OK, I’m back with new articles after leaving you hanging there with no info for a while. Well, I’ve been back home in Oz for 12 days and it has been absolutely wonderful – one of the very best holidays I ever had. Strangely enough this holiday was at home. I’ve never spent money that I didn’t even have for anything better in my whole life.

This was a surprise visit for everybody as only I and Lili’s family knew about my decision to fly home and it worked above my wildest expectations. I had to sneak out through the bush to get to our home so that Tanja’s father would not see me as he was working near the gate to the property and after surprising (and scaring for a millisecond :-) ) Tanja we managed to surprise the rest one by one. The emotions were high and I’ll never forget that evening. I even felt like drinking which basically never happens to me and in a blink of an eye I was very nicely “loaded”. I didn’t eat from the morning after the plane landed as it took me most of the day to get home by train, walking and hitching and then nervously awaiting Tanja to get home for a few hours. After that there was understandably no time for food. So it was I think about 10PM and I was, for the first time in my life (with one exception that I can’t remember a single bit of) not able to keep walking straight however hard I tried. I was a one happy man though.

Apart from the nice things like being able to hug Tanja again (for example ;) ) and seeing all the other family members living on the same property I managed to arrange a few other things from the “boring” pile of things to do.

I have repaired and glued together all the parts that got broken or damaged by the double fall of the bike from the truck and now I also brought back the replacement parts I needed from Oz, including three sets of front brake pads (as it seems it is close to impossible to find the type I need in China and my spares were actually for the previous model and they changed considerably on the new one) and other bits and pieces. (At the time I did not know that Lili’s father actually managed to get them for me as well and installed them already – no charge again! I can’t thank the whole family enough for the great care they had given me during my whole stay with them. )

All I wanted was to install all back on the bike tomorrow morning and get going again as now I need to rush to meet Tanja in India in only 6 weeks time, while my already tight plan was for over two months just in China. Time is very precious now. Since I can’t go to Tibet alone and with my own vehicle I have to go around and get to India through Pakistan first. I have already cut Bejing and The Great Wall Of China behind it out of my plan to save almost 2 weeks. I figured that I’ll get the chance to see the Great Wall at few other places along the ancient silk route that I will be following to get to north-west of China and I can see Bejing and its surroundings sometimes in future when I get the Trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Mongolia (which I’m forced to leave out this time as well for many more reasons than having to meet with Tanja) and ultimately to Bejing. Anyway, I learned that I would not be able to leave tomorrow, as Lili’s father was not going to work on that day and my bike was in his workplace quite a few kilometers away. There is also a dinner happening tomorrow with both of Lili’s brothers who I missed to meet the last time. Learning about that fact stopped me from trying to think of other options to still leave tomorrow.

Also the night before I flew home I, Lili, her mother (and now also my mother as she adopted me ;) ) and Lili's boyfriend Gary had visited night Hong Kong downtown to see a water, light and laser show, which was very nice. You can see a few photos from that day when you set the filter on the photo album page to 17/7/2004 and me as the author.

At home I have discovered that the lump that has been growing on my hip after the accident I had 3 weeks ago was in fact full of liquid. It is now uncomfortable and a little painful to lie on that side. It is quite funny to touch though it as it makes waves. In any case I hope it will start disappearing soon.