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Here's To Living The Dream Former Sydneysider Sarah Wong and German/New Zealand lawyer, Robert Foitzik recently set off on a three-continent 20,000km bike trip from Singapore to Germany, where they expect to arrive in early October. Here we meet the pair who will share their adventures and experiences with Australian Road Rider readers, as Sarah tells us of dreams, fears, questions and what it's like for a woman to pack a wardrobe into a space the size of two laptop cases... "You're a wee thing to be hanging off the back of a motorbike, aren't you?" the doctor blurted out while rushing off to get the syringe for my 12th and last vaccination. At 157 cm and by nature reserved and
| | shy, I probably don't come across as your typical "bikie chick", even if I'm just "hanging" on the back.
Robert and I are your average, everyday people - working, bills to pay, dreams always compromised for one reason or another and put on the backburner. Robert, 39, the rider, is a German/New Zealand lawyer; and I'm the passenger, Sarah, 28, a linguist born in New Zealand.
Five years ago, we had what seemed like a far-fetched dream - motorbiking over the Silk Road; 20 countries across three continents, leaving behind the well-paid jobs, living off our savings, no home, nor any comforts of home.
It was Robert's idea, inspired by an adventure he had had through 21 countries of Africa on his BMW R100 GS some 10 years earlier. Instead of flying back after his time in New Zealand, he thought he'd ride home, through South-East Asia, the Middle East, the Gulf, northern Africa on to Germany.
When he asked me to join him, it didn't take long for me to wonder if I'd be prepared to reduce my wardrobe for the next nine months into a case the size of two laptop bags, drop the luxury of more than one shower a day, forget nice nails, anything girly, fashionable clothes, let alone clean ones! Add to that, the "danger" of being on a motorbike, suddenly being eyed suspiciously as "loose and irresponsible" and travelling through some of the world's most dubious places. After all, who wants to go through regions synonymous with terrorism on a 16-year-old motorbike with 140,000km on the clock?
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| | The latter was a real concern for Robert, who has owned the bike for 15 years, so knows it inside out. He was also aware of its shortcomings after his trip through Africa and insisted on some major upgrades to bring it up to speed for the journey ahead. Among other things, the bike had fitted steel brake cables, hand-guards, an alarm with remote, GPS, new seat padding and cover, clutch, cam chain, carrier for the panniers, new front and rear brake pads, valve heads and, most importantly, new WP springs for the fork and a new WP rear shock absorber (which, according to Robert, was the most important upgrade/replacement of all).
Somewhere after saying “yes” all those years ago, I found myself living in Australia and Thailand before the trip came up again. Robert was living in New Zealand. This time, we both said, let's stop procrastinating ... it's now or never.
I packed my bags and headed back to New Zealand in July last year to allow six months to prepare together. Just how much was this overland odyssey going to cost and how can we afford it? What gear do you take? What about the situation in Pakistan? Would the old Beamer make it? Where on earth do we start? It all seemed so overwhelming.
Some six stressful months later, after skimping here and there to save funds and with all our energy having gone into preparing for the trip in the evening and weekends after our full-time day jobs, we were almost there.
All the unexpected costs had mounted up beyond belief and we actually started to wonder whether this was a good idea. Somehow it would be worth it, we promised ourselves.
Our friendship cracked under the pressure and we were barely speaking to each other before the trip had even started. How were we supposed to survive being in each other's face basically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for more than 250 days under stressful conditions?
When it was finally time to leave, we were broke, stressed, but we boarded the plane to Asia with a tiny sense of relief that the hardest part - the preparation - was supposedly over.
Well, that's what we thought: as I write, we're now impatiently waiting for the bike to arrive in Singapore. We're into our second week of hassles and hitting bureaucratic nonsense, day in, day out.
The bike is delayed: no one tells us it arrives. We ring every day and struggle to understand Singlish. Everything was basically closed in early February for Chinese New Year, we have to pay an agency fee, a handling fee, a cargo fee, a terminal cargo charge fee, wharfage fees, delivery order fees, some other loose handling fee, compulsory insurance, an e-tag for the bike to get around the island through tolls, an autopass to get off the island, an electronic circular permit... (don't even ask what that's for!)
Our days here seem to only be spent on wild goose chases to various government agencies from one side of the island to the other.
We head to the warehouse at the wharf to see what's going on with the crate. We've been informed it arrived on February 8. That's great news to get on February 12 and it still hasn't been unloaded from within the six metre high mountain of boxes and crates in the warehouse. Please ring tomorrow to check if it has been unloaded or not, we're told.
Of course, the bike had to be partly dismantled before it was crated in New Zealand. Front wheel off, fuel drained, the shock absorber removed as the bike wouldn't fit in the crate.
We're also not sure if we'll be allowed to assemble the bike in the warehouse and someone asks us whether we have access to a tow-truck to take the 450kg crate away.
Ah, the long-awaited dream turns into reality...
Robert and Sarah's trip website can be found at:
http://www.underforeignskies.com
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