Post 331: Building in Boonville .....

The plan was, and to best of my knowledge still is, to help my brother Alan, his wife Torrey and their two children Sam and Willow to build a new family home in Boonville California. The new home is located on approximately 160 acres of hillside along a private road that looks down across vineyards and redwood forests into the depths of the Anderson Valley. It’s a large parcel of land that under normal circumstances would be totally unaffordable. But this is not a normal place, this is Boonville and everything happens a little differently in these parts. The 160 acres of land borders an intentional community called ‘Emerald Earth’ (‘Intentional Community’ is a new age name for a commune) and was initially purchased by a Californian whose name I will not divulge. The Californian in question purchased this particular parcel of land in order to protect the integrity of the neighbouring community at Emerald Earth and thus avoid the creation of new vineyards. The production of fine wines is essential to the economy of the Anderson Valley but the establishment of new vineyards deprives the small farms of much needed water during the dry season. The people of Boonville enjoy their wines just as much as everybody else, but they also enjoy their local organic food and it’s one of the few places that I’ve visited in America where the word ’Community’ really applies. It’s a community where people help other people and at a chance meeting in a local restaurant, Alan was introduced to the Californian land-angel. By amazing coincidence, the Californian land-angel was looking for an organic farmer to take on the 160 acre plot and Alan was looking for around 50 acres of land on which to expand his organic farming operation. The intentions of both parties matched perfectly but the numbers simply didn’t add up. Alan and Torrey could never in their wildest dreams afford to purchase 160 acres of land with a million dollar view, but the land-angel made things simple for them ….. “however much you can afford is exactly what I‘ll accept for the 160 acres” . And so the deal was done. It wasn’t quite that simple and certain restrictive covenants apply, but it was certainly a lucky day for the Thomas’s…… mai pen rai

At the beginning of August 2010, Alan approached our good friend and Boonville resident Steve ‘Guitar’ Derwinski and asked him to draw-up plans for the proposed new house at Lone Tree Ridge on Peachland Road. Steve was officially in retirement but instantly agreed not only to draw the pans but to personally manage the build up to roof level. Plans were submitted to the Ukiah Planning Department and the intention is to make full use of ’Class K’ planning regulations. ’Class K’ is a planning system available for building low density dwellings in rural locations and allows for the building of some quite funky and unique dwellings. Under ‘Class K’, once the initial plans are ’Accepted’, you build the house and the planning department will only inspect the building at the end of construction. This avoids the costly process of ’Permits’ and ’Periodic Inspections’ and allows the builder to use ’Free-Cycled’ materials. Being five miles away from the main road, the house is designated ’Off-Grid’ and will be self sufficient for energy. It will have wood burning stoves fuelled by the many fallen trees on the land and solar panels to capture the year-round sunshine. No more heating bills, thank you very much.

On the 25th of August, Steve Mize brought his excavation equipment to the building site and began to make a level platform in the side of the hill for the home to sit in. Once the pad was cleared, foundation trenches were then excavated and the building process could begin.

Wooden forms were then constructed and reinforced with steel bars ready for concrete to be poured for the base foundation. While the forms were being erected, Steve Mize constructed a new road that runs several hundred yards from the existing private road to the new building site. The site is on a steep hillside and the new road had to navigate it’s way up the unfeasible gradient and around ancient oak trees before reaching the house. Personally I thought that it was an impossible task, but two days later the road was complete and the cement trucks were able to gain access and the foundations were poured.

Two days after the concrete had been poured, the form boards were removed and the building began to rise. Wooden plates were attached to the tops of the new concrete walls and massive wooden beams laid down to support the floor joists. The spaces between the floor joists were packed with insulation and then plywood laid and nailed on top to form the floor.

