. This is no half-hearted shout of ‘cheers’ as a precursor to a lawless period of excessive imbibation. No, in Georgia, the role of toastmaster (or tamada) is a honoured position to hold at any occasion, small or large. Toasting can (and did) continue for hours. We sank litres of fresh and fruity home-made wine, listening to the eloquent toasts which were raised to friends, family, travellers, nationality, the deceased, girls, chance meetings… you hopefully get the idea (and understand why I can’t remember the specifics in more detail).

We heard plenty of gunshots echoing throughout the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, but we didn’t see any civil unrest or military presence. All was explained when we found a small market on the side of the road, selling what appeared to be a lot of freshly-shot ducks and game birds. We had also seen skins, pelts and other hunting trophies in people’s homes in the area, as well as in the adjoining region of Turkey - including wolf and bear. Clearly, hunting for sport and for food was a normal part of life in the region.

A couple of days ago, we asked the Conservation Director for the WWF Caucasus, who established their office in Tbilisi 1992 after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., whether this hunting activity is sustainable. The short answer - no, it isn’t. Hunting for sport, especially, as well as illegal poaching, has had an impact on wildlife numbers all over the Caucasus. The best example is that of the now highly-endangered European leopard, of which poaching has reduced the population to an estimated 50 individuals.

He spoke of this not from a conservation-for-the-sake-of-it standpoint, but because this species has deep roots in the folklore of the area, being found in the songs, rhymes and poems that constitute cultural tradition over the 6 countries that make up the Caucasus bio-region as a whole. So it is clearly not just the species itself that is under threat, but an important part of the rural way of life and tradition, which still exists throughout the Caucasus. Luckily the WWF in this region has successfully brought the species under protection.

I’m a little sad that I didn’t go and seek out rural culture in the further-flung regions of Georgia. Since starting the expedition, I have found the richest jewels at the end of the smallest roads. Spending a night and enjoying a meal with rural-dwelling people who have perhaps never seen a traveller in their area has produced some of my strongest memories, looking back over the 7 months of travelling. Memories of encounters had in gypsy villages in the mountains of Romania, with old couples living in the depths of the Hungarian Great Plains, in the hilly countryside of Turkey - these memories still shine with the clarity they had had the following morning as we continued on our bicycle journey.

Our intended route from here will take us south through Armenia. This is a country that promises a great physical challenge, with the majority of its mountainous terrain at an altitude of between 1000-2500 metres above sea level, as well as a rich heritage spanning over 3 millennia. I’m not a history buff, and I don’t have an overwhelming interest in visiting ancient ruins and the like, but I am intrigued by the way that history and tradition have shaped the culture that can be observed in today’s world.

Maybe that reflects the philosophy that this kind of travelling has developed for me - to take what I can from today and not to live too far into the future. Conversely, it’s also important to remember that my actions today will decide the course that the future takes. As with many things, there’s a balance to strike, and it’s not always easy to get it right.

It was -15 degrees Celsius last night in Tbilisi. In Armenia, I hear that temperatures at night are around the -20 mark. That’s why we’ve both invested in ‘puffa’ jackets, knock-off brands at knock-down prices. Mine cost a touch over 20 British pounds from the sprawling market district, after a protracted, hilarious and predictable haggling session. The temperature here is unusually cold - we are told that this amount of snow only falls once in every five years.

The increase in extremes of weather is commonly acknowledged to be one of the most obvious symptoms of widespread climate change. I’ve experienced very unusual weather throughout the last 12 months, from my dismal ski season in the French Alps last winter, through the record heat felt in April, the record rainfall as we began our journey through Europe in the summer, and now this, here in the Caucasus.

We’re still waiting to hear from our sponsors about getting some better sleeping bags delivered ahead of us to Yerevan. Fingers crossed!

Half A Year On (And They’re Sacrificing Sheep)

ride-earth — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:11:00 GMT

Tom

It seems far longer than 6 months - but at the same time it feels like we left yesterday!

