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A Christmas Thankyou...

  • Dec 26, 2025
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jan 6

 


We have now completed the Europe to Southeast Asia (via the Middle East) leg of our journey, and it has been a tough one. Mechanical issues, Visa issues, extraordinary weather conditions, and closed borders have all added to the stress and anxiety we have experienced, but if we blend that with the exceptional sights we have seen, the people we have met, then it has been an amazing 18 months.

 

From landslides in Nepal, Taliban encounters in Afghanistan, the crazy bureaucracy of China and horrendous flooding in Thailand, we have seen a lot.

 

Would we do it again? 100% we would, with bells on.


The journey so far...


 

Eventually, when I get to sit on the terrace outside our home in Spain, in my rocking chair, soaking up the warmth of the sun, I will reflect on the adventures we once had.

 

We have been petrified, we have felt so low we thought we couldn’t go on, and then, when it was really bad, we would meet someone on the street, often with little else to give than their warmth and enthusiasm, and often, just their smile would melt an Iceberg, and we realise why we do this extreme travel.

 

The world is a wonderful place, and we are lucky enough to experience it firsthand, and those memories will last us a lifetime.

 

Often, we are asked what our favourite country or experience has been. That is an impossible question to answer. Was it seeing the Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda, the Desert people in Mauritania, or the Tribal people in Namibia? All have left their mark on us, and as we move forward, with every day, we realise life will never be the same for us again.

 

In a few weeks, we will wave goodbye to our amazing truck as it sets sail for South America, and we will dream of our reunion in Chile in March 2026 (see below for maps of the next leg).

 

Before that reunion, we have family and friends to see in the UK and a house in Spain needing our attention and calling out to us to come and relax a little.

 

But, without all the support of you all reading my stuff and commenting and praising our efforts, this all would have been a lot harder, and so I want to say an enormous thank you to you all. I really can’t tell you how much it all means to us.

 

We hope that the Americas will be a little less stressful, and we look forward to the wide-open plains and the peaceful, uninterrupted drives with off-road park-ups that we will experience in South America.

 

With all that to look forward to, we will hopefully lie in our bed and look up at the stars through our glass roof hatch and dream of the following day.

 

The excitement is building, and the stress levels are diminishing already.


And the Christmas Surprise?


Some of you may already know, but for many this will be the first time we’ve said it properly.

When this journey finally comes to an end, we plan to publish a book.


Not a polished highlight reel, but an honest account - the good days, the hard ones, the lessons learned along the way, and the reality of long-term travel when the novelty wears thin. It’s something we’ve talked about quietly for a long time, and it feels right to finally put it out there.


More on that in the months ahead. For now, we just wanted to share the intention.

 

Anyway, I want to wish everyone a great new year, and I hope it brings the changes you want.

 

If nothing else, this journey has taught me just how capable we all are if we apply ourselves, and so for 2026, I say this: grasp the nettle and make it happen. Forget your comfort zone and push well beyond. You will be amazed at how capable you really are.

 

What happens if I fall?

Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?

 

Make this year, the year that you make it happen.


The next blog will be out on 2nd January.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


David



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Between Borders and Brothels: A Brief Drift Through Laos and Thailand

  • Dec 12, 2025
  • 6 min read

Updated: Jan 8

“To travel is to be constantly delayed by beauty and bureaucracy.” — Paul Theroux



Crossing the Line


After weeks of regimented travel through China, the border crossing into Laos felt like a release valve. The mood changed the moment the barrier lifted - from surveillance and order to a kind of messy freedom. The sense of relief was enormous: life eased, and we felt once again in control of our own destiny. No more convoys, no guides, no daily itineraries. Just us, the truck, and the road ahead!


We passed a group of young women being escorted back across the border line - deported, no appeals, no ceremony. We guessed they’d entered China illegally - why anyone would, we couldn’t fathom…but it was a quiet reminder that freedom isn’t equal for everyone. The contrast was sharp: the same gate that released us swallowed them.


It’s fair to say that leaving China came with relief, but also fatigue and a flicker of unease; what we’d escaped from suddenly looked more ordered than what we were entering.