Exactly four weeks after the first shovel full of dirt was moved, all of the ground floor walls have now been build and we’re about to start work on the second floor living and kitchen areas. We’re using a building system called ’SIPS’ - Structural Insulated Panel Systems - and it’s actually not dissimilar to using a child’s building set. Each panel is a six inch thick piece of polystyrene sandwiched between two pieces of eight foot by four foot weatherboard. Channels are already cut to carry the electrical wiring and you simply put the panel in the right place and attack it with a huge pneumatic nail gun. On it’s own, each panel seems quite flimsy, but when joined to the next panel the strength of the structure increases dramatically. That’s just as well, because we’re building one hundred miles north of San Francisco and I suspect that puts us right on the San Andreas fault line… mai pen rai

We’re now four weeks into the twelve week build and we’re on-budget and slightly ahead of schedule. I’ll be leaving Boonville on the 16th of November and hope to leave the building with a roof. The internal finishing will take a little while longer but Alan and his family intend to move in to the new home before Christmas. Every day on the site I can hear Kevin McLoud’s voice ringing in my ears -Channel 4’s Grand Designs- but hopefully there are no major disasters looming on this build. Oh, did I mention that we’ve just had our initial planning permission refused? …. mai pen rai

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Post 330: Boonville Fair & Rodeo ....

The house build is going well. Three weeks since we first began digging the foundations and we’ve just started to raise the walls on the ground floor. Structurally everything is fine and my lack of building knowledge is as yet undiscovered, but on Saturday morning a letter arrived. It was from the Ukiah Department of Planning and the letter began …. ’’Dear Mr Thomas, we regret to inform you’’. When a letter begins with those words you just need to sit down with a very cold beer. It appears that the Department of Planning are not entirely happy with the proposed structure and have denied permission to build. Well, the structure isn’t “proposed” it’s actually “half built“, but thankfully not the part that they’ve objected to. The plans will be adapted to suit their administrative requirements and we’ll still build the house that Alan and his wife Torrey actually want. It’ll take a little longer then planned and add a few thousand dollars to the final cost but there’s no use crying over red-tape …. mai pen rai

The disappointment of the official letter was short lived. It’s “Fair Weekend” in Boonville and that means a time for fun and relaxation. That is unless of course you’re a Rodeo Rider or a Bull. I suspect that you don’t need to be amazingly bright to ride 500Kg’s of angry bull, but an honours degree in stupidity wouldn’t go a miss. I think the point of the game is to stay on the bull for seven seconds and the angrier the bull is the more points you’ll receive. Fortunately, the bulls seemed to win every round without problems or injuries, and as for the Rodeo Riders??? …… mai pen rai

They seem to like things big here in California; hats, guns, trucks and bulls included. It’s Halloween in a few weeks time and some kids are going to need strong arms is they’re carrying lanterns made from any of these beauties. The winner of the Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off was 207lbs, which is only a few pounds lighter than my new bike. Apparently the local Messiah of Pumpkins has an example weighing at least 500lbs but is saving it for the State Fair in a few weeks time. Bigger pumpkins for bigger prizes.

On Sunday morning at the main arena, I thought for a second that I was back in Blighty. It was one man and his dog, or in this case, several girls and their dogs. No, this wasn’t anything kinky from the darker regions of Craig’s List, this was just good old fashioned sheep dog trials. I haven’t watched sheep dog trials since I was a kid growing up in Darlington, but it was actually good fun to watch. As the beer tent opened relatively early, I’ve no idea which dog eventually won, but the dog that came home in third place is the full brother of Emma, my brothers dog who you can see inspecting the new house in the photo above.

Sunday lunchtime was spent on the steps of the Boonville Hotel watching the annual parade and drinking a few beers with friends. The parade was led by the ‘Veterans’ and this year there were only three. The proud trio got a rousing cheer from the appreciative audience and everybody hopes that next year all of them will return. To the outsider, Boonville probably appears to be an area populated by fully grown-up hippies, and that’s because it is. People flocked here in the 60’s & 70’s and many of them have stayed and matured here. Where Goa became a little bit twee for the discerning hippy, Boonville continues to provide folks with an environment that allows practical freedom. It’s not perfect but it’s probably about as good as it gets …. mai pen rai

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Post 329: Boonville Time .....

