Adventureblaze

My trip has come to an end

Stefan Pinckney — 15 November 2008

My trip has now come to an end.

Its been an amazing experience and some time in the future I will try to write a summary of all my experiences during this trip. Thanks to everyone that followed my progress and gave me encouragement. It especially helped during the sometimes very demanding stages.

I have some future plans for new challenges which are to be shorter but more physically demanding, but nothing is set yet. My plan now is to stay in Asia for an unknown period of time and take the rest as it comes.

Here are a few of my favourite pictures throughout this trip:

Long time no update

Stefan Pinckney — 27 October 2008

As the headline mentions I have not updated in quite a while. This is due to the fact that I am not yet sure as to what I will be doing the next coming weeks. After I arrived in Istanbul I decided to take a flight to Bangkok and decide what’s next once I arrived in Bangkok. My travel partner Nicklas decided that he had travelled enough and headed back to Sweden, which was fully understandable considering the fact that he had cycled for more than 8 months and covered over 20 countries. So as to my plans I am staying put for at least another week or two until I know what’s going to happen regarding a project in Geneva that I have been contacted about. If this project does not fall through then I will continue towards India and then China, but if it does fall through then I might head to Geneva in a couple of weeks time.

My bicycle has been sent back to Sweden due to the China issue, so I will instead get a new crappy bicycle in China if I decide to cycle the last bit to Beijing. Also I have a ticket back to Sweden in December, but I have decided not to fly back at all, instead I will stay in Asia until I have travelled enough and decided where I want to work.

That’s all for now…

Beaurocracy, bribes and a change of plan!

Stefan Pinckney — 7 October 2008

Believe it or not, but I am actually back in Istanbul (where I started the trip) when I’m writing this. When I applied for my China-visa I was told that I could not take my bicycle over the border from Kyrgyzstan to China. Since I was in Iran at the time I thought that I would face the problem at a later stage when I actually arrived at the border. As it turned out, crossing the border was as no go and since I don’t want to throw my bicycle away I returned back to Dushanbe in Tajikistan and took a flight to Istanbul. Ironically enough I was almost not allowed to get on the flight from Tajikistan due to some registration that I had missed to do when I arrived in the country. They wanted me to go to the registration office and pay a penalty since registration when entering the country is apparently very important. Since my flight was leaving and I had no intention what so ever to return to Dushanbe a third time I refused to leave. After discussing with the guard and his boss for quite some time we all came to an agreement that I could pay them 200U$ which they of course would pocket themselves and then I could leave for my flight.

I will now continue my way up to India where I will first spend some time in Hyderabad with some Indian friends that I know through a project I managed earlier in Sweden. After my visit in Hyderabad I will continue to travel through India and head north towards Kashmir and then head into China and continue towards Beijing. This was a quite an unexpected turn for my trip, but things change and you have to adapt. I am also looking forward to India a lot and I think it will be much more interesting than the deserts in west China. Less cycling, but more fun!

In Tajikistan with the best cycling so far!

Stefan Pinckney — 24 September 2008

So, as the title mentions I have had some absolutely amazing cycling the last week since entering Tajikistan. Both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were quite dull countries with regards to cycling since both were flat and mostly covered with cotton fields. I really started getting bored with the same type of flat landscapes, so it was extremely nice to finally see the natural border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. As soon as you get closer to the Tajik border you start seeing the mountains and the start of the Pamir mountain range.

Before going on this trip I had done some brief research about the countries and I had very high hopes regarding Tajikistan after reading about its landscapes and mountains. It only took a few hours after entering the country to understand that I would definitely not be disappointed.

It also only took a few hours to see that this country is much poorer than any other country visited so far. The standard housing is mud- and stonehuts and people burn cowshit to keep warm.

All projects in the country such as building of new roads, bridges etc are done by foreign countries. The Chinese are building the roads and bridges and you see a lot of EU sponsored projects in the villages, such as new water pipelines. There is also a great presence of UN and WPF (World Food Program) vehicles on the roads. Although poor the people are very generous and the level of enthusiasm when you cycle past a village is crazy! Usually you get around 30 kids running next to you and screaming “Hello”.

