Bishkek: And the results of the Reader Participation Gamble

July 14, 2014

I saw the man sitting at the table almost immediately as the gate was opened to allow my entrance. I could tell straight away that he was very tall, and very Hungarian, mostly because I recognised his face. It was Gabor of course. It was a surprise to see his face again; generally a good surprise, although I did hope very much that he had not been reading any of my blog.

My arrival was at the'Athouse' guesthouse, the cycle-tourist haven that Daniel had told me about. By this point I had already been in Bishkek for almost a week, staying a few nights with two different couchsurfing hosts. On the first day my passport had disappeared with a travel agency that promised to return it to me a week later with a Chinese visa in it. For the longest time I had been aiming for Bishkek in order to use the services of the infamous Ms Liu, to whom almost all travelers hoping to obtain a visa for China had been turning. Still the influx of business must have gone to Ms Liu's head as she had recently raised her prices and news had reached me that another travel agent was offering to get the visa cheaper. The advantage of this one (located at 100 Moscovskaya street (http://goo.gl/maps/55y6C)) was that I had no forms to fill in. The agent, a lovely English-speaking woman who may or may not have been Ms Liu's sister, promised to do all the work for me. All I needed was two passport photos. The woman, lets call her Ms New, checked the photos that I had to make sure that they were the right size, but they weren't, and so I was directed to go to get more done across the street. After having my passport photo doctored in Iran to make me look like a doll I was keen to stress here that I did not want any photo-shopping done to my photo. The man seemed quite annoyed about my yellow t-shirt and shook his head. I was quite happy with my yellow t-shirt. So you can imagine my surprise when I received my photos ten minutes later to find that I had in fact been wearing a suit. As I had also shaved for the photo (the first time I had been clean shaven in a year) because I'd heard people had been refused visas for having a beard, I had rather a clean-cut businessman like appearance. Looking at the photos was really a glimpse into how my life could have been.

Many of you will recall having already seen this headline

The guesthouse was run by a softly-spoken Canadian named Nathan and his partner Angie. As cycle-tourists themselves they had opened up this house for weary bicycle travelers to congregate and it was such a perfect retreat that congregating they most certainly were. Almost a dozen cyclist lazed around, tinkering with bicycles, updating blogs, and (particularly in Gabor's case) generally doing very little. Nathan had offered to help me with fixing up my bike and he was soon talking me through rebuilding my front wheel with a new rim. He was a great help and even had a spare bottom bracket that was the right size that he donated to the cause. With so much work to do to the bike I stripped it down completely and figured I might as well take the chance to repaint the frame while I was at it. Some of the less-experienced cyclists in the group stared slack-jawed at the disassembled parts and said they couldn't believe I was ever going to ride the bike again. When I first set out to cycle around the world the mechanic in the bike shop where I bought the bike asked me if I knew anything about bicycle mechanics. After I replied that I didn't he told me "Oh, you'll learn." Frankly speaking I doubted that I would and yet he was right of course and now I found myself, more years later than I cared to remember, able to completely assemble my bicycle by myself in a few hours.

The next thing I did was take the rear rack off. The seat post had to stay though, no getting that rusted thing out

Even after I got the Chinese visa (yay!) I stayed a few more days. It was just such a nice place!

So who were the other cyclists at the guesthouse, and what light could they shed on the mystery touring bike that I had been told about on the road to Song Kol? With so much money riding on the outcome I turned detective and began my enquiries. There was a Polish guy, Tomek, but it wasn't him. An American couple, Chad and Alison, had been at the guesthouse for too long and were certainly not in the running. A French-Canadian named Pascal who had been living in Australia and had picked up the acccent was also there, but he had come from China. There was also a Spanish girl that had come from China named Susanna, another solo-female-cyclist, also going the wrong sodding way. As for the front runners, the real candidates, Gabor was there of course, but he had been several days behind me and was soon ruled out.

There was no email in my inbox from anyone that might have found my postcard either, but hope sprang up again when the favourite rolled in through the gate. After Jacques and I had exchanged pleasantries I got right down to business. "And where were you at 2pm on the 3rd of July?!" I demanded. Jacques pulled out his map on which he had marked down the places where he had slept each night. It seemed we might soon have our winner. But as we examined the map we saw that Mr Jacques had set up camp some distance short of the required location on the night of the third and didn't pass by until 24 hours too late. The favourite had fallen.

But had Jacques seen any solo cyclist coming the other way? If it had been someone going in the opposite direction they must have crossed paths sometime on the 3rd or 4th! But no, he had not seen anyone, and another option was out. Surely he and myself could not both have missed someone cycling straight towards us!

Desperate, I cast my net further afield via a series of emails. The replies came in, but without success. Gayle and John were still way back in Osh, and Rob not far ahead of them. Even more disappointingly Ana was far, far away in Dushanbe. I guess she didn't miss me as much as we'd all expected. But life is full of such mysteries. So I had to rule all of these out too:

And so, finally, I had to ask myself, just who was left? Who was there? Who was the only one that hadn't been ruled out?

Rod Hull and Emu. It was a simple, logical answer. Basic problem-solving. A solid, fool-proof process of elimination. Couldn't be anyone else could it? Of course there was no absolute evidence that the touring bike belonged to Rod Hull and Emu, but then again there was no evidence at all that it didn't. And so in an unusual move the bookies have decided to pay out. Those of you reading this who made this bold selection, please do send me a message letting me know just how much pretend-money that you staked, won't you? I'll be sure to mail you your pretend-checks right away. Congratulations.

11/07/14 - 5km

14/07/14 - 3km

19/07/14 - 119km (24km in Kyrgyzstan)

Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 22,361 km (13,886 miles)

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