Into the Clouds

Two taxis and over a thousand dollars later, I find myself on the outskirts of Hà Nội looking at a pre-loved Honda XR 400 which I am hoping will carry me through the mountains northwest of the city.

After filling up with petrol, I remind myself how to ride a motorbike on the hectic streets of northern Hà Nội. Surviving, just, I scale the entrance ramp to the motorway and the lesson steps up a gear. It is the quickest way out of the urban jungle.

Soon I am heading into the mountains towards Hòa Bình and Mai Châu, joining National Route 6 and climbing Thung Khe Pass. The road has been carved into steep-sided limestone karst mountains, but low-hanging clouds obscure the views. Applying the old adage, the descent proves to be more challenging and nerve-wracking than the ascent. The smell and sound of hardworking brakes shroud the mountainside in a similar way to the low-hanging clouds.

Beyond Mai Châu the roads become the type I came here to ride: light on trucks and heavy on wiggles. I cross the river at Bến Phà on a little ferry, stop for a random roadside phở and follow the Sông Tấc River through a patchwork of paddy fields towards Bắc Yên.

From here I follow the Cloud Hunters into the Tà Xùa Nature Reserve. Eventually I pop out of the clouds and see what all the Instagrammers have come for. Honestly, it is spectacular. What catches my attention more is that in places they are still building the road. I tentatively follow the locals through the construction site, balanced on the edge of a huge precipice.

It is at some point on the climb that I notice both my speedometer and odometer have stopped working. Since the bike has no fuel gauge, I now have no way of knowing how much fuel I have in the tank.

The problem becomes more pressing the next morning when the engine refuses to start. Mr Huy takes one look and essentially tells me to push it. He and I push the 125 kg bike up the hill before I freewheel down the other side to the town mechanic. At 10:22 the engine first splutters back into life. By 11:13 I am ready to go.

Well, except the speedometer and odometer are still not working.

For the next few days I weave through farming villages and lush mountainous terrain, crossing from valley to valley between Yên Bái Province, Sơn La Province and Lai Châu Province. I buy petrol in 500 ml plastic bottles from roadside shops and fill my head with numbers as I try to guesstimate how far I can go before needing to fill up.

The final reward is Sa Pa, perched dramatically at around 1600 metres on the western edge of a high plateau, facing the hazy blue peak of Mount Fansipan, Vietnam's highest mountain, across the Mường Hoa Valley. The motorbike finally goes back to the garage to fix the odometer, giving me a few hours to think about how great the ride has been.

After a day off hiking in the Sa Pa countryside, I set off for Hà Nội. My little navigation system gets confused by the steep-sided valleys and, like an idiot, I follow it mindlessly up into a village perched high on the mountainside. I retrace my tyre tracks down a 17% gradient and eventually find the right road.

Then I see the first sign to Hà Nội.

I get giddy, but as I turn onto the motorway a woman jumps in front of me and shrieks. A few moments later a guy bumbles over and explains in broken English that motorbikes are now prohibited.

I take a few moments to replan my route.

The news is not good. There was only one thing for it...

Little did I know, Mother Nature had already prepared her response.

No Hay

We arrived in Havana after twenty-three hours awake and were immediately bundled into a battered yellow car with a cracked windscreen and no seatbelts. It careered through the city, past all the places I had previously seen only on a screen. They were suddenly real. Decaying, colourful, grand and gritty. By the time we were hauled up the narrow staircase to our Casa Particular, my eyes were bloodshot and my body was demanding sleep.

The following morning, Cuba began with a mango. It was ridiculously juicy, perfectly ripe and quite possibly the best mango I had ever tasted. We wandered into Habana Vieja, past the Hotel Inglaterra, Gran Teatro de La Habana and Capitolio Nacional, and into a world of grand buildings falling apart around cobbled streets. Within hours we had encountered our first scam. Tickets for a Buena Vista Social Club show and mojitos were offered with such enthusiasm that it seemed rude to refuse. Later we discovered that enthusiasm and honesty were not necessarily related. Sadly, this became a recurring theme.

It was difficult to get anything done. We needed a SIM card and a car. Three recommended places, seven hotels and a taxi ride later, we admitted defeat. Government restrictions had won.

Our carefully considered plan to circumnavigate the island disappeared and we began improvising. This was perhaps the first thing Cuba taught us. Plans were useful, but only up to a point. There was always another obstacle, another closed door, another shortage or another unexpected detour. Eventually we stopped trying to prevent these things and simply accepted them.

