Back on the Roof of the World

Leh, Tuesday June 12

Up at the Shanti Stupa overlooking Leh

I am back in Leh, the capital of the northernmost bit of India (Ladakh) for the first time in 7 years.  In 2005 my sisters and I cycled from Manali to Leh, around a few of the scenic bits of Ladakh and then out to Srinagar.  This time I'm here with Terri, hiking instead of biking.

Or, rather, trying to hike.  We've been here in Ladakh for 4 days trying to arrange some long-distance treks back across the Himalayas, but until today, we've had no luck.  But let's start at the beginning of the story.

Another year of teaching came to a halt just over a week ago, and I left for Geneva airport the morning after our staff end-of-year dinner, having been up most of the night packing up my apartment for the summer.  I headed to the airport laden down with my backpack, full of hiking gear, and my ski bag, full of mountaineering gear for the second part of the summer vacation.  A long flight to Delhi, a long nap, and I was ready to face India for the fourth time.  Delhi was its usual steaming, polluted self, but I found a decent hotel in the tourist slum of Paharganj (the inelegantly named Hari Piorko, hereafter known as the Hairy Porko), with quiet rooms, comfy beds and (best of all) an aquarium set into the wall of every room.

A shikara on Nageen Lake, Srinagar

Terri and I being paddled across the lake on a shikara

Terri flew in from Bali that evening, and the next morning found us at Delhi airport again, boarding a Kingfisher Airlines flight for Srinagar.  It seems ironic that on an airplane owned by a brewery, they don't serve alcohol.  We flew through heavy pre-monsoon turbulence and landed in a howling gale.  I managed to find our way back to the same part of Nageen Lake that Audie, Saakje and I stayed on in 2005, and we settled in for 2 wonderfully relaxing nights on a houseboat.  It was easy to sit at the stern, reading or sketching the elegant shikara boats being paddled by, watching kingfishers and moorhens on the water, and gazing across the lake to the old Mughal fort topping a nearby hill.

A 2000-year-old Kushan Buddha near Mulbekh

All good things must come to an end, and our brief stay in Srinagar was followed by a 2-day marathon of discomfort as we bumped and ground our way to Leh in a hideously uncomfortable jeep.  The weather was poor, with rain on the Zoji La (the pass across the actual Himalaya range) and clouds and showers the rest of the way.  The Indian government is pouring lots of effort and money into paving the entire Srinagar-Leh road, but so far the main effects have been a lot of piles of sand and rock being pushed around lethargically by emaciated Bihari road workers, inbetween bouts of staring vacantly into the middle distance.  The road is full of diesel-belching trucks as it was in 2005, but a new feature is the hordes of middle-class Indian tourists from the plains riding the road on motorcycles.  It was nice to stop off and see the ancient Kushan-era Buddha carved into a rock face at Mulbekh, but the best part of the trip was the fact that it finally ended in Leh.  It was far more fun, stimulating, engaging and comfortable to cycle this road than to bounce along its potholes in a vehicle.  

Stok Kangri, the tallest peak near Leh; I climbed it in 2005                                           The Zanskar Range seen from Leh

It was strange to be back in Leh, having spent quite a lot of time there in 2005.  Most of the restaurants and guesthouses are the same, but it's taken me a few days to dig my memories of them out of the archives.  The setting of Leh is stunning, and looks more impressive this year since it's earlier in the summer, resulting in much, much more snow on the surrounding mountains.  Leh sits above the north bank of the Indus, with 5700-metre mountains to the north (the Ladakh Range) and 6000-metre mountains to the south (the Zanskar Range).  On a clear day (and there have been few of those so far), the views from a high vantage point like the Shanti Stupa are stunning.  

Terri spinning the prayer wheels at Lamayuru Monastery

The reason for this trip back to Ladakh is to do some trekking; in 2005 there wasn't much opportunity for that, as we had the bicycles, so we thought that this year we'd be free and easy and would walk all the way back nearly to Manali.  Little did we reckon on how difficult it would be to find horsemen and donkeymen willing to rent out their animals' services to carry our food.  We have had to abandon our ambitious initial trek (from Hemis to Darcha), and even the old fall-back from Lamayuru to Darcha foundered because there were no equids to be had in Lamayuru.  Lamayuru itself is a pleasant enough village, with a wonderful monastery and lovely surroundings, but it was frustrating not to have any luck in finding four-legged transport.  

