by Danny Bent
Arriving at the hotel, I had thinking to do but, deep down, I’d already made my decision. I wrote lists, pros and cons. I asked questions: Do you really want to do this? Is there anything to gain from continuing? I’d proved I could cycle for a sustained period of time. I’d crossed Europe by bicycle. Not many people could say that. My green message had been heard by one and all.
The biggest factor that played over and over in my head was that I didn’t want to die.
Volgograd (AKA Stalingrad) had witnessed so many deaths. The fiercest war during WWII was fought here and two million people are thought to have died, the greatest number of casualties from any battle in history. Prior to this it was also at the forefront of the Russian civil war where the Red and White armies had done battle.
My fall onto the tarmac wasn’t a near miss, it was a miracle. Any other time during the day I would have been crushed by steel. There was no need to add another death to Volgograd’s statistics.
I had fought bravely; I could allow someone else to take up the mantle now. They could carry the torch. Now it was time for me to take on the next part of my trip, teaching at the school in Chembakolli and educating the children across the UK who would soon be learning about the village at school, and would be watching Mr Bent proudly sit with tribal Indians, living and sharing their lives. I’d book a flight tomorrow morning for as soon as possible.
Having made my decision, the calm that had been missing of late swept over me. Shower, porcelain and toilet roll had also added to a wonderful feeling that morning. I was bright; my eyes took up a shine again. One thing left. Book a ticket.
* * *
The internet café was full of students working and locals using the shared amenities. I sat quietly awaiting my turn. I logged on and accessed my emails to tell Mum and Dad that they could stop worrying and that I would be taking a flight the rest of the way.
There was something wrong. My email was showing over fifty unread emails, I’d checked them a few days before as I entered Russia. I clicked on ‘Inbox’ and waited as it loaded. The speed of the machines wasn’t quite broadband and I had time whilst they loaded to log onto BAs’ website and start my search for flights.
Flicking back I glanced up and down the email list. There were mails from Mum and some friends; there were also emails from Thalia, Jasper, Charlie B and Charlie J. Messages from Jody, Emma, Pixie, Jude, Olivia, Lolly saying they missed me, that school wasn’t the same without me. That they were proud of me. Not one mention that I was embarrassing myself or that I had taken things too far. I had to control my emotions; I was still broken from the past few days.
Seeing the emails did more than make me feel happy and wanted. I was ready to take on the world again, literally.
I shut down the computer and marched straight back to the hotel, packed my things and stood looking in the mirror.
I was doing it for my class. 3B, I’m going all the way.
* * *
At lunch I sat and worked out stopping points on my map. I’d been pushing myself too hard. Let’s make the days more realistic and stick to the plan. Why rush when you can chill?
In the back of my mind I was still asking myself the questions 'Does it just get worse from here? Will I get to India without being robbed?' If Slum Dog was anything to go by, all my kit would be stolen when I got India and, if I were to lock the frame, everything else would be taken - wheels, seat, brakes, gears. But I guessed that if I made it to India, I’d have done blinkin' well. That should be aim number one.
There was still the trip through the Stans first. Nearly everyone I met told me I shouldn’t go there. They are full of nomadic tribal peoples / gangsters / bandits / corrupt police and army and I wouldn’t make it out alive.
Crossing the Volga River I still had a foul taste in my mouth, literally - from the smog in the air - and metaphorically. I was feeling very lonely even if the grey cloud had started to clear. But one step can make a lot of difference. Although this wasn’t quite the border to Asia, I was leaving Europe as I knew it.
With each pedal rotation the scenery and my mood improved. Green replaced grey. The beautiful turquoise Bee Eaters flew all around me catching the ample insect life sustained by the undergrowth and disturbed by Shirley and me. Spiders lined the lower scrubland and snakes slithered away from my ever-rotating wheels.
Stopping to watch a dung beetle roll a lump of poo about three times his size along the road as trucks rumbled by, I thought to myself 'Things could be worse'.
That night I walked around a rubbish dump looking for a place to set up camp downwind of the tip to avoid the smell. In an area where the flat plain goes on and on, it was my only chance of cover. On closer inspection, the piles of rubbish I was hoping to camp behind were tents like the ones in Slum Dog. I moved on. It wasn’t time to face this heart-jerking reality. Camped behind a line of thin withered trees just holding onto their leaves before fall, I’d have just enough cover at the dead of night, but not much before then. I sat against a tree waiting for dusk before I put up my bright red tent.
Run-ins with the gypsies had dented my confidence around people. I was reserved, I held back. I hate to say it but anyone who didn’t look quite like me was making me jumpy. As I was a blonde-haired, ginger-bearded alien, that basically included everyone I met. People I would have normally reached out to unnerved me.
I stopped for the first time in Leninsk, thirty-five kilometres into my day, and people started to gather round me. My adrenaline was pumping. My senses were on full alert. I could even feel the droplet of sweat running down the concave of my spine. They drew closer in a rank. There was no way of busting past them. There were too many. They had darker skin than the Russians, as had the gypsies. Some people were laughing. Others stared expressionless. Then, all of a sudden, the people formed an orderly queue and each demanded to have their picture taken with me, shaking my hand vigorously and slapping me on the back, telling me I was crazy. Awesome!!