Havana was a good place to practice. We wandered through plazas and museums, visited a cigar factory, walked the Malecón and watched locals fish in the Straits of Florida. We ate lobster at La Bodeguita del Medio, drank rum at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano and watched rumba in Callejón de Hamel. It was at Callejón de Hamel that the contradictions became harder to ignore. The performers were hypnotic. The audience was not. One man had paid to enter the performance enclosure and spent the show thrusting his camera into the face of every musician. He was a sweat-spotted blimp of a man, white socks pulled to his knees, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was ruining the performance for everyone around him.

I found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Not because I was worried about being robbed or getting sick. It was the inequality implicit in almost every exchange. It made me question everything. Every conversation. Every handshake. Every smile.

What did we look like to the people we were photographing?

The obvious answer was uncomfortable. Economically powerful Westerners were using the force field of their wealth to behave in ways they probably would not behave at home.

Yet the line was not simple.

Over lunch I kept thinking about the man. The white socks staggering through the heat. The waterfalls of sweat. The locals giggling at him or simply ignoring him. His complete confidence in a place where he so obviously did not belong.

The disparity was not necessarily wealth. It was belonging.

Somehow I ended up feeling sorry for him. Not for the locals. Not even for the other tourists. For the desperate, unsatisfied sweat-spotted blimp and the unfortunate audience who would have to watch his terrible home movie.

Leaving Havana, the city dissolved into lush countryside. The Sierra del Rosario brought clear mountain pools, home-cooked food and rocking chairs. On the Sendero La Serafina, our guide Juli could spot birds we could barely see and produced a huge Mamay San Domingo fruit from the forest with a machete. It tasted like mango crossed with pineapple.

The power cuts were, at first, an inconvenience, but then they became a character in the story. In Viñales the power went off in our room, in restaurants and during meals. Eventually we stopped returning to the sweat box and simply ordered another mojito.

We hiked through tobacco country, explored limestone caves and rattled along on bicycles towards Los Aquáticos until my bike took a chunk out of my shin and we abandoned it. We drank Coco-Locos with families living on the mountainside and watched the sunset over the valley.

The Mural de la Prehistoria depicts a gigantic snail, dinosaurs, sea monsters and humans across a cliff face. Eighteen people had spent four years creating it. What a waste of time. It was horrific and had permanently scarred what had otherwise been a beautiful landscape.

In the Bahía de Cochinos, the world changed again. This watery world was gemstone blue where tropical fish buzzed around the coral. Julio, our dive guide, seemed to know every nook and cranny of the reef. Beyond it, the seabed dropped away into a dark, velvety abyss.

Our next dive took us over the edge of the reef and into the abyss. Here we found an old fishing boat tucked behind a coral ridge and followed Julio through a small cave and tunnel towards the light. My oxygen was running low. Before I really understood what was going on, Julio and I buddy breathing.

The next day it was time to leave Playa Girón. By now the journey had become less about seeing Cuba's sights and more about seeing how Cubans lived.

In Camagüey, we had our first experience of the state-run Moneda Libremente Convertible (MLC) shops. These were filled with goods ordinary Cubans could not afford, which explains why all across Cuba living rooms had become shops packed with whatever people could sell.

Water here, though, was impossible to buy until Alex arrived with two bicycles. Following a hot tip, Alex and I raced across town to an MLC shop and found twenty-two half-litre bottles at the bottom of a fridge. We were initially allowed to buy twelve.

The clock was ticking before the next power cut.

We bought twelve and for reasons I still do not fully understand, we were allowed to buy the other ten.

After saying goodbye to Alex and returning his bikes, we were walking back to our Casa Particular with three plastic bags full of water. At first we felt happy with ourselves, but soon we felt deeply uncomfortable. People stared. Three people asked where we had got it.

"MLC, pero no hay agua."

There was something obscene about having bought something as basic as water when so many people could not.

By then, "no hay" had become a sort of national punctuation mark.

No hay water.

No hay electricity.

No hay food.

No hay bus.

No hay.

And yet somehow there was always something.

There was baseball in Camagüey.

There was carnival.

There was music. Always music.

There was also ingenuity. The driver fixing the bus. The family selling coffee. The people who turned living rooms into shops. The hosts who found another solution when the first one failed.

And there was the luscious green landscape.

Whenever Cuba became too complicated, the landscape provided an escape.

In the Sierra Maestra, the history finally began to make sense. At Comandancia de la Plata, Miguel led us through the remains of the revolutionary headquarters: the medical station, meeting house, power station, Fidel's house and Radio Rebelde. The fragments we had collected from people across the country suddenly began to fit together.