It’s taken a little more than two weeks, but now I’m there. Sure, I arrived in Boonville a while ago, but it’s taken me this long to adjust to ‘Boonville Time‘. Things move at a different pace here and sometimes that means no pace at all. People arrive when they arrive and things get done exactly when they do. It reminds me very much of Thailand and maybe that’s why I feel so much at home here. People here are always in a rush but there’s very little rushing. People have time for people and there’s always enough time to just stand and stare. Boonville is in Mendocino County and Mendocino is famous for two things; amazing wines and the worlds finest marijuana. I’m not sure that these things are in anyway connected to the pace of life here, but they’re certainly not in conflict with it ….. mai pen rai

Here in Boonville, the ‘normal’ things seem to take on greater significance than they do elsewhere. Like early morning coffee at the ‘Redwood Drive-In’. It’s probably not the best coffee in the world, or even the best coffee in Boonville, but it’s just a great way to start each day.

Back on the London Despatch Circuit, a place that I once called ’home’, most of my day was spent dreaming of ‘home-time’, but here in Mendocino every part of the day is here to be enjoyed. A 6:00am start to feed cows, pigs, chickens and lambs means rising long before the sun. If the fog is still hanging low in the valley then it’s cold and somewhat magical, and if it isn’t, then the sky is filled with stars that are too numerous to count. Work on the house up on ’Lone Tree Ridge’ is hard, but the time passes quickly and home-time arrives long before you really want it to. If you linger long enough then you’re rewarded with the most amazing sunset and a new set of stars that couldn’t have been painted any brighter by Hollywood‘s finest designers.

On the other hand, if you leave in the ridge in daylight then you can enjoy what I now consider to be one of the finest biking roads in the world. From ‘California 128’, Peachlands Road rises into the hills and if you follow it for long enough will probably take you all of the way to Ukiah. It’s a private road and to enjoy it fully then you’ll need a good dirt bike and the combination codes to several locked gates. I’m a very lucky guy because I now have those combinations and a previously enjoyed Kawasaki KLR 650 on which to explore ….. mai pen rai

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Post 328: Let the building begin .....

So …… the excuse for this visit to Boonville is to help my brother Alan and his family to build their new family home in the hills overlooking the Anderson Valley. For a London Despatch Rider it’s quite a change of occupation but hopefully they’ll initially put my building ignorance down to nothing more than English eccentricity. By the time they realise that I know as much about building as I do about string theory I’ll hopefully have learned sufficient building skills to get by …. mai pen rai

Once you’ve found the ideal building plot for the dream home, the reality soon begins to bite. Unfortunately, reality’s got bloody sharp teeth and before you can even think about starting to build, you first need to establish ‘Access’. Access to any building site is usually by road but if no road exists then you’ve no choice but to make one. The building plot is about five miles North of Highway 128 and for four and three quarters of those miles there’s already a perfectly usable sand and gravel track. Thankfully, it’s only the last two hundred yards that are the problem but as we stand looking at the challenge in front of us, it’s difficult to see an immediate and simple solution. A few trees will need to be removed and that’s fine, but the fire department insist that any access road to residential property must have a maximum incline of 16%. A 16% incline is still quite steep, but what we’re faced with looks less like an incline and more like a cliff face. Fortunately here in Boonville, the ’go-to-guy’ for any earth moving challenges is Steve Mize. Steve doesn’t talk much and that‘s probably because he doesn‘t need to. When it comes to this problem, Steve Mize is the ‘Master’ and we’re nothing more than his appreciative audience. He looks at the problem, strokes his full white beard, glances left and right and then jumps into his John Deere ‘Backho’ (Excavator). At the end of a long and hot day, the desired road is in place. It’s twice as long as the original path and curves around giant redwoods and great oaks before arriving at what will eventually be the rear of the house. What Steve has achieved is not excavation ….. it’s art.

