10 200 miles
9 months
18 countries

With Thanks to Sue, Bill, Tim and all the team at Taunton Leisure

The Leatherman Wave is a superbly crafted quality piece of equipment. Unlike usual Swiss Army Knives it is the perfect complement to the Cycling Tools that we carry. It has been unbeatable in a whole range of heavy duty applications such as : Cutting Toenails, Slicing Croissants, Spreading Jam, Sawing off the handles from toothbrushes, and opening Efes Pilsner beer bottles - In Turkey. I have a reliable report from one Ahmed Khan of Okara City, Highway No. 2, Punjab, Pakistan that leads me to believe that the tool is continuing to do sterling work. He finds the tool very useful in preparing hot curries, slicing chappattis, trimming the hooves of his Camel 'Akbar', and also for cleaning out the spark plugs on his spluttering auto-rickshaw. Sadly I have not seen the Leatherman since approximately January 20th when we too by co-incidence were passing through Okara Punjab. At this time one of two plausible situations came to pass - either 1. The Leatherman bounced out of my pannier while negotiating one of the more violent potholes on the main Multan to Lahore highway. 2. A light-fingered hotel assistant stumbled upon the aforementioned shiny and highly desirable Leatherman Tool and decided that it would be far better employed by his own fair hand than by an over excitable and over-tall English cyclist.

Thermarest Sleeping Mats

After experience in the Great Sandy Desert of Baluchistan (Iran and Pakistan) of cold nights in bivvy bags, and uncomfortable disturbed nights on the floors of Roadside restaurants - both Andrew and I wondered about our forthcoming foray into the true wilderness of The Land of The Snows - Tibet. When trying to put in tough days of cycling the nighttime hours of recuperation are of paramount importance. We were well aware that there would be many reasons that sleep might be difficult to come by - altitude and cold being amongst the foremost in our minds. Thermarests had always been recommended as the key to a perfect and luxurious nights sleep in the outdoors by many acquaintances. Andrew and I however had always felt that to sleep on an inflatable mattress in the outdoors was something akin to cheating. Tibet was certainly the time to investigate all legitimate means of cheating.

The Thermarests did not disappoint any of us who used them along the Friendship Highway and out into the barely trodden Chongzhing Highway from Lhasa down to Kunming. The most notable application of our sleeping mats came on the day of our dramatic departure from Tibet and out into Yunnan. We knew that in order to safely escape the clutches of the Chinese Authorities we would have to cross 2 checkposts under the cover of night. Our day began at 03:00 when our watches woke us from a comfortable nights sleep on our Thermarests. We rode through the night and through the barking dogs and bumpy road of Markham, and on into the sunrise. Some hundred and fifteen kilometres later we had sucessfully negotiated the Mekong La Pass at 4330m and made undoubtedly the finest off road descent in the World. We had cycled on a dirt road for over 20 hours and had tiptoed through the second of our dangerspots. As we rode bleary eyed through the thick darkness we could see virtually nothing of the road ahead - we took turns to lead - knowing that on our right hand side was a near vertical drop into the raging Mekong River. The road was not particularly predictable and from time to time a chunk would be missing from the road where a landslide had reclaimed a piece of the leveled road. At each of these occasions we would grind to a halt. At each of these occasions I wondered whether the person leading us would soon be too tired to notice a missing chunk of the road and ride oblivious into the abyss. When my weary brain finally clicked that this was a very grave situation that could easily result in catastrophe - I suggested to the others that we really should stop at the first opportunity.

The first opportunity didn't appear readily. We inspected ditch after ditch and rocky stream after rocky stream - and finally in exhausted desparation we slumped into an almost level ditch. Blatantly ignoring every piece of advice included in the Thermrest handbook we inflated our mats and after a distinctly suspect meal of noodles and spam we crashed down into the gutter at the side of the dirt road. The Thermrests in the most adverse of conditions gave us a more than tolerable night - our first night out of Tibet into China Proper. Only the heaviest member of our team reported a puncture from his mat in the morning. The Thermrests are good.........but not invincible..........16 stones in a rocky ditch could well be considered as testing this equipment to the limit!

GSI Outdoors Spoon

The list price of, I believe One English Pound, belies the true grit of these little fellars and their outstanding worth. At every request the GSI Outdoors Plastic spoon has responded with unparallelled performance. Whether feeding wet through bivviers in Belgium or troughing Chorba in Turkey, eating Honey Loops in Pakistan and Wai-Wai Noodles in Nepal - they have been the stand out piece of equipment in my panniers.

