Publication Date Coming Up!

 Lipah, Bali

The team near Passu

Crossing the Khunjerab Pass into China

It's a blustery evening here in northeast Bali, with a backdrop of dramatic lightning far offshore and distant rumbles of thunder.  The sea is rough, and it's been a while since we went diving.  It's been a good time of year to work on projects, and the big project is finally coming to fruition.

I've been working on polishing up a manuscript I first wrote back in 2002, about my 1998 bicycle trip through northern Pakistan, Xinjiang and Tibet.  It's been a long, drawn-out process, but it's finally all coming together.  I have finished editing the manuscript, picked out photos to illustrate the story, set up a website and a Facebook page to publicize the book once it's published, and started the process of putting the book into Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing software.  All that's really left is to produce a few maps, which will be my project over the next two weeks.  

Dropping down the Lowarai Pass

Crossing some serious snowmelt

Since the end of the process is in sight, I've decided to set myself a (rather arbitrary) deadline.  I want to have the book published and ready to buy on Amazon.com by February 28th.  That gives me 26 days to dot all the i's and cross all the t's.  It's finally becoming real that I will have a real, honest-to-God published book out there in the world in less than one month.  After all these years (a bit more than 18 years since I finished the first draft of the manuscript, and over 22 years since I finished the bicycle trip).  

I am both excited and apprehensive about this.  I think I've written a good book, and two writers whom I greatly admire, Bruce Kirkby and John Keay, agree with me.  Bruce, a fellow Canadian adventurer and author of the books Sand Dance and Blue Sky Kingdom, had the following to say:

On the road to Tashkurgan

"Graydon may have missed his calling as Dos Equis' 'Most Interesting Man in the World.' A polyglot and polymath, who is as well-read and widely-traveled as anyone I know, in Pedalling to Kailash, Graydon takes us along with the Xtreme Dorks on an ambitious and wild-hearted bicycle tour through the Karakoram and Himalaya, and then onwards across the gruelling Tibetan Plateau. Along the way, he casually fills in delightful details about the land, people and history. The result is a poignant reminder of how curiosity, good hearts, iron wills and perhaps most critically self-deprecating humour are the keys to opening new landscapes--both foreign and within."

Heading up the Chiragsaldi Pass

Camped on the Aksai Chin plateau

John Keay has written a series of wonderful books about Asia, including When Men and Mountains Meet and its companion volume Gilgit Game; these two books provided some of the main background reading for planning our bicycle trip.  He read my manuscript and said the following:

"I was sorry to read that Graydon Hazenberg's Pedalling to Kailash has still not found a publisher. It certainly deserves one, and perhaps the passage of time has actually added to its interest. It describes a family expedition across Roof of the Word made in 1998, a time when the chances of unaccredited travellers not being arrested may have been slightly better than today but when the facilities were fewer and the roads considerably worse.

Tibetan pilgrim at Tirthapuri

Mount Kailash

"This last was a matter of concern because Graydon, his twin sisters and their two boyfriends had chosen to tackle the most formidable terrain in Asia on push-bikes. A century earlier the Americans Fanny Bullock and William Workman had warmed up for the Himalayas by cycling from the tip of India to Kashmir, where they switched to walking boots for the Karakorams. The Hazenbergs flew into Islamabad, pedalled out of the airport and kept on pedalling - and pushing - up through northern Pakistan, round the Karakorams, across the sands of Xinjiang, over the Kun Lun passes, out onto the Aksai Chin and down through western Tibet to the great pilgrimage sites of Kailas-Manasarovar. 

"It was a brutal marathon but it makes for an engrossing read. Punctuating the punctures, the author's reflections on the history and culture of the region betray extensive research and good judgement. Not many will be tempted to follow in the Hazenbergs' tyre-tracks, but someone who has slipped across so many dodgy frontiers and blagged his way past so many Chinese security guards will surely find a route to get this fine narrative to a wider readership."

