What was the point of Cycling Home From Siberia ?

Hints and Guesses.

 

“How come I end up where I started…”

– Radiohead

 

“These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation…

And right action is freedom from past and future also”

– T S Eliot

I often shake my head in bewilderment as I try to remind myself that the last three years did actually happen. It was not a dream, yet so distant and unreal it seems in my mind sometimes.  Before I set off I just expected this ride to involve lots of camping in epic places and riding across vast deserts and having a few laughs with Al. It all turned out to be rather more complicated, difficult and worthwhile than expected. That’s life I suppose.

 

I sometimes imagine what I would have thought, if before I set off, somebody had told me that the journey would end up taking not 18 months, but 37, and that I would be alone for the vast majority of it. That I would experience campsites at minus 40, sailing the South China Sea in Typhoon Season, getting lost in Papua New Guinean jungles, malaria, a Level Five Cyclone in Australia, dodging police checkpoints in Tibet, riding the Hindu Cush in Afghanistan… and best of all meeting an amazing girl who would be in London when I got home. Crumbs. I do not think I would have ever believed you.

 

Rather than over analysing everything (my favourite pastime these day it seems), I will sign off these updates with a brief look at a few questions which I am often asked (and which I often ask myself).

 

Why did you do it?

 

I think I did it because I wanted to learn about the world, and I have always found it difficult to say no when someone invites me to take part in something challenging.  Then, once I started, I found I could not bring myself to quit – and I was enjoying meeting such a wide diversity of people and learning about the world in such unexpected ways…