A chukar partridge; the hillsides teem with them

We've finally pared down our ambitions to a tame 8-day walk up the Markha Valley, and have convinced a horseman to rent us no fewer than 4 horses (!) to carry our gear for us.  We leave tomorrow, and not a day too soon; 4 days of kicking our heels here in Leh and in lovely Lamayuru was too long!

So off we go tomorrow, hoping for less rain and snow, and for the passes to be clear of snow.  I'll keep you posted on developments!

An Urban Odyssey through the UAE

Dubai, December 22, 2011

I am typing this while lying beside a rooftop pool atop a high-rise luxury apartment building in Business Bay, Dubai. All around me are the improbably shaped architectural fantasies that make up modern Dubai, and in front of me, glinting silver in the sun, is the fantastic needle of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower. Below me I can hear 14 lanes of traffic roaring along the Sheikh Zayed road, and the omnipresent sound of construction cranes and pneumatic drills that are building this year’s crop of skyscrapers.

I am not much of an urbanite. I have enjoyed living in big cities for short stretches of time (a summer in London, an autumn in Budapest, a winter in Toronto, a month in Barcelona, a few months in Cairo, two years in Boston, three years in Yangon), but much of the best living I have done has happened in smaller cities or towns. I am really enjoying living in tiny Leysin now because of the wonderful outdoor activity that I can do right outside my front door. When I’m travelling, a lot of what I most enjoy is the spaces between cities, especially if I’m on my bicycle. However, much of what is most distinctive and dynamic about different countries around the world is to be found in cities, and so sometimes I have to step out of my element and into huge urban conglomerations.

This Christmas vacation, I’m spending the first half of my break doing exactly that. I flew to Abu Dhabi a few days ago, leaving behind an epic winter storm that made me wish I was sticking around to ski. I had never been to the UAE, Oman or Qatar, and that was reason enough to want to come here. The fact that several of my friends from various parts of the world have gravitated here provided motivation to make the trip this year. And so for the past few days, I have found myself in two of the most highly urbanized hypermodern cities of the world, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

When I told people that I was coming to the UAE, a frequent response was “What are YOU going to do there? You don’t even LIKE shopping!" And indeed much of the face of the UAE’s megacities consist of gargantuan shopping malls. But there are things to see that are fascinating, if not soul-satisfying, and they’re not all malls.

I’m staying here with my Canadian friend Rhea, whom I met while diving in Indonesia 7 years ago. She has since taught in Bahrain and Colombia before coming to Abu Dhabi 18 months ago. It was her suggestion that we go diving in Oman that clinched my decision to come here; experiencing the underwater world will be the perfect antidote to too much city life. Rhea has been a great tour guide, taking me around the sights of Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the most efficient, photo-friendly way possible without feeling the need to browse through designer shops along the way.

My first day in Abu Dhabi revolved around lunch at Tim Horton’s (a Canadian institution, specializing in coffee and doughnuts) at a nearby mall. Nearby is always a relative concept in Abu Dhabi; it means only 20 minutes in a car. It’s a bit sad that Abu Dhabi, as it has developed, has done so on the model of Los Angeles and Houston, sprawling enormously and designed around the automobile. It’s not a particularly pedestrian-friendly city, and the few pedestrians you do see tend to be the poor labourers from the Indian subcontinent who make up the majority of the population and do all of the actual work. Without a car, you’re dependent on taxis or the very occasional bus. After touching base with our Canadian roots, we got in the car and tried to find the Grand Mosque. Rhea’s GPS let us down, and we ended up making our way by eye to the mosque, which dominates the skyline of that corner of the city. Finding our way in was a challenge, and we ended up driving for several kilometres around the perimeter of the vast grounds looking for an entrance that was open.