The following morning we left at five. We walked beneath a starlit sky, following the ridge through banana and coffee plantations and into cloud forest. We passed Camp Joaquín and climbed towards Pico Real del Turquino. At 1,974 metres, Cuba's highest mountain was strangely anticlimactic. Shrubbery blocked the views. A small wooden sign gave the name and height, while a huge bronze bust of the Cuban national hero and poet José Martí marked the summit.

There was no grand panorama.

Just a mountain.

And us.

Fourteen hours after setting out, we eventually followed a river down to the village where Miguel was born, raised and still lived. There must be something special in the water here as Miguel was still going strong and I felt dead on my feet. I honestly do not know how he did it.

By then we had learned that Cuba was full of people who simply got on with things.

The taxi that arrived late.

The driver collecting water for his overheating engine.

The musician who played when everything else had stopped.

The shopkeeper who somehow found another bottle.

The family who opened their home to strangers.

The Cuban who had learned to live with "no hay" by finding a way to make something out of whatever was left. That was the Cuba that stayed with me. Not the Cuba of the postcards, polished American cars, perfect mojitos and revolutionary murals. Those things existed, of course, but underneath them was something much more complicated. There was simple beauty and extraordinary decay. Empty shelves, unreliable transport, bureaucracy, inequality and power cuts. Scams and tourist traps.

And there was music. Always music.

Eventually we left Baracoa and drove towards Moa. The landscape was now scarred by zinc and cobalt mining. The chimneys of the Planta de Níquel Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara pumped black and orange smoke into the sky. Further along, the Planta de Níquel Pedro Soto Alba sent out white smoke.

Eventually the landscape softened. The sea appeared. We had reached Guardalavaca.

After weeks of moving, waiting, sweating, climbing, diving, cycling, riding, being bounced around in taxis and buses, arguing with bureaucracy and drinking mojitos during power cuts, we had arrived somewhere where there was nothing left to do.

For a little while, at least.

Cuba had taught us to stop expecting things to work.

Instead, we learned to expect something else.

A detour.

A closed door.

A late taxi.

A broken bus.

A power cut.

A stranger offering help.

A ridiculous conversation.

A mango.

A mountain.

A song.

A drink.

A way around.

There was always a way around.

In Cuba, there was never a Plan B. In Cuba, they use all the letters of the alphabet.

There's No Place Like Rome

Watching the scenery change on the return train journey from Rome to Milan is quite a bit easier than cycling it over the previous nine days, but travelling by train with two bikes in Italy is not quite as straightforward as we had hoped. Restrictions, changes and logistical challenges have turned the journey north into a twelve-hour-plus exercise in patience. It does, however, provide plenty of time to reflect on the ride...

Fresh tyres hit the sun-drenched tarmac of Milan and we set off south towards Rome. The bikes felt heavier than usual. It took a while to adjust to the extra weight and the prospect of the kilometres ahead. The route initially followed the familiar Naviglio Pavese with the sun hovering above the horizon and large rodents, locally known as Martesana Nutria, frolicking beside the water. As the sun began to disappear behind the River Ticino, we reached Ponte Coperto and stopped to take in a stunning sunset. It was a fitting start to a journey that would take us through some of Italy's finest countryside and more hills than we probably needed.

Leaving Pavia was less idyllic. The road out of the city was horrendous, and the bridge over the Torrente Nure did little to improve our opinion of Italian cycling infrastructure. Is Italy cycle friendly? On this evidence, no.

Things improved considerably once we began following the River Ticino. The route passed through the decaying remnants of a bygone era when boats were king, alternating between gravel and tarmac with hardly another soul sharing the route. After Spessa, we climbed onto a levee where we could see for miles.

The peace was rather more dramatically shattered when we reached the Fiume Lambro. Trucks and HGVs thundered past at breakneck speeds, often only centimetres from our handlebars. Fortunately, the unpleasant section was short-lived and we were soon back on the safety of the levee, following the Ciclovia del Po.

The route eventually brought us to Corte Sant'Andrea, a decaying village where we stopped for lunch at the appropriately named Osteria della Corona. From there we continued along the Po, crossing into Emilia-Romagna before reaching Piacenza. The centre was pleasant enough. The outskirts were another matter entirely. We survived the outer reaches of Piacenza and eventually found ourselves back on quiet tarmac and gravel, passing through a succession of small, non-descript villages until, sun-kissed and weary, we reached Fiorenzuola d'Arda.