The team entering TIBET

I will keep you, my faithful readers, posted on the progress of the book towards publication. Mark those calendars! I hope that you all end up enjoying the book as much as Bruce and John did.

Final thoughts on 2020

 Lipah, Bali, January 1, 2021

Every New Year's Eve for the past two decades, the Hazenbergs have made lists, haikus and resolutions. The lists are the top and bottom 3 things that happened in the old year, both for the world and personally, while the haikus are supposed to summarize the past year pithily. Here's what I came up with for 2020. Hope you enjoy them! Happy New Year!

Top 3 (World)

1. Rapid scientific response to covid-19, including the incredibly fast development of vaccines.

2. Taiwan and New Zealand showing the rest of the world how to respond to a pandemic effectively.

3. The increasingly rapid rise of renewable energy sources

Top 3 (Personal)

1. Getting my book Pedalling to Kailash into shape for publication.

2. Being reunited with Maree (which didn't look possible for a long time)

3. Playing lots of piano in the first half of the year in Tbilisi.

Bottom 3 (World)

1. The pandemic and most of the world's flailing response to it.

2. The infestation of much of the world by conspiracy theories.

3. The continuously increasing effects of anthropogenic climate change.

Bottom 3 (Personal)

1. Letting myself get much more out of shape than usual.

2. Losing my mojo and energy to get things done during the pandemic.

3. The indefinite delay of our long-anticipated resumption of Stanley's Travels.

And the haiku:

First Chinese rumours

Lead to deadly tsunami

Washing over world

Tiny particles

Produce gigantic effects

World grinds to a halt

Best laid plans wither

On the pandemic grapevine

As borders slam shut

"Distance learning" starts

Futile internet charade

Screams into the void

Wild conspiracies

Fermenting in idle minds

Dark Ages return

2020 Vision: Blurry

 December 18, 2020

Ordinarily, this is one of my favourite blog posts of the year, as I look back on the year that is finishing, remembering the journeys that have enlivened this lap of the sun.  This year, however, has been different.  The Year of Coronavirus has destroyed lives and livelihoods and completely changed the way that so many of us live,  In the greater scheme of things, my own losses have been pretty mild:  no illness, no enforced unemployment, friends and family untouched by illness.  However the plans that Terri and I had laid so elaborately have been laid waste by the effects of covid-19 on international travel, so this year's post will be shorter and less full of the joy of wanderlust than usual.

Saakje, my mother, myself and Henkka in Panama

Terri and I near Boquete

2020 began, as usual, with travel; Terri and I spent nearly three weeks exploring Panama and having a Christmas rendezvous with my mother, my sister Saakje and her partner Henkka.  It was a fun trip, with lots of nature and beaches and plenty of pina coladas on Bastimentos Island.  I'm very glad that Terri and I were able to see my mother, as we had planned a full family get-together for the summer of 2020 to mark her 80th birthday, and that obviously didn't happen, so at least we got to spend time with her before covid closed down travel.  We enjoyed Panama, but if I were to go back, I think I would spend more time birdwatching in the jungle and less time on the beach.

On the way home to Tbilisi, Terri and I stopped off in Qatar for one night, just long enough to visit the wondrous Museum of Islamic Art and to eat fabulous Indian food.  It's hard to believe that less than 12 months ago this sort of flying visit was easy to do!

Once back in Tbilisi, the year began to go downhill.  There was, for a second year running, almost no snow in the mountains of eastern Georgia.  We tried to go skiing one weekend, and ski touring the next, but there was so little snow that it wasn't worth it.  That made for a less amusing winter than we had hoped.  We got out of town for a couple of weekend trips to look for castles, or to go hiking, but without skiing, winter in Georgia can be a bit grim.  Instead, we began to plan in earnest for our summer and fall of travel, once my teaching contract was over:  a month in Iran and Armenia, another month in Canada, a third in Bali, and then to Cape Town mid-September to resume our explorations in our beloved camper Stanley.  There were carnets to buy, routes to choose, visas to research, and all the homework that comes before a prolonged expedition.