Once we got inside, we realized that it had been well worth the effort. The complex is brand spanking new, and was built to be the largest, the most expensive and the most exquisitely designed mosque on earth. The architecture is quite wonderful, a mélange of styles that is huge without being bombastic, full of egg-shaped domes, slender minarets and a huge courtyard surrounded by beautiful porticos and placid pools of water. The outside of the mosque is relatively simple, with lots of big, blank white wall punctured by arches. It’s hard to get a sense of the scale of the place until you walk across the courtyard and realize how long it takes. The hundreds of tourists gawking at the mosque were dwarfed by the huge expanse of inlaid marble floor.

Inside, the simplicity gives way to a profusion of geometrical flourishes, most of them showing five-fold or ten-fold symmetry. It’s a riot of intersecting circles and curving tendrils, with a great variety of finishing touches borrowed from all over the Islamic world: Egyptian alabaster, Persian rugs and the sort of marble inlay that adorns the Taj Mahal. Everything shows really high quality workmanship, and should stand the test of time without starting to fall apart. The ceiling is particularly impressive, especially as it supports gargantuan crystal chandeliers. The overall impression is surprisingly serene, given all the individual details, and it’s the sort of place that would reward sitting quietly for an hour or two, absorbing details.

That evening we walked from dinner at the Hilton (one of three in Abu Dhabi) to the Emirates Palace hotel, a gargantuan complex that is, by some accounts, the most luxurious hotel on earth. It was a long walk through a construction site; six months earlier Rhea had walked the same route under jacaranda trees and beside flower beds, but a new road-construction project had erupted since then. Once we were inside the hotel, it was a rather surreal experience. There was a handful of staff around, and one or two guests, but the overall impression was that this entire hotel was deserted. Everything is oversized: the world’s largest and most expensive Christmas tree (last year it had $13 million worth of jewels on it), the enormously high ceilings, the huge staircases, the building itself. We crawled through the cavernous interior and out to the beach, where the scale of the building finally became evident. I felt Lilliputian as we made our way past the towering façade. When we finally emerged, I felt as though the scale and the expense and the luxury was just too much for me, and I was glad to get in a cab and head back to Rhea’s more human-sized flat.

The second day in Abu Dhabi found us renting bicycles and riding along the waterfront Corniche. I was pleased to see that the government actually found space for a bike path, as the rest of the city looks like a cyclist’s nightmare, with heavy traffic and insanely careless drivers. Feeling the wind in my hair as I flew along, I felt much happier than being stuck in a car waiting for a light to change, which is where most Abu Dhabi residents seem to spend much of their lives. We went to the huge Marina Mall to see another huge Christmas tree and to get sunset views over the Emirates Palace hotel and the nearby fantastic curves of the Etihad towers, before heading to have dinner with my friends from my Yangon days, Jared and Anna. She’s working for the Emirates education ministry, and living in a luxurious, outsized apartment in a brand-new skyscraper that costs an unbelievable sum in rent (covered by that staple of the expat life, the housing allowance). It was wonderful to catch up with them and get another inside view of life in this strange, ephemeral country.

Yesterday we jumped into Rhea’s car and drove 120 km up the road to Dubai. While Abu Dhabi has its share of huge, eye-catching modern steel and concrete, Dubai is like a set for Batman. I have never seen such a dense collection of huge buildings with such a variety of architectural flourishes. We drove along the huge, busy artery of the Sheikh Zayed Road, past the new Dubai Marina cluster of skyscrapers, and stopped at the Mall of the Emirates to have a quick peek at the indoor ski hill. Having just skied knee-deep powder in Leysin, I wasn’t really tempted to ski, but it was fascinating to see the entire artificial complex of ski hill, chairlifts, toboggan runs and Christmas trees, surrounded by restaurants with glass walls facing out onto the slopes. We walked out past yet another gargantuan Christmas tree (fairly amazing to come to an Islamic country to see the biggest Christmas trees on Earth) and hopped back into the car to head further downtown. We stopped at the beach near the iconic Burj al Arab sail-shaped hotel for some pictures (and to get sandblasted by the scouring wind) and then drove the final few hectic kilometres to our Dubai base of operations.

