07:14. We've just touched down in London

Boat down the ayerwaddy at the end of the ride

Day Seven: It's a wrap

So in total we had conquered 336km of Myanmar's dust tracks and roads, hills, traffic, pot holes, puddles, sun and rain. An awesome achievement especially given the weather conditions, so completely unexpected thanks to a stubborn storm out in the  bay of Bengal.

We boarded the bus at 0615, and drove the surprisingly long way to Mandalay Airport. Wallace and 99 gave us a characteristically euphoric farewell, we checked in our bags and waited to board our little flight back to Yangon.

A quick and comfortable journey ended at the mayhem of Yangon International Airport. Our bus - the Highland Express, just for Jim - awaiting us and battled its way to the Hosanna Children's Home through the traffic. A little help was required to find the correct turning off Route 3 but we arrived at 1200, to be greeted by the children all standing in high order clapping us into the yard at the home.

And also to be greeted unexpectedly by the guiding light of Hope Asia and the inspiration to the charity, Crispin Fairbairn. What a super surprise. We admired the new Ben White education centre, built with the funds of previous rides and dedicated to the memory of Crispin's great friend and original found of Hope Asia who passed away the year.

The home had laid on a simple but satisfying lunch and after a tour of the classrooms and the dormitories we went upstairs where all the children were sitting in neat rows. Pastor Va asked them to introduce themselves one by one telling us their age and year group. Their shyness diminished proportionately to their age and was completely dispelled as they launched into two joyous happy songs.

I have been privileged to visit the Hope Asia homes on three occasions. I am always struck by the happiness and healthiness of the children, and sharing a couple of hours with them is always so very special. It never fails to bring an enormous lump to my throat to consider what challenges what they would face if the coil not grow up in this loving environment.

After balloons were batted between us, drawings drawn, Lego built and doughnuts eaten our time was sadly over, and we heading back to our bus and the airport, for the 3 hour leg to Singapore, and then the 13 hours back to London.

In Singapore Fritz lead our little band like like the Pied Piper of Hamelin to collect our $40 transit vouchers, sufficient to variously fund a trip to the lounge, a Burger King (french fries....yee haa!), perfume shopping....

And now I sit wedged into 58B on this Singapore Airlines 777 with bearly two hours still to run, and a breakfast of baked eggs about to be served.

Shortly we will all go our separate ways, back to our normal lives. Each of us will undoubtedly been enriched in some way by the many experiences we have had in such a very short period of time.

Jim, our Global Adventure Challenge guide , has done a wonderful job keeping us going. I am deeply touched by his donation of his tip from us all to the Children's Home.

This for me epitomises the generosity of all of our many donors, who we must thank. At our final dinner there were was a team pledge to try to hit the team figure of £45,000, and if we can do so in the next few weeks that would be truly astonishing.

By way of signing off I would like to thank the 18 brave souls who accepted this challenge.  Agreeing to join this ride, for some over a year ago, marked the start of a huge journey of training, fundraising, planning and juggling home and travel arrangements and life events and ending today at a foggy Heathrow Terminal 2. Taking part is no mean feat, and I'm sure we all return home deeply contented, if perhaps a little sore in few places.

Crispin sent me a message as we drove away from the children's home. I can't say it any better:

Congratulations on [all] doing such an awesome job with the trip.
How fantastic to get to the end of the trip and know everyone was safe and had a great time and raised enough money to change lives!
It doesn't get much better!

Final celebration dinner....

..has been had. Medals awarded and speeches said. Job almost done.

And tomorrow we see the wonderful children for whom this has all been about...

Day Six - What a wash out: 21kms cycled

The Emerald Land Hotel is one of those establishments that you expect to find described in dog eared editions of Let's Go as a 'comfortable place to stay, possibly past its best'.
Somehow nothing here looked quite as inviting as it might. But for all its faded glory the offer of fresh cooked eggs in the dining hall was a good start for the day.

So it was a leisurely start for us all (relatively speaking), only needing to be on the bus at 8am, to travel out of town to the lock-up where our bikes had been stored over night so we would avoid negotiating the madness of the Mandalay traffic.