Sadly I must report that despite Tim, Nick and Andrew continuing to be the proud owners of GSI's - I for my part had to lay mine to rest in the foothills of the Eastern Himalaya in Yunnan South West China. Whilst at a high altitude camp in temperatures of around minus 10, as the snow pounded our tents a tragedy was being played out. Unwittingly my favourite spoon had found its way underneath my sleeping bag and had managed to find its way into an upright position. As I crashed back into the tent from outside I collapsed shivering on to my sleeping bag and on to the poor blighter. Days later I tried to glue the head back to the handle with SuperGlue. The light had gone out though - it was too late for GSI number 2 - I had no choice but to leave him behind. Sleep well my trusty companion!

Taunton Leisure Promotional T-Shirts

To shoot some promotional shots for TL we had a couple of wonderful bright green and orange T-Shirts brought out to Nepal by Nadine and her Mum. They were taken everywhere from The Royal Chitwan National Wildlife Park to The Annapurna Sanctuary trek, and around the most auspicious Hindu and Buddhist Pilgrimage sites in the Kathmandu Valley. As a final ongoing piece of publicity for Taunton Leisure in Kathmandu we donated the two T-Shirts to two of the staff at Himalayan Mountain Bikes in Thamel. The typical wages for a Nepali even in the lucrative tourist industry is less than 50 English Pounds - so we felt it only right to make a gesture of thanks. If you are headed to Kathmandu I'm sure you will be able to see the two T-Shirts proudly walking the streets of Thamel. Ranjan and Tillac were delighted with their presents - and I'm sure they will be proudly sporting their new apparel until it falls off them!

Lowe Alpine Nova Micro Camera Bag

The Lowe Camera Bag has certainly given ample protection to the most essential accessory to the adventure traveler - my SLR. The camera is rather like everyone elses eyes into our expedition - when I raise the lense to snap a scene or a person at the roadside I often think of friends or family and most often of Dean's younger brothers and sisters who have not as yet begun their traveling careers - but who will hopefully grow up to have adventures of their own. Without a good camera bag I doubt my lightweight 'Appareil-Photo' would have made it over 10 000 miles of bumpy roads, through torrential rains, sandstorms, and the frozen wastes of the Tibetan Plateau. Recently I have been lucky enough to actually see some of the pictures from the road travelled through Asia - and I am have been amazed to see the places that we have been. I am relying on the pictures to relive the moments that already seem so far away and almost in another life.

The Lowe bag is certainly in good company as it seems to be a 'de rigeur' backpacking accessory out on the trail. I certainly feel one of the 'In Crowd' in Paharganj Road in Delhi, on Thamel Highstreet or on the Barkhor Circuit in Lhasa. Somehow though, I always feel a little inadequate when from my wonderful camera bag I pull out my Minolta bottom of the range 'wannabe' SLR with automatic features. The traveler scene seems to be dominated by the fattest zoom lenses, Super-Duper matrix focusing, auto-manual, aperture-this and and fish-eye that, Canon, Zeiss, Olympus and Nikon. Sometimes you wonder how you ever manage to get a decent photo without seventeen different lenses, three different bodies and a handful of Tripods.............here's hoping!

LifeVenture Pack Towels

On previous expeditions and extended holidays we have used many different sorts of Pack Towel. On several occasions there have been different types of pack towel pitted one alongside another. From the Speedo swimming towel that lives inside its own plastic container (Tim's previous fave), through the original Pack Towel that has bobbled and never quite seems to remove the water from ones body properly, the pertex sheet that was once sold as some kind of towel - that within seconds became completely drenched and therefore became entirely useless (I took to India in 1990). Highest on the scale of hilarity we must surely not forget Nick's tiny square of fabric that was burnt and reduced to a very sorry looking rag whilst trying to dry it on a stove in Tibet. These comparisons and the mickey taking that goes along with the use of these various devices to try and effect a decent wash and dry up in an outdoors setting, have collectively become known as 'The Towel Wars'. Until very recently it was the case more or less - that each option was more or less as useless as the next - none of them really being able to do the job that they purported to do. All this was blown out of the water by The Lifeventure Towel. The team can honestly report that the towel is pleasant to use, it does actually get the user dry and it dries out after even vigourous use really quite quickly. Tim has even conceded that he will in future stop using Speedo Towels - that invariably go mouldy after a period of time - in preference of LifeVenture. Thanks TL and well done LifeVenture!