K + K Chaostours
and the Lord said: "Smile and be
happy, it could have been worse."
So I smiled and was happy ..... and it went worse.
It
is a mixture of moving to another continent, sort of the last wishes at the end of life, excitement and curiosity about a new phase in life, stage fright and
Information-overload-Alzheimer's ..what
did
I just
I want, where the hell is, who has seen (or who has dad....), one has packed away what the other one is looking for
(where
are my sandals - I thought you did not need them any more!).
We don't have any visa yet and there is no Plan B. On one hand, time is too short for everything that needs doing and on the other one is wishing that the 15 days were over and we're finally on
the road and can leave the whole mess behind us!
But no! It's got to be all done!
And at the end: Inshallah!
We do what we can and what we can not do has to be left.
We have collected all the vaccinations and first aid kit is almost complete.
Liza has been improved, and also prepared maybe some of the improvements are for the
worse and a lot has been broken in the process of repairing
Nothing was just easy. We have taken out motor and gearbox at the end of
January, all waiting to be taken to the workshop but that had been shut down for another month ( so we were told). Our information we got was : we can bring everything over in March. OK I give them a call on March 1st and get the
information: "the boss is not here yet and we do not know when he comes." After some asking I find out that
the boss is in South Africa, wanting to ride up the African continent and no homecoming in sight. Basically, he has our understanding we want to get on the road too!
Now I'm nervous. Where can we take the bits for overhauling now?
After
some internet research, various calls to our BMW dealer and friends I ask our bike and sidecar builder. He puts us on to the company Himmelheber and Fruhner. They are quite a way away but still in
our country and willing to fit us into their tight work load and they are very nice and full of good advice
Just before Easter, we get everything back and thanks to Martin it's
all in the bike again quite quickly. Liza is running - but somehow not properly.
Now we need to take her to the workshop - and then install the new old coils, adjust the ignition and carburetor and possibly even install a cigarette lighter
somewhere
as power supply.
As for the electrics ... inshallah
At the beginning of May we had an outbreak of flu
at work and I had to work lots of overtime. It's not so bad I thought, I can
have the time off in June when the preparations in their hot phase - I was wrong!
I get the hours
preserved for 3
years and have time off when I come back because we're still tight in the staff department.
In between we
try to get Kevin's pension plan moved from England to Germany. It takes loads of time, but we find an insurance company who can do it. Naturally they now want thousands of documents, but where are they?
Our future tenants will soon have a baby and want to move as much of their stuff as possible before the baby arrives (which is extremely understandable) but have you ever tried moving out
while someone is renovating and moving in?
I think here I will leave you to the pictures in your head.
Most of our chickens have been taken to nice people now, but
no one wants cockrels ... and they are upset with me for I stealing their girls. Kev has so much
to pack, renovate and prepare the bike, that he does not find time to the slaughter these cockerels, so we are now exposed
to daily attacks
when feeding the frustrated animals.
I've been trying to appease 10 different sides in order to regulate our passage
through China.
The members of our group are distributed in at least 6 different countries and are all having the same stress. Everyone has different ideas and so have our tour operators . I'm trying to get everything together.
Finally I have all the
necessary visa formalities from China to be able to apply for our visa, when I get the news that all the other visa are no where near ready.....
It also seems as if the Chinese
Consulate bureaucracy is holding a contest with the Germans on who is the best and
biggest bureaucrat.
The Chinese tour operator is confused and has never heard of all the
required documents. So we decide that we will get the visa in Ulan Bator. It is closer to China and the nice Mr Paul of
Chinaoverland is confident that he can sort things out with them.
..... Inshallah
I'm in the middle of e mail traffic between tour group to China, the visa office, pension plans sorting and everything that needs to be ordered, regulated and clarified, when my PC goes down and
with that all-mail contacts are gone and many still do not know the new gmail account. So I try to sort everything with my new Toughbook on Wireless LAN, then the
Internet crashes. It's not just me - no, the
whole village is cut off - it's a fault from the telecom and we are for almost 2 weeks in cyber no man's land. I scan everything onto my laptop at home and then go to my
sister's or niece's to submit it - and of course I always forget something.
When the internet works again the printer goes down ..... then the dish-washer then Kev has mangled the thread on the axle when changing tires on the side car and when this damage is
eliminated as he's also bent the mount of the break caliper.
What the hell ....
inshallah or not in 15 days or we're off and before that we have a really nice party with all the loved ones who will miss us and all the others who are happy to finally see us
from behind.
Then you'll get some good trip reports instead of all the moaning and groaning ...... inshallah!