En route the threatening skies opened, dumping vast amounts of incessant rain at tropical force. Incredulous looks all around as Jim asked us to leave the bus. We ran the 100 yards to the sanctuary of the warehouse getting drenched in the process. We admired the lock-up for as long as we could. Longman's bedding in the corner suggesting that this was where he slept with his wife and baby who we also met.

With the rain showing no signs of abating we eventually set off. I guess once you are soaked you can't get any wetter.

It was an interesting ride nonetheless, through little backstreets with bustling businesses, although dodging the overflowing potholes meant that you had to keep a beady eye on the road ahead. 7km in and we stopped at the U Pain Bridge - the longest teak bridge in the world. I never thought I would say I was cold, but getting off the bikes to explore the bridge sapped any warmth we had worked up on the short cycle.
Today was to be a day of executive decisions. Jim and I quickly agreed to ditch the idea of cycling on a local island given that we'd had enough of impenetrable quagmires on Monday, and so we rode on through the town, eventually heading onto a more major road out of town.

Sadly this was not much fun. Although flat, the continuing rain made for a challenging ride, as we vied for road space between the ever growing puddles with lorries, cars and scooters.

Time for another executive decision: we'd carry on for another 5km and then stop for lunch, and at that point call it a day on the cycling. While this would leave us some 35km short of our target, it was unanimous and popular decision. Our last few kms did present us with a couple of hills and were not without drama: half way up the penultimate him yours truly suffered the saddlebolt shearing, in a replay of the same event in Cambodia. Happily I avoided impaling myself on the seat pillar, and leapt on Wallace's bike to complete the ride.

Still damp, and requesting the fans be turned off as a result, we felt triumphant as we sat down to a  lunch that started with delicious spring rolls. They didn't last long!

As we finished eating, the drivers and mechanics floored us all by presenting back the tip of $200 dollars we had collected for them.

They wanted us to add it to the fundraising for the children back in Yangon. When you consider the tip probably makes up a significant percentage of their pay for looking after us so well over the week, the magnitude of the generosity of this move was a bit overwhelming.

We lined up for a joyous team photo,

and then stripped the bikes of all the accessories with had lovingly fixed onto them in Bagan on Monday. Mudded and travel worn, many of us were happy to donate them to Wallace for the benefit of locals.

Inevitably the rain stopped at the point, but in the bus the smell of damp cyclists and cycle outfits was something special! Heads nodded as we drove along a beautiful stretch along the river bank to the Mingun Pahtodawgyi, a huge brick structure built by King Bodawpaya in 1790. But I'm not completely sure as the slight air of delirium that was settling over the whole team made it almost impossible to understand 99's explanation as to why it was never completed, despite his very best and persistent efforts.

Equally persistent were the souvenir sellers, who managed a brisk trade in longyis and hats.

In actual fact the temple , that promised so much delivered very little, but the second largest bell  in the world (a very proud boast repeated many times), weighing in at at 90,000 kgs, was quite a sight.

We strolled to the waters edge and boarded our boat by narrow plank. Happily no mishaps or unexpected swims and we easily settled down into comfy cane seats for a very pleasant cruise downhill the river.

At the hotel we had a couple of hours to put wet clothes into plastic bags for the journey ahead, trying to avoid as much cross-contamination with the last dry clothes as possible.

At 19:30 we boarded our faithful bus to Ko's Kitchen, a trendy looking Thai restaurant.  for our celebration meal. So trendy it had one of those kitchen you could look into and witness the full experience of the flaming pans!

Sam chose a Robbie Williams theme to thank Wallace and 99, and we all received our well deserved medals. A happy team boarded to bus back to the hotel for a final celebratory beer.

One could say the evening had gone off with a bang, but not as big as the exploding bottle of Myanmar beer that went off in Emma's lap. That seemed to be a good cue to go to bed and get as much sleep as possible before the long slog home and the trip to the orphanage.

Well, not quite all went to bed. 'Uncle' Wallace and the two boys were still enjoying the pool. Olympic freestyle snorkeling another of his many talents!

Day Five: The Big One! 101kms cycled

We bought our bags down for breakfast at 7am. Not, Jim stressed, him getting soft on us.  Just the earliest the hotel would serve us.

There was an air of excitement in the builders' yard as all the hotel staff came out to cheer us on way and our 8am departure.

