Scott and Becky go East

I woke up this morning and was trying to visualize how we would camp during our shakedown cruise around Lake Ontario in June, and I couldn’t quite see it. It will be difficult (not to mention expensive) to find campgrounds every time we want to stop, since we’re planning on riding about 80 km per day. The idea of going up to people’s doors and asking to camp in their backyard seems like an imposition, and finding a place to camp where we’re invisible seems tricky even in Canada, let alone in the US.

I am inspired by Kevin Kelly’s 2007 Christmas Essay about willingness to accept generosity, although it will certainly require effort to reach out past my shyness and ask.

One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded. One year I rode my bicycle across America, from San Francisco to New Jersey. I started out camping in state parks, but past the Rockies, parks became so scarce I switched to camping on people’s lawns. I worked up a routine. As darkness fell, I began scouting the homes I passed for a likely candidate: neat house, big lawn in the back, easy access for my bike. When I selected the lucky home, I parked my bag-loaded bike in front of the door and rang the bell. “Hello,” I’d say. “I’m riding my bike across America. I’d like to pitch my tent tonight where I have permission and where someone knows where I am. I’ve just eaten dinner, and I’ll be gone first thing in the morning. Would you mind if I put up my tent in your backyard?”

I was never turned away, not once. And there was always more. It was impossible for most folks to sit in their couch and watch TV while a guy who was riding his bicycle across America was camped in their backyard. What if he was famous? So I was usually invited into their home for desert and an interview. My job in this moment was clear: I was to relate my adventure. I was to help them enjoy a thrill they secretly desired, but would never do. My account would make an impossible dream seem real and possible, and thus part of them. Through me and my retelling of what happened so far, they would get to vicariously ride a bicycle across America. In exchange I would get a place to camp and a dish of ice cream. It was a sweet deal that benefited both of us. The weird thing is that I was, and still am, not sure whether I would have done what they did and let me sleep in the backyard. The “me” on the bicycle had a wild tangled beard, had not showered for weeks, and appeared destitute (my whole transcontinental trip cost me $500). I am not sure I would invite a casual tourist I met to take over my apartment, and cook for him. I definitely would not hand him the keys to my own car, as a hotel clerk in Dalarna, Sweden, did one mid-summer day when I asked her how I could reach the painter Carl Larsson’s house 150 miles away away.

The other option is to stealth camp, which requires finding a quiet corner of wilderness (or abandoned area). This will require a fair bit of bravery the first few times I expect. I try to remind myself that it’s all about opening myself to the experience.

On a more practical note, I found a great article on erecting a tent in the rain which clarified my thoughts about that. I’ve always done the “spread out the the fly first” approach, but never with the elegance of the author’s approach. I’ll try it with our Mountain Hardwear Viperine 3 and see how it works. Since the poles anchor to the tent with clips and not sleeves, we should be able to do it.

From wikipedia:

Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship’s crew with operation of the craft.

In our case, our shakedown cruise is an opportunity to test out all our gear and processes to ensure that it all works out. It will also give us a sense of how far we travel over a longer span of time. We will be riding for 2-3 weeks in June, which at the time will be our longest self-supported cycling tour.

The route we are currently thinking of is relatively familiar to us, as we have driven most of it (although that was on major highways which we will not be using). The route has us leaving from Ottawa and circumnavigating Lake Ontario. The Canadian portion of the trip has a trail, the Waterfront Trail, which certainly makes the riding easier. It will be interesting to see how different our times are between minor roads and trails.

We met some people from the First Unitarian Church of Rochester at a conference last month, so we’re planning to stop in Rochester to see them. With luck, we’ll time it right so we’re there on a Sunday.

There’s a new edition of ‘Round Lake Ontario: A Bicyclist’s Tour Guide, coming out, which we could get, although I saw an interesting third-hand comment against it in a crazy-guy journal post.  I think experimenting without a guidebook will force us to ask more questions and interact with more people, which is part of what this trip is about for me.  (Yes, I am that stereotypical male who hates asking for directions).

This update is coming a little late. We have successfully reserved a spot on a freighter from Naples Italy to Port Kelang (Kuala Lumpur), Malaysia on or about February 1st, 2009. The itinerary currently takes us through La Spezia Italy and Barcelona Spain. We are hoping that we end up in Barcelona at a time when we can make a brief visit. The freighters stop in ports for between 6 and 24 hours, and the stop could be at any time of day, so there are no guarantees that we’ll get to Barcelona at a time when we could do any sight seeing.

I say reserved rather than bought a ticket because there are a couple more hoops we need to jump through yet. We need to purchase insurance and send along our policy numbers to the booking company. We are waiting for the fine print of a policy to arrive in the mail, so that we can decide where to buy the insurance. We’ll be getting a policy for our entire trip (emergency medical), so that complicates the decision a little.

The booking company is also saying that we need to get a doctors note not more than 30 days before the trip, and that they cannot issue the ticket without the note. This means we need to see a doctor while in Turkey or Greece to get the forms completed. Our agent was going to see if this was really necessary given our ages. A lot of freighter travelers are in their 70′s, which makes the medical form important; however, we are hoping that the freighter company will wave that requirement for us.

We will be staying in the owners cabin on the Hanjin Athens. The freighter companies have a neat utility that lets you check where in the world the ship is at any given time.

