I’ve been trying to set a few modest goals, both daily and weekly. In the course of a day, it’s good to get some stupid things accomplished, and off your “list". I guess because it leaves you feeling that you and the “rest of the world” still have something to do with each other!

We were trotting along, numb with cold and exchanging our harrowing experiences of the road, when a blood-curdling yell halted us and we found ourselves looking down the barrel of a rifle held by a very young soldier. We gave a chorus of little yelps of terror and said ‘Hotel! Hotel! Tourist’s Hotel!’ But the sentry wasn’t at all sure that three strangers – one with a bicycle and two without luggage – coming suddenly out of the black, cold night, could be genuine tourists, so he kept us covered until another soldier had examined our passports. This second lad then led us to the hotel, some 200 yards away from what is apparently a military barracks. It was depressing, if not altogether surprising, to discover that here there was (a) no food or drink of any description, (b) no light, (c) no water, (d) no heating and (e) only one thin blanket on each bed. As we were now 8,550 feet above sea level (e) was not funny. I had coffee and sugar and bread with me and the boys had some tinned sausages and pineapples so we scraped together a meal of sorts by the light of oil-lamps borrowed from the military, making coffee with the boys’ emergency water supply. (The side-splitting part of this story is that Bamian Hotel is listed as Luxury, Grade A!)
Murphy, D. (1986) Full tilt: Ireland to India with a bicycle. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press.

It’s very funny – around here the idea of a woman travelling alone is so completely outside the experience and beyond the imagination of everyone that it’s universally assumed I’m a man. This convenient illusion is fostered by the very short haircut I deliberately got in Teheran, and by a contour-obliterating shirt presented to me at Adabile by the US Army in the Middle East, who also donated a wonderful pair of boots – the most comfortable footwear I’ve ever had and ideal for tramping these stony roads.
Murphy, D. (1986) Full tilt: Ireland to India with a bicycle. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press.

The light here goes out every ten or fifteen minutes for about five minutes, which is very right and proper; it would be too boring to travel all the way to Central Asia and then have an infallible electricity supply.
Murphy, D. (1986) Full tilt: Ireland to India with a bicycle. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press.

The area also produces potatoes so I’d a luxury dinner with the boys this evening – spuds and stewed clover and ghee. It would have been even more luxurious without the ghee. They make butter here by putting milk in an ill-cured sheepskin and sitting for hours rocking it to and fro on their knees. The whole family takes a turn and eventually you have butter. Then the stuff is put in another, equally ill-cured, skin and buried in the snow for two years. When resurrected the thing is allegedly a delicacy. If you want to be frightfully polite you can describe it as ‘mature’ – and if you survive it you’ll survive anything.
Murphy, D. (1986) Full tilt: Ireland to India with a bicycle. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press.

Le jour est levé depuis Longtemps quand j'ouvre les yeux.  Après une bonne douche, je m'introduis dans le costume de gabardine fabriqué spécialement pour le voyage.  Je me sens en forme ce matin.
Les sacoches sont remplies des objets que j'ai peu à peu et minutieusement classés.
Une tente à mât central, un tapis de sol cousu en forme de cuvette, un bon duvet, la popote, les couverts, une grille pliante, de l'alcool solidifié, une pharmacie, mon linge de corps, une paire de souliers de montagne, une paire de souliers cyclistes de rechange, un short, un survêtement en laine, un pull-over, une paire de genouillères, un passe-montagne, un briquet à butagaz, les cartes pour mes premières étapes, les pièces de rechange pour la bicyclette, outillage et chambres à air, un nécessaire de toilette, un livre de bord, des papiers divers et un passeport.
Sacoches accrochées, j'enfourche pour la première fois ma bicyclette qui va devenir ma compagne des bons et mauvais jours.  Arrivé à l'atelier, où déjà les amis m'attendent, je reclasse tout mon matériel dans les cinq sacoches, deux à l'avant, deux à l'arrière et sac de guidon.  Tout mon matériel est utile.  Si je disposais de crédits pourrais expédier des colis d’allégement, mais ce n'est pas le cas. D’ailleurs, avec les complications de douane cela n'arriverait pas à temps.  Je dois donc m'habituer à ce poids : 19 kilos de bicyclette, 41 kilos de bagages.  Dieu, que c'est lourd et dur à traîner... comme un boulet !

Lionel Brans, Seul à bicyclette de Paris à Saïgon, Amiot-Dumont, Paris 1951