Trailblazer Guide Books

Engagingly written… all the guides from this stable are first class
 - Traveller

The Big Day is approaching and the nation's media, or just your friends and family are gathered to see you off. Then again, maybe you're slipping off quietly at dawn. One thing will be certain: you'll be chewing your lip and your throbbing hangover won't help.
If you've had the chance to prepare thoroughly pat yourself on the back; you've done well. But if you're like most mortals, you're bound to have overlooked something. This is normal – accept it and deal with the customary moment-of-departure crises, large or small.

Setting Off
You start the engine, heave the bike off the stand (don't forget to flick it up!), click it into first and wobble off down the road, appalled at the weight of the machine. Once out on the open road you wind it up and allow some faint optimism to creep in to your multiplying anxieties as passing motorists stare at you with what you hope is envy.
Finally on the move after months, if not years of preparation, the urge is to keep moving, especially if you're heading out across a cold continent. Try to resist covering excessive mileages in your early days even though movement will probably be the best tonic for your nerves. Better still, don't make any crazy deadlines to quit work and catch a ferry the same night and meet someone three countries away for breakfast.
If you've got a long way to ride, even to get to your port city, aim to spend the night near there before the ferry departs. The early days of a big trip, especially in unfamiliar countries with perplexing road signs and ‘wrong-side’ driving are when most accidents happen. If an estimated 75% of all overlanders achieve hospitalisation through accidents, rather than commonly-dreaded diseases and banditry, you can imagine what that figure is for motorcyclists.

Culture shock
Alone on your first big trip into foreign lands it's normal to feel self conscious, intimidated, if not even paranoid. This is because you are exiting your comfort zone and entering the thrill of an adventure. ‘Adventure travel’ has become a tourism marketing term to distinguish active holidays from lying by a pool, but an ‘adventure’ is what it sounds like: indulging in an activity with an uncertain or dangerous outcome. The less glamorous aspect of this is the stress involved in dealing with strange people, languages, places and food. This can be exciting; your senses are sharpened and your imagination is stimulated. But the freedom of motorcycling also translates to vulnerability which can be manifested as an exaggerated suspicion of other people. Paul Randall's anecdote over the page strikes a chord: a debilitating neurosis compounded by bike problems and pressing deadlines which can look trivial in retrospect.

Recognise that it will take a couple of weeks and some stressful encounters before you acclimatise to life on the road. Wariness is a vital behavioural pattern found in all animals and these days ‘rich people taking cheap holidays in other people's misery’ can make us assume we're asking for it.

One of the most important lessons to learn on your travels is to get beyond this xenophobia, to recognise that it is in fact the people of the world, their humanity and generosity which will give you your most rewarding experiences and memories. One of the most frustrating scenarios is when you realise you've been rude to someone who was only trying to help or be friendly. This can be understandable when you have been pestered by hustlers urging ‘mister, psst’ for days. The trick comes with gaining the experience to distinguish one from the other, and very often it is in rural areas where people are more ‘real’ and less interested in flattering their self esteem at your expense (or simply ripping you off!). it's normal to see a journey as a series of trips from one urban centre to the next; often, as in Paul's visit to St Petersburg (see box below) it's a bureaucratic requirement. But try and plan your itinerary to ease these stresses. If you're heading for a big city, have a recommended hotel in mind for the first night. It will give you something positive to focus on and breathing space until you get the feel for the place.

Out in the country where pressures are less acute, make the most of roadside cafés for tea breaks, meals and rests. They are great places to mix with local people without feeling overwhelmed. The owners and customers will be regulars used to passing travellers and may well treat you like any other customer. Above all try to resist the mania particular to motorcyclists of devouring miles at the cost of gaining far more precious experiences.

Attitudes to Security
Now that you're travelling deeper into the unknown, you'll be getting worried about your security. Four-wheel overlanders have it easy, but on a bike all your gear is out there for the taking and it's understandable to feel vulnerable, exposed and obsessed about security. This section could be filled with any number of canny tricks about secret pockets and booby traps, but the only knack you need to develop is common sense and vigilance (backed up by comprehensive travel insurance).

Accept that you're going to lose something or maybe even everything, either through carelessness or theft. Much has been said earlier about the need to keep your valuables safe, but in the end it's all just stuff that can be replaced, albeit at a price and great inconvenience. This is just a simple fact of travelling: riding motorcycles through distant lands is risky.

Fear of the unknown is an understandable self-protection mechanism and since man has travelled, others have preyed on him. The perils of travel are probably no greater than they were five hundred or two thousand years ago, and the need for vigilance has always been the same.