It’s day two of the build and we’ve now a got a beautifully usable road leading directly to what will be the main entrance to the new home. The next task is to create a shelf in the hillside upon which the house will sit. Once again it’s the ‘Steve Mize Show‘. A solo performance that see’s him operating his ‘Backho’ in ways that seems to defy the natural laws of gravity. He seems to work in three different dimensions at the same time and without ever looking, he’s always aware of what every arm an lever is doing. It’s mechanical ballet set to a diesel soundtrack and an absolute pleasure to watch. He systematically scoops, moves and dumps tonnes of earth and by lunchtime, the building pad is completed and the laying-out of the foundations can begin.

Steve ‘Guitar’ Derwinski is the Engineer, Project Manager and font of all technical knowledge on the this build. In his time Steve has built everything from houses, to steel boats and more recently a range of amazing acoustic guitars. He’s the guy that we go to with all of our technical questions and he‘s seldom stuck for a answer. Officially I’m a ’Volunteer Worker’ on this build but in reality, I’m just Steve Derwinski’s ‘Bitch‘. I fetch things that all seem to have different names here in America and carry them to wherever Steve wants them. He marks out the holes, I do the digging and I always get to hold the dumb-end of the tape measure. It’s not that Steve doesn’t trust me but while I think in beautifully simple metric measurements, Steve talks in yards, feet, inches, eighths and sixteenths. I try to sell him on the idea of metric but he doesn’t seem to be buying. My brain will instantly tell me exactly how many millimetres are in 12,137 millimetres, but when it comes to how many 1/16th of an inch are in 10 feet, 9 and 7/8th inches, things take a little bit longer. Anyway, however you want to measure it, this build is planned to be completed in 12 weeks and within a couple of days of starting, too many tonnes of timber has arrived on site. Of course, the timber that we need first is at the bottom of the pile, but what else are bitches for? ….. mai pen rai

At the end of a week where the temperature has seldom dipped below a hundred degrees, a lot of progress has been made. The site has been levelled, the access road made, the foundations dug and most of the wooden shuttering and structural metal is in place and ready for the concrete to be poured. The water diviners had previously located the underground sources and one of the two wells is now producing beautifully fresh water at a rate of 25 gallons per minute. On Friday 10th of September the concrete will arrive and from that point onwards, the real building work will begin. However, this area of Northern California has at least three of the world’s top ten riding roads and this afternoon I’m going out to buy a motorbike. I’m not a guy who’s easily distracted, but a combination of the Pacific Coast Highway and a Motorbike are probably more than enough to lead me astray …… mai pen rai

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Post 327: California Dreaming ...

She was fat. That's not a politically incorrect statement, just a reflection of the facts. She probably blamed an under-active thyroid gland but from the length of the 'Upper Crust Baguette' in her hand, I suspect that it had more to do with an over-active knife and fork. I politely asked her to move but she simply smiled and ignored me. I asked her a second time but she just frowned and continued to stroke the screen of the iPad in the duty free electronics shop at London's Heathrow airport. Maybe she was searching for the latest version of Atkins but whatever it was that had caught her interest, she certainly wasn't going to breath in to let me through. I had no alternative but to try and squeeze through but the gap was a little narrower than I thought. My rucksack gently caressed her back and she suddenly lost all interest in the iPd. "You fu**ing retard". A little strong I thought, but heck, maybe her day was going as badly as my own. I smiled my sweetest smile, shrugged my shoulders and barged on through. "You fu**ing bastard". 'Bastard' was definitely a little more accurate than 'Retard' and I think that she actually suited the skinny latte that she was now wearing instead of drinking. Maybe it was 'International Rude Day' and nobody had thought to tell me, or maybe Heathrow is just always like this .... mai pen rai

