Here are some answers to all those questions that you've been asking yourself:

• How much did you really bike?

  Over the course of 10 months we covered a total of 10,850 km over land by bicycle. From the 305 days away from home, we spent 177 days (58%) on the bike. On an average biking day we spent 4 hours and 18 minutes on the bike, and covered 61 km at 14.2 km/h, which resulted in a total of 763 hours of butt pain for Wim. Our longest distance in a day was 115 km, while 8 hours 7 minutes was the longest time on the saddle.

• Did you have any problems with your bikes?

  We expected to be expert bike mechanics by the end of our trip. But our bikes turned out to be unstoppable. Often we'd dive head on into potholes and drive over vast fields of shattered glass... but nothing could stop them. In the end we only had to repair 3 flats (not a single one in Asia), and oil our chain from time to time. We checked the spokes and all the bolts in the beginning, but then quit out of boredom. Our tires look like new and nothing has worn out except for Amy's handlebars. I guess she holds on too tight. Want a bike like ours? Check out <www.avaghon.nl>.

• What were the best parts of your trip?

  The oasis loop through the Egyptian Sahara was great. It was so peaceful, open and beautiful. But it was a close call with the Himalayas in Yunnan, China. Those are some really gorgeous, dramatic mountains!

• How much did it all cost?

  In Europe we camped all the time and cooked our own food, and we spent an average of 42 Euros per day. In Asia we got to enjoy hotel rooms and eating out three times a day, but our costs went down to 26 Euros per day. The Middle east was a mixture of both, and cost us 33 Euros per day. This all added up to 9,929 Euros for the whole 10 months (only excluding plane tickets).

• What did you miss most?

  We didn't miss what we thought that we would miss. In the beginning, we missed the luxury and cleanliness. Wim was always getting frustrated at the lack of efficiency everywhere. At night he would use our chain oil to grease the creaking doors and rusty locks of the hotel room. And I had a meltdown somewhere in Turkey when the shower apparatus broke off the wall and crashed down onto my head. But shortly after something clicked in our brains, we started to accept things the way they were, and we began to appreciate other things instead. Now we have to say that we only really miss our family and friends!

• After spending so much time together, did you run out of things to say?

  No. Wim has a big list of subjects. Throughout our trip I learned about the physical properties of steal, the building logistics of large structures, the nature of electromagnetic waves, and the positioning of satellites in space... Between the two of us, we had a good balance between nerdy and entertaining topics.

• What was your biggest mistake?

  We were sometimes so focussed on getting somewhere, that we turned down invitations from friendly locals. We also carried our heavy tent, pans, cooking stove, sleeping bags, chairs and pillows all the way through Asia, and only used them once. We kept thinking that we'd need them later.

• What will you do now?

  We are going to spend a month in Belgium loading up on chocolate, alcohol and medical care. Then we are off to live New Mexico (hopefully), where Wim can finally live somewhere with a fair justice system, advanced healthcare, and of course, what he's always wanted... Freedom.

• Where will you bike next?

  Ulaan Bataar to Calcutta! We can hardly wait! But first, we need to save up some money and energy.

• Will you continue to write entertaining blogs?

  Of course! Stay tuned for our next blog, "Wim mows the lawn"
  (for obvious reasons the unsubscribe button has been disabled)
  

That Strange Place Called Home remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We decided to do one last good-bye stretch. So we chose to bike down a 340km river gorge. But this wasn't just any old river gorge. It was a special Chinese one. What made it so special and so Chinese was the river that dug it out. The Nujiang river is a huge, wild, twisty monster of a waterway. If you fell in, which seemed pretty easy to do as we biked along the steep path next to it, you would instantaneously be gulped down into the depths of it's madness. A big bummer for you. And there is no escape, the mountains rise up thousands of meters on each side, giving a very narrow and ruggedly beautiful view throughout the day.

Despite the inhospitable surroundings, people live and farm is this gorge. Farmers, with goat-like balance, scale the mountainside to plant corn and beans. If they need to get to the other side of the river, they just attach themselves to a cable and come flying over to the other side. Wim was so enthusiastic about this concept, that some guy took pity on him and offered to help him over the river. It was a childhood dream come true!

The people here have only just recently gotten a paved road. So it will surprise you to find out that it takes you 8 hours to cover the 340km by bus. And that is with a fast, out of control bus driver. So, ten years ago, this was all walking, horse riding territory. And in all of that remoteness, a big variety of cultures and languages developed. From village to village you see all different types of faces, customs, religions and food. There is also 25 percent of all of china's wildlife living along this river. Many a time I had to swerve for gigantic, weird looking caterpillars. We also saw big, colorful butterflies that flit around us throughout the day and heard strange bird calls ringing from the trees.

The downside to this region though, is that people do not eat their dogs. That meant that instead of lying peacefully on the dinner table where they belong, the dogs were out chasing us in packs. In each village the lead dog would spot us coming and egg on the others. Before we knew it, we would be surrounded by snarling, growling little monsters. However, after ten months of target practice, revenge was ours. We would just reach into our stash of big sharp rocks, and start bombarding them. And with immense satisfaction we would watch them whimper off towards home.

Why do dogs like to chase bikers? It is because these dogs live by the law of the Chinese road. That is, whoever is bigger has the right of way. So, if you are a truck, it is without saying that you go through villages at 80km per hour. If a dog or pedestrian gets in your way, all you have to do is honk. If you come to a red light... no problem, you are the biggest, so you just pass through with a loud honk. If you are backing up you don't even have to look behind you. Because of this, there are a lot of dog pancakes in China. So, when these dogs spot us, they are just venting anger for all of their squished relatives. It's quite sad really.

You may now be wondering where bikers fit into Chinese road rules. We were wondering that too when we first got here. When we were in a city, we would swerve for pedestrians, trying to miss them... as we would do in Belgium. But, here, the pedestrians would also try to swerve, trying to get out of our way. That often resulted in a near collision and a lot of trauma for the Chinese person that was almost run over by a big nosed, yellow haired biker. We therefore concluded that we were above pedestrians on the food chain. So now, when we see a pedestrian, we tighten our grip and head straight for them. If they still don't move, we have a 120 decibel horn to help them on their way. In doing things the Chinese way, everything runs a lot smoother.

To celebrate and to recover from the moldy trucker 'hotels' of the last few weeks, we wanted to treat ourselves to something clean and fancy. So, at the end of the valley, we parked in front of a big high rise hotel with lots of SUV's parked in front. Pretty people stood all around, and I trudged in, full of sweat stains and grease, to ask for their executive room. Behind me, Wim was pushing our muddy bikes through the reception. After checking in, we shot up to our rooms to get cleaned up. Then we went downstairs to the reception to strut around in front of the reception ladies. We wanted them to know that we don't always stink.

Now, we are getting to know Liuku and it's residence in our last few days. As we walk through the streets, locals practice their one word of English... "hello", and then laugh shyly. At night, we join the rest of the city on the 2km pedestrian loop around the river, which is decorated with waterfalls and gardens. People stand around grilling yummies, groups of people dance to music, and whole extended families wander around together enjoying each others company. I guess you could say that we're really taken with the whole Chineseness of it all.

And now, we're off once again to Kunming for the last leg of our journey.

One Last Green Tea remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It turns out though, that China is not only really big, it is also one huge range of mountains. So, there will be no mercy for our scrawny little legs as we continue on our journey.

As we go more east, the Chinese people get more and more curious. Each night during our evening walks, eyes follow us down the streets, people in restaurants stop chewing, and babies point in disbelief. When we glance into shop windows, curious about what they might sell, we only see dozens of eyes staring out at us. Apparently, privacy is not a very popular concept in China. Everything is to be shared including personal emails, toilet breaks, and baggage contents. The curious must lead a rich and rewarding existence in this country. Ironically though, this does not give us much in the way of cultural exchange, being that we don't speak Chinese. They just stare at us, we just stare at them, and we are all generally amused.

Often we take walks at night to try and find the city park for some good people watching action (yes, we do like to stare at them too). Parks are the place to be to watch Chinese people having fun. They are always busy with hundreds of activities. Old people are singing and flying kites, children are driving carts around and roller skating, and teenagers are standing around looking at each others crazy hairdos. But our favorite part of the day is when the dancing begins. There are always a few people that bring an old ghetto blaster and set themselves up on an empty spot in the park. And then a crowd draws, the music begins, and everyone breaks out in synchronized moves. One tape player will be blasting loud techno music for the teenie boppers and three meters away you have old people getting down to beat-heavy traditional music.