In a town, only let things out of your sight that you can afford to lose – and don't think that the fringes of your homelands are any less risky than Africa or Asia; petty pilfering in the developing world is as likely as outright theft in the West.

Cities anywhere are the lairs of thieves who prey on rubbernecked tourists and are one good reason to avoid them. In these crowded places keep any evidence of your wealth or your confusion under wraps. Wallets should always be zipped into an inside pocket and cameras not dangling temptingly around your neck. Markets, ports or crowded travel termini are favourite haunts for pickpockets. As you wander into these places check everything is zipped up and be alert. One good tip I read but have never actually used is having a dummy wallet with your day cash plus some expired credit cards and even an old passport. If you get mugged they'll be delighted with this and the more expired crap and other junk the better.

Avoid looking open-mouthed at maps on street corners; in heavy city centres plan your route corner by corner before you walk out of your hotel room and when you do walk, imitate the advice given to women walking alone at night: march with a single-minded motivation that emits the signal ‘don't fuck with me!’ in a heavy Sylvester Stallone accent. Beware of pats to the shoulder and other distractions which are well known snatch-and-grab set-ups.

Coping with robbery
During the months preceding your departure, it's likely at least one person – an individual who watches a lot of tabloid television and doesn't travel much – will have expressed alarm at your adventurous itinerary. ‘Africa/ Iran/Colombia [take your pick], are you crazy?’ You might knock back some bluff reply, but underneath you can't help thinking they might have a point. While theft is usually an urban problem, robbery, or what's quaintly know as banditry, usually occurs in remote regions, and is as likely in the US or outback Australia as anywhere else. Again be wary of set-ups like broken-down cars needing help. In the very unlikely event that you ride into an ambush or are set upon by armed bandits in the middle of the night, the common advice is let them take what they want and live to tell the tale. If you're smart you'll have a stash of cash on the bike which itself is rarely an item worth stealing.

Weapons for self defence
For some people, usually from already violent societies, the prospect of riding into the world may raise the question of self protection? Most of us have never seen a handgun and would consider the idea absurd. I can't think of any situation, personal or otherwise, where a handgun would have not made things worse. In parts of the US (as well as mafia-dominated economies and areas of civil unrest) gun ownership may be widespread but make no mistake, in the rest of the world they are illegal and unnecessary. In the unlikely event of a hold up, will you have it at hand and know how to deal with a bunch of thieves who may also be armed? The very urge for possessing a gun on the road engenders an aggressive attitude that really should have worked its way out during adolescence.

Mace or pepper spray sounds like a more innocuous and compact alternative, recommended in some ursine habitats and sold elsewhere as an urban self protection agent. Again, on a bike ask yourself how often are you likely to come up against a sole assailant who can be dispersed with a quick blast? The reality is that, if you indeed are under an attack from which you can flee, you will be able to do it better using your wits (and if necessary physical force) than hanging around to use a weapon.

Knives, of course, are a genuinely useful tool, at home or on the road, and in extended lengths may be part of a ‘bush master/hunter’ persona we may aspire to in the wilds. You may be tempted to carry a big knife to ‘skin rabbits’, or even a machete ‘to cut firewood’. In fact the best firewood lies loose on the ground and the most useful blade is on a Swiss Army or multitool that can be used to peel an orange without mobilising a SWAT team.

Borders and checkpoints
The vagaries of border crossings and, to a lesser extent, getting past checkpoints, are perennial worries to travellers. This anxiety is understandable because it represents a complex challenge: the need to use their wits to overcome a hurdle to their progress while dealing with possibly obstructive officials, hustlers, forms and demands in foreign languages, and all followed by the latest stretch of ‘unknown’ which lies beyond.
What you must remember is that, in almost all cases, what you are doing has been done before, several times. If your documentation is in order – something that is nobody's responsibility but your own – eventually you will get through. If you've been pulled over for speeding (the most common traffic infraction), simply accept you've been nailed, just as you would do back at home where it is also seen as an integral expense of independent mobility. it's very common for motorcyclists to be able to talk their way out of these situations: you'll soon learn to tell if the guy is professional, devious or just wants to ascertain your bike's top speed and say ‘Manchester United'.

After a few countries, you'll have the hang of crossing frontiers, or at least be resigned to the inevitable hanging about and the power games which sometimes need to be played to win the day. Nevertheless, adopt this Platonic strategy at any official barrier:

• Remain calm and polite.

• Switch off your engine and remove your helmet if they mean business.

• Be patient and smile a lot.

• Never grumble or show unnecessary irritation, even in the face of provocation.

• Obey all the petty instructions for searches and papers.

• Accept delays and sudden, protracted ‘lunch breaks’.