The people were from Kazakhstan and were working in the locals' fields. They didn’t seem bad at all to me. My jaw ached from smiling and my hand was sore from being shaken so vigorously.
They thrust gifts into my hands. One lady gave me a tomato, a gentleman gave me a cucumber. As I was just about to start eating another women shouted “Stop!”. She wouldn’t have me eating them as they were and ran back to her house to bring me a little bag of salt.
With a lightness of heart I cruised on. 90% of the population were Central Asian in looks, with light brown skin, hooked noses, and high cheekbones. Their hair colour varied from the prevalent jet black to blonde, red and many shades of brown, and their eyes, normally hazel or green, shone under epicanthic folds - the skin which gives Asians the narrower almond shaped eyes, developed to protect eyes from the cold.
They were obviously in Russia to do manual labour. Whole townships were sitting by the road on their buckets waiting for their lifts to arrive. As I passed them, I was greeted with silence but, once in their trucks of human livestock looking like they might burst at the seams, they waved and cheered as they overtook me. As they pulled into the side to grab more people, I would pass them again, waving like the Queen or pumping my fist in the air in celebration. The workers made fun of their driver telling him he was too slow, only to pass me a few minutes later. This continued until they arrived at their destination. I was sad to lose their company.
This feeling of kinship and the knowledge that I would continue to meet nice people throughout my trip really lifted me from the rut I was in and renewed my excitement about the rest of my trip.
* * *
Writing my diary, I discovered that I was beginning to struggle to find English words. It’d been a long time since I had had a free conversation with someone who could speak English fluently. Use it or lose it. Speaking English isn't like learning to ride a bike after all.
Riding along the river front in Astrakhan, trying to find somewhere to stay, I was surrounded by people enjoying the fun and sun
at the estuary of the Volga River. It’s like Brighton. Candy floss, archaic arcade machines and traditional fun fair stalls.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. “You look as though you’ve come a long way.”
I was covered in mud. I’d taken a tumble earlier and had fallen into a muddy puddle. My bike and I were both coated from head to toe.
“I’m Mike.”
Mike had spent time in America at the age of eighteen. On his first day in Michigan he was held at gunpoint and robbed of everything he’d taken with him and then had his face smashed in with the butt of a gun repeatedly. Rather than go home straightaway (I would have) he hung on strong, and began to meet people who righted all the wrongs, people who welcomed him into their embrace, their homes, their lives. He honestly believes he met angels on his trip.
In response he vowed to be a guardian angel of foreign people in his own country. At nineteen that’s a fair burden for a man to carry.
He told me all the nice places to stay in this holiday resort town that he assured me were hugely above my budget. He then took me to some dives that were still too expensive. This really is Holiday Central and the punters know it.
Mike suggested “Why not stay at my house.” I jumped at the chance.
He lived in his parents' flat on the outside of town. The old Soviet high rises grow out of every space in the city. The walls are one concrete block and are slotted into supports to hold them up. The flats last for fifty years then have to be destroyed for safety reasons. Mike assured me they had at least a year left.
Outside each block was a small community. Everyone was sitting in the sun in the small gardens talking about the news. Kids played gleefully on the swings or kicked a ball against a wall. No one cared about the mud plastering my body.
Walking up the stairs, we were joined by a Barber Maestro and a few of his friends. I very much needed a hair cut and the Barber Maestro was keen to hack away at the locks of the strange bog monster that had dragged itself into their city.
Looking spiffing and freshly showered, I was taken for a tour of the city. Astrakhan is Russia’s southern-most outpost, crossed by the Great Silk Route. In history, the city attracted merchants from Khiva, Bukhara, Persia and India. There is St. Vladimir’s Cathedral and it holds the headquarters of the Cossacks, the army of the Astrakhan Khanate when the city and surrounding areas belonged to one Khan (a Mongolian leader).
Throughout my trip I had seen groups of young people hanging out drinking beers socially, and felt jealous that I wasn't involved or invited. After our tour this all changed. I met about all of Mikkel's friends (which equals a lot) who could all speak English, and lime beers were passed round. As I tasted the first brew a classic Russian alcoholic walked past telling me to beware. It tasted great.
Just like in England when you’re out on the tiles, we organised a kitty, except that everyone didn’t throw in the same amount. In England we pop in £10 and then everyone drinks as fast as possible to get as much value as they can. In Astrakhan everyone puts in what they can afford and share the produce equally. It’s an amazing sign of trust between friends.
Being told the drug man, who was a little crazy, was coming suddenly sobered me up. I didn’t fancy facing a manic gun touting drug dealer. When he arrived I almost laughed. He was a short, squat boy who made up for his lack of physical presence by being angry.
A resident artist had been one of the first people I met. She had pearlescent white skin but the eyes of a Tatar - with large pools of intoxicating green fluid - skin tight jeans, a little tight white t-shirt and the hair of a rock chick. I was forced to tear my eyes from her when her rocker boyfriend arrived with the crazy man. We headed off to a party and sadly left her behind. She called me back and said I had to come over the next day to pick up one of her paintings to take with me, but sadly we didn’t manage to cross tracks again. I am definitely going back to pick it up one day.