One night, two girls ask us to join in and so we timidly did, knowing that all eyes would be on us. As expected a huge crowd drew to watch the big white people dance. It was great fun, and we were sort of able to follow. After the dancing was over the huge crowd surrounded us to ask us questions. The old men had many questions that our translator refused to ask us. But they did luckily get to enquire about Wim's large nose. They also wanted to know why I had yellow hair. I thought that this was a joke until I saw that everyone was patiently waiting for an explanation. As we were leaving, a few teenage boys with sticking up hair gave us their email. They wanted a picture of our yellow hair.

The next day we were flagged down by an English teacher at the local high school. Her colleagues had bet her 100 Yuan (10 Euro's) that she would not come talk to us. So she did and then she invited us to her class. Our mission was to convince her 75 students (who were soon to finish school and become farmers) that they should stop playing video games and dating and concentrate solely on studying English. So I made a long speech which no one understood and then the teacher made me sing for everyone. After our mission was over, class was dismissed and we all went our own way. The students and teachers sleep at the school, however during the night, everyone does their own thing. There is no one there to supervise the kids. So, we went out drinking with the teachers, which was great because we got to ask a whole lot of questions about China. And they got to learn about the West. They were particularly excited to find out that the government pays us for each extra kid that we have, whereas in China you have to pay a heavy fine and you might loose your job if you have more than one child.

In one of the last stretches we did on our way to Kunming, we went through our first ugly part of China. From the beautiful mountains, we descended into the dark side of China, a sweltering hot coal mining/burning valley. Trucks coming out of the mines passed us every few minutes and coal burning chimneys could be seen through the thick haze. By the end of the day, we looked like two miners, our faces and boogers black like the night (and our lungs?). The city that we slept in that night was covered in a layer of soot and a putrid burning stench hung in the air.

Wim holding onto a truck to cheat his way up a hill.

Luckily though, this was but for a stretch. And we are now once again basking in the startled stares and fresh air of the Yunnanese hills.

The Dark Side of China remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had been biking for days over hills waiting for the first snowy peaks of the Himalayas to appear before us in all their glory. Yet as we reached the top of each big hill, another big snowless , unimpressive hill would present itself. So, that's when we pulled out our map of China. "Let's see how far we've come!" We suspected that we were probably half way across China. What we found though, as we viewed our map, was shocking. Our line through China was not even a centimeter long! It turns out that China is really, really big.

That's when the suppressed tiredness that had been in our bones through the last months of travel became not so suppressed anymore. I fell on the bed and gave a dramatic grunt, proclaiming that it was all too much, the stinking toilets, the stomach problems, the general discomfort of not being at home... And suddenly Wim began drooping as well. We began dreaming of stability and all the lovely things of home that you all are taking for granted this very minute. That's when we rushed out with glee to the Internet cafe to write Wim's mom that we were coming home and we started to search for plane tickets. We even went out clothes shopping, and bought 5 kilos of cheap Chinese shirts and pants. It was great fun and we were in a relaxed state of mind, with the idea that we wouldn't have to pedal up any more of those cobblestone hills. After the initial enthusiasm though, we began to think of how sad it would be to leave this great country with all of it's gorgeous scenery and mind blowing food. And of course the Chinese people who are incredibly friendly, sociable, and intelligent. It's not that we don't like you guys, it's just... you really can't compare to these lovely Chinese people.

So, in a changed state of mind, we wrote Wim's mom back to tell her just kidding, and (with the same enthusiasm as mentioned in the previous paragraph) we started to plan, "Wim and Amy's excellent Himalayan adventure."

With renewed energy and 5 extra kilos of city clothes, we took on the ever growing hills to the north. The plan was to head up into the Himalayas, join up with the Sichuan-Tibetan highway and end up in Chengdu. Talk about an exciting emotional turn around! We were all aflutter as we strutted around town in our new long underwear, making predictions about how adventurous this last stretch of our trip was going to be. Things just couldn't get any better.

But things seemed to just get better and better as we climbed in elevation. The mountains became of mammoth proportions, the ascents became day long undertakings, and the descents turned into finger-freezing, rim burning joy rides. These mountains were making Northern Laos look like an afternoon excursion for the elderly! Jagged snow covered peaks loomed up some 6000 meters above us, surrounding us and making us feel very small and insignificant. Our first nights above 3000 meters, we woke up intermittently gasping for breath, and then started the next day feeling exhausted from our own bodies' efforts to acclimatize. With each pass that we climbed, a stunning view came into sight of valleys, rivers and peaks that we had never seen before.

At passes as high as 3700 meters, we would breathlessly put on every piece of warm clothing in our panniers and fly down the mountain, only to start the climbing process all over again. Just being in the midst of the gigantic mountains was so awe inspiring that we began to understand why many cultures attach religious significance to such high peaks. We didn't feel like we were so much conquering the mountains, as just lucky to be allowed to quietly crawl over them, awed by their presence.

Climbing out of a near-vertical river gorge, we had to carry our bikes on our shoulders, and we hired a horse to carry our panniers.

We had finally reached the Yangtze river and just crossed the border with Sichuan. After a lot of climbing that day, we were rewarded with a 40km downhill. Hoping for a shower and a bed, we neared a checkpoint and asked where the nearest hotel was. A policeman pointed to a building across the street and then asked for our passport. Soon, a few military men came out to try on our helmet and fiddle with our gears. And then an important looking guy from the PSB (Public Security Bureau) came out, not looking happy to see us. And that's when it happened...

He stuck out his pointer finger... direction Laos... where we had just come from. There was no doubting the authority of that finger, but there had to be some mistake. We were going to Sichuan, not Laos. For the next few minutes we stood there in a frenzy of pointing, not comprehending why he was pointing us in the wrong direction. (we really did know, but playing stupid usually works to our advantage.) After much frustration on the part of the PSB guy, he got someone who spoke good chinenglish to talk to us. "Sichuan, no Laowai (no foreigners)". Our stupidity trick wasn't working, so we asked to just be allowed to sleep in the hotel across the street. But this was too risky. So we asked to sleep with them in the police station. But no, that was definitely not possible. However, they did assure us that the hotel which we passed 20km before was only a quick 10km back up the hill.

Why is Sichuan closed? The channel 9 news guy informed us that terrorists of the Dali Lama clan are trying to break Tibet's ancient ties with China. With a lack of appreciation for all that the Chinese government has provided them, they go on targeting innocent Han Chinese in Tibet and Sichuan, burning their stores, disrupting tourism... The one-sided reports reminded us a bit of how our media covers our terrorists.

After being turned away and returning our 20km that day, we checked into a truckers stop and got to use our first village toilet. Yes, that's right, a community toilet for the whoooole village. Not so bad until it becomes obvious that no one is in charge of its upkeep. And so it has been in all of the village toilets that we've met ever since.

But luckily we had more to do that night than hang around the toilets. We had to decide where we would go next. We had met some bikers that were thinking of sneaking into Sichuan, past the checkpoint in the middle of the night. However, we both felt uncertain about that option after having seen a policeman enthusiastically beating a handcuffed guy at a previous checkpoint. Would they also beat us? We didn't really want to find out, so we decided to re-plan our route.

The next day, we decided to hitch a ride back to the previous city. But it seemed that no one, not even the public bus, wanted to stop long enough to load our bikes. We were going to have to climb all the way back out of the valley. However, Wim had the bright idea of waving a bright red 100 Yuan note (10 Euro's) in the air. Low and behold, the first truck came to a screeching halt. Before we knew it we were 100km back in Yunnan. That afternoon, a powerful earthquake magnitude 8.0 hit Sichuan, killing more than 40,000 people, leveling whole villages, and causing countless landslides on the steep mountain roads. Hundreds of kilometers away, on the roads leading out of Sichuan, we could still see the effects. The roads were littered with rocks, and all over the mountains you could see workers with brooms, sweeping small debris off the roads. You might say that we had just escaped the earthquake by a hair. Thank you PSB guy!

So, we are now sitting in a fancy (15 Euro's) hotel to celebrate the reaching of our 10,000th km. We went all out, bought our first bottle of wine in 9 months and played wild games of Tetris late into the night. It was fantastic!

A lucky turn remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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This is what we found:

We had just stepped out of Laos, the land of sticky rice and bamboo huts, and we had stepped into a shocking world of stores that sell things, people with jobs, kids going to school, and shiney advertisments strewn along the street. Speechlessly, we wandered through the streets. Was all this extravagance good or did we miss the simplicity of life in Laos? We were torn... until we found the restaurants... and the adundant snack-cart ladies. Extravagance? No way, we deserved this! That night, despite our fatigue, Wim dragged me through the streets buying every snack available. Imagine all the modern conveniences and abundance of Germany... at a 95% discount. We were in the land of milk and honey!