Terri and I at Gergeti Church:  not much snow!

Greg and I shivering on the Javakheti plateau

In early March, my friend Greg came for a brief visit at the same time that Terri flew off to New Zealand to visit her family.  Italy was starting to close down, but we didn't imagine that Terri would never be able to return to Tbilisi.  We did some exploring, and even played tennis outdoors in unseasonably warm spring weather.  Luckily Greg got out and back home to Japan just before travel ceased.  Terri's 5 weeks in New Zealand stretched to 5 months, as Georgia sealed its borders to incoming foreigners, and regularly scheduled flights stopped entirely.  I settled in for a few months of remote teaching.

Spring brings our backyard cherry blossoms to life

I can't really complain about being stuck in Georgia until mid-August.  While I was there, covid case numbers were among the lowest in the world, and apart from a two-week period with no car traffic (wonderful for cycling!), much of the city functioned as normal.  I ate well, went for bike rides and hikes and runs in the hills and played a lot of piano.  The only thing that was sub-ideal was teaching online, which I found an appalling waste of everyone's time, and frustrating as well, especially given my poor internet connection.

The view down to the Mtkvari River above Mtskheta

Katskhi pillar church near Chiatura

Lovely Lost World campsite near Tkibuli

In mid-June I finished the teaching year and with it my two-year contract.  I still couldn't leave the country as flights were non-existent, so I went off for a two-week bicycle tour around the country, filling in a few blanks on my map of Georgia.  It was good for body and soul, and at the beginning of July I returned to Tbilisi refreshed and ready to figure out how to be reunited with Terri.  It was a challenge:  she couldn't return to Georgia as the borders were closed, I couldn't go to New Zealand for the same reason, she couldn't come to Canada, and I couldn't leave Georgia until flights resumed.  I busied myself selling the contents of our house and packing things into seven suitcases, two ski bags and a bicycle box.  It was hotter than Hades in the city, and I found myself listless and unproductive, especially once I had sold my piano.  I got out from time to time on short road trips or bicycle loops, but not as much as I should have.

Kartsakhi Lake, on the Georgian-Turkish border

Hiking near Abudelauri Lakes near Roshka

Caucasus scenery above Roshka, on the road to Akhieli

Eventually Terri and I figured out that we could be reunited in Europe, as I have an EU passport and she has a Swiss passport.  Flights resumed in early August, and I bought a ticket for August 13th to Geneva.  My school kindly let me stay on in my house until the beginning of August, when I had to vacate to make room for my successor.  I packed up the house, stored my mountains of luggage at a colleague's house for a week, and drove up to Kazbegi for a farewell to the Caucasus.  A few days of hiking and exploring remote mountain roads made for an excellent finale to two years in Georgia.  On August 13th I headed to the airport with 8 bags (I had had to send one ski bag and the bike box by air freight), left my beloved van Douglas the Delica for my successor, who had agreed to buy it, and flew to Geneva for a reunion with Terri, whom I hadn't seen in over five months.

Farewell to the Caucasus:  Gergeti Trinity Church above Kazbegi

Leysin reunion with my sister Audie and her daughters

We spent two weeks in our old haunt of Leysin, helping pack up Terri's life for shipping a huge volume of possessions to New Zealand and buying a car, a Skoda Octavia station wagon that proved to be perfect for us.  We met up with my other sister Audie and her family, and stayed with Terri's friend Julie-Ann.  We got out for a few hikes and bicycle rides on the old familiar roads and passes around Leysin.  At the end  of August, we drove south into France for six weeks.  Saakje and Henkka have a house in Guillestre, and since they were both in Canada, they let us live there until Henkka came back.  It was a perfect place to catch our breath and to enjoy the best of France:  good food and wine, amazing mountain hiking and some of the best road cycling in the world.  We had a fabulous time, with an eight-day trek around the GR58 hiking trail the highlight.  We got out for our share of day hikes as well, and rode up a number of the local road passes too, although unseasonably early snow put paid to that earlier than we had hoped as the passes closed.