We’re staying in Business Bay, in the apartment of one of Rhea’s friends who taught with her in Colombia and now teaches in Dubai. It’s a ridiculously luxurious pad, with sweeping views of the surrounding architecture, but the best views are from up here on the 42^nd floor, where a small pool and lounge overlook all the crazy towers of Business Bay. The Burj Khalifa looks amazing from here, like a gigantic hypodermic needle aimed at the sky; at its foot is the enormous Dubai Mall, reputedly the world’s largest, and surrounding it is an artificial lake with huge fountains that give a musical light-and-water show every evening.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening catching up with old friends. I met up with my friend Natalya, who was in Yangon when I was there, and with whom I stayed in Baku a couple of years ago. Her parents teach here, and she’s catching up with them and then flying to Iran and Baku to take full advantage of her 4-week Christmas break from her school in Colombia. Then I went to the Dubai Mall, past yet another towering Christmas tree and the musical fountains, to the incense-scented Souq al Bahar for dinner with my friend from high school, Debashis, who’s a corporate lawyer here in Dubai and who has watched the frantic development of the Dubai skyline and real estate market over the past six years. After a fine meal, we went for a nightcap on the ground floor of the Burj Khalifa itself in a hypermodern cocktail bar, before Debashis’ driver took me back through the convoluted roads and construction detours to this apartment building.

Overall, I would say that Dubai is incredibly impressive, having been constructed out of nothing but sand and money over the past 20 years. It’s a bit like Las Vegas, an instant city in the desert, but much, much bigger and richer. I can’t say that I would ever want to live here; the car-based culture and inhuman scale would probably drive me crazy, while the difficulty of getting outside and doing sports would be even worse for me. It’s in some ways a dystopic view of the future: hyperdevelopment, built on an unsustainable base of cheap oil, desalinated water and cheap indentured labour. On the other hand, for many people in the Arab world and in Iran and Central Asia, Dubai is probably a vision of the sort of future they would like to have for themselves in their own countries: rich, modern, socially liberal, full of culture and shopping and a sense that anything is possible.

Three years ago I visited Delos, a small, uninhabited island near Mykonos in the Cyclades. Delos is in some ways a cautionary tale, as it was once a free-trade zone where merchants from all over the Mediterranean gathered to make money and build opulent residences. It was the Dubai of its time, creating out of a fairly barren and almost waterless island a bubble of enormous prosperity. Delos attracted the envy of surrounding pirate bands, and eventually the pirates sacked the city and destroyed its prosperity. I don’t think that Dubai will fall prey to pirates (unless the Somali pirates improve their range and firepower) but I’m sure that the envy of surrounding states and the enormous bubble of real estate prices here will provide strains on Dubai’s continued prosperity. The abandoned artificial offshore island of the World complex, visible off shore from where I am sitting now, might well be a harbinger of further shocks to come.

A Guest Posting on Another Cycling Blog

I've just written a short piece on Amaya William's excellent World Biking blog about the top 5 reasons to cycle China, so if you're interested, click here to have a look. My friend Kyle Henning, who cycled recently from Africa's lowest point (Lake Assal, in Djibouti) to the foot of Kilimanjaro, which he subsequently climbed on foot, also wrote a piece on the top 5 reasons to cycle Djibouti. Enjoy!