We cycled out through the bustle of the town as it set about it's day. Mopeds swarmed around us, children ran to school, the lock ups on the roadside started to open their shutters.

First stop was 23 miles in. Terrain today all tarmac, but the gradient was a steady climb that went on for miles and miles. Once again the overcast weather spared us from the worst of the sun.

Four days in and the joints were starting to creak, the pain on the hills feeling harder to overcome, as one learned to respect the biker's silence as we each deploy our own motivation techniques.

The snack stops are unanimously a motivation, and our next stop was 43kms in but followed by threats of a big 5km hill. Perhaps we have got used to hills, but this one almost passed us by, so the lunch stop at 65km came sooner than we realised.

The food was wonderful. A little local restaurant who had never catered for tourists, and certainly not tourists who smelt like us, and looked like us with our colourful cycle garb, figure hugging Lycra (yoikes!!) and helmet. Lovely vegetables including a spicy pumpkin dish, chicken curry, a cauliflower dish. All delicious.

Peter's hallucinations are getting worse. He seemed convinced that his can of Sunkist was a gin and tonic. The tropical heat does funny things to the mind!

In Myanmar most of the women and children wear thanaka - a yellowish-white cosmetic paste made from ground bark. It is a distinctive feature of the culture of Myanmar, seen commonly applied to the face and sometimes the arms of women and girls. Four female generations of the family running the restaurant took great delight in marking up our female contingent.

And after a good lunch there's nothing better than a gentle cruise downhill for about 23 kms, which is just what we got.

More water at 86km and we started the final push into Mandalay riding single file with arms and index fingers aloft, dodging the traffic. We then regrouped for a surreal 10km cycling on the equivalent of the hard shoulder of the M25; the main dual carriageway into Mandalay. But we clocked 101km just as we reached the illuminated ''welcome to Mandalay'  sign.

Mandalay, the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Myanmar  with a population of 1.2m,  is the most developed I have seen in Myanmar with swish hotels, Ford Motor dealers and a beautiful old palace facing the river.

We invaded a small cycle shop to triple their monthly takings to buy lurid green Mandalay cycle tops and then appropriately enough checked into the Emerald Land Inn.

Dinner at a local restaurant washed down with the local beer, and the pleasing news of a lie- in tomorrow... On the bus at 8am for our final day of cycling.

Day Four: The Path to Nirvana...... 81kms cycled

We all awoke to the sounds of the jungle in our spacious comfortable lodges and headed to breakfast. What a treat to find freshly made omelettes on offer. And most importantly the first chance to celebrate Bithja's birthday with a rousing Happy Birthday.

This morning our initial mode of transport was the bus: a chance to hear the brakes on the bus labouring down the steep roadway that we laboured up yesterday afternoon. We continued down winding roads the the temple of Mount Popa that dominates the entire point perched atop the sheer-sided volcanic plug.

The streets were lined with souvenir shops selling 'i love mount popa' t-shirts. Mass tourism Myanmar style still has a long way to go. And that became all the more evident as we started the climb up the 900+ steps to the top .

As you enter you can't help noticing the monkeys lining the stairway as you enter, and they line pretty much one's complete ascent of 657 metres. 

Clearly the path to Nirvana is lined with monkey s**t! And there's something deeply uncomfortable walking/wading through it with bare feet. The views at the summit were almost worth the unpleasantness!

Back on the bus and hotel to quickly scrub our feet (a few times), grab our belongings and get on our bikes, our legs already warmed up from the steps.

Just as yesterday was uphill, today was almost exclusively downhill. And as a result we made great progress quickly. We reached our first snack stop after 23 miles, almost before breaking a sweat. The snack stops are always a welcome rest, with Wallace and his team laying on Coke, 100plus, biscuits, crisps, watermelon, bananas: even coffee.

We were warned that we were now entering snake alley, with vipers likely in the undergrowth at the side of the road. Going to the loo won't be an activity for the faint of heart!

We watched a herd of goats negotiate a path through our resting bikes, with the goat herd carrying a kid that looked as if it could only have just been born and the mother leading the mother my the ear.

We pushed on enjoying the cloud cover that sheltered us from the sun's worst impact.

