After returning to Kathmandu, I rode on to Delhi with renewed vigour. Like the pregnancy before it, the marriage gave me a sense of purpose. I wouldn’t be riding a bicycle for months on end again because I was getting married less than a year after I returned to England, so I knew I had best enjoy it.
The final leg of my trip began in Istanbul. In 1992, it was virtually impossible to get from India to Europe on a bicycle, unless you were mental and wanted to risk death or imprisonment in one of the various countries that bordered India. Melanie, for her part, wanted us to move on to the next stage of our lives and though she was very keen I should complete the ride, she didn’t want me to take unnecessary risks, which was why I had decided to fly from Delhi to Istanbul to continue the next leg of the journey; a leg which was to take me through more countries than any other and which was to be influenced by one person more than any other.
I knew of Joe’s existence before I met him, because when I first checked into the youth hostel in Istanbul I saw his unique bicycle chained against the railings behind the reception desk. It was unique to me because it had a mountain bike frame and wheels with multiple panniers, an extra-thick seat and the drop handlebars of a racing bike combined with the newer aero bars of time trialists, rather than the straight bars of a normal mountain bike.
I also heard Joe before I spoke to him. I was returning to the hostel on the second day after purchasing a long-sleeved shirt to combat the refreshing coolness of the European night (it was so refreshing, it was almost giving me pneumonia). Behind me, I heard the loud American accent of someone speaking about his cycling trip so far. So, I eavesdropped as he told the assembled group at his table that he had set off from Germany in the winter, had moved down through Italy before spending some time in Greece, and was now taking a bit of time to rest in Istanbul having spent three months cycling in eastern Turkey.
I casually looked in the direction of the American accent. The speaker was on the edge of his seat, oozing enthusiasm about riding in eastern Turkey where they all wore Reebok trainers and nobody spoke English, even those who had MTV. His dark, shoulder-length brown hair was unkempt and parted in the middle, so that it looked like a set of curtains that framed a round face upon which sat a goatee beard. The face was tanned from sun as well as with an obvious genetic connection to some European country, and I would have guessed, as much from his American accent as anything else, that he was of Italian stock.
He also seemed to have a thick frame, which made me believe that he spent more time talking than cycling. He wore the clothes of a latter-day hippy: tie-dye baggy Turkish pants and an open-necked, collarless sweatshirt under which lay a leather string, holding a stone around his neck.
His overall appearance gave me the impression that he was, in fact, a wanker.
I resolved to avoid the loud Yank and make my own plans to leave as soon as the bank’s computer released my funds, which had been held up since I arrived. Yet, as before, fate intervened to my great benefit.
On the third day in Istanbul, I woke in my bunk to be greeted with rain, so I decided to spend the day phoning the bank, checking my bike and planning a route. It was while sitting at a table, drinking coffee and looking at a borrowed map, that somebody joined me at my table and said, in a strong American accent, ‘Hi, I’m Joe. Are you the other cyclist?’
I looked up to see the wanker. ‘Yeah, how did you know?’ I replied.
‘The lady at the desk told me,’ he said. ‘Where are you going to?’
‘West, back to England,’ I replied.
‘Really? Me, too. I’m sort of heading that way, although I really fancy going to Eastern Europe. Man, that’s got to be a place of interest.’
Two hours later we were still talking, and the wanker was now becoming a friend. I felt guilty about my prejudices as I rapidly became a disciple of his new-age cycling church.
When it came time to leave Istanbul, it seemed natural that we should ride together. Joe had impressed me with his knowledge of cycling and his openness of character, but we had no illusions about how long we would stay together. After all, we both had different agendas.
I was riding back to England and had 12 weeks to reach Liverpool on the date I had set when I had originally left in January, six months earlier. Joe had spent the last seven years on and off his bicycle and was in no rush to go anywhere. The only date he had to keep was to meet some of his family on holiday in Switzerland in July.
We camped in his blue igloo tent on the first night, after riding 130 kilometres along the scenic coast road. The next morning, we returned to the main road, only to see a sign saying it was 40 kilometres to Istanbul. The first day had been nice, but not worth a 90-kilometre ride in a circle.
Joe was a very strong cyclist so, in spite of the detour on the first day, we made steady progress towards the Bulgarian border, even though the head wind seemed to be permanently in our faces. At one point, I was beginning to suspect that in order to keep the Turks out of Bulgaria, the Communist regime had built a giant wind machine to blow everyone back.
After a final night in Turkey, we approached the border, not knowing what to expect. We were both children of the Cold War and had been educated that those countries that lay behind the Iron Curtain were police states in which Westerners were at best treated with suspicion, or at worst simply disappeared. The demise of the Soviet Union had happened barely 12 months previously, and it was not an unlikely suggestion that we would be amongst the first Westerners to cross from Turkey to Bulgaria: certainly the first on bicycles.
After having our passports stamped out of Turkey, we cycled the 500 metres or so to the building that represented the Bulgarian border. The gun turrets were unmanned, but the armed guards who greeted us acted as though they would happily return to pointing their weapons across the border.
Our passports were handed to a woman at the reception desk who had a face that looked like it had been trained to never smile … ever. Without saying anything, she disappeared into an office. A few minutes later, a large man followed her out. He had a thick moustache, stubble and an eye that suggested he had just left a bar-room brawl to deal with us.
‘Who is the American?’ he asked.
Before Joe could say anything, I answered: ‘He is.’ If one of us was going to be thrown into jail for being a citizen of a Western imperialistic capitalist nation, then it was not going to be me.
‘Welcome, my friend. I have personally stamped your passport,’ he said, flinging his arms out to Joe and slapping him on the back in a kind of border-side-male-bonding session. Without bothering to turn to me, he said, ‘British citizens have to pay for a visa. It is thirty-three US dollars.’
I couldn’t believe that Americans, who had spent the Cold War pointing nuclear missiles in the general direction of Bulgaria, were able to enter for free, whilst the British people who had spent the Cold War making James Bond movies had to pay to get in.
We had crossed the border and had started the descent into the first border town of Bulgaria when Joe signalled for us to stop. Out of his pannier he pulled out two bottles of Turkish beer, the last things we bought at the border to use up the remainder of our Turkish currency.
Joe proposed a toast: ‘Look at us, man, drinking Turkish beer in Bulgaria. Our only problem is finding a place to sleep. Haven’t we got life by the balls?’
I could hardly argue with that.