Chapter 8 - Ethiopia, www.bigbiketrip.net

Reaching Ethiopia brought both of us a huge sense of relief and a well deserved break from tough riding conditions. We had heard so much about Shiftas (armed bandits), lack of fuel and water and truly bad road conditions in north Kenya. Indeed the road to Moyale had been tough, no doubt about that, but it was behind us, beaten by Fanny who had less than eight months motorcycling experience and her 老头子（ lao touzi). We did not know at the time that some European tourists and aid workers had been kidnapped by Somalis just a short distance away on the east coast island of Lamu and at the nearby refugee camp in Dadaab.

Whilst completing the usual formalities at the Kenyan/Ethiopian border I noticed that the local people's appearance had changed dramatically from the rest of Africa. Taller, slimmer, lighter skin tone, aquiline features and wavy longer hair. The language had also changed from Swahili to Amharic and we would be asked often if we could speak it and received blunt admonishments as we could not. I did picked up a very few words, but Fanny launched herself enthusiastically into learning the basics and using them as much as possible. Sadly, my brain is too old and too full of Chinese words and characters to remember Amharic, to my ear a complicated sounding language and in 2011, as pointless to learn as Cantonese. Later I would make more effort and pick up some Arabic... a much more useful language to my mind.

There seemed to be a lot of people everywhere and they were noticeably noisier and more confrontational than the other people we had met in Africa. It was not long before we encountered our first onslaught of begging and 'YOU YOU YOU...MONEY MONEY MONEY'. Hands outstretched and pleading faces.

Fanny and I found out at the very scruffy Ethiopian immigration department that we only had two weeks left on our visas which was a bit of a shock and a disappointment. Apparently the one month long visas we had been granted had already started from the date of issue in Beijing and London where we had to send our passports. Our attempts to extend at the border were fruitless. The customs documents for our bikes and carnets were also stamped for the same duration making our stay in Ethiopian short and due to its size, rushed. We also had a long wait with customs as they painstakingly and slowly filled out reams of paperwork and translated everything phonetically into Amharic.

Ethiopia is a large landlocked country with a population of about 82 million people and surrounded by what I would describe as some of the worlds most hostile, or at least, volatile places... Eritrea, Djibouti, north Kenya, North and South Sudan, and of course, Somalia.
I had to work out a route that would allow us to see as much as possible and yet exit into Sudan before our visas ran out, but at the optimal time to start our short two week visa period for Sudan, register in Khartoum within three days, and at the same time be able to catch the once a week (Wednesday) ferry to Aswan in Egypt from Wadi Halfa in Sudan. There is actually a new road, several actually, but they are closed on both sides by respective military powers for security and commercial reasons and so the only border crossing is by "Night Boat up the River Nile". We would actually have to reach the remote border town early enough to complete all the paperwork, load bikes onto a separate barge that would leave a day earlier, but arrive at the same time as our ferry. Tight schedules and long rides. What could go wrong? Breaking down in the middle of the Nubian desert, perhaps?

South Sudan was not an option at this time because of the very recent separation from the north, administrative chaos and continuing skirmishes along the new border. Extending our visas would be tricky too as the only place to do it would be in Addis Ababa and the country was about to launch into a period of national holidays for the 2004 New Year as Ethiopia follows the Coptic calendar... which is about eight years behind the Gregorian calendar that most of the world use. I was rather annoyed at this... not for using a different calendar... but for inflexible and unfriendly policies... especially towards us. The UK and other countries have been ploughing money and aid into this dependent country for years and I thought, rightly or probably wrongly that they should be a damn sight more grateful and pleasing.

As we were waiting around for various forms to be laboriously filled out I observed a huge man, at least 1.9 meters tall throwing himself around violently in front of cars and shouting at us. He was either mentally handicapped or had been waiting in queue for the wretched forms to be filled out and had lost the plot. Its always distressing to see someone behave like this, or so Fanny tells me when I act up. Strangely, everyone seemed to be ignoring him, even as he launched himself onto the bonnet of a car and rolled about yelling and shouting. There would be many more very odd and annoying encounters from the locals to come.

We camped at a place recommended by a sort of fixer person who latched onto Paul, Marja (our Dutch companions who carried our fuel and panniers) and Fanny and myself on the Kenyan side. Actually the lodge, which had strange conical shaped straw huts, was the only place we could stay at and was fairly cheap as indeed most of Ethiopia proved to be. Paul and Marja had their Mercedes truck, "The Wobbel", to sleep in as usual and so they didn't hang about finding a bar and getting a beer. I was still in a rather grumpy mood from the shenanigans and time wasting at the border and decided I would sort out the bikes which had received three days of violent punishment and re-fit Fanny's windscreen among other things that needed attention or tightening up.