60 kms in and we were treated to a special picnic lunch: avocado and mandarin salad, tea leaf salad with pumpkin seeds, eggplant salad, garlic potato salad and smiled butter fish. All prepared by the fair hands of our multi talented crew.

The final 26km saw the road getting increasingly busy as we cycled past a number of factories and machining plants and we entered the town of Myingyan. We finally arrived at the Kaung Kaung hotel, after an enforced single file policy to negotiate the town.

Once we were reunited with Jim, we started to sing Happy Birthday for the second time, at which point the hotel staff came out with an enormous birthday cake for Bithja. An impromptu birthday celebration continued with the 'road crew' now transformed into boy band, and singing a local song.

The hotel was new. So new in fact that one sensed that the builders had moved out that afternoon, DIY SOS style. Quite a bit of snagging still needed to be sorted. We sat in the courtyard bar amongst the sand piles. But it didn't make the beer any less good.

I suspect the builders' sons had been called into to help with the waiting for dinner. You certainly sensed they hadn't done it before. But the food was good, and the booming acoustic amplified our chatter full of tails of the exploits of our three days cycle that have clocked us to just over 200km and in expectation of the big 100km that awaits tomorrow

Not a bad spot. You'd be mad to cycle to it though!!

Quite a view for breakfast

Day one leg respite!

Day Three - A Day of Undulations. 77kms cycled

Breakfast at 0630, bottoms reunited with saddles at 0700ish, and we made way for our first stop of the day: the local market.

Bustling with life, fresh produce and a vibrant atmosphere and colours, we tourists were no match for the haggling of the ladies on the textile stall. Even retail guru Nick, looking rather special in full Lycra gear and helmet, couldn't elect a special price.

Today was to be a day of road bashing, with the daunting prospect of those miles being almost exclusively uphill all the way.

But tarmac vs quagmire is no contest and we all revelled in wheels and gears moving freely.

We quickly made our first rest stop at 20km. The palm furniture deckchairs at the palm sugar factory a mile further on and green tea on offer were almost too comforting, but the next stop at 45km was soon upon us, and then we entered the town of Kyaukpadaung for lunch.

That does sound too simple. This was sweaty hard graft. Thankfully the rain kept off and  Burma's harshest temperatures also kept away, but legs and muscles were put to the test.

After the now ubiquitous lunch of Chinese meals and rice (with rice and plates eventually provided)  we headed off to an off licence to stock up on beers - at prices cheaper than our hotel tonight.

While today so far had been steadily uphill over 55 miles, the last 20km would, we were warned, be really steep. Relentless the team urged each other on.

Perhaps at our penultimate rendezvous point we were a little too gung-ho at the prospect of the final 2km (English distance or Burmese distance? - a constant topic of discussion)

Jim, our trusty guide, should be under no illusion. This was a HILL! Or perhaps the name of our hotel gave it away: Popa MOUNTAIN resort.

I couldn't honestly say all the sweat and pain were washed away by the beauty of this amazing resort, with teak bungalows perched overlooking the Popa valley...but a dip in the ice cold pool certainly did.

And a dinner that broke the mould of Chinese fare - prawn cocktail and 'fish and chips' eaten as we contemplated our position above the valley below, and the heights we had reached, led to some very happy bunnies who heading off to the welcome luxuriousness of our teak-floored rooms.

In this confident mood of achievement, only the heavy downpour that accompanied us to bed alluded to that fact that tomorrow will undoubtedly have its own share of surprises and adventures

Day Two - When the tough get going the going gets tough. 56kms cycled

If you go to bed at 8pm, you can get 7 hours sleep. 

But when you meet in the lobby of your hotel at 4.15am it doesn't necessarily feel like it.

Still, spirits were high (well, highish!) as we collected our packed breakfasts and a quick coffee. We shouldn't have got so excited!! Two hard boiled eggs are not necessarily what you want at that hour. Peter, however, was able to keep up his egg count and received enthusiastic donations from the rest of the group.

We arrived at the airport quickly, Toe bade us farewell and our bags were whisked off to check in. The domestic terminal (the original airport building) is impressive with an alluring fading glory. No modern airport chrome, glass and illuminated signage here.
Boarding passes were a lapel sticker marked with a black sharpie.
With security checks done we monopolised the cafe (the "CIP" sadly closed) and supplemented our breakfast boxes with a unexpectedly good coffee.