Eight hours earlier I'd arrived at Heathrow following a fifteen hour flight from the far East. I'd killed time without sleep and then queued at the Air Canada check-in desk only to be told that my flight had been cancelled. On deeper investigation, I found out that the flight itself hadn't been cancelled, only my ticket. They didn't seem to understand 'why', and directed me to another long queue at the Air Canada information desk. A few telephone calls revealed that instead of flying to San Francisco via Toronto with Air Canada, I'd now be flying from Frankfurt with United Airlines. They had no idea why this change had been made and when I asked why I hadn't been notified about the changes, they simply told me that it wasn't their responsibility to inform me of non-significant changes to my itinerary. I was waiting to board a plane at the wrong airport in the wrong country, so I'm certainly glad that it hadn't been a 'significant' change .... mai pen rai

So eventually, 'International Rude Day' ended and I arrived in San Francisco just a few hours later than planned. Back in November 2007 I fell in love with the Anderson Valley area of Northern California and this would be my fourth visit in two years. My brother Alan and his family live here in Boonville on a small holding that's now a little too small for their self-sufficient needs. The plan is now to build a new home on 167 acres of virgin hillside, 20 minutes back from the road and so far 'off-grid' that they'll probably wonder if any grid actually existed. No water no electricity and certainly no telephone service. To some, including myself, that might seem like a little too much hardship, but just take a look at the view. The official plan is to build a two bedroom home on 'Lone Tree Ridge' at the exact point from where I took this photograph. The unofficial plan is lets just say ..... slightly more ambitious

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Post 326: Bling Bollocks & Balls

If it wasn’t so sad, it might actually be quite funny. She wafted into the courtroom with a face like a recently smacked arse, rudely late and without an apology or a note from her Mom. Being there was an unnecessary inconvenience, an interruption to her important and meaningful life. She didn’t know who the man was, they were just dirty old pebbles and where was Liberia anyway?

Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes, Sexual Violence, Enslavement, Use of Child Soldiers. Just a small sample of the charges faced by Charles Taylor in the Hague. In her defence, I’m sure if they’d been serious crimes such as invasion of privacy or slander, then she’d have given her time more willingly and assisted the court in there efforts. Seemingly less concerned with seeking justice for the families of the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives at the hands of former War Lord and President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, she spent more time seeking an injunction against photographers taking her photograph outside of the court than she did assisting the process of justice within it. What a shame that such an injunction wasn’t sought and granted around the time of her birth. Naomi fu**ing who???? ….. now that would be justice


Talking bollocks is clearly not exclusive to supermodels. Bob Crow claims that Clegg and Cameron are deliberately picking a fight with the working class and that the working class must be up for it. He’s called for general and co-ordinated strike action to halt the Governments savage assault on jobs. Bob Crow is general secretary of the RMT transport union and their slogan is ’Never on our knees’. As slogans go, it seems to be just a little self centred. Anybody who travels on public transport will probably understand that Bob Crow doesn‘t give a flying shit about anybody but himself and his members. Time and again he’s willingly kicked commuters in the nuts in order to preserve tea breaks for his members.

Crow wants his words to ring out on the ‘’Millionaires Row of Clegg and Cameron’’. He claims that the government has thrown down the biggest challenge to the trade union movement since Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers. I’m sure it’s true, but the Trade Union Movement now has the opportunity to either work with the government or fight against them. The coffee jar is open and Bob Crow ought to try taking a sniff. We’re no longer living in financial La La Land, this is Great Britain and our overdraft is big enough to give Sarah Ferguson a few sleepless nights. Perhaps like Arthur Scargill, Crow thinks that the only way to stand up for the rights of his members is to fight tooth and nail against the government. Maybe he’s right, but how many people can you name who currently earn their living down a coal mine?

I didn’t vote Conservative and I didn’t vote Liberal, but enough people did and I’m learning to live with what we’ve got. To be honest, I’m actually doing slightly more than ’learning to live with it’, I’m actually quite thankful. I don’t think that Cameron and Clegg have suddenly become great politicians, but the potential opposition is beginning to show it’s true colours and I’m not liking what I see.