By now, many things had started to break and were constantly being patched up. Since our blue tooth intercom set broke on our first day most things had lasted quite well, but now things were feeling the strain of the ride. My sunglasses which I really needed for riding had broken after I trod on them in the middle of desert helping someone with a puncture. Now they were held onto my face with a piece of string which I took from my binoculars and which caused them to be a bit too tight against my face and cut into the side of my nose where I would have permanent grazes as a result for most of the trip. It also meant that I had to put my helmet on with the glasses on, something most bikers know is very painful and awkward. Another annoyance was that our camping mattresses had started to leak in Kenya and our gaffer tape and puncture kit repairs were only moderately successful, giving us 3 hours before they deflated. This was fine as it usually coincided with my night time weak bladder activity, but later this period of time shortened so much that I would need a more serious prostate problem to keep up with the deflations. And Fanny's bike?... always a repair project in progress.

It was well into the evening and dark when I had the bikes sufficiently roadworthy for the long ride the following day and was very grateful for the icy Saint George's beer Fanny brought over when she saw that I was finished with my bike maintenance duties. Fatigue caught up with both of us very quickly and we were both out for the count on what we would discover in the morning were bug infested mattresses, but at least they were comfy and we could sleep feeling more safe and secure than we had for days.

The next day we bumped into a group of Chinese telecommunication engineers while we were having breakfast and had a chat about our travels so far and our plans. They warned us that Ethiopians are rather aggressive and that we should be very careful at roadblocks as the police often stretch a rope across the road at neck height to a motorcyclist that could potentially decapitate us if we were not careful. As employees of a Chinese State Owned company they had received security risk advise from their headquarters and had to reside in military camps due to some previous incidents of theft, violence and aggression. The advice about the road blocks would prove to be accurate and we had a few close shaves as the ropes and indeed road blocks were hard to see. However, to describe the locals as aggressive was perhaps a little off the mark, perhaps charitably many should just be described as "rather excitable".


Breakfast consisted of the local dish "Tibis", a huge sour tasting wheaty pancake onto which is placed vegetables, meat (usually goat) and a spicy bean stew. I thought it was delicious, but the novelty of the dish would wear off quickly as this was pretty much served up at every meal. Of course, there was great coffee as one would expect from Ethiopia.

We set off early and headed north through very green and lush fields and pastures on very decent roads which had recently been built by Chinese engineers. As it was early September the rainy season was starting to end and the countryside looked glorious. There were fields and hedgerow of yellow and white flowers stretching far and wide. The temperature was about 28 degrees and the air fresh and clean thanks to the lack of traffic. I thought about the fact that were were still riding along the Great Rift Valley and into the true Cradle of Humankind where our common ancestor, Lucy came from. I remarked to Fanny what an amazing place Ethiopia was to ride through...like a perfect early morning motorcycle ride through Wales or Yorkshire on a sunny spring day. This was the Garden of Eden and surely all the negative reviews we got from fellow travellers who had journeyed through Ethiopia were exaggerated.

I continued to marvel at the beautiful roads and pristine surroundings as we rode leisurely through fields of flowers and past the occasional villager or child who would wave enthusiastically at us. After a few hours we stopped for a call of nature and were suddenly swamped by kids. Where on earth did they come from? The only words many of them knew in English were 'Money , money, money'. Poor little things I thought and then felt my "鸵鸟蛋 - tuoniao dan" being moved about in my trousers and looked down to see an angelic looking child of about three or four with its arm in my trouser pocket. 'HEY', I shouted 'OUT' and with some effort removed the thieving little arm and resisted the urge to smack the back of its smiling snotty head. Arms were everywhere trying to liberate us of our things. The effective Akropovik exhaust crowd dispersal technique was again used to very good effect, literally blasting a small urchin trying to get into our panniers off the ground.