It’s an odd feeling, but I think I can pin it down to the fact that we have removed almost all trace of routine from our lives. I begin each day with little real idea of what will happen. Usually (but not always) I’m pretty sure it’ll involve some cycling. Today was no exception, but we were using our bikes to get around Trabzon, rather than having a long day’s slog on the road. In the previous 4 day’s cyling, we’ve covered over 350km and we’re having a couple of days off.

With each and every day offering endless possibilities for meeting people, discovering places, following a trail of clues to a suitable sleeping spot, there is a constant stream of things for the mind to digest and make sense of. Sometimes it becomes very tiring, and rest days are as much about mental relaxation as physical recovery.

I think that this way of life has brought with it a new perception of time, where the idea of several days or weeks merging into one is a distant memory. Looking back over the last 6 months, I can see that the journey has had definite stages of meaning and feeling, as well as the cultural and geographical aspects of the ride.

There were the first couple of weeks of acclimatization, paranoia, shattered preconceptions and annoyingly wet weather. The French and Swiss Alps - physically-demanding riding with the pay-off of beautiful mountainscapes and green, sun-soaked valleys. The intensely hot, long days of the Danube and Vienna. The rock-bottom food-poisoning episode, knee problems and spiritual development of our 2-week stay outside Budapest. It is at this point that I feel the adventure began, and the enjoyment of the trip took precedence over the hardship and stress.

After Budapest, we had a few weeks of company in the form of 2 English girls, and the social side of travelling was at the forefront of my mind. Romania beat us into submission with the culture-shock and the weather, then dazzled us with its majestic, remote mountain ranges and hospitable people. We arrived in Bucharest and the social differences were staggering, the city vibrant but relaxed, and the people we stayed with some of the most vivacious and outlandish of the trip!

Getting from Bucharest to Istanbul was a bit of a slog and a mentally frustrating and low time. The autumn was closing in and the vast, sprawling metropolis of Istanbul seemed unreachable. We finally arrived and were sucked into its Western-looking, liberal social scene, in which we hesitantly floated for a whole month with the postal system doing its utmost to keep us locked in that enjoyable and varied but increasingly restrictive urban cage.

Upon leaving Istanbul, we experienced the countryside afresh, but having missed a fair chunk of the autumn-winter transition, camping took on a new aspect with the temperatures starting to test our equipment. The weeks spent sweating up and freezing down incredibly steep coastal roads were the lowest point of the trip so far, with the short days and difficult riding causing problems for my equipment and my motivation. Clearing the mountains and making excellent progress to Trabzon after over a week of stomach problems has helped to rectify my motivation in a big way.

We’ve now stocked up on winter equipment, with the exception of a warmer sleeping bag - a problem over which we are still pondering. Mentally, I feel ready to hit the mountains of Georgia and Armenia - two countries that I know practically nothing about. I’m anticipating the excitement of entering a culture untainted by my preconceptions, and looking forward to tacking the challenges that winter will undoubtably bring.

In the meantime, we’ve experienced some of Turkey’s traditional cultural activities today. I watched from a few metres away as a group of men sacrificed a ram on the roadside. I saw the beast led gingerly into a yard, where it was coaxed into a comfortable resting position. A large knife was produced and the men kept their grip as the animal flinched and quivered. A pool of blood grew rapidly on the wet tiles, and the quivering stopped.

The Sacrifice Feast, as it translates from the Turkish bayramı, is a Muslim holiday lasting 4 days, with today being the first day. We wandered around residential areas of Trabzon, and observed several large groups of family members and friends stooping over sheep carcasses in various stages of butchering. We watched 3 men with bloody hands and a wheelbarrow full of offal depositing their heavy, wobbling load in a pre-dug grave on the verge of the road.