With Gordon Brown booted out of Downing Street, the labour party had the best possible opportunity to find not only a new leader, but also a new backbone. Under Blair and Brown, Labour had lost not only it’s way, but also it’s integrity. Unfortunately, that opportunity has already been wasted. With the slightest whiff of power in the air, Abbott, Burnham, Balls and the Miliband’s have all fallen into the mode of trying to please their public. When will they learn that we’re not idiots?

‘Yes‘, there is a huge financial deficit and ‘No‘, we certainly don’t want to end up in the same situation as Greece. Listening to the leadership candidates it feels that if Labour had been elected, then the deficit would have simply disappeared of it‘s own accord. They’ve suddenly become a group of ‘Deficit Denyers’ and there really ought to be a law against that. All that we ask for is a little bit of honesty about the future and a little acceptance of responsibility for the past...... In exchange for our votes, I really don't think that it's asking for too much

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Post 325 Transylvania .... Reflection

Would I be free in the middle of June? Would I be interested in joining a guided biking tour of Transylvania? It certainly wasn’t the worst email that I’d ever received, but I had two burning questions. Did ‘Transylvania’ really exist and did the word ‘Free’ also refer to the price of the tour?

At the risk of sounding like a whining actor, I really didn’t want to go. I had a preconceived notion that while Transylvania would be fantastic, guided touring would probably be an experience to forget. A week spent visiting places that were of interest to other people and keeping to somebody else’s timetable. I ride bikes because of the freedom and the whole idea of following an official guide filled me with anything but enthusiasm.

Maybe all guided tours are different, but my initial worries were totally unfounded. The guides at Transylvania Live were simply fonts of local knowledge and the style of riding was entirely up to you. As fast or as slow as you like. You knew where the next stopping point was located and how quickly you got there was up to you. No matter how long the convoy of bikes, at it’s rear was the support vehicle carrying all of the luggage. Nobody gets lost and without the guides, the things that were of most interest would have been easily missed.

There are many great things to visit in Transylvania, but it’s the people who make it really special. Every day of the tour, along ribbons of gloriously winding tarmac, the local inhabitants gathered on the steps of their houses and waved as we passed. The laughing kids ran alongside us shouting and enthusiastically miming the riding of giant motorbikes. Whenever we stopped, people came over to talk and invited us into their homes. They baked us cakes, made strong coffee and often insisted that we drank a local plum brandy called ‘Palinkas’. We visited local artists and craft centres where artisans practiced their trades and invited us to try the techniques for ourselves. Spinning wool, fashioning masks to ward off the evil Strigoi and weaving fabric from hemp. Always they greeted us with a smile and looking into their small vegetable gardens, perhaps the reason for their smiles was obvious. Maybe not all of the hemp was cultivated for fabric?

Everyday Romania surprised me with something quite amazing and just when I thought that all of the surprises have been revealed, it presented me with something quite new. In the small village of Sapanta, we came across the Merry Cemetery. A cemetery attached to a church, but a cemetery like no other that I’ve ever seen. Each of the eight hundred burial plots is marked by a carved wooden plaque with a painting depicting the life of the incumbent below. Each plaque also has a story written in the first person and one that caught my eye was for a three year old girl: ‘’1995-1998 I am Anita of Nafur and I leave my parents with sorrow in the their hearts. They no longer sing in their vineyards because I was hit by a car. But my parents should not have sad hearts because God has simply taken me to his bosom’’. In stark contrast to most European cultures, the Merry Cemetery is a celebration of life and along with the generous warmth of the Romanian people, it is something that I will always remember.

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Post 324: Transylvania ...........

It was a good day to ride, and according to the team from Top Gear, this was the best driving road anywhere in the world. The Transfagrasan Highway …… lets see

The first thing I noticed was that the road surface wasn’t great. Potholes everywhere, running streams and washes of gravel on every blind bend. The second thing I noticed was that I simply didn’t give a shit. Screw Ceausescu wanting to move his heavy armour quickly across Transylvania, this road was made for bikes. Enthusiasm takes over, the Transylvania Live guide disappears in the BMW's mirrors and the fun begins.