(pre-packaged chicken feet... a luxury you just can't find this in Laos!)

The Cities

China is developing at an amazing rate. While our countries slowly developed over four generations, China exploded into modernity over a period of only ten years. Many of the cities we visit have grown much faster than its inhabitants could cope with. Thus a walk through the city reveals a strange balance between old and new, rich and poor, traditional and modern:

Western clothing, perfumes and the latest cellphones are all prettily displayed in store windows. Parks, fountains, and bike paths are all laid out to create a sense of order and calm that is missing in much of the world's big cities. On these same streets, women from the surrounding hills, dressed in colourful traditional clothing squat down next to their vegetables, hoping for a sale.

Store owners wives are washing their clothes in buckets outside their fancy store fronts. Toddlers are taking care of thier morning business in the gutter. Distorted techno music blasts through store speakers and puppies play chicken with oncoming traffic. Giant internet cafes show off the newest hardware and the oldest plumbing (community toilets: a 4 meter long ditch, where you put one leg on each side, and squat together with 7 other "community members"). Throughout the day, people fill the streets, playing cards, eating, doing tai chi, pushing snack carts, walking their bird cages...

The People

Everyone stares intently as we walk down the streets. They are probably thinking, "Wow, look at their big noses." But as soon as we sit down somewere, the astonishment is put aside and everyone is eager to help us. We point, do some quick gestures, and everyone knows exactly what we mean. These people are clever! They are also welcoming and quick to give us a big smile. Best of all, we don't have to share our friendly Chinese people with any other tourists!

The Landscape

To our suprise, the hills of northern Laos didn't stop at the border. So, we have spent our last weeks biking up the even bigger hills of China, with varying road conditions along the way.

Road construction is happening all over the place. For 200km, we biked along a closed section of unfinished highway that tunnels through the hills and bridges over wide canyons, all the while laughing at the thought of taking the old road that goes over the hills. The road workers didn't seem to mind that we were there and we even convinced a building team to let us through a 4km unfinished tunnel going through the heart of a gigantic mountian.

The next 400km however, were cobblestone roads, landslides and headaches.

Through our last weeks, we've been enjoying the biking as much as we have the cities. As we bike through the countryside, we creep up hills at 5km per hour, urged on by the beautiful scenery and the thought of the nearing Himalayas. All the land around us (that is not vertical) is being worked by colourful farmers. Road workers wave and invite us for rice as we bike past, and truckers give us a thumbs up and a smile.

We are now out to find ourselves some hairy yak clothes to keep us warm as we attempt to pedal ourselves over the Himalayas!

Land of Abundance, Home of the Panda remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Outside of the villages young boys gather in groups along the road, sporting large military guns, and we say a nervous "sabaidee" (hello) as we pass. [During the secret war of the CIA, America supported the Hmong guerrilla fighters living in Northern Laos. After the war though, they hid from the new Lao government in the mountainous north of the country. To this day, the families of these people still hide in the mountains. They are very isolated and live an impoverished life. In attempts to get the worlds attention, they have in the recent past shot people along the road. Their lives haven't improved though.]

(Photo Roger Arnold's. It didn't seem like a good time for a group photo, but this is really what it looked like!)

Once in a while we biked through heavy smoke, eyes burning and lungs gasping for air because the people were burning large plots of forest next to the road. We would come up on a huge cloud of dense smoke that engulfed the one and only road going north. We didn't know how thick or how far the cloud went, but there was no way around. We once even had to stop in the middle to duck down into a ditch to breathe.

As we came down out of the mountains on our way to Luang Prabang, we were also nearing Lao New Year 2055. Lucky for us, that meant that we got doused with water by just about everyone along the way.

It was great fun, but the craziness only escalated with each coming day until we arrived in Luang Prabang on New Years eve. Young people were out in mass, throwing water, flour, and paint at each other. Big groups of kids piled into the backs of pickups, blasting music, dancing and throwing water onto everyone they passed. When Wim and I were spotted, everyone would yell,"falang, falang!" and then the water/flour bombardment would begin.

After a while of being victimized, we decided to stick up for ourselves and buy some flour for retaliation. After few hours I mentioned that I had had enough, but Wim refused to stop, "No Amy, this is fun FOREVER!" So we continued on for the rest of the day, so that Wim could release his inner barbarian.

One day, we didn't make it to the next town, and decided to ask in a little village for a place to sleep. An old man led us down to a sand bed next to the Mekong and said that we could put our tent there. Families were busy washing their clothes and themselves in the river as we started to set up our tent and cook some dinner. As soon as everyone saw us though, they all came to quietly watch. With an audience of thirty people silently watching us set up for the evening we felt like we were hosting a cooking/construction show. Soon though, a guy that spoke english came down to invite us to sleep at his house. So, we deconstructed everything, waved goodbye to our fantastic audience, and spent a great night talking with him about how it is to be a Lao guy. As soon as it was bed time, everyone pulled out a mat and we joined the family to sleep on the floor. In the morning before we left, grandma tied some strings around our wrist so that our gaurdian spirits would not get lost while we were traveling!

We got a rough start in Laos, but we have now completely fallen in love with the place and it's people. People here are incredibly laid back, unassuming and down right sweet. Everyone grins and yells sabaidee as we pass, the roads are traffic-free (even in the big cities) and the scenery is unreal. What more could you ask from a country?

We are a little sad to leave Laos, but we can't help but grin when we think....we are almost in CHINA!

Although, we were warned that the Chinese people are no good!

A Place Like No Other remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After a week of rest and nice air-conditioned hotel rooms, we took a bus to the center of Laos, where the mountain ranges start and it promised to get cooler. We both felt excited and renewed when we found friendly people and a beautiful landscape... We were back on our feet again, and happy to be biking again. Little did we expect that we would soon end up in the hospital.

We had just climbed 150 km into the mountains and had reached Vang Vieng, a big backpackers town at the base of a gigantic limestone mountain range. Because of its location, there are boundless recreational opportunities, and we were looking forward to float down the river in an inner tube and soak our painful rear-ends in the cool river. When we arrived in town, we were proud of ourselves, but also famished from a day's biking on little fuel. So we scarfed down a big plate of ginger rice and headed out to find ourselves a bungalow.

After a shower, we were all ready to go out, when all of a sudden it hit... Wim got up in a panic and said," I can't think, something's really wrong with my head." At the same time I got a sense of overwhelming, unreal panic. Wim ran out of the room, all the time talking about how something was wrong, asking what was happening, why we were there, and where we were. A few minutes later, my heart started pounding so hard that I thought it was going to explode and I was drenched in sweat. Neither of us could hold a thought for more than a few seconds, much less finish a sentence. Did we get poisoned? Was someone trying to rob us? Was it the heat? We were confused and terrified.

After leaving our bungalow, we only have little bits and pieces of memories. We were walking on the streets, but had no clue what we were doing or why we went outside. Somehow though, we got ourselves to the hospital (which was equipped with a nice stethoscope, and three beds), but neither of us remember how really. Once at the hospital, this man appeared in front of us from time to time and kept telling us "drink, drink". The doctor was trying to wash the drugged dinner out our stomachs (=drink a lot and then vomit. After that, repeat....) He didn't speak English, so we had no clue if he even knew what was wrong with us, or if we even told him we had a problem. We lied there shaking and staring at the ceiling for the next 4 hours, waiting and hoping for it to end. We couldn't ask the doctor anything, so we didn't know how long it would last, if it would get worse, or whether he was just waiting for us to die.

After 4 hours, the doctor (who needed his beds back) ordered us to go home. However, when he found out that we didn't have money to pay him right away, a look of distrust and concern crossed over his face. Where these druggies going to pay him back? He decided not to risk it, piled us onto the back of his moped, and drove us to our bungalow to get his payment (20$). Apparently, he wasn't expecting any emergencies in the next half hour, because he left the entire hospital to fend for themselves while he was gone.

Back at our bungalow, we continued shaking and staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night. Much to our relief, we could finally think semi-straight again after another 48 hours (this seems like eternity when you don't know if it will end). Only after four days and four nights in bed did our zombie-like stare disappear. Our bodies had finally recovered.

We're trying really hard not to give up now, because we have too many adventures ahead of us and we really want to reach our goal... the gates of China! Sometimes it is hard though.

Dude, that was some strong ginger! remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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What happened?

April is the hottest month of the year in Laos. And that means over 40 degrees Celcius in the shade, plus 100% humidty. No problem if you just drink enough water, right? Wrong! At about 10am in the morning the temperatures have hit white people melting point. We have been drinking 5 plus liters each during our biking hours, and we still hardly ever pee! (I will stop there with the bodily details) Every once in a while one of us will turn completely red, start trembling, and almost faint.

