Day #1 of this trip I found myself sitting beside my bike in Wandsworth, Tool-kit spread out on the pavement (for show) and my gear pedal stuck under my engine for the third time that day...I was less than optimistic about riding to Japan and back.

Jasper leaving London

Tom and I are now in Turkey, in a few days we should be in Iran and I have to admit, things seem to be going well. This is a very brief summary of the Countries we've gone through:

Colchester:

Finally make it from Wandsworth with a gear pedal as bendy as plasticine. Get to Tom's and drop the bike in front of his mother before I'd even had time to say hello - my 'pro image', carefully crafted by Tom to calm his mum's nerve, is shattered.

Holland:

Got pedal fixed in Arnhem, spend a lot of time on the left side of the road, argued with Tom over whose bike is cooler. Tom clearly jealous.

Germany:

Oktoberfest in Munich, the most enormous beer drinking festival in the world and I'm there with the one person I know who doesn't like beer. Although I was unable to actually get a beer for a painful 2 hours because of so many rowdy Germans, got started in the end and was amazing, even Tom had a few sips! (to be fair, he did get as rowdy as the best of them).

Fun in Munich!

Austrian Alps:

Beautiful and incredible to ride through. For some reason couldn't get Annie Lennox's "No more I love you" out of my head no matter how much I try to swap it with 'born to be wild'.

Somewhere in Austria
	Slovenia

Slovenia:

Ljubljana is a very romantic city. Tom and I shared an intimate meal and held hands.

Serbia Montenegro:

Belgrade is weird, lots of grand structures and bombed out buildings. Crazy traffic. In the mountains in the south Tom threatened by a peasant with a big axe while swerving past a suicidal dog at 70mph. Stay in a very strange motel and watch some fashion TV.

Macedonia:

Stung again for vehicle insurance. I realise why I've never heard of Skopje (Mac capital) before. It’s rubbish.

Greece:

Visit a mechanic who thinks it’s hilarious that we're intending to go so far on such crappy bikes. He does confirm, however, as do a hoard of onlookers, that my bike is in fact cooler than Tom's. Tom a little despondent for the rest of the day.

Acropolis in Athens, I get very excited and give Tom a fascinating account of Athenian democracy. I get shouted at for 'posing' in front of statues. Tom ejected from the museum for stroking Socrates' beard.

Chaos: Urban camping, tried out my hammock for the first time, Tom opted for the park bench. Woke up to find that I'd lost our ongoing ferry tickets to Turkey. Tom not happy.

	Ancient Greek scaffolding at the Parthenon
Ephesus, Turkey

Turkey:

More ancient history at Ephesus and Hierapolis - I can't get enough and Tom is once again enthralled with my historical knowledge.Tom finally decides its time to change his underwear.Walk down the calcium springs at Pammukalle by moonlight - very romantic. Once again. consider the frailty of civilization and empire in the moonlit amphitheatre. Tom nearly dies of shock when a 'panther' (black labrador) 'creeps up' on him.

I hit a bird on the bike. Pretend to be cavemen in the unbelievable underground cities of Cappadocia. Tom 'attacked' by a 'rabid maniac' dog.

I kill some more birds by mistake.

Get stopped and fined heavily by police for speeding (only a few kmph above). Stopped by police again (same day) who are this time accompanied by a tank, complete with a manned rotating machine gun (trained on us) and four soldiers with AK47s. This time it was just to discuss Blackburn and Newcastle's demise after employing Graeme Souness. Dropped bike for the fourth time and smashed one of my mirrors.

The riding has just been unbelievable and I can't begin to describe some of the breathtaking scenery we've been through. You really feel that you're actually 'in it' when you're on a bike. This, and the fact that riding long distances really takes it out of you, culminates in a real sense of achievement at the end of each day when we highlight the new stretch of road that we've just covered on the map. There have been a few near misses and some scary drivers (especially in Belgrade) but we are both as cautious as we can be.

The bikes have done very well considering I was told by a Yamaha mechanic that my xt660 would never make it to Turkey and Tom had repeatedly been told that his xt600 wouldn’t even make it out of Essex. (It’s a miracle that it has.)

We've not roughed it quite as much as planned (Tom won't accept a room without fashion TV) but the places where we have camped have been unbelievable. Last night we were out on the Turkish steppe in complete isolation with nothing and no one around for miles and miles - just amazing.

It's impossible for me to actually do a trip like this any justice in an email and there's so much to write about but I’ve tried to keep it short.

Will keep you updated as to how we get on in Iran, the next leg! Cheers

Jasper