And so started our descent into the underworld, much like the horror movie, "The Descent". The idyllic landscape remained the same of course but the density of people got greater and greater as we entered our first and last village, for it never ended. As soon as one looked like it was ending another started. The Chinese tarmac was covered in people, goats, dogs, cows and occasionally camels. Each animal requiring a different approach to get around safely and swiftly. People waved, shouted and sometimes tried to touch us, throw stones or wave sticks dangerously close to our heads; dogs would skulk about or just sleep on the road in the sunshine, donkeys would just stand stubbornly in the middle of the road and only be persuaded to move with a vicious whack with a stick or lash from a bull whip; cows were preoccupied with moving from roadside grassy snack to another, again only being deviated from this preoccupation when whipped savagely; and goats? Completely stupid creatures. Impossible to predict and we saw a couple taken out spectacularly by the many speeding buses, being tossed into the air and landing in a shaggy lump on the road. The road kill was always hurriedly taken away, after the compensation negotiations had been resolved, no doubt to reappear in pieces on top of sour pancakes. Dogs and other creatures that had been mashed by wheels were often left for the many vulchers and carrion birds that would busily and messily feast on the decomposing and smelly carcasses. Lunch anyone?

The road started meandering upwards into mountains and the scenery became even more spectacular, although the eternal village continued and the density of roadside creatures increased. Although the rainy season was coming to an end, I saw suspiciously black clouds on the horizon. The road really weaved about, left and right, up and down, and we caught glimpses of the lakes through the clouds and valleys. I was becoming a bit disorientated as the sun was obscured and my compass on the GPS was spinning as if we were in the Bermuda Triangle.

I started thinking about where we should camp up and then the rain started, got heavier, even heavier and then truly torrential. The sky was almost completely black and it was difficult to see. We were soaked through immediately and so there was absolutely no point stopping and seeking shelter, but we crept cautiously along water logged roads and navigated across streams and through ponds. The "village" had suddenly become deserted, but I could just about see clusters of people huddled under any form of shelter, peering at us riding by with mild astonishment. The rain continued for about two hours and we only made about 30 kilometers progress and then started descending into the first big city we had been to in Ethiopia, Dilla near one of the big lakes.


Dilla didn't look that appealing, and so I discussed with Fanny whether we should carry on to a town next to Lake Awassa and we agreed to push on for a further hundred or so kilometers. When we arrived in the town, called Hawassa we aimed for the lake where I presumed accommodation might be found, or better still a camp site. The GPS program, "Tracks on Africa" was now giving very erroneous information. The maps were OK in a where's north and south sort of way, but the data about accommodation and points of interest was seriously out of date. Later we would find out the road information would also be inaccurate too.

By trial and error we ended up at a modest hotel next to the shores of Lake Awassa, nothing very special, and certainly one my junior forensic auditor colleagues in the day would have turned their noses up at if we had booked them in on a project, but the sniffy receptionist was demanding US$100 a night, about US$90-95 above our budget. We knew that hotels were cheap in Ethiopia--- everyone had told us so ---and so we back tracked along the road we came and saw a hotel, called "Motel" as the rest of the sign appeared to have fallen off. After pulling in and discussing our requirements, primarily somewhere to securely park our bikes and perhaps with running water we were taken to a very nice room in what we later found out was called The Lakeside Motel. We had ridden close to 600 kilometers that day along roads that needed a lot of concentration and evasive action and to say we were grateful is an understatement.

That evening we sat outside the Motel's very popular restaurant called "Dolce Vita" and had a very good meal of lake fish and --yes -- Tibis. When the bill came I had to to double check the exchange rate. Blimey... a pound. The room rate wasn't much more. It was certainly cheap in Ethiopia.

The next day after breakfast we set off looking for petrol as usual. Ethiopia proved to be challenging and a bit worrying on that front and the spare fuel cans were always used to extend our range between stations. Again the GPS's data was often out of date and it required random riding about in places where we thought one would expect to see a station. I insisted at each petrol station that I filled up myself with the "Steve Thomas" fuel filter that was always used, often with messy results as the pumps would not automatically stop and we would have to guess when it was about to overflow by how many litres had gone in. We couldn't afford to ride without the tank being 100% full and so our bikes and gloves constantly smelt of petrol throughout Ethiopia. I could tell by the engine sound and performance that the octane level was well below 80 and so the octane booster additive was also added to reduce the knocking and help the EFi system, especially at high altitude.