That's when we find a tree and lay in the dirt until we feel like we can go on. That is about every thirty minutes. When we finish our day, we are exhausted and the exhaustion doesn't seem to go away, even if we rest for a day. We aren't just talking about being uncomfortable anymore...we're talking about hitting the wall, and our bodies shutting down completely. Wim even tried to shave his head for some natural air conditioning:

Apart from our bodies shutting down every 30 minutes, we have been quite disappointed with Laos. You see, Camobodia was challenging, but everyone we met along the way raved about Laos and it somehow kept us going. "The people in Laos are wonderful!" After hearing this from a ton of people, we had visions of shiny, happy people welcoming us into their lovely country with open arms. What a needed change after Cambodia! As we approached the border though, we soon realized that the guards were not going be be the huggable Laosians we had been expecting. No, they were big, mad and wanted bride money. They told us, "no money, no stamp." Apparently though, Wim would rather die than give money to corrupt authorities. The stand-off was long and really uncomfortable, but in the end they bended and gave us our stamp, because, well, that is their job after all.

Unfortunately, this kind of set the tone for our southern Laos journey. As in Cambodia, restaurants are far and few between, people run away from us, and most people are too afraid to try to communicate. (This has resulted in a lack of biking fuel, and a skinnier Wim and Amy) However, the village people of Laos add a new dimension to our daily food challenge. When we go to a restaurant, we always ask the price first. After agreeing on a price, which is always a special tourist price, we sit down to eat. It turns out though, in Laos, that a full bowl of soup is a lot cheaper than an empty bowl of soup. When we go to pay, the price often triples, and sometimes has been known to jump tenfold! At one point the restaurant woman ended up asking 3 dollars for an agreed upon 1 dollar bowl of chicken broth... after a hand-gesture discussion, I figured it might have been a "misunderstanding" and gave the $3 to the women. At that point she yelled, "Thankyou!" aggressively in my face and started laughing like a wild hyena. So it really makes us wonder, where did all those shiny, happy people go?!

After many of these incidences during our first week in Laos, we really started to feel drained. Often, during our time in small villages we feel like outsiders that are to be exploited, instead of respected as fellow human beings.

The Last Straw

Amy began the week with diarrhea and naseau. Quickly, but surely, Wim was not far behind. Struggling to keep pushing on, we gathered our mental strength and made horribly slow trips to the next cities. As we were approaching the last city, we met a cow who was also having stomach problems. Just as Wim was passing around the backside of the cow, a great explosion occured on his leg. Needless to say... the cow felt relieved. And we felt totally defeated. We have now officially collapsed, we are completely physically and emotionally finished!

Little did we know...

Little did we know that in just a few days things would take a turn for the worse. We would both find oursevles in the hospital, struggling to stay conscience...

Breakdown remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Cambodian Village Life

The houses out in the countryside are simple bamboo boxes on sticks. They have no doors, which allows for a nice breeze to flow through, keeping everyone cool during the night. During the day though, the whole family, along with the cows and the pigs, sit in the shade under the house. Strangely enough though, the "hotels" always seem to be concrete boxes with tin roofs. And in places without electricity for a fan, that really makes for hot, sweaty nights!

As we would ride past these houses, about 40% of the village (40% of Cambodia is under the age of 15) would come flying out of the shade, gleefully shouting,"helllloooo, helllloooo!" The kids made us smile and feel welcome as we biked through the countryside, and we appreciated their enthusiasm as the adults were often very stoic and reserved towards us.

It surprised us to see how the people in the countryside live. Had we been passing through 200 years ago, I doubt that it would have been any different. People would often be pulling heavy carts that should have been pulled by strong animals, small children were doing heavy labor, schools and hospitals were non-existent, and most of the people were just sitting around without any opportunity to find a job. Restaurants (if there were any) consisted of a table on the side of the street with one pot of noodle soup.

Each village that we went through had a single specialty. If you are in a stone carving village, all you see is stone carvers, and you can bet that there is no one selling sugar cane juice. But if you are in sugar cane village, you will find a lady selling sugar cane every 5 meters at the same price. But imagine that you are hungry, you have to wait for noodle soup village if you want anything to eat. For two unlucky days, we went through one sugar cane village after the other. There was no noodle soup village in sight. We had to bike on sugar cane power alone, which gave us a very liquidy feeling throughout the day.

However hungry that we were while riding through the country side, we always hesitated a bit to enter a restaurant. It was always a problem. As we would enter a restaurant, everyone would quickly rush to the back of the restaurant to avoid contact with the scary foreigners. As I approached them, they would either stare like a dear in the headlights, or they would start vigorously cleaning things, hoping that I would just leave. Sometimes we were doing dramatic gestures and attempts at communicating using our Cambodian phrasebook. Instead of helping the situation, it usually just caused widespread panic and confusion. We went through this over and over again, every time that we wanted to eat something.

When we finally met someone who was calm enough to look at us and listen, we would order a noodle soup (that's all there is to eat). Unfortunately for us, the deeper we got into the countryside the more strange the meat floating in our soup became. Sometimes we had so many vital organs floating around in our soup, that we could have probably created a new life form if we had stirred hard enough. So, after the long struggle for a meal, our meals were more for survival than for relishment.

City Life

Of the few cities that there are in Cambodia, they are crowded and chaotic. But, you can also find a clean bed and electricity, which meant the world to us after days and days of riding through little villages. Unlike in Thailand, we were relieved to find a tourist place. It meant that people wouldn't run away from us (one school teacher even dragged us to his school and made Amy sing Jingle Bells), we didn't have to eat organ soup, and we could cool down at night with a fan. It was like heaven!

Although traveling through this country was really dusty and not always fun, it was incredibly interesting and we wouldn't have had things any other way.

A Land of Contrast remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had to wear surgical masks inorder to breathe.

The last three days we spent making our way through the dirt cloud to Siam Riep to visit the Temples of Ankor. Despite the bad road, we were glad that we didn't have to take public transportation.

Actually, we have to say that we liked the route a lot. Along the way we saw lots of rural villages with folk music blasting from public speakers. We also saw people praying in the temples, happy naked children playing in drianage ditches, farmers hearding cows down the middle of the highway, and we got to taste some really strange tasting meats.

Now we are in Siam Riep and this morning we biked around the temples.

The coolest temples are the ones that are squashed by trees.

However, we had to go back to our hotel in the afternoon because the sun was starting show it's negative effects on Amy.

Dirt. It's what's for dinner. remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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As soon as we'd see one of these women motoring by us, Wim would yell, "GO,GO!", and then I was expected to pedal like hell. Sometimes it took half an hour to catch up with her, sometimes less. When we caught up, we were sweaty and gross, but for an ice cream (stuffed between sliced bread), it was always well worth the effort.

We are now past Bangkok and we will soon be in Cambodia. Of course, as you near a new country, people always start to warn you. We've heard a lot of warnings over the past 7 months, yet somehow....you always keep them in the back of your mind as you enter a new place, because you never know... they just might be true this time.

Cambodia warnings:

• The border gaurds/policemen will demand large bribes.
  
• They hate Americans and won't issue a visa for Amy.
  
• Fasten all of your bags to your bike so that passing mopeds won't snatch them.
  
• When you get robed, don't reach into your pockets, or they will shoot you.
  
• The roads are worse than in Indonesia.
  
• There are landmines everywhere.
  

With these well-wishings, we prepare for the next country, but our biggest concern is really: will there be ice cream ladies to keep us going strong?

Cold, Creamy Motivation remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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6:00 - We wake up and go as soon as there's light. During the afternoon, it can get up to 40 °C (104 °F), and it's hard not to overheat. (Wim cleverly cut apart two sombreros and attached them to our helmets for added sun protection) At 6am though, the heat is not as bad.

6:30 - We head for the morning market, which is packed with people cooking, buying, and socializing even before the sun rises. Here they sell everything you can imagine, and it's all made fresh right in front of you! Wim always searches out a breakfast full of legs and antennae, and I head for the curry stalls. Forget oatmeal, we've come to crave spicy fish curries in the morning.

7:00 - We start out. The roads have big shoulders, there is hardly any traffic, and limestone cliffs loom up around us.

Dogs chase us through the streets. Whole families shoot by on their little mopeds, all wearing big smiles and waving at us.

10:00 - Our first break. As soon as we get tired we search out a little shack to sit down for something cold to drink and something yummy to eat. Our search usually lasts about 2 minutes, because in Thailand almost every house is a restaurant, and they all make delicious food.

