Staying with Sasan Azidi – Isabelle gets a Make-over

We left Yazd for Shiraz following an amazing mountain road over some high passes (2500m). Half way there lives a farmer who before the revolution was a competitive cyclist.
His name is Sasan and his family have a large farm where he grows, apricots, plums, grapes, pomegranate and wheat. He also has free range chickens and a few goats and sheep.

His father was one of the Shah’s secret police but unfortunately died only 4 weeks ago so despite hearing lots about him on the internet and from other cyclists we didn’t get a chance to meet him.
 

Sasan’s nieces are all hairdressers and were visiting for the day so Isabelle was taken away for a makeover which was done full Iranian style with all the subtlety of a punch in the face.


They were lovely but had some very funny ideas about Europe and the States thinking that compared to Iran everywhere else was like living in paradise and that no-one ever has any problems and that everyone has all the plastic surgery they could ever dream of. We’d like to thank Sasan and his family for the lovely food and the great hospitality that they showed us, everyone was so friendly and his 16 year old son’s English will be fantastic if he keeps getting practice with tourists. Sasan is a wonderful character and most of his views are unprintable which makes for some entertaining conversations.

As for Isabelle, doesn’t she look lovely, so natural!!
Please comment if you have any opinions or would like me to send you copies.

Cycling Perfection – odometer delights

An odometer seems an odd name for a cycling computer and most people would surely guess that it measures smelliness or some other such nonsense, but each day we watch as the numbers change, the distance rolls by and the speed rises and falls marking our progress across the world.
We have different ways of using it, I have to put mine on maximum speed so it gives me no information about my (lack of) progress unless I choose to press the buttons. I can meditate along and forget the huge distance I need to ride to find food or shelter. With my mathematical brain I find myself calculating times of arrival at this speed or working out how fast I need to ride if I am to get somewhere before dark. I would rather not know.

Isabelle on the other hand has her odometer on the distance for the day, something which I find intensely annoying (although I do like to look every hour or so)
As we get further into our journey we find ourselves getting excited by daily distances of 100 km or more, or the major milestones of 1000 km, 2000 km, 3000 km etc.
This nerdy obsession has developed into an attempt to reach a kind of odometer paradise where all numbers on the screen are identical. I will explain……..
6 digit perfection
Method 1: Cycle at 6.6 km/hr when the distance for the day is on 66.66 km. This is relatively easy as the opportunity occurs most days although there is only a 10m window of opportunity. Attained TWICE!
Method 2: Travel at 9.9 km/hr when the total distance for our whole trip is 999.9 km. This was the first 6 digit odometer heaven that I reached.
6 digit perfection just left me and Isabelle hungry for even higher achievements……
7 digit perfection 
Method 1: 33.3 km/hr when the total distance is 333.3 km…..easy!
Method 2: 6.6 km/hr when the total distance is 6666.6 km…even easier!
8 digit perfection
Method 1: Cycle at 22.2 km/hr when the total distance is 2222.2 km. ACHIEVED!! I can hear your cheers. It wasn’t difficult!
Method 2: The holy grail of 8 digit heaven is the following: 111.11 km in one day travelling at 11.1 km/hr. We have had many opportunities to reach this target but it is almost impossible. We’ve had near misses, 111.11 km at 11.2 km/hr was my closest, but 10m is such a short window of opportunity to achieve this giddy target. We’ve practised cycling at 11.1 km/hr just so that when the distance is right we are ready to achieve……but we’ve always failed……….until yesterday!!
I am very proud to announce that as I approached Samarkand on March 27th 2009 I reached true odometer nirvana and on a slight climb (which I feel helped) was able to cycle at 11.1 km/hr at the exact moment that the total distance for the day reached 111.11 km. Passing cars would have wondered why the crazy cyclist was punching the air and whooping with excitement, but they had no idea of the number of failed attempts that we have both had. 111.11 km is a long way with a fully loaded bike and it doesn’t take much to break your spirit when you fail to reach your 8 digit goal. It was worth all the disappointment though when I finally succeeded. I can sleep easily now, instead of tossing and turning dreaming of the previously unattainable.
As I am sure all you high achieving readers have also found in life, when you reach the pinnacle of success, it can feel as though the future can only get worse.
What is there left to cycle for? Should we give up and fly home?
9 digit perfection
There will never be a better daily target but there is a way of having more digits:
We will have to wait a while before we have a chance of reaching this target….11,111.1 km while cycling at 11.1 km/hr.
I’m excited and salivating at the thought of it. A whole 100m to achieve it does however make it a little less exciting. I might even have a chance of taking a photo of it…..digitally preserved for ever! (The picture above is digitally enhanced just to help you feel a little of the pleasure that I felt – I hope it helps)

Crazy Christians all over Nepal – Plymouth Brethren skulking about

We've had an absolutely ridiculous and amazing experience here in Bardia, we cycled from Pokhara the 600km to Bardia and as we arrived back at B's place – 'Bardia Hideaway Cottage' he had a minibus arrive with 5 guests, 1 Nepali, 1 Russian and 3 Americans. We were very pleased for him because they took a room each and with the place being nearly full we offered to stay in one of the half finished rooms.


We chatted to them a little that night, but to be honest we spent most of our time with B and Kali and their family, so didn't come up with a firm opinion of what the guests were like, apart from that they were a bit evasive about why they were here...'running some conferences', 'organising some meetings'. We assumed they were probably from an NGO and thought nothing of them.