We made to board the ATS twin prop aircraft from the tarmac. A near international incident was averted when urgent messages to the ground handling staff resulting in frantic walkie-talkie calls to find Sam's grey jumper. Our requests had to be quickly rescinded when the jumper was found after all ....in Sam's bag.

90 minutes later, and another breakfast down, started our descent into Bagan airport. Once again, as at Yangon, we circled a good few times before touching down in the most extraordinary storm. There must have been at least two inches of standing water on the tarmac. We watched with heavy hearts as carefully packed luggage was unloaded from the plane and left exposed for minutes in rain that would surely soak bag and contents in seconds.

We met our guide, Wallace - veteran of the 2014 cycle in the Mons State,  and boarded the bus. The drive to the hotel was  more than interesting, requiring the driver to negotiate some biblical flooding.

Undaunted we were in high spirits on arriving at the hotel in Bagan; our bikes neatly stacked and labeled outside the hotel. A beautiful courtyard hotel with a pool and lovely rooms greeted us.

We changed into our cycle gear  (soaked through for some, where the holdall was unable to repel the deluge) and went to pimp our bikes. Saddles, go pros, bar ends and pedals fixed the 2016 Hope Asia ride commenced.

Normally Burma's dusty roadways that link small towns and villages to the tarmac are as hard as concrete and make for fast and enjoyable riding. After the deluge they had turned to quicksand. Sticky, thick and unforgiving to the cyclist. None of us had anticipated an off-road mud fest, but that's what we had.

Filthy, exhausted by the hard going spirits started to flag. But perseverance was the order of the day. If only the inner tubes of our tyres were so hardy! We suffered no less than 11 punctures, depleting the supply of spares and requiring some bike juggling.

All in all we made our lunch spot 30 km in at 4.30pm! Hungry and weary we were relieved of the sustenance, and glad to see tarmac for the final 15km home.

And a charming atmospheric pagoda on the way home meant at least some of our expectations of Bagan were met. Even if we had to scuba dive through an enormous lake of a puddle to get to them.

Showers and swims were followed by an outdoor meal at the Sunset Garden restaurant accompanied by Wallace's somewhat overenthusiastic demonstration of the many many (far too many !!) ways to tie a longyi .

This would be a much well earned sleep tonight, hopefully not disturbed by visions of Wallace leaping about in the short longyi.

Tuesday 6:45

Creaming up and strapping on handle bags in Bagan after a tough rough ride yesterday! 7am kick off. Full update of yesterday to come...

Day two : some pics

One word: rain. Three words: lots of it.

Day one : more pics

Day One pictures

Day One update- The Road To Mandalay is a long one!

Heathrow. 6.30am and our merry band were all present and correct, full of anticipation and excitement. Jim Reynolds, our tour guide for the week, joined us and ran the first of many roll-calls. We negotiated the self service baggage tagging machines to check in and begin the adventure.

In total there are 18 of us who have trained, fundraised and thought of little else for the past few weeks. All now at the point of no going back. So Emma, Sam, Pam, Adam, Lydia, Ben, Virginia, Julia, Dan, Ed, James ,Seb, Peter, Bithja, Cally, Nick and yours truly zipped through security and off to while away two hours; some in the London Pride. Even the hardiest of the team passed up on the opportunity of the Fulham brew at this hour, but opted for full English and eggs Benedict.
They said once 'go to work on an egg'. As you shall discover we went to Yangon on many, many eggs.

An onitime departure as the Singapore Airlines 777 pushed back on time, team HopeAsia shoe-horned into rows 58 to 61. A few z'ds, a lovely chance to meet our fellow cyclists, a few movies, boxes of crisps and veggie wraps and I wish I could say the 11 hours flew by. But it didn't, with the last 5 hours seemingly taking an age despite a strong tailwind.

A couple of hours in the carpeted halls of the enormous Changi Airport. The Far Eastern smell reminding the senses that we were a long way from home. Just the gap of the door of the transit train hinting at the true heat outside the air con.