Be careful on the last 80 kilometers into Addis Ababa everyone had told us, the traffic is treacherous they all said. We had 400+ kilometers to ride to Wim's Holland House, our rest stop in Addis Ababa and travelled along increasingly busy roads, albeit mostly trucks and buses heading in and out of the Capitol. At the beginning it wasn't such a bad ride as the route north took us past many beautiful lakes, such as Abijata, Ziway, Koka and we saw a huge number of water birds and birds of prey, including the classic vulchers with the furry necks. I would like to have gone off the beaten track more and seen more wildlife and nature, but we were pressed for time due to our illogical and unreasonable visa limitations. Surely Ethiopia and other countries in Africa should encourage tourism, encourage foreigners to spend their cash, encourage investment. But no... they just fleece people with bogus charges and fees at the border. Take South Africa for instance, it offers three month visas and does a great job to encourage tourism to one of the most beautiful countries in world. The rest of Africa, with exception of Botswana and Namibia and to an extent Egypt, are useless.

When we hit the T-junction at Mojo we turned left onto the notoriously bad road section towards Addis. It was indeed an extremely busy road with head to tail traffic, but nothing two residents from Shanghai can't handle with ease on two powerful motorcycles that can overtake quickly and squeeze through gaps between the vehicles. 'Wasn't so bad', was Fanny's comment as we weaved and honked our way into 狗屎的地方 （goushi de difang) a new Chinese word I learnt that very accurately describes the squalor and decay of Addis Ababa.

'It wasn't that good either', I replied. 'Let's get to Wim's quickly', and with that we followed the GPS as it took us the wrong way up one way streets, down dead ends and off road through constructions sites and people's private property, eventually pulling up outside Wim's Holland House in the most unlikely of places... right in the city centre next to the decrepit and now disused central railway station that looked like something from the film "I am Legend".

Wim greeted us when we arrived and asked if we would like to camp or stay in a room. I looked down and squelched the camping pond with my boot and asked how much to stay in a room. We were shown two, one for about two Rand and another for a Rand. They both looked like prison cells, with no windows and with a shared outside bathroom with a dodgy water pump and a blocked drain. Forcing a smile I said 'Thanks, Wim, that will be nice, we'll take the cheaper one without the meat hooks'.

We had brought a good mosquito net with us which we strung up using the bungie cords above the beds as Ethiopia is insect heaven. I parked the bikes in the pond against a tree so they wouldn't fall over and then we went over to the bar. Wow... a proper pub. Now I knew why people came here. I ordered a beer and was asked if I would like a bottle or draft. The little things in life, you only miss them when they're gone. Um... Oh... Draft, please', I replied, hesitating over the rare opportunity to decide between choices.

It was Ethiopian New Years eve and so we decided to have a wander around the city centre of Addis Ababa as the sun was going down. Woman were wearing traditional white dresses for the occasion that looked like, well, brides maids dresses to be honest. They arranged their long curly hair in plaits at the front only, a style I had only seen in Ethiopia. Grass was laid out in places where some of the woman were preparing coffee which was served with popcorn, A traditional coffee ceremony we were told. There were also quite a few Rastafarians hanging around and reggae music was blaring out from a solitary loudspeaker, but generally these efforts at jolliness were overshadowed by obvious poverty and decay.

Sweets and candies taken out of their wrappers and packets and sold separately on street corners always strikes me as a red flag of poverty. In Addis there were hundreds of kids and even some adults doing this. The buildings looked awful and the squalor and rubbish was depressing. The more we explored the more depressing it became. We wanted to wait in Addis for Paul and Marja to arrive and also go to the museum to see Lucy Australopithecus afarensis , a fossilised humanoid skeleton about 3.2 million years old.

We were very kindly invited to the New Year's day celebrations which involved a traditional lunch prepared by Wim and his wife with other guests. Again, Tibis was the main course, but there was a rather spicy dish and strangely, popcorn again.

We found out that Addis Ababa National Museum was closed ... and no one had any idea when it would open. So too was the immigration department, the only place we could possibly extend our visas and as the clock was ticking and as we had no reason to stay in lovely Addis any longer we decided to leave... 马上。

Hurray! Addis Ababa crossed off the list of places not to see before you die. We left, or at least tried to, going around in circles trying to find the road to Wadhaya, riding through shopping malls, the wrong way up streets and being chased off by unpleasant and aggressive policemen each time we got lost and stopped to consult the map or useless GPS. We had refuelled the bikes with something that smelt vaguely like petrol, leaving bits of debris in the Steven Thomas filter but eventually managed to escape and head for the hills.