The change you feel isn’t just political; it’s visible in the roads and faces. Painted signs turned to hand-lettered boards, trucks leaning under their loads, and the asphalt softening into red mud. Laos feels instantly different - slower, less sure of its rules, but open.


A street in Boten.- Quite unremarkable, but quiet at safe at last.


Boten Nights


The border town of Boten was a jarring kind of free. No cameras or checkpoints now - just lazy-looking stall holders plying their trade, and the low hum of diesel generators behind half-lit buildings. Freedom here had a different smell - one of beer, sweat and cigarette smoke.


Boten exists because of China, a Special Economic Zone meant for trade that slid into the shadow economy when the investment dried up. Empty buildings stand beside new ones plastered with Mandarin signs, a strange echo of the order we’d just left behind.

The place revealed itself to us in layers: brothels dressed up as karaoke bars, gambling halls humming through the night, Chinese men on “business trips” shepherded between vices by drivers in electric buggies. It was great to be free of China, but this version of freedom wasn’t something to celebrate.


Charlotte, very Danish in these moments, had no moral outrage about it - just curiosity. She commented on the girls’ make-up, how close they worked to each other, wondered what they ate, and how they lived. No judgment - just quiet observation. That’s her way.

We stayed a night before drifting on after lunch the next day, eating in the market. The food was refreshingly different, though we turned down the offer of live grubs – I prefer mine well done.



Live grubs are a delicacy in Laos. Sold in the markets and available on most menus.



Rain and Green


We didn’t drive far before pulling off into the rainforest. The air thickened into mist and frogsong. This was the rainy season, the kind that soaks through everything in minutes.

We parked under a canopy of dripping leaves, hidden from the road. Charlotte was quiet, glad to be alone and accepting of what nature was about to throw at us, knowing we were safe in our truck. The nets on the windows kept the bugs out, but the sound after dark was thunderous -No light pollution, no traffic, no human noise, just the rainforest breathing around us alive, unnerving, wonderful.


Despite the racket, it felt comforting. The truck has earned our trust through storms, breakdowns and borders - a giant comfort blanket of steel and diesel. Safe, warm and dry.

By morning the track outside was a river of slick red clay, tyres half-submerged. Laos’s roads are mostly narrow mountain routes; in rain they become skating rinks. Locals pass easily -battered trucks, scooters stacked with sacks - used to a life where wheels slide and patience wins.



Slow Roads, Warm People


A few hundred kilometres to Vientiane, the capital of Laos and the border town to Thailand, took days. Potholes, washouts and overloaded trucks crawling through bends. Laos doesn’t rush for anyone.

We stopped again in Vang Vieng, once a party town for backpackers. After too many accidents on zip-lines and overdoses on dodgy drugs, the place had quieted. A few travellers lingered, nursing beers where the party once raged. It felt like a town recovering from itself.


Evening markets lit up with smoky grills and plastic stools. Hmong vendors sold bright textiles beside bowls of noodle soup; rain hissed on tarps while the smell of charcoal and lemongrass hung in the air.


Roadside lunches came in big bowls of broth with noodles, vegetables and a hint of meat - tasty, though best avoided given the lack of refrigeration. About £1.50 a head, including the water you always needed to cool the spice.


The people were warm, but not too warm. They didn’t pry or ask where we were from. They had their lives, and we had ours. It was an easy coexistence - polite nods, no performance. After months of being stared at, the Lao way - reserved but kind -  gave us the space we needed to decompress.


Our lunch stops were mainly bowls of tatstey broth and questionable meat?



Paperwork and Momentum


Paperwork soon caught up with us. The new Carnet de Passage for the truck and bike had been sent to Nepal, a destination now off the map after landslides closed the roads. For those who don’t know, a Carnet is the traveller’s passport for a vehicle - stamped at every crossing to prove you haven’t sold it abroad, backed by a hefty deposit back in the UK. A fellow traveller agreed to collect ours and carry them on to India for us. Just another example of the quiet kindness you meet on the road.


This win turned out to be short lived. Thailand threw a curveball: our import permit wasn’t valid until November. Another route change. Paperwork dictates destiny more than we like to admit - even freedom has its forms.

A few random images of Laos.