Some grabbed a coffee, others a burger. Peter Brown was by far the most organised of us all grabbing a shower in the lounge facilities, and with it the opportunity to enjoy his third breakfast (eggs!!) - Heathrow, flight, lounge and the prospect of another on the flight.

We boarded the Airbus A330 and dozed for 2.5 hours: the plane looped the airport at Yangon. I assume from the pressure of the descent this was not due to airspace congestion - rather the heavy storm that seemed to have just hit the airfield. An unexpected welcome to Myanmar.

Immigration formalities have clearly failed to keep up the the influx of tourism: we waited over an hour and a half to get through, but were quickly united with all our luggage, and met our Exo local guide for the day: Toe.

Myanmar is bedeviled by traffic, but the bus trip gave us sleepy travellers a first glimpse of this city. A quick 20 mins check into the Hotel Reno was followed by a bus trip to lunch in a traditional villa on the outskirts of two with lovely curries washed down with the first beer of the trip.

First stop the enormous reclining Buddha at the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha Temple; the biggest devotional statue I have ever seen, and then the wonderful Shwedogan Pagoda.

We were all there in body, if not mind. The objective for us all was just not to fall asleep on our feet. Nodding heads, slurred speech all par for the course at this point in the afternoon. A bus tour round the old colonial buildings let us to the Monsoon restaurant- appropriate for the very wet conditions thanks to a storm well set into the Bay of Bengal.

News of 4.15 rendezvous was greeted by tired resignation and weary steps up to the bedrooms at 8pm.

If Heineken did tour itineraries, they'd struggle to pack in as much as we have done today: two flights, sightseeing, at least 4 egg flans, two locals meals and lots and lots of stray dogs.

Sleep well!!

Ssh!!

It's 4am in Yangon, and were just about to head to the airport to fly to Bagan. Many tired heads after a day of travel yesterday, and sightseeing that's saw us in bed at 8pm. More to follow!!!!!

Landed at Yangon!!

Standing by for leg 2

All the Team all safely aboard a Singapore airlines A330 after killing a couple of hours at Changi Airport. A chance for a quick coffee, or for the ultra organised of us, (Peter Brown) a shower. He is now officially the sweetest smelling of us all,  and fortified by a second breakfast. One more to to go on this short 2 hour flight which will earn him the prestigious title of Peter '3 breakfasts' Brown.

Safely in Singapore...

0500 at Changi Airport, and we've completed the first leg of our journey. I can't vouch for how much sleep was had, or how many movies have been watched by our intrepid bunch. I'm starting to hallucinate about a decent cup of coffee....

Still smiling, no sore bums yet!

Faster than a bike?

Here we go...

So. Team Burma all checked in and gearing up for 13 hours on the flight to Singapore...
Very pleased to confirm that the fantastic efforts of everyone has pushed our fund raising total to £37,304. Total awesome!!!  😃😃😃😃

Through security..... breakfast blog!!!

Almost time to go....

Isn't it amazing how some events seem a long way off for a long time, and suddenly they are upon you before you know it?

Our 2016 adventure have been over a year in the planning, and now in just 2 sleeps our merry band of 19 cyclists will meet at some god-forsaken hour at Heathrow and travel for almost a full day to get to Yangon, and ultimately Bagan, to begin out adventure.

This is the time when a lots of thoughts go through your mind. Have I packed everything? Have I done enough training and will I be able to keep up? How hot will it really be? What happens if my roomie snores!!

There's something exciting and also unnerving when you get thrown together in a group of people you don't know for a week who have travelled from different towns and countries to do something that pushes you out of your comfort zone.

But of course we are all connected by more things than we realise. Some connections will be surprising and only come to light as we get to know each other. Others are more obvious. The main one that does bond us all as we head off is the amazing fundraising efforts that have got us all to this point.

I will reveal all on Saturday as we board the plane, but months of holding events, cajoling friends and family, cleaning cars and many other activities have already brought us together for a common cause: the 50 children in a home in Yangon who are some much less fortunate than us.

What an amazing opportunity they have given us! So as the last pot of chamois buttr gets stuffed into a holdall, and we all do the final pat of the back pocket to check for passports and pristine US dollars, you can be sure that thinking of those  kids may not quell all the nerves, but will be very much at the front of all our minds

Roll on Saturday morning.