Terri and Julie-Ann hiking near Leysin

Pain de Sucre, a mountain near the Col d'Agnel

Terri and I at the midpoint of the GR58

A campsite with a view, near the Col de Furfande

Mosaic of Emperor Justinian in Ravenna

On October 9th we bid a fond farewell to Guillestre and drove into Italy as covid cases began to climb sharply all over Europe.  We could almost hear the restrictions clanging borders shut behind us as we drove south, meandering through Cremona, Bologna, Ravenna, Rimini, San Marino, Brindisi and Otranto before making our way to Sicily, where we had decided to wait to see what would develop in terms of travel possibilities.  I was waiting for a New Zealand visa, and we had hopes that we might be able to get to Terri's house in Bali.  We spend a few days in Agrigento, hoping to find a cheap place to rent by the month, but we ended up finding a tiny yellow house by the sea in Biscione, on the outskirts of Marsala.  We spent an idyllic month holed up there, eating well, having sundowners on our roof terrace, swimming in the Mediterranean every day, going for runs and bicycle rides along the coast, taking the odd excursion to local archaeological sites, reading and (in my case) studying Italian.  We also started feeding a local street cat and her three adorable kittens, and (briefly) a litter of 6 abandoned puppies.  A week or so after we arrived, we realized that Indonesia was granting "business" visas, and that it made sense to get one of those.  A frantic week of getting documents together and suddenly we had a plan.

Halloween (Almost) Full Moon 

Selinunte

"Our" kittens in Biscione:  Scamp, Ginger and Dio

The last forlorn abandoned puppy

On the beach near Marsala

We were just in time; France went into lockdown not long after we left the country, and Italy's restrictions got more stringent by the week.  We took a ferry from Palermo to Genoa on November 19th, then drove along eerily deserted autostrade to the Swiss border.  A few days lying low, selling our car and getting Terri's possessions sent off to New Zealand, and then we were on the train to Zurich airport.  Flying Qatar Airways to Jakarta was surreal, with airport terminals virtual ghost towns and flights maybe 25% full.  We waved our precious e-visas and negative covid tests around, and suddenly we had been stamped into Indonesia and were catching our connecting flight to Bali.

A male ribbon eel

We've been back in our beloved Lipah Beach for three weeks already, and it's the perfect place to wait out the tail end of a pandemic.  We swim, snorkel or go scuba diving every day, putter around doing home improvements, eat well and watch the world go by from our terrace.  We will probably be here until April at least, at which point (travel restrictions and quarantine permitting) I might go to Canada and Terri to New Zealand before we rendezvous in South Africa to resume Stanley's Travels, one year later than originally planned.

I can't say that it's been a wonderful year, but at least it's ending with Terri and I reunited in a beautiful place.  I have felt really listless and off my game since the pandemic erupted, and I haven't accomplished much with all the time that I've had on my hands.  Having said that, I have managed to get a book which I wrote eighteen years ago into shape for publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing.  I hope to have it out within a couple of months, so please keep an eye out for Pedalling to Kailash, the story of the 1998 XTreme Dorks mountain bike expedition from Islamabad, Pakistan to Lake Manasarovar in western Tibet.  I am excited that modern publishing technology means that self-publishing is easier and (potentially) more profitable than it has historically been, and I hope that many of you, my faithful readers, will soon be able to read the book.  Fingers crossed that it will become a runaway international bestseller (or at least sell more than two dozen copies!).

Bali:  a good place to finish 2020!

I hope that everyone reading this has survived what has been a very unusual and challenging year, and that 2021 goes much, much better, allowing us to thrive and not just survive.  From Lipah, Bali, Terri and I wish each and every one of you a Happy New Year!