However, ordering is sometimes a problem. Despite my efforts to learn some thai, it is a tonal language, and so I seem to say everything wrong. One morning I went to a restaurant and asked for an iced tea with lime. Everyone in the restaurant broke into laughter, and when they finished they all just stared at me. No lime tea for us that day.....Also, the writing is different, so we can't read menus.

12:00 - Lunch.... if we are successful ordering it. Thai people always give us an honest price, so we don't have to ask the price before we eat, argue about the price after we eat, or fight for our change like we did in the Middle East. The people here are honest, helpful, and they always have a huge smile.

Once, as we approached a city, famished and looking for a restaurant, Wim quickly pulled into an empty restaurant on the side of the road. I said," No,no, let's go to that restaurant up the road where all of those people are." So, off we went. As we pulled up to the restaurant, a hoard of people were excitedly motioning to us to come and sit down to eat with them. It was sort of strange that they were so enthusiastic for us to eat at the restaurant, but we like enthusiastic people, so we sat down. Before we knew it, a man was bringing out plates and plates of food to our table. Everyone was laughing and excited. So you can imagine our surprise when we looked around to see a dead guy in a casket across the way. We had just crashed our first funeral.

1:00 - We bike our final kilometers in the afternoon, sometimes stopping because we are turning red and feeling woozey from the heat. We find a shady spot and munch mangos until our tummies hurt. The dogs even stop chasing us when it's this hot.

3:00 - We end our day early, find a clean, cheap room and head for the night market to stock up on weird fruits and yummy snacks (barbequed bananas, grilled lobster, rice blubber cakes, spicy chicken legs, fruit shakes). Then we have time to relax and explore the village. Thailand is so fantastic for bike touring, that we are enjoying ourselves more than ever before!

Our route:

From Malaysia we crossed the border on the hilly west coast, and are heading north towards Bankok. Along the way we plan out where we'd like to go next. Problem is that we don't know Thailand, so we relie on our Lonely Planet guide for advice. When they advise a 'paradise beach', we, like every other Lonely Planet guide owner (= everyone and their dog), get all excited and head out for that spot. As we approach this 'paradise beach', skin tones turn from brown to bright pink, restaurants start advertising english food and sauerkraut, people are leaping around in tiny speedos, no one is waving, and no one smiles. Suddenly it occurs to us.... we have entered.... Little Europe!

We have made this 'Little Europe' mistake a few times. We once even went as far as to buy a boat ticket to a 'paradise island'. As we sat in the waiting area for the ferry, hundreds of people started arriving in cattle cart busses. Panic stricken, I turned to Wim and said,"refund?" Before I could say another word, Wim was off returning our tickets. We biked off that day, and unexpectedly came upon a desserted beach. Twelve kilometers of white sand for Amy, Wim, a sunset and an ice cold pintje.

The road in between the tourist attractions is really the best place to be. Where else can you crash funerals, eat octopus on a stick, or ride with four people on a moped?

Fantastic Thailand remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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His name is David, he's from Malaysia, and he collects cyclists. Years ago he begun cycling around the world, and ever since he has been taking other cyclists into his home and showing them around his part of Malaysia. The moment that we stepped off the boat from Indonesia, David had us flying around town visiting temples, religious festivals

Chinese new years celebrations,

weddings,

fishing villages,

and tasting every food known to mankind.

The population in Malaysia is made up of Malay, Chinese, and Indian people. That being said, you can imagine the beautiful variety of temples, festivals, and foods that there are to experience in this clean, super friendly country.

We left David's house a whole lot fatter and a little bit wiser about this great country.

From David's house we biked our way over to Kuala Lumpur to meet Wim's mom and sister. We were so excited to have new people with us after so long, that we dumped our bikes in a hotel and ran off to explore the country by bus with them. We went on jungle hikes,

walked high up in the jungle canopy,

learned about Chinese medicine (you can come here to munch bats if you have asthma)

saw the fields where they grow tea,

and celebrated Chinese new year again and again.

Although we are really sad and alone now that our family has left, we're excited to start traveling by bike again. Long sweaty bus rides are incredibly tiring, completely unrewarding, and surprisingly not always so much faster than just riding your bike.

Tomorrow we begin pedaling our way north towards Thailand.

A vacation from our vacation remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Indonesians have a lot to deal with. Active volcanoes, floods, tsunamis, a corrupt government, disease, giant cockroaches, pollution, over population, poverty, tourist bombings, earthquakes and much more than you care to imagine.

All this is set in a dramatic, tropical, paradise-like landscape with mountains, monkeys, rice fields, and crater lakes. So you can well imagine that it makes an interesting, fun, and sad place to spend a month biking.

We chose to bike on the Sumatra island because we read that it wasn't as crowded as the Javanese island. What we didn't know was that all 40 million Sumatrans are linked together by one small overcrowded 2-lane "highway". Impossible to do by bike! For fear of death, we instead choose to head out with our bikes to the back roads of the country.

These "roads" ended up resembling riverbeds with giant boulders, or deep pools of mud, and we ended up biking most of the country at 5 km per hour (that is if we weren't pushing our bikes up hills or over huge rocks). Hoards of mopeds shared the road with us. Mopeds with restaurants on top, mopeds with large families pilled up, and mopeds with supermarkets attached. Their creativity was boundless!

Another challenge of biking here was that there are only inaccurate maps available. These maps are so bad that cities are connected with roads on the wrong side of the country. So, many times, we only had a vague idea of where we were going, and absolutely no clue how long it would take to get to the next village. You would think that you could just ask a local, right? Not in Indonesia. In a country where most people never leave their village, and there are no mileage markers along the road, estimations about distance often ranged from 10 to 200 km, or from one hour by bike to five hours by moped. We had to just pedal away and hope for the best.

As we went through little villages along the way, everyone said "hallo meeeeester", "howayou?" or "whereyougo?". Then, as soon as we stuck up a hand to wave or said hello in reply, hysterical laughter would break out all over the village. At first we thought that it was our fantastic new monsoon gear... but then they still laughed when we took it off. If we stopped for lunch, we had a huge audience. People found us eating with a fork even more exciting than the soaps they had been watching on TV! It was hard not to let all the popularity go to our heads.

Food is so cheap (0.5-1 euro), delicious and abundant that we have been eating out three times a day. The minute that you get an inkling of hunger, all you have to do is pull to the side of the road and ask for some spicy noodle soup. You just can't think too hard about where it comes from. This is because all of the water that is used comes straight from the river, and all used water goes directly back into the same river. This includes water for washing, for drinking, for cooking, and for the toilet. Often villagers could be seen down by the river washing dishes, showering, using the restroom, or collecting water for the kitchen. When eating out, it's better not to look at the map to see if their are any large cities upstream.

One evening, while drinking a river-tea in a hut near the river, a bunch of teenagers became all aflutter as they saw batches of fish floating by, belly up. They all jumped in the river to catch what they could for dinner. Someone up stream had been cyanide fishing. The locals reassured us however that cyanide only kills fish, and that we needn't worry about ourselves. I can say that we enjoyed our tea even less than usual that day.

Riding through the jungle is magical, with all of it's oversized life-forms, and the constant musical chatter coming from the trees. Along the way we often spot monkeys, giant lizards, big creepy insects, and of course there is an ever present cloud of mosquito's around Wim. Camping here in the thick jungle is impossible though, at least without a chainsaw.

Our hearts go out to the Indonesians, even though they laughed at us. They are gentle, honest people and half of them look like really cool rock stars. They really do deserve a functioning government and a better life.

Biking Boulet-Boulets remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Because of the tourist bombings in the past, we are not allowed to ride our bikes independently from Luxor to the first oasis Kargha. We have to pay a 4WD to go with the obligatory police convoy. So, early in the morning a dozen policemen leap into a tiny little car to follow our 4WD into the desert. Within seconds our driver and the policemen are racing down the road, cutting each other off, and of course laughing hysterically. After a while, we are going so fast that we leave the policemen in the dust, never to be seen again. So much for the convoy.

Kargha to Dakhla, 190 km, Day 1 - 3

Kargha is a quiet town, full of tourist police. Every time we pass one of the police on our bikes, they wave, ask where we're going, and then radio to their police friends 100 meters further along the road. One hundred meters further, their friends repeat the same procedure, and we very slowly make our way to our hotel.

After finding the hotel, we go shopping for supplies for our first desert crossing which will be 190 km. A group of three curious policemen join us on our shopping trip, quietly staring over our shoulder at each thing that we buy. In the end we have 20 liters of water, and three days of bland food (canned stuff and dry bread). Our bikes are so heavy, it is hard to steer them. We go to bed tonight excited to be out in the desert alone, but a little nervous too.