After cycling through a lot of villages and ascending gradually during the first three days I finally started hitting the beginning of the longest mountain pass on this trip. The Anzob pass is at an altitude of just over 3300 meters above sea level and the views are spectacular.

Four hours after starting at the bottom of the pass I finally made it to the top.

At the bottom of the pass the temp was around 30C and as you can see on the pictures I had to put some more clothes on. The top of the pass was around 5C and the wind was quite strong. As I got to the top and started preparing some food I was invited by I guy living at the top of the mountain pass. He was a Tajik meteorologist who noted down numbers about the weather using old ex-Soviet equipment from maybe the 70s?

He generously offered me to sleep on the floor in one of the empty rooms, which I kindly accepted. He also made some tea and food, but I kindly declined the food since most of it smelled very old and did not look very healthy.

After a night sleep in a very cold room 5-10C, I cooked up some noodles (the same noodles I have eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the last month), gave the “meteorologist” my headlamp as a gift and started heading down the pass.

After rolling down the pass for a few hours me and Niklas made camp just outside Dushanbe, had a few bears and headed into the city the day after. I will stay in Dushanbe for another 4-5 days and then start cycling towards the Pamir Highway. It’s going to be the highest pass I cycle on the trip with an altitude of 4600 meters. Nighttime temperatures are around -10C so I will finally get to use my winter equipment. Unfortunately I lost my tent in Iran and had to buy a 2 season (summer and spring) tent which consists of a mosquito net and a rain cover, so I will most likely sleep with a lot of clothes on under my sleeping bag since the tent is made for 15C+ temps.

The distance from Dushanbe through the Pamirs to the Kyrgyzstan border is around 1200km and I should reach Kyrgyzstan around October 10. Once I enter Kyrgyzstan I will spend two weeks in the country looking around and then FINALLY enter CHINA!

One change to my initial plan is that I will visit Tibet for two weeks and trek to Mt Everest base camp and some nearby glacier. The visit to Tibet will be in November and I will walk up to around 5200 meters of altitude. After Tibet I head to Xian and continue to Beijing which will be my final destination before flying back to Stockholm for a few weeks.

Ciao for now!

My progress so far

Stefan Pinckney — 16 September 2008

This will be a short post to show my progress to date.

Red = How I have traveled so far

Blue = How I will travel the next couple of weeks before entering China

Once i reach Dushanbe i will write more about the coming areas i will travel through and also some information regarding my detour to Tibet.

In Uzbekistan after crossing Turkmenistan

Stefan Pinckney — 10 September 2008

I am now in Bukhara, Uzbekistan after a few long days through the desert in Iran and Turkmenistan.

The last couple of days in Iran were spent cycling through HOT(!), dry desert with some nice camping spots.

And some shady spots ;)

After reaching the border between Iran/Turkmenistan it was time to face the Turkmenistan beaurocracy. Like I mentioned earlier I only received a five day transit-visa so the welcoming feeling to this country was not enormous. After filling out 20 papers or so I started heading towards the Uzbekistan border 530km northeast of were i was.

After a couple of hours I stopped at a small village where I very quickly noticed how friendly and welcoming the Turkmen people are. It was great to see some female faces again after four weeks in Iran.

In order to make it to the Uzbek border in time I needed to average a minimum of 110km per day. This is usually not a problem, but throughout the whole Turkmenistan cycling I had a strong headwind, blowing sand and roads in bad shape. Because of this my average speed was dreadfully slow, so I had to get up at around 05am before the sun came out to eat som breakfast and then cycle nonstop for 10 hours until the sun set once again.

Since I only had five days in Turkmenistan and nearly only saw desert I cant really say to much about the country, except that crossing the country in the south is boring(!), but the people are lovely. Turkmenistan had intrigued me quite a bit before I went on this trip after reading up on the country. First of all I was curious as to why they dont want foreign visitors, but also how a country would be functioning with such a strange president that they had up until 2006.

Here are some of the weird things the old president did:

- In 2001, forbidding young men to wear long hair or beards.

- In June 2001, requiring foreigners wishing to marry a Turkmen national to pay a $50,000 fee.

- In 2002, renaming bread from chorek, the traditional Turkmen word, to Gurbansoltan edzhe after his mother.