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Tallinn, August 17, 2011 It's all over. I rode into Tallinn two days ago, under grey, cold skies, getting hopelessly lost in the Stalinist suburbs that ring the lovely Old City, and now the bike is packed into a box, ready for tomorrow's flight back to Switzerland, and I'm reflecting on a summer well spent. I rolled out of Riga on August 13th, after a night of sleep in the dorm disturbed by the cacophony of a band of drunken English stag party revellers. As I lay in my bunk in the morning, summoning the strength to get up, a face peered up at mine and said "Are you travelling on a bike? Are you leaving today? What direction are you going? Let's ride together! See you in the kitchen." After that introduction, I did in fact spend the next two days riding with Ilya, the one and only long-distance Israeli bike tourist I've ever met. It was fun to have someone to talk to on the rather dull flat sections of highway ahead, and his GPS found us a couple of quieter highway sections near the coast. It was also good to have moral support dealing with a couple of Latvian drivers with serious road rage issues; one swerved off his exit ramp to come back to the highway and try to beat me up, because he actually had to slow down for me, but I cycled around him and he decided that discretion was the better part of lunacy. Ilya, who was born in Russia, thinks that it's because Latvia has so many Russians that you see such angry driving. As the day wore on, we began riding in a pace line, taking turns breaking the wind, and absolutely flew along at 27 km/h despite a slight headwind. The weather threatened rain all morning, and our beach picnic saw us looking anxiously out to black clouds massing over the Baltic, but by the time we reached our campsite at Meleki, about 90 km north of Riga, it was sunny and warm. The campsite was easily the nicest since the Caucasus, and we swam in the Baltic (almost fresh water; less taste of salt than in most mineral water), cooked together and swapped stories from the road. The beach was deserted, part of a nature reserve, and was easily the nicest of the summer. It was a nice antidote to all the rainy, grey weather I'd had in the previous weeks. After a long night of deep sleep, we awoke to grey skies and rolled out of our campsite towards the Estonian border along Sunday-morning-empty highways, and then two great side roads that kept us out of the traffic. The previous day we had seen no fewer than 11 bicycle tourists, and that day we saw 6, including a German couple with whom we played leapfrog all day along the road. In Parnu, Ilya turned off to head west to the coast, while I kept heading north on a beeline for Tallinn. Another 50 flat, dull kilometres, with heavy Sunday afternoon traffic heading north to Tallinn from the coast (carrying hundreds of expensive mountain bikes from a huge bike race), and I finally ended up camping for the last time this trip in the back corner of a fallow farmer's field, tormented by mosquitoes and horseflies, after a day of 145 km, the third-longest of the summer. The ride into Tallinn was a bit of an anticlimax, under grey skies and with cold headwinds; my thermometer read 17 degrees, and it felt colder, so I rode in my GoreTex rain jacket just to keep warm. There was little to look at, and I managed to get hopelessly lost in the suburbs before finding the little island of Gothic loveliness that makes up Tallinn's Old Town. I felt pretty worn out by the end of the trip, despite all the flat cycling of recent weeks. I think that I took fewer rest days this summer than I usually do, and as I careen down the slope of middle-aged physical mediocrity, I think my body needs more recovery time, not less. I spent yesterday dealing with my bike (new chain and rear cassette, new handlebar grips and tape, all the cables and housing replaced, and then packed neatly in a box, all done by the nice folks at Veloplus), finding a new hotel (accommodation is tight here in Tallinn, and I couldn't stay a third night at my hotel because of previous reservations) and generally schlepping around. Today, my last full day in the city, has been a day of exploration, under brilliant blue skies that make the soaring Gothic spires and their gilded tops look even more breathtaking than