Thanks to Top Gear, this road has apparently become notoriously busy at the weekends. Today’s Sunday and it’s relatively quiet, so I guess they must mean ’busy’ in Romanian terms. What traffic there is seems very European. Cars see you coming from behind and pull to the side to let you pass unhindered. It‘s a beautiful thing but it certainly hasn‘t caught on in Blighty.

Just below the snowline, I stopped for a giggle and photographs. I’ve no idea how high the road had climbed, but it didn’t really matter, it’s just never ending. Around every corner there’s another mountain to conquer and more smiles to enjoy.

Just when you think that things can’t get any better, they do. It’s like riding into a photograph that you recognise. Hairpin bend after hairpin bend, climbing into the snow and clouds. The sight lines are perfect and all of the road is there to use. You don’t need to ride fast and it doesn’t really matter what your riding, it’s all just spectacularly good.

Just when you think that things can’t get any better, they do. It’s like riding into a photograph that you instantly recognise. Hairpin bend after hairpin bend, climbing up beyond the clouds and into the snow. The sight lines are perfect and all of the road is there to be used. You don’t need to ride quickly and it doesn’t really matter what bike your riding, it’s all just spectacularly good.

You reach the top and stop for lunch and coffee. It is the top but it isn’t. It’s just one of many tops along 90 Km of motorcycling utopia and the best thing about reaching the end of the Tranfragasan Highway, is turning around and doing it all again in reverse. Top Gear consider this to he the best driving road in the world and when it comes to supercars, they might well be right. Is it the best biking road in the world? I've no idea, but if I made a list of the greatest roads that I've ever ridden then the Transfragasan Highway would certainly be on it .... and quite close to the top.

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Post 323: Transylvania ......

After the rains in Medias had stopped, we crossed the river that had earlier been a road and headed to Sibiu, the 2007 ''European City of Culture''.

The centre of Sibiu has a beautiful charm. Clearly a lot of European money has been spent here but none of the character has been lost. The buildings have been renovated and acres of cobblestones laid to give pedestrians priority. It'sa mixture of medieval and modern but there isn't an international brand name in site. No McDonalds, no KFC, no Starbucks and that's the way I like it. They've created a cafe society where a 'Tall Skinny Latte' is affordable to most people and it all seems to work wonderfully well. I like Sibiu and it would be great to spend a little more time here, but sheltering from the rain in Medias has eaten into the day and it's already late in the evening.

It had been dark when we'd arrived at our hotel, the 'Pensiunea Sibiel'. It had been almost 10pm when six soaking bikers had arrived on their four-star doorstep, but the welcome could not have been any warmer or the beer any colder. It's only in the light of morning that I can really appreciate just how beautiful the hotel and location really are. It feels like it's at the centre of some enchanted forest. The noise of the wind rustling through the trees and the rushing waters of the stream could have been created by Enid Blyton herself. It's not yet 6am but the staff are already on duty. Smiling and silent as they prepare everything for breakfast. They're the same staff who served us dinner last night, a dinner that didn't begin until well after 11pm and ended some time later in a confusion of empty beer bottles. I hope they pay them well.

As we fill the bikes with fuel, our guide Alain explains the sign that's attached to every fuel pump. It asks the customer not to pay the young attendant who kindly fills their tank and washes their windscreen, because they don't employ any such attendants.

We stop for coffee. It's mid morning and a perfect day for riding. Not too hot, not too cold and perfectly dry. Today is the day that we'll ride the Transfagarasan Road. I ask Alain where the road begins. He stamps his foot into the earth and points upwards into the mountains ... 'we are here my friend'.

'Trans' meaning over and 'Fagaras' being the mountain range, the Transfagrasan Road was built between 1970 and 1974 as Nicolae Ceausescu's response to the USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia. Ceausescu feared that Romania would suffer the same fate as Czechoslovakia and needed a means of moving his military forces quickly to the required borders. It runs for 90 Km, links the two highest points in the Carpathian Mountains and not a single kilometre of the road is straight. Because of the cost in monetary and human terms, the Tranfagrasan Road is often referred to as 'Ceausescu's Folly'. One mans 'Folly' is another mans 'Fantasy', but your perspective on that might well depend on what kind of bike you're riding .