The next morning we were awoken by the most amazing sounds coming from the room nearest ours. Because we were in the unfinished room, it hadn't had the glass put in the windows yet and just had mosquito netting, so the sound was enough to wake us up......


We could hear the sound of chanting, but not just any old chanting, they were 'speaking in tongues'!!

We woke up and lay there amazed as they waffled on ' kdinga parabaraaaaa ambatrakiboo nidiboopee...etc'



This wasn't just a short thing, the whole thing went on for about an 45 minutes, with various crescendo's and sometimes a bit of wailing or singing interspersing the constant nonsense that was coming out of their mouths....'odoriniko spedibooki inorinoo....' (I quote!)


Every now and then there would be a voice that said something in English such as:

'We take dominion over Satan'

'Help us fight the powers of evil, destroy your enemies, Oh Lord!!!'

'Give us strength Oh Lord, to believe, to have no doubts, to have the confidence to preach'

'Protect Pastor Bill and give us the power to succeed today'

We just lay in bed giggling, yet slightly scared...and then got out the sound recorder to see how well it could record them – the sound was good. We left our room before they had finished and went to see B and Kali and all the Nepalese builders who had arrived by now to finish some of the roofs. They all thought that the men were speaking a foreign language and it was almost impossible to convince them that it was just nonsense...'speaking in tongues' They couldn't stop laughing when me and Isa did our own little bit just to show them how easy it was (in fact we continued to do this every now and then for the next week or so)


Eventually the nutters came out of the room, completely unaware that we could hear them so easily. Then they had their breakfast and went off in their white van to their 'conference'. We were glad to see them go and spent ages trying to tell B and Kali what they were....crazy christian nutters!


That night they came back late and sat right outside our room unaware that we had gone to bed at 7.30 and proceeded to talk about their day. Two of them immediately rushed off to have showers because 'I'm burning inside from all the witchcraft that I've seen today in the villages'. We lay there absolutely fascinated (and even more scared) listening to them for the next couple of hours.

They were bragging to each other about how they weren't allowed to be in Nepal but that they had come in as tourists, they talked about other countries that they were visiting on their 6 week trip: Bhutan, Cambodia, Vietnam. They bragged about the fact that to get round restrictions in Bhutan they had bought up a local travel agent so that they could go freely into the country. They kept saying to the Nepalese guy that 'You Nepalese need to sort out your government!'


They were patronising to B's staff as they brought them their food, knowing that they didn't understand English very well, they'd say things like 'Did you go and get this water from the river... boy?' and laugh a lot as he walked off. The atmosphere was one of bigotry and superiority....horrible!!!! They kept calling each other 'Brethren' so we assumed that they were Plymouth Brethren.


They insisted on having two hot showers a day each, seemingly unaware that B and Kali were waking up at 4am to start boiling the water that they were demanding. They bitched about the food on the first night and went on and on about how much better food was in the US. We were relieved when they finally went to bed because their conversation reflected the obviously ridiculously sheltered world that they came from.


The following morning we were woken up by the same nonsense (which we recorded) and off they went again in their white van. That night we had to listen to them bitching about the Russian and then slagging off the Nepalese guy when he wasn't there. Horrible messed up people meddling with other people's lives in countries that have their own proud traditions and religions.


There's a bit of a history of Christian missionaries meddling in other countries and creating huge problems, for example the First Indian War of Independence (called the Indian Mutiny by the British) was largely created by the fear that the British were going to convert all the Hindu sepoys to Christianity; Bush's 10 years of nonsense was largely down to the support of the Christian right, and their meddling stopped all US government funding to hospitals or doctors that promoted condoms as a form of contraception rather than the Christian method of abstinence. Millions of extra Aids deaths later Obama almost immediately revoked the decision; the same nutty Christians are behind the whole anti-evolution nonsense of 'Intelligent Design' and they're preying on the dalits (lower castes) of the sub continent who think that they're being offered something that will help them escape the prejudices of the Hindu caste system.


The morning that they were leaving they forced Kali, B and Bina into a room with them (they were too polite to refuse) and proceeded to do the same weird service that woke us up every day. B said later that the three of them just stood there giggling and that every time they giggled the head guy slapped them gently around their head and told them to listen. B had thought that we were already in the room and that it was some sort of Christian service he was being invited too. He's always interested in new things but wasn't really prepared for this. We sat outside, getting angrier and angrier with them as the chanting seemed to go on for ever. After an hour B, Kali and Mina emerged, gave us a little smile and whispered 'We'll tell you about it when they've gone'.

10 minutes later the guys got in their van, tipped handsomely and gave us their card. They weren't bad people, just absolutely crazy and with too much money and time. I guess that they collect money in the US to fund these 'Church Planting' trips and they even described what they do as their job and said it was great because it gave them a chance to travel. They seemed to have no idea of the impact that they have, although from the list of places that they visit it seems fairly obvious that they're after the poorest people who have suffered the most. They don't actually do any helping, just converting!!! They call it Church Planting!!


We've emailed the Bhutanese government their details and we'd like to find a way to stop them going to Nepal and all the other countries that they visit. These nutter evangelists have been everywhere that we've travelled on this trip...Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and all over China. They should stay at home and leave everyone else alone!




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