- In January 2006, Russian media reported he had ordered to stop paying pensions to 1/3 (more than 100,000) of the countrys elderly people, cutting pensions to another 200,000, and ordering to pay the pensions received in the past two years back to the State. This has supposedly resulted in a huge number of deaths of old people, who may have had their pension (ranging from $10 to $90) as the only source of money.

- In February 2005, ordering the closure of all hospitals outside Ashgabat, saying that if people were ill, they could come to the capital; also ordering the closure of all rural libraries of Turkmenistan, saying that ordinary Turkmens do not read books anyway.

After my five days in Turkmenistan I entered Uzbekistan.

Only being here for a couple of days so far this country and its people have really made an amazing impression on me. The Uzbeki people are in my opinion the nicest people during my whole trip so far. Bukhara where I am at the moment is a small town with a nice old city and some very nice sites to see (if you enjoy that kind of thing).

Anyone up for a carpet? This one is only 300 euros!

I will stay here another two days and then cycle towards Tajikistan during the next 8-10 days. Tajikistan is hopefully going to be one of the major highlights of this trip! More to come later... ciao!

Climbed Damavand!

Stefan Pinckney — 30 August 2008

Hello again!

I just got back from my climb at Damavand early this morning after four days of climbing. I was expecting an easy climb after reading about the mountain, but things turned out way different and it was a fantastic but demanding experience. The mountain is located 80km northeast from Tehran so we took a bus to a small town just close to the mountain. The bus did not stop at the small town since we only told the driver three times where we wanted to get off ;). We managed to get a ride back to the town and then started walking towards basecamp with all our gear. Nearly all climbers take a taxi or a jeep to the basecamp (3000 meters) and then start the climb from there. We decided to hike to basecamp ourselves, pitch the tent and then push to high camp (4200 meters) the day after.

After walking for around two hours we ended up in a thunderstorm with heavy rain and strong winds, but we decided to keep going for another three hours since we were expecting to find the basecamp after around 4-5 hours. At 20.00 we had still not reached the basecamp so we decided to pitch the tent and keep going early in the morning.

In the morning a shepherd was driving by our tent and asked if we wanted to hitch a ride to basecamp which was just over the hill (2km) from where we pitched the tent, so we happily accepted, but instead of taking us to the south basecamp he dropped us of at the west side of the mountain. Instead of backtracking to the south basecamp we decided to try and climb over the west ridge up to 4300 meters of altitude and then cross over to the south high camp at 4200 meters.

The climb over the west ridge was very steep and the whole side was covered in loose rock and small stones that created small rockslides and made it painstakingly slow to climb. We also had all the gear and food with us which weighed in at around 25kg each. After four hours we came up to 4300 meters and thought we had just one more crossing to do before making it to high camp, but instead of an easy ledge it was a 20 meter drop, so we had to climb down to 3700 meters again and cross another ridge and then continue up to 4300 meters again. On the way down to 3700 meters we were once again hit by a thunderstorm and the temperature dropped quite heavily. After climbing for seven hours we pitched the tents around 1km from the high camp.

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

Two hours after leaving our camp in the morning we found the high camp and could start preparing for the climb to the summit (5610 meters).

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After cooking some tea and eating some food we started our climb to the summit. There were quite a few other people at high camp that started climbing at the same time as we did. The first two hours of the climb was in darkness and I could see the distance from the people climbing behind me increase more and more.

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

At around 6am the sun came up and the view was amazing!

The air started getting a lot thinner, but I kept a high pace towards the summit and I was almost alone since the other climbers were a few hours behind.

The last 500 meters before the summit was hard work and the breathing was very heavy. I kept pushing and at 09am I was standing on the summit! Fantastic feeling!

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After reaching the summit I was hit by an extreme level of exhaustion. I had climbed to the summit at a very high pace and really pushed myself as much as I could. My quick ascent really drained all my energy. Only a couple of minutes after I had started climbing down from the summit I started feeling weak and tired and had a very hard time to even walk. The decent down to high camp took me equally as long as my climb up to the summit had taken. After reaching the tent at high camp I literally collapsed in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours before heading down to basecamp, which was another few hours walk. At basecamp we took a ride with one of the local guides and slept at his house until 07.00 and then we headed back to Tehran.