I guess I’ve been through enough by now to see it as just another cultural phenomenon, as my own emotional reaction to what was going on around me was accepting and not in the least bit shocked - and I have to say that this did surprise me a little, although I had no real idea how I would react. But these were not public displays of bloodshed, but traditional Muslim family occasions for sharing and celebration, with the sacrifice carried out without the slightest concern or digust, as I suppose many unaccustomed Westerners might feel. Of course, it’s as normal to the locals as any of our Christmas traditions - carol singing in the street, or the traditional goose or (thanks to America) turkey dinner, for example - would be to us.

(Yes, there is a bit more blood involved, admittedly!)

Dancing in the Dark

ride-earth — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:47:00 GMT

The other day I was cycling towards Trabzon. We went through a number of dark, ominous looking tunnels through the hills. I’m cycling along, and then there it is, another black hole. My blood pressure rises, the hard shoulder thins and squeezes me off onto the road, to share it with the multi-tonne trucks flying past, spraying me with muddy water. I check over my shoulder, ah, a gap, hopefully I will make it through, before being chased by the next vehicle. Each vehicle sounds exponentially louder, like a plane taking off. I pedal like fury through the tunnel. This is repeated a number of times, then we are about to go into a particularly long 3 km tunnel and an orange van with flashing lights pulls up behind us before we take the plunge. The guy leans out the window, I assume they want to tell us we’re not allowed to cycle through the tunnels. I feign ignorance or deafness and pedal into the tunnel at full pelt helped by a downhill. After a couple of minutes of pedalling, I slow down and Tom catches up followed by the van shouting ‘we have an escort’. I suddening feel silly for my pre-conception and a little more important for a few seconds. The tunnel seems to go on for ages, pedalling into the concrete world, illuminated by the glow of the safety lights, and fire exits and the flashing lights from the van, I feel my mind drifting away into some sort of trance, pedalling along following Tom’s back wheel, a very strange feeling. Back into daylight and downhill to Ordu, the next town.

I have some Celtic music on the mp3 player. The album is dubiously called ‘Celtic Quest’. The tracks contain sound effects in the background of, for example, the sea, birdsong and thunder. Some of the instruments used include bagpipes and fiddles and may be described as jigs or ballads, one would imagine. The music is incredibly homely and relaxing and evokes images of warm fireplaces, jars of ales, and snow outside whilst cocooned in a toasty warm living room. This is far from my current situation, freewheeling through the Turkish mountains on a grey dual carriageway. We’re making excellent progress recently with good flat(ish) roads, doing aroudn 100km a day, which explains how we are now in Trabzon, and hope to get to Georgia for Christmas day, leaving tommorrow.

Listening to the 2nd track on Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, it’s almost Christmas. It makes me reminiscent of a warm restaurant, a romantic atmosphere, with good food, ale and a crackling fire, possibly with female company. Instead I’m in a strange place which is cold. People look at me funnily, kids pester me. I think, my wandering mind’s vision must be good for strengthening memories of past occurences or playing with me, a strange way of encouraging me to go somewhere warmer and more comfortable. However, I am happy and the music fits well to the movements of the people, the cars and life. Blissfully living, I observe an everyday meetings between 2 people meeting in the street with animated body language, gesturing to each other. The leaves dance away on the pavement. A chilling wind penetrating my 2 layers, and I ignore my body’s increasingly louder requests to get warmer, bathing in the masochistic moment of bracing coldness. The traffic lights change. It’s 6 degrees - a chilling enough day. Where is Tom, behind, probably chai-jacked? Satellite dishes affixed on concrete balconies point in a myriad directions as if they are all specifically positioned to pick up a slightly different frequency.

