Janapar: Love on a Bike by Tom Allen

Author:Tom Allen [Allen, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: bicycle touring, memoir, romance, adventure, Armenia, travel
ISBN: 9780957495630
Publisher: Janapar Media Ltd.
Published: 2013-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Now I’m on my own I should probably start doing a few more video diaries. And talk a bit about what’s been going on the last few days. Where to start… erm…

So today was a very long and eventful day.

This morning, after I got up, I had an email from the embassy – from the British Embassy – saying that my sleeping-bag was available for collection from the airport, and would I like to go with the driver to the airport?

So I arranged to do that. And I thought in the meantime I’d go and buy myself a new head-torch, which is something that I’ve been lacking for… well, several months, actually. I’m not sure how long this one will last, but nevertheless I think it was a pretty good buy, for just over a quid.

I also bought a lighter for lighting my stove, which also conveniently comes with a digital clock, that you can’t change, and that has the wrong time on it.

After that, I went to a second-hand shop and got a down jacket. So, together with my new hat, which is made from real rabbit fur, I’m prepared for the cold mountains of Iran, and hopefully for the coldness of any Central Asian mountains I might venture through. And all for the bargain price of about six quid.

And after that I went to the British Embassy, and while I was waiting I met the French couple who Andy was staying with before he went back to Tbilisi. And – hah! – unbelievably, Vincent just happened to have been given my bank card by Andy! I haven’t had a bank card since September in bloody Romania!

And so I went to the airport with the Embassy driver, and I was so pleased that everything was going really well. And then we were told that the computers weren’t working, so we’d have to come back tomorrow! So I got as far as the airport – I was even in the same building as these bloody sleeping-bags, after three months of trying to get hold of them, including one month of waiting here in Yerevan – and I still don’t actually have them!

So, tomorrow – fingers crossed – I’m going to get them. And I’ll probably be a hundred quid worse off for the privilege. Which is about as much money as I need to cycle across the whole of Iran to Turkmenistan, so it’ll be a bit of a financial blow. But it just means I’ll have to spend another week picking peaches in Australia or wherever, so I’ll just try and think of it like that.

Because I saved up enough money to cycle round the world. In reality, at the rate it’s going, I can probably get to Australia or New Zealand, as I’m spending no more than two or three pounds a day. I’ve had to pay for accommodation on… what, nine nights out of the two hundred and fifty or so since I left England? And things like this down-filled jacket – well, I found it for a fiver in a second-hand shop.

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