We have not yet booked anything to get us from North America over to Europe. We are waiting to hear about whether the Canada Senator renews its charter, expected in May. If it does, we’ll need to see if the timing works to take it from Montreal to Gioia Tauro, Italy. If the Canada Senator does not renew, then we will need to take one of the ships from Savannah Georgia to Italy (there are three or four listed). Savannah is a little further south than we wanted, so we would need to take a train from Boston to Savannah, as it would take too long to ride that distance.

For me, one of the big challenges about this trip is the different languages in all the places we’re planning to go. Neither Becky nor I have great had much success learning foreign languages, so I suspect we’ll be getting by in English.

I do want to learn at least a few words in the major languages we’ll encounter, and I have been gathering up a list of resources. The list of languages is pretty long, but at least we have some long freighter voyages to study. I’m planning to start with Turkish and Arabic, and then move on to Mandarin. We’ll be spending a bunch of time in countries where other languages are spoken, so I hope some of this early study will help loosen up the corners of my mind dedicated to language.

• Our local library has a variety of Berlitz CDs and phrase books which should be helpful. So far we have a couple in Arabic and Mandarin. I’ve copied the CDs to my iPod for easier rewinding when I miss something.
• I also found some recommendations on ask.metafilter for free podcasts from Open Culture, including a series on Jordanian Arabic from the Peace Corps.
• According to another ask.metafilter post, getting comfortable with the alphabet is critical for Arabic, and likely for Chinese as well. I think that will be my biggest challenge.
• Folks on ask.metafilter also recommended a Mandarin podcast subscription called ChinesePod and Clavis Sinic, a method for learning the script.
• For Turkish, I’ve requested a Teach Yourself Turkish course, which doesn’t have great reviews on Amazon, but we’ll see how it works for me. If I’m struggling, I may get Conversational Turkish instead.
• There are also various versions of the U.S. Foreign Service Institute language lessons available online. Since these are government-produced, they’re in the public domain, so some kind souls on the Internet are digitizing them and making them available for free. This looks like a good option for Cambodian, Lao (text only), Vietnamese and Thai.  There are various other paid versions of the FSI lesson plan as well.

There are lots of other options out there, but this is more than enough for me to get started with.

I have been trying for over a month now, rather unsuccessfully thus far, to book a freighter. We want to take a freighter from somewhere on the north east coast of North America (Montreal, New York, Newark, or Philadelphia) to somewhere in Europe (ideally Italy, but we would settle for pretty much anywhere on the continent at this point). I’ve tried 5 different listings to no avail!

My experience so far has been that everything that is posted is “going out of charter” or “changing routes” such that what I ask for is not available .

I also tried to book a freighter from Italy to Malaysia. There was one group (NSB Ever Champion etc.) that looked very good and ran very regularly (weekly). When I made the request, the information that came back was that the company is now running from England to Malaysia. Unfortunately, we’ll be on the other side of Europe, so England would be a bit of a stretch.

At this time, I am working on patience. I think I may be taking some of the wrong advice and trying to book too early. I have my fingers crossed that as our departure date gets closer, the boat schedules will firm up and more cruises will be available.

Cross your fingers for us!

As of today, our journey looks something like this:

July 4, 2008 - Depart Ottawa and ride towards Newfoundland. We are hoping to follow the North shore of Quebec until we run out of road, and then catch ferries to Newfoundland. We’ll spend the month of August cycling around Newfoundland, and then take a ferry to Nova Scotia. If the timing is right, we’ll meet up with the folks from Atlantic Canada Cycling for their Labour Day Cabot Trail Tour. From there, we’ll have a couple of weeks or so to visit Scott’s sister and family in Fredericton and get back to Montreal (unfortunately, the freighters taking passengers leaving from Halifax don’t go to the Mediterranean).

September 21st,2008 (or there abouts) – Take a freighter from Charleston, North Carolina to Antwerp Belgium.

October 2008 – January 2009 - Ride (and take ferries) from Italy to Jordan via Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and Syria. We’ll need to find our way back to Italy in time to catch our boat.

February 1st, 2009 (or there abouts) - We have tentatively booked a freighter from Naples Italy to Port Kelang (right near Kuala Lumpur) Malaysia. The freighter will stop in Le Spezia Italy and Barcelona, Spain prior to transiting the Suez Canal and going to Port Kelang (about 21 days). We are excited for the opportunity to see Barcelona, as we would not otherwise have been able to visit it. The two stops before the long transit will give us an opportunity to scope out the food on-board ship and stock up on what we want prior to the long passage. We will also be able to stock up on some good red wine in both Le Spezia and Barcelona!

March – April 2009 – Explore South-East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) by bicycle.

May 2009 – Bike up to Shanghai, China.

June 2009 – Take a freighter from Shanghai, China to Vancouver, Canada.

June / July 2009 – Ride up Vancouver Island, take a ferry to Prince Rupert, BC. Ride across Northern BC to Prince George, then head south to Kamloops, then east to Calgary.

August and September 2009 – Make our way east until we reach Ottawa.

All that being said, our boats have not yet been booked, so our itinerary is still rather fluid.

Today, we paid a visit to the travel doctor. I’m of mixed feelings about the visit. I found that I trusted the Doctor’s advise, and that he really knew about the various things; but I also felt that he didn’t do a good enough job informing me about medications and shots. If I hadn’t done a bunch of advance reading and research, I think I would have been completely lost. He did provide two comprehensive handouts though, which we are still digesting.

I’m going to have to do a little more research and be prepared with questions for my second visit.

I decided to document his recommendations and other information I’ve found in my research, but IANAD (I am not a doctor). Please consult your family doctor or local travel medicine clinic for recommendations before using any of the information below. (more…)