Today we cycled around Trabzon trying to observe the Bairam Islamic Festival where rams are slaughtered. We didn’t know what to expect and thought it would be a public festival in the centre, and the best way to see it would be to pootle around on the bikes. After a couple of hours of walking around mostly dead streets and closed shops, we decided to cycle up to the Ataturk burial place. Through a chance meeting, we met a friendly 28 year old Turkish man, Alper, at a fruit stall who took us round a residential area where a number of families, or groups in the community, were gathered around piles of meat from the slaughter. We came across another family who were about to slaughter a ram which was tied up. We stood with the bikes and waited chatting to the younger members of the family kicking a football around. It was strange to see the animal there, shortly to reach the end of it’s life. An older man came over and we said a passing ‘merhaba’ and he indicated that the ram would be slaughtered shortly. The process was quick and I couldn’t see much as people were gathered closely around. It was a calm and private family affair, but very intriguing and an interesting insight into this unknown ceremony.

Gallery: Ride Earth Month 5

ride-earth — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:51:00 GMT

Cold Nights and Notes from Sinop

ride-earth — Sun, 9 Dec 2007 23:54:00 GMT

I smell pretty terrıble but I’ve got a fishing boat to go and sleep on tonight, and I just bought a new blanket which I hope will keep me warm as the nights have been uncomfortably chilly recently. Normally camping is a perfectly fine option for our sleeping arrangements, but I’ve been more dubious recently as I’ve been cold in my thin sleeping bag, no matter what combination of clothing, headwear etc that I adorn. This is important because we don’t have the guarantee of a comfortable bed to sleep in each night but it is nice to know that I will be warm. Luckily the Turkish are living up to their reputation of hospitality. Almost every day we have either had a warm place to sleep, been fed incredibly tasty food, and always offered chai.

Many of the towns we come across along the Black Sea Coastline are busy with tourists in the summer but in the winter they are a lot quieter with most hotels and restaurant closed up. The atmosphere is relaxed and people are genuinely interested and wonder why we didn’t visit in the summer. I usually say, we started cycling in the summer, but its a long way and we didn’t go fast enough.

Last week we cycled into a small village and took refuge from the bitter cold in a tea shop. Darkness closed in, as it tends to rather quickly these days, and we required somewhere to bed down for the night hopefully somewhere warmer than the previous night. It had snowed and as a last resort we had slept in a bus shelter! It seemed a good idea to head to the beach to find a shelter to camp under. As we cycled along the sea front, we spoke to a man who was standing outside what looked like a closed restaurant. We told him what we were doing, and he invited us in. With very little conversation exchanged, we were fed and given a free room for the night. We met his wife and they told us about their children who were at university in Istanbul and Cyprus. We were relieved to have come across such wonderful people, and incredibly grateful for their generousity. It was an excellent opportunity to recharge our batteries and have a well earned hot shower!

We have been sheltering from the cold and wet weather in the ubiquitous tea shops. Many old men we meet have spoken German because they previously either visited or worked there. I have been using this opportunity to try and brush up on my language skills. Earlier this week, after trying to cycle through relentless rain and getting utterly saturated, we sat by a soba to dry off and I decided I would try to note down as many German words I could remember from when I studied it at school. I was quite impressed to be able to remember 200 words in one sitting. I have been employing these words on occasion however my grammar needs improving immensely. There are some good language resources on the BBC website and I found a page of basic grammar on the Tiscali website which I have put onto my PDA to look at.

On the subject of technology, I bought a wonderful new camera before I started this trip. It is a Nikon D40x and I bought a very shiny Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5 – 5.6 G ED lens to go with it. Yes, I have no idea what all those suffixes mean (yet) either. It wasn’t cheap, it was by far my biggest outlay on equipment for the trip, but I am glad I did, and I’m really enjoying using it now. The long zoom range allows me a wider range of composition possibilities and means I can snap images that might be difficult without it. For example earlier today a fisherman was sorting out his net on a boat. It would have been difficult for me to get close enough to frame the composition as I desired without needing a wetsuit. I read recently in a Photography supplement that came with the Guardian newspaper that it is better to get closer to a subject rather than use the zoom if possible because it gives a more intimate image. I am inclined to agree. In addition, if you have to get physically closer to the subject matter, this is likely to provoke a reaction, and possibly an interesting meeting.