• Be suspicious of strangers wanting lifts or deliveries over borders.

If you're being given a hard time, stoicism and good humour may diffuse a tense situation. Try to remember that the glamorous benefits of a uniform and a machine gun soon pale when you're living in a tin shed far from your family and haven't been paid for six months. Read the situation. If there's a request to make some untoward payment or ‘tourist tax’, stick up for yourself, ask for a receipt, negotiate, but in the end pay up. Remember that, no matter what many overland travellers assume, they're not just picking on you.

Bribes aren't daylight robbery, but a way of life in many developing countries. You may resent this custom – and many travellers boast that they've never paid a penny – but that's just what it is, a custom. A couple of dollars can save hours.

It may look cool in the movies but never smugly hand over your passport with a wink and a twenty folded inside. This is not how the game is played and could land you in big trouble (or just waste money). you'll know when you're expected to pay. If an impasse has been reached ask if there is some kind of official tax (or, if you're in trouble by the road, a fine) that can be paid and to whom it should be paid. Perhaps they can arrange for the payment to be forwarded to the correct department? Accept payments as part of travelling, but don't think you have to pay your way through every border or tricky situation.

Some official tariffs are negotiable; often it's just winning the game by getting something off you that counts. It doesn't have to be money, but money is the ultimate compact commodity which partly explains its widespread popularity. On a bike you won't have the room to carry a disposable stash of last year's mobile phones, Madonna cassettes or even lighters and pens.

Changing Money
Some borders have currency-changing facilities, others out in the bush don't. If you're lucky, the nearest town will have a cashpoint machine (ATM) and this is the simplest way to obtain local currency. If there is a good network of them in a given country, you only need withdraw a little cash at a time. This way you never have too much to lose and won't get stuck trying to change a weak local currency back into US dollars or whatever. Even if it's possible it will be at such a bad rate that it's hardly worth it.

If ATMs are unknown it may be possible to buy the local currency in the preceding country. Otherwise, changing money can take hours in some banks going from one counter to another; get used to it, it's the same for everyone. Currency exchange booths in large town centres need not be as dodgy as they look, can save hours and might even offer a better rate.

‘Sorry, no change’ is something you're bound to hear when paying for a local service with a high denomination note; newly born taxi drivers can mouth it even before they can say ‘mama’. When you've got nothing else there's no way round it, but learn to hoard low denomination notes; they're useful for tips.

Currency declaration forms
Some countries try and undermine their black markets by insisting you complete a Currency Declaration Form (CDF). On it you fill out all the foreign currency you are bringing into a country and possibly other valuables too. Any further exchange transactions you make in that country must be matched by receipts or entries on the CDF, so that when you leave, the cash you brought in equals what you're taking out, less the money you officially exchanged. Half the time these forms aren't even checked when you leave, but don't count on it. Any money you don't declare on the form (i.e. smuggle in) must also not be discovered on departure.

Black market
The use of the black market to change foreign currency into local at an advantageous rate is an accepted part of travel in countries with weak or ‘soft’ currencies. it's also a popular set-up for na've travellers and by its very nature illegal, leaving you liable to fines, confiscation of funds and even imprisonment. To many locals your hard currency represents access to desirable foreign goods which their currency cannot buy, or even a ticket out of the country.

Making deals
Use the black market by all means (sometimes there is no choice and some banks even encourage it to save queuing), but keep your eyes open and your wits about you. If you're a beginner here are some guidelines:

• Establish exactly how many dinars you're being offered for a dollar (for example). Repeat to them ‘So you are offering me 300 dinars for one dollar?’ and if they agree then spell out the total amount you want to exchange, i.e. ‘So you will give me 4500 dinars for fifteen dollars?’

• Ask to see the currency offered and check that the notes have the right number of zeros. It is also helpful to learn to read the nine cardinal Arabic numerals if heading that way.

• If there's room for negotiation, go ahead. A wily black marketeer is going to offer as little local currency as he can for your valuable dollars.

• Deal one-to-one and don't get drawn into any shady corners or deals.

Watch out for sleight of hand. I'm sure I was diddled with the ‘Romanian Hand Trick’ near the Libyan border once. There is some ploy in which they count out the money offered, give it to you to count, which you do, and find everything in order. At this point your guard is down and they take it back to check, and even though you're staring at their hands something happens and you get back less than you thought. If this ‘handback’ scenario happens, be on guard, try and resist it or count it all again. Obviously the black market rate will represent a major boost to your funds, but don't stick your neck out to gain a measly ten per cent. While you should never take them for granted, you'll soon get the hang of making these useful if illegal street deals. And if you're ever unsure, trust your instincts and walk away.