Mikkel's father, an engineer, had spent six months working on oil rigs to be able to fund his family. Working hard he could afford a house outside of the city and a car to run his children around in. We were invited to dinner in his house in the country. Nursing our heads, Mikkel gave me a lift to meet his folks. He then headed back to pick up his mum and left me with his father. Not a big man by Russian standards, he still towered over me and his handshake dwarfed my own. He had red hair and a few days of ragged stubble on his chin, startlingly blue irises swimming in a spaghetti of red capillaries, and a red bulbous nose that is common amongst men in Russia.
Greeting me warmly, he proudly showed me round their house and the river that flowed through their garden with lotus flowers floating on their lilly pad leaves. Astrakhan shares the lotus with India as its national emblem. We then went to the sauna, a must in all larger Russian homes. It was an old but solid looking out-building. He told me how the big shots in Russian politics had used the sauna during the early 1900s. There was a slot for coins in the wall that was now obsolete but reminded visitors of the history.
He led me into the kitchen where he washed two shot glasses and filled them both to the brim, toasting free spirit and life. After four more he washed up the glasses and put the vodka way. He turned to me, smiled and put his finger to his lips. “Shhhh, don't tell my wife". DON'T TELL YOUR WIFE? I don’t need to tell her anything. I’m struggling to stand up.
His dad was once proud to be Russian, telling people he met in his rigs how great it was. Since 1997, though, this feeling has dulled and now he has a bitter taste in his mouth about how his country is governed. Over dinner I watched a tear slowly roll down the big man's cheek as he told us how his country had changed.
I tried to lighten the mood by making jokes in Russian. As you can imagine, my jokes don't translate too well into Russian (they were never very good in English), so I learnt to say the word 'joke' to emphasise that was what I was attempting - shutka.
When I said it, all their faces dropped. They even looked wounded. I'd been starting the word with an 's' rather than a 'sh', so I had accidentally been calling his father a bitch rather than pointing out that I was telling a joke. No wonder I had received a few fierce looks. Even my jokes aren't that bad.
Chapter 13
For the second time on the trip I was looking down the barrel of a gun. This time I was more aware and already the fear and thrill of the experience was wearing thin. The gorilla-sized border guard had stopped me and was asking his partner to take a picture of us together on his phone. Really guys, just ask - quit with the gun in face thing. Looking at him as if he was a small child, his partner creased his brow, shook his head and said “No”.
The guard flushed pink realising what he was asking, straightened up, replaced his boy-like excitement with a stony-faced grimace and waved me through.
Mounting my bike, I heard the guards laughing behind me. I popped my head in and said “Shutka?”, and then jumped on the pedals. Grinning to myself over my raw wit, I tootled off down the road weaving in and out of the pot holes into Kazakhstan.
I’d left my new-found friends in Astrakhan and taken the short route to the border crossing. I was now in a country I knew absolutely nothing about, barring the education Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional character Borat had taught me – which I assumed was nothing.
* * *
As I entered the Karakum desert there was sand as far as the eye could see. This desert is in what’s known as a depression. Formed where the Eurasion and Arabian plates meet, the land is below sea level. The high temperatures of the desert keep the depression from filling up. So, at times I was cycling below sea level.
It was dry, hot, barren, and deserted. The dust that mingled with the sand to blast my body day-in and day-out was blown on a powerful east-west airstream carrying pesticide residues that have been found in the blood of penguins in Antarctica. These winds certainly had plenty of momentum when they hit Shirley and me.
In Astrakhan I’d managed to put on a few pounds downing plenty of good food and drink. I’d
been having a ball. I could hear the universe saying “You’ve been having too much fun and beer, now do some work”, as the gale force winds hit me right in your face. I was cycling so slowly I almost fell off my bike. Five kilometres an hour. That’s slower than walking pace. The first day past the border I managed seventy kilometres in nine hours - that's not good. At lunch I sat in a rare spot of grass. The wind blew the sand sideways and encrusted everything I owned.
The second and third days were no better. The 'winds of hell' were playing a sound game against me. I was a marked man, unable to do anything, buffeted left and right. Barbed wire, tumble weed, sand, it was all flying down the road. It was like an old Spectrum game - I had to dodge left or right to evade the obstacles coming my way.
Putting on my iPod I managed to drown out the monotony of the landscape. A random selection distracted me from my pain and suffering.
To make matters worse, everyone in Kazakhstan seemed to reserve the right to stop me whenever they wanted to take photos of me as though I was a performing monkey at the circus. A blacked out Jeep pulled alongside and drove at my steady ten kilometres per hour for a while. As the window unwound I was wondering whether this was the police, gangsters or drug pushers. It was the kind of jeep you see in Hollywood films full of gun wielding gangsters. I could see a shining black object in the hands of a passenger but it wasn’t a gun, it was a camera. The other window wound down behind it as a whole football team of people hung out of the one window holding cameras, phones and video cameras. Always happy to take a rest, I took the opportunity to rehearse my improving Russian, pleased that I could freely talk about family and friends now.