We wanted to go to the Afar region and Danakil depression to the the north east of the country, but with time running out on the visas, reports of heavy rains, a shortage of petrol, and trouble on the border with Shiftas we decided to engage in a bit of culture and visit the 900 year old monolithic churches hewn out of rock in Lalibela.

The ride there was long, but an excellent one and we started riding back up into huge mountain ranges along steep windy roads with precarious cliff sides. Fanny complained that she was scared of heights and certainly this phobia was tested as we looked down many thousands of meters on occasion across lush valleys. The donkeys, goats and cows were back again in huge numbers on the road, and so were the brats throwing stones. The altimeter on the GPS showed us at over 4,000 meters on one occasion as we rode along a spectacular mountain plateau to the turn off down into the Amhara region towards Lalibela.

On one occasion a stone thrown from the side of the road by a small boy hit my helmet and momentarily stunned me. Right, that is it I said to myself. I yanked on my anchors, leaped off my bike, but not before grabbing my catapult and pips (prune stone ammunition) kept in my tank bag, and legged it as fast as anyone can in Alpinestar motorcycle boots towards the brat who was literally frozen on the spot. He then came to his senses and made a fatal mistake by running into a field... open ground. Still running at a fair pace I loaded, employed the marksmanship principles learnt as a child and perfected as a tactical policeman with perhaps more lethal weapons. Breathe out, hold it, aim and fire. I watched with increasing glee as the prune stone arched through its trajectory and landed on the brat's skinny arse resulting in a satisfying yelp. Lesson #1 in behaviour modification.

My bike would have been causing serious obstruction in the road, except the few vehicles on the road had already stopped to watch the spectacle. As I marched triumphantly back to my bike I gave the thumbs up to Fanny and theatrically dusted off my hands towards my audience, many of whom seemed amused, others had their mouths open in stunned silence and looked visibly frightened at the image of a black clad Mad Max, armed and clearly mad.

Later the same day a youth in his late teens swung a stick at me whilst laughing with his friends on the road. The end of the stick would have connected and potentially knocked me off my bike had I not anticipated it well and ducked. Had Fanny been leading who knows what would have happened.
Thus, he received the same treatment from the catapult and ran off into a house only to appear again and pick up a rock, but while his arm was arched backwards in mid throw he was hit again squarely on the side of the head causing him to drop the stone and he ducked back into the house not to reappear again. Following an Anglo Saxon expletive filled lecture to his stunned friends we roared off again. Quite sure nothing was understood except the sentiment and the word beginning with F that sounds like duck.

On other occasions small kids who I saw pick up stones and consider throwing them were too preoccupied waving back to us if I managed to waved at them first. A better technique I suppose than violence. We saw too much of that, especially directed towards their poor beasts of burden that were constantly whipped and beaten savagely. I increasingly hated the sight of it and no doubt it has added greatly to my negative and rather jaundiced view of the country which I am sure at least one of my three readers will think is unfair. BUT...I worked on a diary farm for years as a child and teenager and never saw domestic animals being beaten and so I do not know why these children, some very young, are brought up to behave in this spiteful and savage manner. In the absence of any appropriate socialization I hoped my few lessons in "cause and effect" made a few think twice about stone throwing and it prevents serious injury to some other motorcyclist travelling through Ethiopia in the future.

About 70 kilometers from Lalibela the road turned to gravel and we zigzagged up and down hills and across rivers and through streams. Enormous fun and I was secretly happy that all the technical riding had not finished at Moyale. The scenery was amazing, much like the Alps in Switzerland or Austria. I was almost expecting Julie Andrews to spring into view singing the "The hills are alive with the sound of music".

When we got into the town there was no immediate sign of the dozen or so Coptic churches that Lalibela is famous for and to which Christian pilgrims come from all over the world to visit. In fact, it was full of touts and even more annoying people. We found and stayed at a very basic and cheap hotel that was recommended by other travellers, although it was much like all the others in Ethiopia. We ate Tibis for every meal at a family run restaurant across the road in which we could watch English movies. When people are not begging, throwing rocks or touting they are quite nice, friendly and helpful. The little restaurant was very nice, except that we both got viciously bitten by fleas that were everywhere. We were scratching and shaking them out for days until we got re-bitten at Lake Tana.

The next day we explored the very scruffy town and found the site for the old churches. The entrance fee was 300 Ethiopian Birr each, way too expensive we thought and so we made the cardinal sin of deciding not to go. Ethiopians could go in for free, but foreigners had to pay which I thought was unfair. Could you imagine if the UK National Trust used this policy for Stonehenge or the Tower of London in England. Outcry from the PC brigade no doubt.