Day 1
In the morning we sign a paper telling the police not to follow us outside the oasis, and we head out into the desert!!!! We are so excited that we are singing and making up stupid poems as we go along. The landscape is wonderful, and there's nobody trying to sell us anything. We are in heaven. Soon though, a strong wind picks up and we spend the rest of the day taking turns fighting the wind. We don't make it very far, but we are exhausted by 2pm and set up camp behind a sand dune and fall asleep really early.

Day 2 - 3
The next two days are a piece of cake with no wind and beautiful scenery. This is absolutely the best part of our bike trip yet! We reach the Dakhla oasis in no time! In the oasis, there are farmers working on their lush green fields, with stark, dry mountains off in the distance. It takes us hours to ride through the oasis, just because it's so beautiful and interesting that we just don't ride very fast. We're too busy looking around. That night we reach a cute little Egyptian town at the end of the Oasis.

As we are walking through the palm trees and mud houses, a man invites us to have tea with him in his house. However, Wim is convinced that the man wants to scam us. I convince Wim to give the guy a chance, with many hopes that there are still good Egyptian people left in this world. So we head in, only to be shown some of the man's artwork. We both think,"oh no, here we go again! He wants us to buy something, and then he's going to be mad when we don't". How wrong we were! Badr's artwork was not for sale! He just wanted to have tea and talk with us! We felt really guilty but also relieved to meet someone with genuinely good intentions.

Dakhla to Farafra, 300 km, Day 4 - 8

Getting ready for the next 5 day, 300km, journey into the desert is a bit harder. We really have to pack our panniers with a ton of food, and we reckon on 22 liters of water. Not everything fits into the panniers, and we strap extra bottles of water on top of our tent bag. Our bikes are starting to resemble utility vehicles! After loading everything on, Wim's bike tips over, and the stand cracks off. Off we go!

Day 4 - 5
The first days we have really strong headwinds, and spend the whole day pushing against the wind until we are exhausted. At night, we don't sleep well because it's too cold, and our sleeping bags are not warm enough. We try to compensate by wearing every piece of clothing that we own, but we are still in bed at 5:30 shivering when the sun goes down. In the morning we wake up before dawn, stuff a few dates in our pockets for breakfast, put dirty socks on our hands for the cold, and start going in order to do as many kilometers as possible before the wind starts up later in the morning. By 2pm each day, we're exhausted and have to stop.

Day 6 - 7
On the 3rd day we are starting to worry that we won't make it in 5 days. The problem being that we don't have enough food or water to last us any longer. Also, Wim gets sick! The loneliness of the desert is a bit intimidating...no houses, no people, no cell phone reception, and not enough food and water to afford a resting day. We can't expect to get any help. Despite all of our bad luck though, the landscape is magnificent and our camping spots are amazing. At night there is absolutely no noise. Nothing lives in this desert. There isn't any vegetation, and thus no birds, lizards, and shockingly enough not even a puny cockroach! Camping in such quiet, with a million stars over your head, makes you quickly forget that you are shivering and miserable.

Day 8
Wim feels awful and lets me do all the work fighting the wind. We survive the whole day on the last pieces of dried up bread that we have left. When we finally reach Farafra late on the fifth day, we are out of food, our drinking bottles completely empty, and we need a lot of well deserved rest.

Farafra is a dusty Egyptian town with mud houses and no tourists. Despite the quiet atmosphere in the town, we again have police bodyguards that sit outside of our hotel room the whole time that we stay there. Achmed, who is on night duty, becomes our friend and spends long evenings with us in our hotel room. He is quite depressed because his father said, " Achmed, you marry cousin and make many babies." Achmed however, is not interested in marrying his cousin, mainly because it is so expensive for him. Traditionally, during the first year of engagement, the man has to send many expensive gifts to the girl. This is totally ruining the poor guy, and he is really interested to find out that Belgian/American women are cheap to marry.

Farafra to Baharyya, 200 km, Day 13 - 15

Our last desert stretch.

Day 13
The first day, the winds start up at 8am. By 1pm, we are so exhausted that we have to stop. Since there is no shelter, Wim constructs a clever wind stopper out of the ground cover of our tent and our bikes. Warm and out of the wind, I begin to cook up our last potato's. All of a sudden the bike, the windscreen and a large sand dune fall on top of me and our dinner. Neither of us had really eaten so much sand before, but after an intense day of biking, it actually wasn't so bad.

Day 14
The wind started up early again today, but by 12am the wind is so strong that we can hardly push our bikes up the hill by walking. Biking is just not possible any more. Flying sand is stinging our faces, and we quickly find shelter in a small shepard's hut alongside the road. Our miles are not going very quickly and we again are worried that we will not have enough food to get us to the next oasis if we don't make better progress. So, we decide to wait until dark, when the wind calms down a bit, and ride by the light of the full moon.

At 7pm, the moon is out, the wind is a bit better and we start off into the darkness. It is an eerie, and slightly creepy experience to be riding by the light of the moon, surrounded by stars and sand dunes. After completing another 30 km, we finally stop for another shivery night.

Day 15
We set an alarm clock to wake up before dawn again, to beat the wind. We have no idea how many kilometers we have left because all of the road signs seem to have contradicting millage postings. The wind quickly picks up and our spirits are at an all time low. But, like my father says, "nothing too good, or too bad ever lasts too long." How right that is. After 30 km, we all of the sudden reach our last oasis and we settle into a nice hotel, for a good day and a half sleep.

Looking back at our trip, it was really hard and miserable. But, at the same time, it was really our favorite part of our trip until now. Strange how it always works out like that. For the last leg of the trip to Cairo, we stuff ourselves into a minibus again, and make our way into slightly less picturesque Cairo.

Throughout our trip, Egyptians have ripped us off, treated us like cattle, shown us hospitality and friendship and in general confused us and worn us out. However, I have to say, that this was an incredibly interesting and tiring land to visit. Egyptians are smiley people who love joking and making a lot of noise. They will rip you off in their store, but turn around and ask them for help, and before you know it the whole village is passionately discussing your dilemma. And they will not quit until you have what you are looking for. All in all, we're happy to have come, and we're happy to be leaving.

Western Desert remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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As we left Aqaba, we were both excited to make a small detour through Israel. We'd heard horror stories about security and we were imagining the exciting change from turbans and mustaches to yamakas and beards. With the strange, shocking history of the country, we were looking forward to taking a glimpse at the people that made it all happen. As we came up on the border, which looked like a fortress, with barded wire, cameras, and watch towers, we were properly impressed. The inside was like an airport, strewn with pictures of Clinton and we had to unload everything, take our bikes apart, and then stuff everything through an ex-ray machine. Highly suspect was our camp stove and we thought that they were about to confiscate it. After convincing the guard that we weren't there to blow up anything up, they let us free. As it has become a habit, Wim waved and started yelling goodbyes as we left, much to the confusion of everyone there. As we left, it was a big shock...

Everyone was white and pastey like us! A little piece of Europe in the middle of the Arab world. As we rode through the super modern streets, strewn with chain stores, clean bathrooms, and fast food joints, we became confused and worried. Nobody was honking or hanging out of car windows to welcome us. It was all so clean and cold. Like home. We then realized that we didn't want to go home yet. As we entered Egypt, just one hour later, we were greeted enthusiastically by the guards who made sure that we were married and planning to have children soon.

The Red Sea Coast of the Sinai is a dream. Warm weather, cheap food, cozy restaurants and hotels on the sea, friendly people and world famous diving. Just the tourists are missing. Riding down the coast was like riding through a gigantic ghost town. Very eerie. Huge, hollywood style resorts... but no one to be seen. Aparently a bomb a few years ago scared off all of the Isrealis. Now the Egyption government tries to make tourists feel safe by setting up police checkpoints every few kilometers so that they can check all foriegners passports.

In one of those lonely towns we found a campsite. That night, we stayed there and Wim asked a young guy named Siad if he could plug in the charger at the restaurant. It was no problem until the next morning when it was gone. No one knew anything, so we figured that we'd just file a police report and continue on, no big deal. Obviously, this struck fear into the hearts of everyone there. "Manager coming... five minute please please please" they said as everyone rushed around in a panic. (5 minutes Egyptian = 2 hours Western) After quite a wait, the manager showed up. In trying to keep us from going to the police, he kindly offered that Siad pay us for a new charger. How very kind... we were just a bit confused about the situation because the manager was yelling in Arabic, and Siad was now sitting in a corner full of doom and self pity. After inquiring further, we found out that our charger was worth Siads full month wage. But the very kind manager kept telling us," That's not your problem!" Anyway, we agreed to just leave without stealing Siad's wage, or filing with the police, and everyone was so happy that they began showering us with gifts and smiles. We felt really bad.