Bangkok: Then and Now


Vientiane was awash with Chinese tourists, flocking to every sacred site in town. We skipped the temples and booked flights to Bangkok instead - prices tripled overnight, naturally.

The city we knew from years ago has grown slick. The cheap hostels where we once arrived sweaty and broke are now “poshtels” - sterile, air-conditioned, curated. Travel has become a board game: signs, maps, reviews, no thinking required. There’s no stress when it goes wrong, so no elation when it goes right.  Too much chill, not enough thrill.


That said, the chaos, the heat, the smell of street food - it’s all still there beneath the polish, and well worth a visit if you haven’t been, it’s just not as immediate and exciting as it used to be. Modern travel has smoothed out some edges that you need if you’re looking for adventure.


Laos and Bangkok, Thailand, had given us the respite we needed, but India was calling - our next stop the Ziro Music Festival, in the far eastern corner of the country. It would take two flights, a train and a three-hour taxi ride to get there. But that’s another story.




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Seventy-Two Bends and a Few Too Many Tyres

  • Nov 27, 2025
  • 6 min read

Updated: Jan 8



“When you are on the road, reality is the best storyteller.” — Anonymous Tibetan proverb



Into Thin Air

Crossing into Tibet was exciting. High mountain passes, snow and ice and a lot cooler finally. It felt like stepping into thinner air and sharper contrasts: prayer flags snapping in icy winds, devotion set against state control, beauty side by side with exhaustion.


The higher we climbed, the more the world thinned out. Charlotte struggled with the altitude, and although we joked at first about the absurdity of sleeping with a pipe up your nose, the reality was unsettling: lying in bed listening to my wife breathe through piped oxygen was both a relief and a deep worry. Was she just unfit? Was she ill? Or was this a glimpse of frailty that would come back to haunt us later in life?


We passed our first fields of prayer flags, a reminder of Tibet’s unshakable spirituality. We saw prayer wheels everywhere, and we tried to spin them when we could. Each spin, Tibetans believe, releases a prayer into the wind. Painted mani stones lined the roadside, carrying carved mantras — Om Mani Padme Hum — their weight both literal and spiritual.



Lhasa, Then and Now


Lhasa awaited us, as it had in 2011. The Potala Palace still rose proud, its white and red walls luminous against the blue sky. Pilgrims prostrated — raising their hands above their head, then stretching flat on the ground, arms outstretched — before stepping forward and repeating the act, slowly circling the Jokhang Temple in a moving tide of devotion. It was faith embodied, one step at a time.


That temple is Tibet’s most sacred site, so it jars you when you notice the square crawling with riot police, water cannons parked up, waiting to extinguish anyone who wants to set light to themselves as they have done in protest against the Chinese occupation of their country. And it doesn’t end in the streets. Walk into a Tibetan home, and you see the Chinese flag in the window, President Xi, the president of China, adorning their walls. No law makes them do it, but everyone knows it’s easier that way. The state hasn’t just taken the land — it’s marched straight through the front door and sat itself down in the living room.

We also revisited the old market area, where men still wore traditional dress, hair plaited with amber worked into it, showing off beads and trading their Amber with each other. A reminder that not everything had been bulldozed into uniformity.



Procrastinating is common in Tibet. Many people used to take months to reach the Jokhang temple in Lhasa, where they procrastinate around the temple to show their devotion.. They would set off from their homes in the country and travel the roads, procrastinating all the way. The government outlawed this, as many were killed by passing motorists gloves, arm pads and knee pads to protect them.



But something else had shifted. Shops were now selling cheap plastic and Chinese junk, much like Camden Market. This “Disneyfication” hit me hard. In 2011, we’d driven up towards Everest, slept in yak-hair tents, shared food with strangers, and walked up to the base camp the next morning with no gates to pass, no fees to pay, just unsupervised, quiet, and alone, Everest looming raw and unfiltered. Now the sacred heart of Tibet was smothered under neon lights, plastic tat, and techno music blasting out. Fee’s to park and a bus to get, well, nowhere near base camp. It felt less like a spiritual centre and more like a selfie backdrop.


We didn’t go. We will hold our memories from 2011.