We both thought it was amusing, if not ironic that we rode all the way to Lalibela in Ethiopia and didn't go into their main tourist attractions, the same with the Serengeti in Kenya, and again later with the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. The expedition is all about riding our bikes and of course we have a finite budget to do so. We have no sponsorship, no financial assistance, no support and everything is self funded so tourist tack, attractions and activities are off the itinerary unless they are cheap or free ..and so no gorillas or chimpanzees in Rwanda for us.

That said we actually hiked around the mountain side in Lalibela and could freely see a lot of the archaeological sites, churches and take pictures, fairly interesting if you are an archaeologist or Christian pilgrim I suppose, but I have to say the Norman church built about the same time in Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire is far more interesting and spectacular. And Salisbury cathedral? No match. We will be just as stingey in Luxor, Ras Mohammed, Giza etc. I'm not wasting petrol money by looking at bricks and rocks!

Around the Lalibela area, while filming with the GoPro camera on the footpegs I had a momentary lapse of concentration as I forgot that cars drive on the right in Ethiopia and narrowly missed an on coming and speeding van. It close thing and was a wake up call to ride sensibly. Fanny also had a fall, an increasingly rarer occurrence as her riding got better, but she stalled on a hill saying she forgot to shift the gears down from third. It happens when you're tired, but the panniers and crash bars were bent slightly again, to be fixed later.

After doing as much as anyone can do in Lalibela for free we loaded up the bikes and shipped out, going back along the gravel and mud section we came and back up into the Simien Highlands towards Lake Tana and Gonder. Again an awesome ride and as we got nearer to the north west of Ethiopia we noticed the anti-social behaviour decrease as we edged towards the Sudanese border, except from me as the Tibis and bean diet was taking its toll on my digestive system and I spent more time on the footpegs than really required on a tarmac road.

We got to a very nicetown called Gonder and re-fuelled and then headed due south for sixty of so kilometers along a muddy dirt track to a campsite called Tim and Kim's, run by a Dutch couple and situated in very lush countryside right next to the lake. The place was being refurbished when we visited to make it completely self contained with, solar panels, recycled water and electricity and has six self contained huts, a bar and restaurant and a large area for camping.

When we arrived the cook and many of the staff were also missing and so we set up camp, got out the Whisperlite and Fanny prepared a spicy Chinese cabbage dish that is very popular at Hunan restaurants and fanqie chaodan another basic favourite. Outstanding. There was no running water at the time as the camp-site and so we had to use buckets of post rainy season brown lake water. You gotta love camping.

Whist relaxing by the lake I decided to do some bike repairs and whilst straighten the crash bars by trying to lean Fanny's bike against a rock the bike suddenly slipped and fell on top of me and I couldn't get it off. Fanny, the world's expert on lifting up KTM 990 Adventures came to my rescue, lifted it back up and then recoiled shouting, 'EEER, YUCK ER XIN'.

I looked down at my leg and it was slightly bleeding. On closer inspection after wiping away the blood I saw that there was a inch square hole in my shin down to the bone. Yuck. Worse, when I looked at my footpeg a small lump of me was wedged in the metal serrations. Barf.. double yuck. It did not hurt too much but it needed cleaning, disinfecting and wrapping up quickly as it started bleeding quite persistently and the place we were in was ground zero for infections. Fortunately, we had gone to great efforts to pack a very well stocked first aid kit, and I sorted it out as Fanny was grimacing from a safe distance. The worst was yet to come. I had to pull off the inch square piece of flesh and think how to dispose of it, as the idea of being eaten by the dog did not appeal. Easy... fire it into the lake with my catapult. Later the wound would be further picked away at by coral fish in the Red Sea in Egypt. Fish food... how nice.

The place was really nice, but our walkabout to explore the surrounding area was less so. Only about 15 minutes away was a local village and we walked through beautiful fresh countryside, resplendent in flowers and greenery and then into squalid and smelly human inhabitation. What a contrast. After getting aggressively evicted from a lakeside marine workshop we strayed in we walked along a lane and accidently ran into an area used to lay out dead bodies. Nice. Fanny, like many Chinese, did not think much of this and literally ran away and we made our way back through the squalid village to our little paradise.

Again as time was short we moved on, but decided to stay in Gonder for a night as it looked quite nice and had a castle and we thought we would need to stock up with some food and water for Sudan, which we had been told was short on food and water, scorchingly hot and remote.