usual. I visited the three big museums in town (Tallinn City, Estonian National and Occupation) and while I thought the first two were pretty good, I thought the Occupation Museum came a distant also-ran third in the Baltics behind similar establishments in Riga and Vilnius. The only real highlight was the final resting place of the Communist statues, down by the basement toilets, rather appropriately. Tallinn has a wonderful feel to it, with a bigger Old Town than Riga, although not quite as large as Vilnius, and it feels very wealthy, self-confident and culturally alive. Being the 2011 European Capital of Culture probably helps on the last count. I got told off a couple of nights ago by a convenience store clerk for asking her a question in Russian instead of English. This struck me as hopelessly silly in a city that is 50% native Russian-speaking, where I hear as much Estonian as Russian being spoken around me, and where many of the older generation don't speak any English. I think there are still some thorny linguistic political issues to be sorted out here. Although Riga gets most of the buzz in Western Europe for having the most beautiful women in Europe, an unscientific study undertaken from cafe tables and while walking through all three Baltic capitals suggests that it's not necessarily the case. I found Lithuania to be full of statuesque blonde women, while Estonia has more than its share of beauty of the human sort. One thing that I did hear from Latvians was that Riga, with its RyanAir connections and reputation as a place for British stag parties, is becoming well-known for what Manila and Bangkok have long been notorious: sex tourism. I don't know about that, but there definitely seemed to be a seedier edge to Riga's Old Town than I saw in either Vilnius or here in Tallinn. On a much brighter note, as I was coming back to my hotel this afternoon, I saw a huge crowd gathered. I thought it might be a political demonstration, so I wandered over to have a look. Instead, it was a throng of thousands of Estonians gathered to hear the Dalai Lama. I had never heard him speak in person, and I was impressed with his message, his delivery and the reaction from the crowd. Hearing a message of compassion, right thinking, environmental concern and hope for the future was a welcome antidote to the dark clouds of history still swirling over the Bloodlands of eastern Europe. As always, the Chinese government thundered warnings of economic consequences to the Estonian government for letting the Dalai Lama visit Estonia, but with a long history of defying the might of another continental empire, the Estonians politely but firmly told the Chinese to bugger off. The Dalai Lama held out the Baltic independence movements of the 1980s as examples of right thinking and non-violence in action. I have been generally impressed by the Baltic states. In 20 years, they have all made huge strides and distanced themselves socially, economically and physically from the other post-Soviet states. I am particularly impressed that these three tiny linguistic units (Lithuania has 3.3 million people, with 2.1 million in Latvia and only 1.3 million here in Estonia) have such vibrant publishing, broadcasting and cultural industries. I think that there are other larger, richer countries that could learn a few things about organizing a progressive, forward-looking society from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. So now that the summer's riding is over, I will probably have to do one more post on highlights and lowlights and future travel plans, but until then, I will leave this post as is and thank all of my loyal readers, whether I know you personally or not, for reading through my stories from the road. I hope that they have inspired some of you to undertake your own adventures of whatever sort appeals to you. Peace and Tailwinds Graydon PS A couple of images that will stick in my mind from Tallinn. First are the old Russian ladies begging at the foot of the stairs leading to the Orthodox cathedral. The other, completely the opposite, is the sheer monetary excess involved in renting the Segway scooters: 32 euros an hour???? Cars, skis and computers don't cost that much to rent. I'm sure the Dalai Lama would have something to say about the contrast between these two images.