Tonight I will start heading towards Mashad and will enter Turkmenistan on Wednesday September 3. I only received a 5 day transit visa for Turkmenistan and the distance from the Turkmenistan border to Uzbekistan is 530km, so I will have to cycle at a steady pace for the next few days until I have crossed the Turkmenistan desert and headed into Uzbekistan. My next post will be from Uzbekistan.

More photos are available in the Damavand album .

Take care everyone!

Back in shape, mountain climbing and Esfahan

Stefan Pinckney — 24 August 2008

Finally I am back on my feet feeling as strong as ever!

I am still in Tehran waiting for my Turkmenistan visa, but received the Tajikistan visa today and will hopefully get the Turkmenistan visa on Tuesday. Tehran is an extremely polluted city and also not very charming, so instead of waiting around here I headed down to Esfahan for a few days and stayed with a guy named Masoud and his family. Esfahan is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces and mosques.

Having breakfast with Masoud and his mother:

Masoud was a really nice guy and a great host.

Esfahan had some very beautiful buildings and should surely be visited if you are in Iran and I am happy that I did, even though I personally dont get very excited by looking at buildings. What really gets me going is mountains and since I am still in Tehran and my body is back to normal I will climb Damavand (5610 m) on Tuesday.

The climb should take me around three days and once I am back from the climb I will head towards Mashad and then enter Turkmenistan!

My visit so far to Iran has been very interesting. The people are very friendly and hospitable and things are very different from the west. I will write more on this later.

Here are some interesting photos that I took this morning in Tehran:

More photos are available in the Iran album . I will write again later this week once I am back from Damavand and post some pictures from my climb.

In Tehran trying to get well

Stefan Pinckney — 18 August 2008

Since my last post which was close to the Iran border I have made it another 650k’s to Tehran. After resting in Julfa a couple of days we decided to head for Tehran to start initiating all our visa applications for the Stan countries. I had started feeling a bit better after my second hit of stomach cramps and vomiting close to the border and was hoping to get back to shape once I reached Tehran, but only after the second night in Tehran I started getting serious cramps once again and had to run to the toilet once every 15-30 minutes for over 24 hours. After taking several tablets and trying to regain my fluids for many hours without success I realized that my body was being totally drained and that I needed to get to a hospital.

I got a hold of a number to an international hotline connected to my travel insurance and they informed that I should call an ambulance and ask to be taken to a specific hospital which my travel insurance would cover regarding expenses. I asked Nicklas to get an ambulance, so he started calling the emergency number in Iran, but every time he asked if they could speak English they hung up! Great service……

After several failed attempts he asked the restaurant in the hotel but they just referred to a taxi, so instead he asked the reception and they finally got hold of an ambulance. When the ambulance arrived I had no energy left, was totally white and drained of fluids. Instead of checking how I was doing they asked Nicklas to sign a piece of paper and once it was signed they referred us to a taxi and left…… once again great service! The paper was in Arabic but most likely stated that the person signing takes responsibility of the sick person so the Ambulance guys don’t have to take any responsibility. Great way to treat people, sympathy on a high level ;)

After some time we found a taxi but he had real problems finding the hospital, so we ended up driving around for about 40 minutes until he finally found the place. Once I arrived at the hospital the people were great and very friendly. I got an IV and a bunch of anti-biotic and other pills.

It’s now the second day since the hospital and I am feeling much better, but i have lost almost 8kgs so i need to start putting some weight on again once i get better. Tomorrow I will receive the Uzbekistan visa and will hopefully pick up the Turkmenistan and Tajikistan visas later in the week.

Bye for now!

In Iran after many mountain passes and severe food poisoning in Armenia

Stefan Pinckney — 11 August 2008

A lot has happened since the last time i wrote.

One of the major events that really surprised me was reading about Georgia. I left the country only around a week before everything erupted, lucky timing indeed. I am very happy to have had the chance to visit the country and i hope things will clear up for the future.