Foreigners are not allowed to travel independantly in some areas of Egyps, because Egyptians are supposedly dangerous. If the police catch you at one of the many checkpoints, they stick you into a van, with armed soldiers who point their guns at the villagers, and they race you to "safe" tourist sites for a heavy fee. This scares the tourists because of the insane driving, and it also scares the villagers who are having guns pointed at them. So, we ended up having to take a bus from the southern part of the Sinia to Luxor, where we will begin our tour of the Oases!

Negotiating our way through Egypt remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Bastard children

"Welcome!" was a phrase that shot out at us from every direction as we biked through villages as well as seemingly empty landscapes. Sometimes it was coming from someone on a rooftop, other times it was from the lady buried under a burka, and sometimes it just seemed to have come from some goat on the side of the road. Unfortuenately though, dealing with Jordanians is not always farts and giggles. You see, normally, after a long haul in the wilderness, it is refreshing and interesting to show up in a little village. Here though, small children and teenage boys congragate in large packs and eagerly wait for us in each village (I think that they communicate between villages). As soon as they see a bike, it triggers some deep primal instinct and the rocks start flying. As you get closer, they start to leap on your bike, kick you, and if they're old enough, grope for a handfull of boob. God help you if they have a car.... But, Wim put it into perspective when he said," In ten years from now those same kids will be asking us to join them for tea." And it is true, grown up Arabic people are great.

The one thing that we've learned while traveling through this country

If you are in trouble, have money problems, or are lost in the desert, don't ask your mom for help, first find an Arab (sorry mom). These people will go completely out of their way to help a complete stranger. As our friend Mohammed said, "Book of Muslim speak, man have problem, I problem help." How true that is... This is Mohammed (ex-jihad fighter in Iraq!), who took us into his home, fed us breakfast lunch and dinner, took us to all of the sights and tried to convince us to stay another day and afterwards send him our friends from Belgium. It was great fun eating Bedouin style on the floor with our fingers!

Wierd gender relations

Mohammed felt sad that in the west women do not get much respect. In his culture, men show respect for women by avoiding eye contact, as well as physical and social contact, with women they don't know. Women and men do not shake hands or sit next to each other. They also don't date before marraige. Women in turn show respect by covering up. Thus you can imagine the horrible cultural misunderstandings that come up when you see giggley tourists in bikinis having a chat with some young local guys. Thus, in trying to prove that she was not the stereotype of a loose western women, Amy always covered up, avoided too much eye contact with men, and let Wim do most of the initial socializing. That was really weird...

Burkas for Amy and Wim

After biking around like two greaseballs, layered in multiple days of sunscreen, we had to convert to the local way of sun protection with some make shift burkas. Wim always says that it makes him feel like a little old Polish woman. I think that he looks more like ET.

With the sun out of our eyes, we can now enjoy the barren and dramatic desert landscapes. The kings Highway, which is actually a peaceful old trading route, leads through steep canyons, rolling hills and lunar desert landscapes. It was often the case that we gained well over a kilometer in altitude during a days ride. In the end, we were rewarded with a breathtaking 100 km downhill stretch towards the coral packed red sea.

Along the King's Highway

We floated in the dead sea (if you were wondering what it is like to be a cork, you can find out here).

Along with everyone else, the police yell, "shy, shy" (tea) as we ride by. (We always make sure to stop for a few shys during a long desert ride). They always tell us that King Abdullah and the police like Belgium.

Elections are coming up, so it was sometimes hard to read the road signs.

We now realize how unimpressive the caves in Turkey were. Two thousand years ago, some really passionate cave dweller carved this major piece of artwork out of a single rock. Duuuuude....

We're now spending a week in the warm Red Sea, getting certified in diving so that we can visit the Jordanian fish as well.

Welcome to Jordan remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Goodbye Turkey.

• Goodbye land of Ataturk and Islam, where devout muslims like to assure you that they are not living in an Islamic state.

• Goodbye cafes full of old men.... and amy.

• Goodbye enthusastic yelling locals, trying to show you the way, even when you didn't ask and they don't know where you're going.

• Goodbye waiters who freeze and go bug eyed when you refuse your after dinner tea.

• Goodbye policemen who honk and wave and stop us to ask how many gears we've got.

• Goodbye wierd yummy candy things.

• Goodbye potato farmers, who grow silly with excitement at the thought of loading potato sacks into our paniers, I'm sorry we pedaled by so incredibley fast...

• Goodbye prayer guys who blast us from the mosque each morning with their pumped up sound systems.

• Goodbye to the big meaty dogs that tried to nibble on our heels, only running off when we pretended to throw large rocks.

• Goodbye yogurt.

• Goodbye curious hoards of old men, who gather around our bikes the minute we stop and start fideling with things, honking the horn, and poking our speedometers.

• Goodbye roadside turks who yell at us and do the "tea gesture", I'm sorry that we pretended not to know what you meant most of the time.

• Goodbye stray cats that made a game each night of trying to pee on our tent and attack our food paneirs.

• Goodbye Turkey, we will always remember your people when we are feeling greedy or unfriendly...and we'll try be more Turkish.

Goodbye Turkey.

Having said our goodbyes and boxed up our bikes, we're flying off to...

JORDAN!!! The only country that will let Amy in...

Goodbye Turkey remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So we've been hiking, biking and camping in and around this amazingly beautiful area for the past days. Here are some photos to make you jealous:

We slept in one of the caves in this big rock! This was very, very cool. People have scraped out cute little homes from the soft volcanic rock. Even the table, chairs and cabinets are carved out of the rock!

Christians used to hide out in this area during around the 11th century and they carved out huge cathedral sized churches and painted the insides. You can walk through any unpopulated valley and explore these abandoned old structures.

We also saw an underground city which was like a big swiss cheese carved out underneath a little village. Up to 10.000 people used to live to escape invading armies.

Wim going off of the edge of a cliff.

uncanny resembelance, eh?

This place is littered with ruins...very interesting indeed.

Of course we keep meeting old guys and drinking tea....

Too much to see, too little time remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had also looked up information about all documents needed to collect before applying for this most elusive visa. Documents from three different embassies were nessicary. Yes, it looked like an impossible task. We braced ourselves as we traveled by tram around Istanbul searching for the Belgian and American embassy. Any moment we expected the dreaded,"I´m sorry sir, we only issue this document on the third Thursday of the second month of the lunar calendar from 2pm until 2:05pm" or some other typical embassy scheduling. However, by noon of our first day, after five hours of inter-city travel, we had managed to get the two letters from our home governments inviting the honourable Indian embassy to give us a visa. We went out for lunch to celebrate this near impossible achievement. One embassy to go and we were set!

Soon we arrived at a crappy little apartment labeled "Indian embassy" with an obnoxious little man standing outside the door telling us that the office was only open for visas in another five days. After a lot of discussion, we were allowed to go upstairs, only to learn from an important looking man that the Indian embassy probably wouldn't accept the paperwork form the american embassy. One of the sentences was incorrect and it would be impossible to let Amy into their country. After lookıng at the paperwork we realized that the American embassy had written in nice diplomatic language, "Dear Indian embassy, you requested a stupid paper, screw you". We discussed and discussed and the man thought and thought and squished up his face a lot and then thought some more, disappearing every once in a while to talk with some other important guy. Soon the answer came back. They just could not accept the incorrect american paper, and the american embassy won't provide the correct one.

At this Wim began to dramatically exclaim that India was CLOOOOOOSED. Each time that he proclaimed this, along with exagerrated gestures, the important guy´s face contorted in greater and greater agony and we really thought that we were getting somewhere. But in the end India was indeed closed for Amy (the photo above shows all countries that are not possible for Americans to travel in without visa problems). The best advice from the Indian embassy was that we fly to Saudi Arabia and try again there. But since we are not filthy rich and famous, we just made other (and perhaps more exciting!) travel plans.

India CLOOOOOOOSSED remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We didn't know really what to expect from Turkey when we first got here. Honestly, I thought that it was an underdeveloped country, maybe a bit dirty, maybe a bit unsafe. As we road through our first village our presumptions were confirmed as we saw endles rows of grumpy old men outside cafes, just sitting, not drinking, not eating, just sitting. Apparently they couldn't even afford something to sip on to pass the time.

As we past through one little town, we decided to stop and have some tea. As we slowed down, we were suddenly approached by a huge group of men, who were just coming out of the mosque. The Iman came rushing to us, along with all of his curious followers, demanding to know about us and our trip and of course if we were hungry, thirsty, tired, in need of anything. We had just eaten, so we tried to convince them that we were completely self-reliant and independant, no help needed. Well, the Iman was eager to show us his mosque, so we headed in, took off our shoes, and treaded in with our stinky feet over the beatiful rugs, to see our first mosque. It was beautiful inside! Ornate paintings, soft rugs, and lots of light coming in the windows.