After finding a decent and cheap hotel in Gonder we went out to find food and some supplies for bush camping in Sudan. We also had to get some cash as we were told there were no ATMs in Sudan, advice that turned out to be as inaccurate as that about food. We ate some local Tibis (again) at a rather nice rooftop restaurant which immediately went through the system like a scotch on the rocks in a bar in Delhi. Raw prawn... or perhaps raw road kill. It is never the easiest task to find a bog in an emergency, but as an experienced traveller I know one should head to the poshest hotel one can see and with buttocks clenched walk purposefully across the lobby to your target loo without eye contact to anyone. Once nature has done its thing, there is no need to keep up the pretence of being a guest and you can smile at the maitre d' as you leave, waving you hand by your bottom for good effect.

My next task was more important. Chelsea were playing Manchester United that afternoon and I needed to find a bar or hotel that was showing the game. My enquiries with the street urchins who always know this stuff came up consistently with the same answer. The cinema.

Indeed the cinema right in the town square was the place to be on football day and I bought my ticket for the equivalent of ten pence and joined the queue of far to many people wearing red. In fact, I think as a Chelsea supporter, I was in a minority of about 0.05% squeezed into a huge cinema. I never got a seat, far too slow and so I leaned against the door throughout the game. It was noisy before the game even started, but when it did there was chaos, and a near nuclear bomb level cacophony when bloody Man U scored. what? How come Rooney never plays like that for England. To add to the excitement there was a huge fight in the middle of the cinema and the security people, who were actually armed with rifles, were sent in, but sadly the drama ended swiftly without shots fired as everyone made friends when Man U scored again and they were all hugging each other. Chelsea did manage a goal and the "other" Blues supporter, a boy of about 10, got on the stage and performed a very decent little jig until he got chased off to cheering and applause. Fanny had come in at half time and as an Arsenal supporter had jinxed the game. Its all Fanny's fault.

Early the next day we filled up our 30 litre water bag from the communal tank and added a few drops of our camping sterilizer, carried extra jerry cans full of fuel, loaded all the fruit, vegetables and noodles we had painstakingly found and purchased and packed up the washing which was still damp from one of Fanny's "We'll wash everything" campaigns. Apart from the fairly heavy load on the back of the bike, the ride to the border with Sudan was pretty uneventful and on arrival I was tad disappointed to see the same green pastures and countryside on the Sudanese side. Where were all the deserts, camels and Bedouins?

Sudan - Chapter 9 and the other chapters and photographs at

www.bigbiketrip.net

We have completed the Africa leg of trip ... all 18,000 kms plus. Fanny Fang a former professional volleyball player from China who up until 2011 had never ridden a motorcycle pulled it off on her KTM 990 Adventure with no sponsorship, no support, no fixers ... only with her lao touzi partner (me). Every weather condition from torrential rain in Ethiopia, 50 degrees + in Sudan deserts and freezing nights in Namibia. A few spills and thrills... all on www.bigbiketrip.net

Next we have to cross Syria or Libya as we move to EU land and then east towards the Middle Kingdon.

We have made it. Despite having only 6 months riding experience, Fanny Fang (former professional volleyball player in Shanghai) has completed 18,000 kilometers across Africa from Arniston on the southern tip to Alexandria on the northern tip. The adventure is followed at:
www.bigbiketrip.net

Rupert & Fanny's Big Bike Trip starts June. With names like ours what could go wrong? We start from Arniston near Cape Agulhas, Western Cape, South Africa and ride via Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, UK (as you do) to our other home in Shanghai. If you think carnes and visas are a pain, wait til you travel with a Chinese woman who needs a visa for just about every place on the planet. Luckily she is used to completely ridiculous bureaucracy and how to get around it!! We are riding KTM 990 Adventures... I don't care what the LWD guys think.. they ride on anything and we had to buy ours. I have already ridden across Africa on one. As Fanny is a former Chinese volleyball star her feet touch the ground and being more famous and better looking than Ewan McGregor in these parts we have a very large local following on Chinese motorcycle forums. Big Bikes are banned in China and so when we ride across the border we'll be winging it and hoping one of the border guards is a bike fan. We start when the first whale is sighted outside my house, which would be unusual in downtown Shanghai, but not on the most southern tip of Africa. Please follow us on www.bigbiketrip.net and we'll be following you on ABR