We spent two nights in Yerevan which was a really nice city and had quite a western feel to it. After two days we were both restless as usual and longed to get out on the road again. After we left Yerevan we had around 400km to the Iran border crossing, with the first 100km being flat cycling. The first day was quite dull since we were riding along the highway, but we did have the Ararat mountain around 2km from the road to look at while cycling. When it was time to find a camping spot and pitch the tents we ended up in quite an interesting area to say the least. We were tenting in Armenia but had Ararat (where the German climbers were kidnapped) a few km to the west, the Azerbaijan border (closed border) 500 meters to the right and the Iran border (closed border) 12km behind the Azerbaijan border. As soon as we had pitched the tents a truck drove by and a guy stuck his had out of the window and illustrated that if we went over to the Azerbaijan side 500 meters away that they would cut out throats... very pleasant!

We had a good sleep concidering the location and then started the morning with cycling a 1800 meter mountainpass in around 5 hours. After we had climbed the first pass we cycled along the river upstream until we were stopped by a crowd of armenians that invited us to join them under a tree to eat some bbq and listen to their singing...

After we spent some time with the nice people we camped next to the river and had a well needed swim and a really good nights rest. The day after it was time to get back to business and start cycling towards the first 2000+ meter mountain pass on the way to Iran.

The first mountain pass was much longer than i had anticipated and it took me almost 6 hours of nonstop cycling from the foot of the mountain to get to the top, and many more mountain passes were to follow!

As we were on the way over the last mountain pass we stopped next to the road and decided to pitch the tents before heading over the mountain pass in the morning and then crossing the border to Iran, at least that’s was we thought! At around 03.00am I started getting major stomach cramps and started vomiting quite heavily. The next day the sun was shining and there was no shade next to the road except in my tent which was right in the sun, so I lied in my tent which was around 50 degrees trying to get some strength back.. (recuperating in a sauna). I just had to get out of the sun and was almost over the mountain pass so I decided to put my backpack on and push my bicycle up the mountain and towards the Iran border. It took me over 6 hours to get to the border on an empty stomach and as soon as i crossed the Iran border i pitched my tent next to the river on the Iran side.

The river acted like a natural border, so the guards were quick to tell me that I could not stay there or I might be shot by the Armenian guards on the other side if I went into the water. After I pleaded with the guards and promised not to swim they allowed me to sleep for one night by the river until 06.00am the following morning. After the conversation with the guards I had some food and went to sleep feeling much better! Two hours after I had fallen asleep I once again woke up with severe stomach cramps and started vomiting again. The pain went on all night and at 06.00am I packed up my gear and headed back to the border to find a taxi. The taxi drove me to Julfa around 60ks from the border and that’s were I am resting at the moment trying to get better.

Once my body has gotten back to its old self i will head towards Teheran to start applying for my visas to the Stan countries. I received my letter on invitation to Uzbekistan today and should be receiving the letter for Tajikistan in a couple of days time. Once I have my visa for Uzbekistan i will apply for a transit visa through Turkmenistan.

Georgia and Armenia, amazing!

Stefan Pinckney — 31 July 2008

Hello from Yerevan!

Last time i wrote we were in Batumi in Georgia.

After leaving Batumi, which was a depressing place to say the least, everything changed.

As soon as we got out of the city and into the countryside we got to see the real Georgia, which is absolutely amazing! At first we came to big green hillsides with thick forests and flowing rivers, then after a few days we entered more mountainous areas with green smooth hills and very fine grass. On the last day we came to more yellowish mountain areas, which looked like a desert in certain areas. Very different landscapes in such a short distance, fascinating!

Arrived in Georgia! from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After the first day on the river we started our 2000 meter climb with the bikes. The distance to the top of the mountain was around 100km from the river where we camped. Unfortunately I started suffering from a stomach disorder and could not keep food in my stomach. Since I had to run in and out of the bushes all the time I started pushing my bike instead of cycling, 18 hours later I was standing at the top of the 2000 meter climb.

After I had made it to the top of the climb it was time to head down to lower grounds:

On the way down from a 2000 meter climb from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After coming down from the first climb we kept pushing for another three days which included some amazing scenery and a lot of great and friendly people that we met along the way. Before we ended our journey in Georgia and headed towards the Armenian border we stopped at a quiet place by a small river for a day and just chilled out and enjoyed Georgia’s countryside.