Borders and Blockages


Beyond Lhasa, the road unravelled. Reports came of landslides closing the Nepal border, and when we arrived, they proved true. The Motorbikes in our group were manhandled over the debris by Sherpas, but our truck was immovable. With just nine days left on my visa, our only option was brutal: turn east toward Laos, 4,000 km away, including over 1,000 km of mountain passes.


Landslides are common in the rainy season when the mountainsides become saturated, the earth gives way, and whole roads and villages vanish under mud and rock. We’d seen it before — sudden, violent, frightening.


The most infamous part of the drive to Laos was the Nujiang 72 Bends. Hairpin after hairpin. If we didn’t feel travel sick before, we would after the bends. WE managed it without incident.


A Cascade of Mishaps


Then the cascade began. A blowout — no spare. A careless car sideswiped our bumper. The accident could have ended everything for us. The damage was repairable, but in that moment, I truly thought: this might be the end of our journey. After each mishap, I asked myself, Can we go on? And each time the answer was the same: we are not stopping. We’ve come too far.


At first, the careless driver offered us the equivalent of £100. The police were called and gave us two options: accept a settlement or file a report that could take weeks to process — time we didn’t have with my visa running out. We pushed back until it became £500, still nowhere near the real cost, but the only way to move on.


Still raw from that, I promptly ripped off the air-con unit on a low bridge. The sign said 3.70m. We’re 3.85m. I must have been in a trance not to notice. Gaffer tape, rope, and tarpaulin turned our truck into a patchwork of improvisation. Our rig didn’t feel like the fortress we were promised back in Doncaster.


Tyres blew again and again — four in total. One failed on a motorway bend with trucks screaming past us at breakneck speed. Ordered to the roadside by the police, we waited while Charlotte calmly cooked egg fried rice for me and our guide. It wasn’t just any meal — I can now say Charlotte and I cooked egg fried rice for a Chinese man, in China. Takeaways back home will never taste the same.


We had new tyres waiting, around 100km further on. Pre-ordered days ago, and awaiting our arrival. Why couldn’t we of made that last 100km before the blowout? A fitter had to drive one out to us to get us to town. We then limped into town at 19:00. The shop stayed open, fitting the rest of the new tyres until gone 22:00. Exhausted doesn’t quite cover it.


At last, with new tyres fitted (at £450 a piece), we made it to Laos — one hour before my visa expired. We don’t know what the penalty would be for overstaying a Visa. But knowing China, it would be a lot worse than driving erratically, causing an accident and having no insurance.

 

End of the Road, Almost


There’s no lesson in Tibet, just the fact that you either keep moving or you stop. We didn’t stop.


What lingers, though, isn’t the number of bends or the altitude on the pass signs, but the way everything pulled against everything else. Faith carried on, even with riot police parked on the temple square and Chinese flags hanging from people’s windows. Everest, once a place where we’d slept in a yak-hair tent and walked up on our own two feet, now fenced off and piped full of techno like some cheap fairground ride. Our truck, built to take us anywhere, held together with rope, tape and stubbornness.


Through it all, Charlotte kept the line. Oxygen pipe in at night, frying rice on the hard shoulder with trucks blasting past — steady when I wasn’t. That’s what resilience really looked like, not some grand gesture, just refusing to give in.


Tibet is beautiful, yes — but beauty under every kind of pressure except the one the air itself has. Up there, the pressure drops; everywhere else it piles on. And still we kept moving.

What can I say? China’s roads told a story full of surprises, most of them costly; we won’t be rushing back anytime soon.



Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed it - if you haven't already, consider subscribing for updates on new blog releases.



....and if you want an insight into where we are and we we are doing in between blogs do check us out on Facebook.




In case you’ve not seen these…


How we got here (our last blog)




You might consider driving across China....It has so much to offer!  Searches, confiscations, interrogations, surveillance and so much more…Read on for the parts that don’t make the brochures... 



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A must read for those considering taken the road less travelled . Is this as scary as it gets? We certainly hope so!



Bribes, breakdowns, and flooded crossings. One minute it was dust and diesel, the next it was gangs, collapsed bridges and a demand for 1.25 million in “cash.”



 

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