Engage first gear ..... disengage reason ..... and let the fun begin

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Post 322: Transylvania ......

Sunshine, no rain and Transylvania is certainly not in black in white today. It’s a good day for riding. We’re heading away from Turda but it feels really strange. No map or compass, not a clue where I’m going so I just following the leader. The leader in question is Alain, he’s riding his own BMW 650 F and his wife Herta is somewhere behind us in the Transylvania Live support car. That’s something else that feels strange, I’m touring without luggage. It’s strange but it’s good, I could really get used to this.

Everything here reminds me of Russia. The roads, the traffic, the people, the scenery. It’s just all very Russian, right down to the charming state of universal incompletion . At the side of the road, two houses stand out from all of the rest. Alain informs us that in these parts such buildings are known as ‘Gypsy Palaces’. After the ‘Revolution’ in 1989, many Gypsy’s travelled to Western Europe in search of their fortunes and used it to build homes back in Romania. Unfortunately, being from the travelling community, many of the Gypsy’s understood little about the ongoing costs of property ownership and taxation. The Gypsy Palaces almost without exception, remain unfinished and uninhabited. Upon completion, property tax becomes payable and as all of the wealth had been poured into ’Out-Crassing’ their neighbours, they can’t or wont, pay the taxes. It’s also further confirmation that money can’t buy you taste. Quite possibly the ugliest pair of houses that I’ve ever seen.

Just outside of Turda, we arrive at the Salina Turda. A futuristic visitor centre on top of an ancient salt mine. In the bad old days, this is where the naughty folks were sent to serve their sentences. Thankfully today is strictly for visitors and the occasional rock band.

I’ve never really thought about where salt comes from, or what it looks like before it’s refined and packaged. It’s actually one of the most beautiful natural things that I’ve seen. Amazing patterns and contours are everywhere. Long corridors open out into vast underground halls where twenty centuries worth of salt have already been extracted.

At Lernut, we walk around the war cemetery from 1944. Romania had entered the war with the Axis Forces, but towards the end of WWII joined the Allies. I should have remembered the dates, but sadly I didn’t. The graves here are from 1944 and beyond the cemetery is the Lernut Sculpture Park. A number of Romanian artists were each given a similar block of stone and asked to create their own sculptures. The results are quite impressive, but the fact that such sculptures were allowed during communist times is probably even more impressive.

A little further along the road, we find an old house. It’s a house that was once very grand but today is just very dilapidated. After 1945, it was taken from it’s owners and given to the people. Sadly, people who do not own property do not maintain property. It's not their fault, it's just a fact. Following the revolution of 1989, the house was given back to the heirs of the original family, who in turn offered it for use as an orphange. No plumbing, no running water, no electricity, very few glazed windows and even fewer functional roof tiles. Once again, if you should ever here me whining, then please kick me.

Medias is a beautiful old town. Cobbled streets, old buildings and all around is an air of class. We meet Emile Muresan, a local artist who creates sculptures from metal and pictures from spiders webs. In the thirty minutes that we've spent browsing in his gallery, he's provided us with coffee, soft drinks and a table full of nibbles. He explains his conceptual sculptures through a haze a smoke from his ancient pipe. It's impossible not to like this man. As we leave the gallery, the clouds are begining to gather above Meidias, clouds the shade of night.

We head for a local restaurant that Emile is kind enough to show us. We eat ‘micci’, a local delicay similar to sheek kebab and watch as the rain begins to pour. It’s proper rain and as the road outside begins to flood, the candles come out and the electricity fails. A blue Dacia car comes past the window. It seems to be aquaplaning. On second glance it’s not. No driver ….. it’s actually floating.

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