When we finally did leave Georgia we had to pass through the notorious Georgian border! This is how it went:

Crossing the Georgian border from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After socializing with the very nice and funny border guards we went over to the Armenian side and had to wake the (drunken?) guy who issued visas. After changing some money and filling out some papers we crossed over to Armenia.

From what I have seen so far Armenia has some absolutely breathtaking landscapes and feels more like central Asia than any other country I have cycled through. The cycling from the Armenian border to Yerevan has only taken us two days, so I will be writing more about Armenia and will publish more photos once I have cycled through the country over to Iran. Both Georgia and Armenia are two countries that i am very happy to have visited. The countries are amazing, very cheap and the people are very friendly and hospitable. They consume quite large amounts of alcohol in Georgia, but we never once met anyone who was either anoying of unfriendly.

My stomach is now back to normal and we will be relaxing in Yerevan for the next two days, which is a very charming city to say the least! All the pictures in larger size and more pictures of Georgia and Armenia are available under the Pictures section.

Bye Bye Turkey, hello Georgia!

Stefan Pinckney — 22 July 2008

I have now made it over to Georgia by crossing Turkey via the Black Sea, approx 1500 km.

Its been a great couple of weeks and with last week being the most interesting so far!

Turkey was a very comfortable country to cycle through if you disregard the traffic, dogs and the hills.

People are very friendly, helpful and generally interested in where you are from and what you are doing. A lot of the smaller towns along the Black Sea have not seen a lot of westerners, which makes it even more interesting.

From Sinop to the Georgian border it was around 800km with the roads being very flat! A major change from the first two weeks, but we still had a great time even if the cycling was not as exciting.

A few days after Sinop we met two people from Switzerland who were actually walking(!) from Switzerland to Nepal. At first they had just started out by themselves, but when we met them they had two donkeys and a homeless dog that had followed them from a previous country. They had been walking for over one year and had around 2.5 years left until they reached Nepal.

Walking from Switerland to Nepal! from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

A few hours later when i had cycled through a pitch black tunnel and fallen down a hole we met three guys from Scotland who were driving from Scotland to Mongolia! Very fascinating to stumble upon people travelling in such different ways, both timewise and with regards to means of travel.

Regarding the "falling down a hole" incident:

I had to cycle through quite a few pitch black tunnels, most being over 1km long and during one tunnel i had to stop and put my foot down when a big truck was coming up behind me, but as i would find out there was a big hole where i tried to stand and i fell right into the hole. Fortunately i managed to stop the bike from falling over me, which was a good thing considering the weight of the cycle. Eventually I managed to get out and continue. For the remaining tunnels i opted for the safer solution and walked on the sidepath with my flashlight.

Pitch black tunnels from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

We are now both in Georgia and will rest in Batumi for a few days. This place is very different and as soon as you cross the border into Georgia from Turkey you see a lot of differences, especially the influences from the former Soviet Union. As soon as we leave Batumi we will head for the mountains and will cycle over 2000 meters for the first time during this trip, very cool! Also a good warmup for what is to come in Tajikistan when we have to cycle over 4800 meters in the Pamirs. Next stop after Georgia is Yerevan in Armenia and then Iran, which I am really looking forward to. I feel great and very strong both mentally and physically.

All the best to everyone!

We have made it to Sinop!

Stefan Pinckney — 14 July 2008

Last week when we left Zonguldak we were both expecting a much flatter road towards Sinop (450km) away, which would have been very nice since the first week was quite hard work. Guess if we were wrong! The last week of cycling has consisted of nothing else than riding upwards for 1 hour and once we got to the top if was 5 minutes down a very steep road until we hit the bottom of the canyon. Once we were down we had to ride 1 hour up again and then 5 minutes down and so on. This continued for the whole week and was very challenging! Even Niklas who has already cycled 6000km admitted that it was one of his toughest weeks so far. Since the surroundings looked the same for the whole week we pushed for 14 hours a day.

Cycling through Turkey from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

Untitled from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

My body has fully adapted to the cycling now after two tough weeks and i feel great. Its also a great mental feeling to push yourself as much as possible and still feel motivated. We have made it to Sinop after 750km of hilly cycling and according to some other cyclist we meet it should now be quite flat all the way to Georgia. Once we arrive in Georgia we will have to cycle up to around 2400 meters, something that i am looking forward to a lot! It will also be a great feeling to have crossed Turkey.

