I woke up to the sound of rain on my tent and I was super happy about that because first of all it was a chance to try out the new waterproofs and second of all there were no flies or mosquitoes. The rain didn't last long but it was a much colder day and it was as if summer had turned to winter at the flick of a switch, and all the insects had just died. It was a miracle!

The traffic was a real pain throughout the morning and I was run off the road a couple of times. I had my hi-viz on the back and was wearing bright clothes, but still they gave me no room and I dived out of the way when I could see in my mirror they were passing too close. I got another puncture too and had to stop to fix that, but on the whole I was feeling pretty good. It had been a month since I'd left Almaty on my insane fast-paced mission because of the visa limitations and I worked out that I had cycled 3,500 kilometres in the month. I was quite proud of myself for that, it seemed like one hell of an achievement, certainly a lot more than I had ever done in a month before. 3,500 kilometres in 30 days, almost 120 kilometres per day, and I was still going!

I stopped to take a break in a bus stop and thought I might stay a little while as it was a nice one and there were no flies, so I could enjoy some nice jam sandwiches. As I was doing so I was surprised when I suddenly saw a touring cyclist racing along in front of my field of vision. I was hidden inside the bus shelter and he obviously hadn't seen me but I guessed it must be the Czech man that I'd been told about so I desperately called out to him and almost choked on my sandwich. But he heard me and stopped.

Petr and I shook hands and greeted one another and I invited him to sit with me in the bus stop but he said he would prefer to go on and stop at the next cafe instead, so I put my food away and off we cycled. At the cafe we sat and exchanged stories. Petr was also cycling around the world with similar strict rules to myself, but for him the challenge was to go without using motors, only by bicycle and sail boats. He'd started from Prague in May and had cycled 8,000 kilometres in three months taking a direct route across Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Kazkhstan. I was impressed.

"Wow, that is really fast!" I said.

"No, but I took three weeks off because my woman friend came to visit me."

"So you did 8,000 kilometres in two and a bit months!" If I'd been eating a sandwich I would have choked on it

"Yes," Petr shrugged as if it was nothing, "It is only 3,500 kilometres per month. 120 or so per day."

Way to piss on my bonfire Petr.

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Also like me this was Petr's second attempt at cycling around the world, and like me he had tried going west first. He cycled to Gibraltar where he got a lift with a sailing boat to South America and after cycling around there he got other boats as far as Fiji, where he was detained and deported back to Prague. He seemed to think this was the fault of the over-zealous immigration officers although I rather suspected it might have been because he turned up on a boat to a country where he needed a visa, without a visa. He didn't appear to be one much for planning. He certainly didn't have much of a plan now, as his original idea to go to Vladivostock and look for a sailing boat (which seemed a bad idea anyway) had been derailed by the sudden onset of winter. Now he was considering to go south to Mongolia instead which were pretty much his only two options. "You know it will be cold in Mongolia too?" I said. But for all his lack of planning I had to concede that Petr was a much more efficient around-the-world-cyclist than me. We'd made it the same distance this time and he'd done it in three months to my thirteen. And as for our first attempts, well he did cycle 17,000 kilometres and get halfway around the world before being arrested, whereas I cycled 50,000 kilometres but only got as far as Canada, did a loop-the-loop, a twirly bit, went around in a circle and ended up back where I started.

He might have been more efficient but he certainly wasn't more safe. He was dressed all in black and had black panniers and no colour on him at all apart from a small Czech flag on the back. If the Czech flag had been fluorescent yellow and luminescent pink he might have stood a chance of being seen. Take a look at this photo I took of him and see if you can spot him:

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He was also swaying erratically in and out between the road and the shoulder, paying little attention to the traffic. I said it was a good idea to have a mirror, he said he preferred to look at the nature. I showed him the above photo and told him he should wear something brighter. He said he had an orange hi-viz jacket, but he only wore it at night. I have no idea how he'd lasted this long. Later on he said to me:

"Have you had many accidents?"

"No, none." I replied, "Why, have you?"

"Oh yes, lots."

I asked him how old he was and he told me 54. I didn't believe him, he looked younger, I had him pegged as early fourties.

"How old are you really?"

"I'm 54, honestly."

"I don't believe you. How old are you?"

"54. How old are you?"

"You're not 54! How old really?"

"I'm 54, honestly. How old are you?"

"I'm 58."

Petr's 'woman friend' that he referred to had tried to cycle with him in Russia but it hadn't worked out. As he told me, "The first day she cycled, the second day she had to take a lift in a truck, the third day she was too sick to continue." I wasn't surprised, the way he was doing 120 kilometres per day, the poor woman had never done a bike trip before. I would never do that to a girl that had come to cycle with me, make her cycle so much that she got sick and had to stop, how terrible, what a horrible thing to oh, no, wait, Hanna.

At half past five I said I wanted to do another 40 kilometres to which Petr said he wanted to do another 70. It was 17:30 and he wanted to do another 70 kilometres? I thought he was joking, especially when he made us stop at another two cafes in quick succession. He had a thing about cafes. At the second he bought two 1.5 litre bottles of beer and downed one there and then. 'Oh, that'll help with the swaying into the traffic' I thought. It was also at this point I noticed Petr's resemblance to a homeless man.

But then a curious thing happened. The man got out his orange hi-viz vest, put it on, and then went off like an absolute rocket, cutting a straight line for the first time and disappearing ahead of me into the distance. It was 30 kilometres before I could catch up with him, and only then because another cafe had appeared. I was exhausted and it was starting to get dark, but the man wanted to go on and on. "I must camp by water," he said, " I can't sleep if I haven't had a wash."

"Petr the last river was 50 kilometres ago, what if it's another 50 to the next one?"'

"It really is much better to have a swim before bed"

"Okay well I'm just going to camp here, there's a nice view of the sunset and I can sit outside and eat without a load of flies for once. You go on if you want to."

He looked sad, but clearly he was determined to go on. And so he did, an orange blur disappearing over the horizon. I had to admit he was one hell of a cyclist once you got some beer in him.