As we were leaving, they ask us to follow to a small building on the side of the mosque, and before we knew it, one of the farmers had brought in a feast! A huge tray of fresh salads, filled peppers, cheese, turkish coffee, and yogurt. They all sat there eagerly watching to see if we liked what we were eating. The same people that we saw sitting sadly in the cafes, with not a penny to spend on something to drink were feeding us like kings!

That is when we found out that it was the month of Ramadan. The month where Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours. How silly of us! And how open minded of them to want to treat a bunch of infedels to a juicey turkish feast, when they were probably starving. After finishing our feast, another one of the farmers disappears and came back with some Turkish baklava to end our meal. When all was said and done, they packed up the extras and sent us on our way with many handshakes and smiles. Since our first day, I have to say that we have been really impressed with the great openess, enthusiasm, and acceptance of us as foreigners that we've seen in the Turkish people.

We are now really excited because Ramadan has just ended and we don't have to hide so much when we eat during the day (just out of respect for the really hungry people). Now, we spend a lot of time drinking tea with old guys, and our teeth are also getting that nice golden brown tinge. We are so enthusiastic about it, that we even bought our very own turkish tea making set. Amy learned to count to 100 (Wim is also trying hard, and has mastered 1, 2 and 5). As you can see, we are quickly becoming Turkish.

Apart from the great people, Turkey is a beautiful country. We've been riding so far in zigzags along the coast, in between the vineyards (Turkey has great wine) and olive trees. The steep climbs and dry mountains to one side and ocean on our other side, make for dramatic gorgeous scenery

and great wild camping opportunities! There's nothing like waking up in the morning and having breakfast on a lonely beach as the sun comes up, or having a romantic dinner on a deserted pier.

Over the past few days we've taken some serious time off to relax and enjoy this place. A break from biking for a few days feels great, and we have been enjoying the more well known touristy side of Turkey, with a big resort, yummy buffets, and belly dancers. However, the road is calling and we will soon be happily off again to explore a bit of the mountainous interior.

By the way, thank you to all of you who have left comments. It always boosts our spirits to hear that you're following our progress!

Brown teeth and ocean views remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We're now in Bulgaria and it's a lot more modern than we expected! It is like Belgium, except that everything is a whole lot cheaper and the roads aren't busy at all.

The highway for us alone!

We just past over our first mountian range, and we're really proud of ourselves, and also quite tired. It has been beautiful along the route with the varied landscape of mountains, valleys, and now a drier hilly landscape as we approach Turkey.

People are still as friendly as they were in Romania, only now we don't have a farmer milking his cow for us, but instead the hotel manager who drove us to town and treated us to dinner.

Our plan now is to spend October in Turkey, working our way down to Izmir. One month is way too much time for this distance, so we are going to slow down, try to stay on a farm somewhere, find some nice little sea-side towns to relax in, and just enjoy being in Turkey. Then we are planning to take a boat to Egypt and spend the month of November biking down the Nile in between camels and pyramids. After that we plan to take a boat to India. But, as you've probably gathered by now, our plans change daily.

Modern Bulgaria remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our first day in Romania, we we came in late and were a bit worried about camping, so we stayed in a hotel. We had heard rumours from many Serbians that Romanians eat their children and that we had better just fly over the country on our way to Turkey. How wrong they are. Then again, I might say the same thing about Texans.

In the beginning of our tour through the country, we had dramatic rolling hills next to the Danube river valley, cozy mountian villages, and one really neat falling apart castle.

As we went through the valley, you could hear the monks chanting. It was a beautiful to just stand there and listen. It really touched Wim's inner monk.

For the rest of the time we have been traveling through tiny little farming towns. Each city is just a row of houses along one long street, busy with farmers riding around in their horse pulled carts. You actually see more of these carts than cars. It makes this a superb place for bike touring!

Each night we find a good place to camp out in the fields, after asking a farmer for permission. Here, farmers are not inside playing video games like they are back home. They are actually out working, sitting on a bench, having a picnic. Therefore, it is really easy to find people, and the atmosphere within the cities is quite cozy.

I have to admit that we have been very humbled by the sincere generousity of these people. Often, as Wim is setting up our tent, and I am standing there thinking about stealing chocolate from Wim, a farmer will come over and offer us his watermelons (one guy gave us six melons, quite a load for our bikes!) coffee, grapes, warm milk, fresh cheese, and everything else you can imagine.

This little old farmer in the background, even came back to us after dark with his lantern and horse to give us fresh cheese and bread and some warm milk! All this just because we are camping on his land. It is really amazing, and we often feel almost embarrased because we feel that we really don't deserve these things. I often reflect on these moments and plan to be less greedy with my chocolate in the future.

In little villages we can't find tap water! We're glad that our water filter has finally come in handy.

After setting up our tent at night, we cook dinner, while looking out over the fields. There are horses running untethered through the fields, owls hunting, foxes that sneakily zip by, and the occasional shepherd. It's just fantastic!

We leave Romania now with a heavy heart. (If Wim doesn't watch out, I will run off with one of those cute little old Romanian farmers) But we are excited to head off towards Bulgaria and see what it has to offer.

God bless Romania remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Many people have said that they are surprised and happy to see tourists coming through the area, because it has been so long since anyone visited the country. Everyone seems to feel that the world has a very bad image of their country, and therefore they can't wait to explain to us what a great nation they are. The low-budget Serbian MTV only shows little fat men in funny traditional clothes playing the accordion and singing about how Kosovo is a part of Serbia.

We are now in Belgrade taking a much needed rest. It is not really cheap here because the exchange rate of the Dinar is controlled. So hotels are expensive, but food is incredibly cheap. Six Euros for an excellent 40cm pizza and 35 Euros for a small dirty hotel.

A sign in our hotel letting us know the different frequencies of sirens in different types of disasters. We can then easily distinguish between a nuclear bomb, our building crumbling to the ground, and an air strike. Very good!

Serbians are even more generous and persistent in offering us drinks and fruit than Croatians.

Every other stop we make, we have to load our panniers with generous gifts. Therefore, we are also not buying any more fruit. We have so many grapes, peaches, and walnuts, plus one liter of vodka, that we can hardly get up any hills. When we finally try to get leave and be on our way again, the people we visit always make sure to give us their address, so that when we can write them a nice postcard.

People also like to honk and wave at us. However, it can get old really fast when large trucks and cars are honking at you from all sides of the road.

Tomorrow we will be off again, this time taking a random road to the north of the Danube, in hopes of avoiding the heavy traffic and crazy honking. There are hardly any towns on that side of the river, and with no hopes of crossing (maybe we could pay a fisherman?), it means that we are going to have to stock up on food, and get ready to start filtering Danube water. After a day or two, depending on the road conditions, we will be heading into Romania for another 1000 or so km. From what we have read, Romania is very poor, with mostly farming and hardly any hotels, shops, or restaurants. If you want some food, you have to ask a farmer. If we want a place to set up our tent, we will have to ask a farmer. It will be really cool though, just like Europe hundred of years ago!

Serbia remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Houses and buildings are crumbling and full of bullet holes. You see this on TV, and somehow it just doesn't touch you like it does when it's staring you in the face. The houses are either brand new, under construction, or full of bullet holes.

We carefully stay on the road, as huge areas have these weird signs against wild camping.

The landscape is becoming hilling, and it is really fun to discover a cute sleepy town when you arrive at the top of a hill. Everyone has a damn rooster though, so it's hard to sleep. You would think in the past thousands of years that people have been breeding these obnoxious animals, that they would have developed a breed of quiet roosters.

Each day, we buy lunch supplies and find a nice grassy spot to eat lunch. In Germany, this was often a problem, because the grassy spot often ended up being owned by someone, who would pass by and tell us to leave, and that it was not meant as a "picnic area". Fair enough, I wouldn't want any bums snacking away on my lawn either. But In Croatia, it is different. Many people have a bench out in front of their house, and we have been using these for our lunch breaks. Each time we do though, some old guy comes out, offers us coffee, vodka, and then starts picking fruit from his garden to fill our panniers with.

This always takes a long time, but often proves to be interesting, even though we can only communicate in grunts and gestures. People brew their own schnapps, and are very persistent in sharing it with us. This guy gave us a one liter Coca Cola bottle filled with schnapps for on the road. According to him, it would make us strong for pedaling up the hills.

Things are getting more interesting remains copyright of the author amyandwim, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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