Yakety Yak: Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

By McGilton Russell

Russell McGilton, You are bound to like this man by the end of the book, I have been searching the net for ages looking for ways to contact Russell to thank him for writing such a hilarious travelogue. As usual it got to my reading shelf being a travelogue with a difference, Bombay to Beijing on a bicycle, well technically speaking he did not do the complete trip on a bicycle, but frankly speaking I don't think it would matter unless you are one of those who go back an verify every little thing that they read.


Read the initial introductory pages of this book which explain why Russell started on this trip here.

From there on the books gets even more interesting as he actually sets on his trip and arrives in Bombay. On the flight sitting next to him is an inquisitive Indian who doesn't understand why must one cycle when there are trains, while Russell learns that the local politicians had just changed the name of the city from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" and along with the old name plates go his dreams of the title of his planned Book, "Bombay to Beijing". Once in India just like all foreigners he is dismayed by the poverty and difference in classes, the crazy honking traffic, pollution and the general hustle bustle of Bombay.

Hailing from India it makes it all the more interesting for me to read about my home town when viewed from a different perspective. Especially when no matter where he goes he is pestered with a single question " Hello Sir , Which country?"

The book then moves on a swiftly , with Russell's experiences as he meets another cyclist and they join to cover the route till Kathmandu together. In Kathmandu he is joined by his beautiful blonde girlfriend with whom he then cycles to Ladakh. On the way things don't quite well and the stress of the journey and the pressure of Indian pestering takes its toll, with Russell breaking up with his Girlfriend. Then he moves on by flight to Hongkong and from there rides on to Beijing.
In between these pages are hilarious accounts of his experiences with villagers, bad hotels with peeping toms, cycle breakdowns, friendly people to assist in roadsides, frustration over his inability to find a single private moment in a country crowded with a billion people, fighting freezing cold and snowfall on roads in China. In China is when Russell gets lucky again and hooks up with another petite babe who takes his nude picture on the great wall of China.

This is a very fast moving humorous book , especially when coming from a horny and pervert author:) He paints a factual not so pretty picture of India as it really is, I recommended it to another cyclist and he got through it in less than a week and came back with genuine compliments for the book . In all an excellent, hilarious, must read book !

Off The Rails.
by: Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly

If you call long distance motorcycle travel as an Adventure , what would you call a similar distance
(10,000 Kilometers) bicycle tour.

"Adventure" is too small a word to describe Cycling 10,000km from Moscow to Beijing. Yes I have not added Zeros wrongly , they cycled TEN THOUSAND Kilometers through some of the harshest terrain and weather.
The Cyclists both have done a fair bit of adventure in the past, so they did have some good experience before starting off on such a journey. Tim has cycled around Australia and Chris was a member of a wilderness guide course.

The book is an excellent read and a real Mega adventure. The Guys cycle through Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and then on to China. Their experiences in such an epic journey are stuff of legend.

The book is very well written , at least reading it you can feel the pain and the difficulty of such a long journey. You can see the snow bogging down the wheels and the cold freezing off the toes. You can see the colorful personalities of the people they meet on the way. The pleasure of interactions with helpful and kind strangers and the pains of being arrested in China and being robbed in Russia. The best part here is their experiences with the Russian Babushkas, the motherly women in Rural Russia who take care of and feed the boys for days together when they are struck with frost bite.

Also the host of people they meet along the way , Mongolian horsemen, Chinese students, Russian drunkards , the Land Mafia, and a whole lot of policemen. All these profiles come alive with character as you read this book.

I think the judge of if a book is good enough is to see whether it rouses your emotions , do you feel being a part of whatever it is that you are reading. This is easier, if say you are Nancy Friday writing about men's sexual fantasies, but writing about such a hard grueling adventure and keeping it interesting is tough. And Tim and Chris do very well in this.

They both have fairly different personalities and this is evident in their writing styles, the chapters are alternatively written by Tim and Chris, each with his own ideas and reasons for being on the road. Though at times they don't get along too well on the road, I think it can be expected for they have been together for almost 2 years on the road, with only each other for company. They have petty fights and arguments over small things but the good thing is that they are honest about their experiences on the road. There is no effort to sugar coat their experiences in order to be seen as Politically correct (or in this case make a god impression)

The book overall is very very readable and I recommend it heartily to everyone interested in adventure travel. They also have a TV documentary Off the Rails.

In general a very good adventure travel book, though the book didn't motivate me to pick up my push bike and start pedaling around Australia it did kindle the desire to travel far off , visit strange places, meet different people.

So, as they say in the biker's world, See you on the road some day.