Absolutely Baltic!

Riga, August 12 I have been resting, recuperating and watching rain fall in Riga now for two and a half days, so it's time to pack up for an early departure tomorrow on the last leg of this trip, the 310 km from Riga up to my final destination, Tallinn. I hope that it all goes as easily as my ride from Kaunas to get here! My friend Sion, whenever weather got cold, windy and unpleasant this winter in the Alps, would refer to it as "absolutely BALTIC out there", and I have to say that so far Latvia has lived up to his epithet, as daily highs reach the low teens, and rain and wind batter the city and the countryside. I hope that Tallinn is more Mediterranean than Baltic! I set off from Kaunas on August 8th at 12:30, a very late start caused by my having to trudge into town, in driving rain, pushing my one-wheeled bicycle to the bike shop to pick up my newly rebuilt back wheel. I was impressed with the workmanship, and with the price tag: 50 litas, or about 15 euros, for what must have been an hour or two or labour. In Switzerland, it would have been well over 100 euros for the same job. It had stopped raining by the time I got back to the campground, so it was actually a pleasant day for riding. I had changed my itinerary to shorten it because of the lost two days in Kaunas. I headed north and a bit west towards the town of Siauliai and its Hill of Crosses. I passed a few carved devils, one of the great obsessions of Lithuanian popular culture, well documented in Kaunas' Museum of Devils. I didn't make it all the way, but I did manage to cruise 113 very enjoyable kilometres across flat, undemanding terrain, aided by that rarest of creatures, a slight tailwind. As well, I think that the new back hub that I had installed is substantially quicker than the old hub, with less rolling friction. Whatever the reason, I managed to average an unheard-of 22 km/h that day, with long periods of cruising above 25 km/h. It was all easy and enjoyable, and I even managed to camp out in a secluded corner of a farmer's field, my first wild camping in over 3 weeks. After a wonderful night's sleep, I awoke in the morning to the sound of strong wind rattling my tent. I stuck my head out and was happy to find that it was still a tailwind. I had to cut across the wind for an hour to get into Siauliai, slowing me down substantially, but after that I absolutely flew, often at 30 km/h across the flats, barely pedalling. It was such a wonderful feeling that I barely wanted it to stop. I did make myself stop at the Hill of Crosses, however, and it was well worth it. Lithuanians, who must rank with the Maltese and the Polish as the most ardently Catholic nation in Europe, have been planting crosses on this hill for centuries, but the Soviets bulldozed the crosses and spread the hill with manure in order to stamp out the practice. This failed, and since independence, hundreds of thousands of crosses, from the microscopic to the towering, have been erected in a chaotic flowering of popular religion. Most crosses are planted by individuals on pilgrimage, but some carry various messages (Messianic, political, hopes for world peace). The overall impression is of an organic mass of crosses springing from the soil. In the bracing wind, the smaller crosses, often dangling on larger ones, tinkle in the wind like a vast assortment of wind chimes. There were hordes of people there, both curious tourists and Lithuanian pilgrims. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it was well worth the time lost to sailing before the wind. I raced north towards Latvia, stopping to change money at the last town before the border, and then tacked at right angles across the wind to head east towards Rundale Palace. I got there slightly too late to go into the palace and the grounds, but I circled the moat on my bicycle and went as far as the ticket gate, admiring the sheer Versailles-like scale of the place. It was built in the time of Peter the Great by the Italian architect who built the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and it absolutely dominates the flat landscape. The gardens weren't on the opulent manicured scale of Versailles, but were still very pretty. I rode off and found another good field for camping, with a wonderful sunset over golden fields of wheat. I awoke to yet more tailwinds, and this time I had a straight shot into Riga, with no stretches at all against the wind. I made the 63 km into Riga in 2:37, an average speed of 24 km/h, by far the fastest flat day of ing I have ever had on a bike tour. I was almost tempted to bypass Riga and just keep flying along towards Tallinn; I could easily have done 200 km that day without breaking a sweat. Riga is a wonderful city, bigger feeling than Vilnius although with a smaller Old Town. It's on a broad river, which always helps a town's prettiness, and the Old Town (which is actually mostly reconstructed after the damage of the Second World War) is surrounded by the real jewel of Riga, the belt of Art Nouveau buildings put up around 1900 by Michael Eisenstein and other architects. I haven't seen as much of Riga as I thought I would. Partly this is because it has been raining almost continually since I got here, reducing the appeal of walking in the streets. Also, I went out on a pub crawl on my first evening here with other inhabitants of the hostel I'm staying at (Fun Friendly Frank's), and spent much of yesterday's daylight hours asleep. I have taken some pictures of the Art Nouveau buildings, rich in carved detail like dragons, gargoyles and Greek gods. I went through the Museum of Occupation, which details with chilling precision the losses inflicted on Latvia first by the Soviets, then the Nazis, and then the Soviets. Like Lithuania, Latvia suffered enormously between 1939 and 1953, losing some 550,000 inhabitants to murder, deportation to Siberia, flight to the West or death by overwork in German concentration camps. That's about one-third of the country's population, an almost unimaginable scale of loss comparable to Rwanda or Cambodia. It's a tribute to the Latvians that they survived this series of disasters with an undamaged sense of identity and purpose. I tried to visit the Jewish Museum today, but after a long plod through puddles and downpours, I got there to find that it's closed on Fridays. I did find a Holocaust memorial to the 70,000 Latvian Jews and 20,000 Jews from other countries who died during the Second World War; only a couple of thousand survived in German labour camps. Again, unimaginable horror and destruction. Riga is awash in tourists, as it's a big destination for RyanAir, and after a while the hordes of Germans, Dutch, Italians, Spanish and English gets a bit much, especially the proliferation of bars, restaurants and dubious nightclubs around the Old Town. I find myself wishing for the relatively tourist-free streets of Brest or Zamosc. I think Tallinn will be more of the same, and somehow I feel as though the adventurous part of this summer's travels has already come to an end. Maybe Tallinn, this year's European Capital of Culture, will re-excite my sense of arrival. Peace and (Epic) Tailwinds! Graydon