While cycling towards Sinop in search of some meat we meet a very nice guy who took us out for lunch and tought us quite a lot about Turkey regarding its culture and people. We had quite a lot of questions after cycling through all the small villages along the coast. After leaving our friend we stopped 30km outside of Sinop when we found a great little camping spot and treated ourselves to a BBQ and a very pleasant view.

Untitled from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

We will now be resting in Sinop for a day and then continue towards Georgia!

If you have the possiblity please make a donation to the WARChild charity by clicking at the bottom of the page. The charity is connected to my project, but all donations go directly to the charity and you will recieve an e-receipt once you have made a donation. I dont get any of the money.

Thanks to everyone following the trip and to the people posting comments and signing the guestbook!

More pictures are available under Pictures in the Turkey section.

Tough start!

Stefan Pinckney — 6 July 2008

Wow, what a tough start!

I had imagined the first couple of days to be hard work, but it was harder than I anticipated to say the least! After I had spent two nights in Istanbul we started early in the morning towards the Black Sea. After 10 minutes my back carrier fell to the ground and at first I thought it had snapped off, but fortunately it just needed some extra clips and it was solid as ever.

- -

We took the ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul and started heading towards the highway to try and find a good route towards Sile and the coast. Nicklas had some problems with his bike, so we started the trip by pushing the bikes for a couple of hours on the highway until we could find a small repair shop which could change some of the parts. The remaining three days consisted off cycling up very steep hills and I had to push the bike for several hours a day just to move forward. The bike weighs about 55-60kg when loaded with water and food. All the weight is because I am carrying winter equipment for China later in the year.

On the bright side my body is adjusting much quicker because of the challenging start and I am starting to feel much more comfortable on the bike. The temperature is around 35C and there is a nice breeze coming in from the Black Sea, so we are quite comfortable as long as we drink plenty of water. My t-shirt is covered with white lines from all the salt when sweating.

- -

Our days look something like this:

- Get up at 06.00am, get some breakfast (pasta, tuna, bananas)

- Eat around 5 times during the day and keep cycling until 20.30pm

- Sleep at 22.00pm

- -

We are presently in Zonguldak, around 350km from Istanbul and will keep riding on the coast until we get to the Georgian boarder.

More pictures are available under Pictures in the Turkey section.

Istanbul towards the Black Sea

Stefan Pinckney — 1 July 2008

I am now finally in Istanbul!

The flight over with all the bagage went fine, but the hostel were i am staying is on a walkingstreet so i had to carry all the stuff which took around 40minutes! Thankfully Niklas (www.biketrip.se) gave me a hand, so a nice warmup to say the least!

Today i have been having a look around Istanbul, which is a really interesting and beautiful place, especially the change from the European to the Asian side by just taking the boat over. We will head off tomorrow morning towards the Black Sea and head towards Sile. The first resting day will be taken once we hit Zonguldak, which should take around 5-6 days.

I will publish some photos in the next post!

One week left!

Stefan Pinckney — 23 June 2008

Finally its just one week left until i start my trip.

At the moment i am wrapping up at work and checking off the last pieces of equipment. My visa for Iran arrived late last week (not the smoothest of processes), but now i have clear passage for the first 3 months (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran). The rest of my visas for the stan-countries will be fixed when i am in Iran.

I checked the weather for Iran and Turkmenistan and at present its around 105F (41C), so i guess i will not be freezing in July/August.

Regarding equipment my Primus Omnifuel arrived to Sportguiden last week, so i will pick that up on Saturday. The rest is now checked off and good to go!

My next update will most likely be from the airport or in Istanbul. I will arrive in Istanbul on June 30th and stay there for two days to get some maps and have a look around in the city. Oh and not to forget, i need to get some first hand self-defence gear against the mad Turkish shepherd dogs!

A few more weeks to go!

Stefan Pinckney — 10 May 2008

Preparations for my expedition from Istanbul to Beijing are now done.

I will fly to Istanbul on the 30th of June and will start cycling on arrival.

Check back for more updates once my expedition has kicked off!