South of Fidenza, the landscape began to change. The flat arable countryside gave way to increasingly undulating terrain, and the cycling became a mixture of gravel tracks, winding roads and the sort of climbs that look considerably less intimidating when viewed from the bottom.

Weaving our way across the landscape, we eventually reached the River Taro and crossed towards Fornovo di Taro. A leisurely lunch in La Salita seemed like a good idea at the time. The name means "the climb" in English, which turned out to be an unusually accurate description of what came next.

The road climbed steeply and seemingly without end. Every time we thought the descent was about to start, another turn revealed yet more near-vertical tarmac. Eventually, without warning and rather like the first poop of the day, we came flying downhill. The joy lasted for only three kilometres before the sweat-inducing climbing began again.

The reward for all this exertion was an effortless descent to Berceto, followed by the steady climb towards the Passo della Cisa. From there, pedalling became largely optional as we cashed in all the metres that had been fought for during the preceding climbs, descending towards Pontremoli.

The mountains and valleys that followed provided some of the most enjoyable riding of the trip. We wiggled up and down the valley walls alongside the Fiume Magra towards Aulla, stopping for a superb lunch of Testaroli, the local pasta flatbreads. Refuelled, we tackled the lung-busting climb to Ponzanello. The effort was rewarded with stunning views out to sea and another pedal-free descent towards Sarzana.

The landscape continued to change as we moved towards Tuscany. The first 20 kilometres of one section were frustratingly stop-start, with bike repairs and an overcrowded cycle path conspiring to slow us down. Eventually, however, we found our rhythm and began heading inland and upwards towards Pietrasanta.

The route weaved through industrial estates before joining the River Camaiore and then dancing around the Via Bellosguardo. The hairpins leading to Montemagno provided increasingly beautiful vistas, while the slightly downhill camber beyond Montemagno gave our tired legs a welcome boost. That boost was very much needed for the climb to Piazzano.

Reaching the summit should have been a moment of pure jubilation, but the discovery of our first puncture of the trip put a slight dampener on things. Order was quickly restored and we were soon descending towards the River Serchio. After following the river for a few kilometres, we crossed into Lucca for a well-earned lunch.

From there, the route became as varied as it was enjoyable. We zipped through villages, flew through forests and slipped down singletracks before eventually finding ourselves perched on top of a knoll in the small walled medieval town of San Miniato.

The Via Francigena then became our companion. Like cicadas emerging from their chrysalises at random times, the pilgrims somehow managed to converge on the route at roughly the same time every morning. Freewheeling past them on the way down into the valley, a certain degree of smugness set in. That smugness disappeared after Castelfiorentino, when the road turned upwards and we began the climb towards Gambassi Terme.

The hilltop village was a welcome sight at the top, and from there we continued along the ridge until the stunning skyline of San Gimignano appeared. We turned left to avoid the tonnes of tourists and continued across the undulating landscape before leaving the asphalt behind. An enjoyable off-road section eventually brought us to lunch at Castello di Fulignano.

The extra weight of lunch helped maintain our downhill momentum towards Poggibonsi. Better still, we joined an old railway line converted into a cycle path, which allowed us to eat up the kilometres before returning to the tarmac for the final push towards Siena.

Siena provided a welcome opportunity to stop pedalling for a while, although a day off did not necessarily mean that our bodies had forgotten what we had put them through. By the time we climbed back onto the bikes, my tender tushy was already dreading the saddle. The first few hundred metres through the old part of Siena were not the smoothest and did little to improve matters. The grey clouds overhead provided another ominous sign that things could take a turn for the worse.

Fortunately, the route initially descended towards the River Arbia, which we crisscrossed several times as we rode down the valley. We then veered away from the river towards Castello Tricerchi, following an undulating route towards San Quirico d'Orcia. After lunch, another climb and descent took us across the SR2 and onto the plain before the final climb towards Contignano.

Slow and steady, we ground our way upwards. The ridge then rose and fell by tens of metres for another 12 kilometres before we reached the road junction below Radicofani. Once again, we ground our pedals slowly onwards, passing beneath the imposing Fortezza di Radicofani before reaching the beautiful village itself.

From Radicofani, gravity finally took over. The descent towards Val di Paglia was effortless as we were pulled along the smooth tarmac. For a brief moment, cycling seemed like a very sensible way of travelling.

That bliss was abruptly ended when we joined the busy Via Cassia.

We slogged along the highway with our teeth rattling from every passing HGV. Eventually, we escaped onto a quieter country road towards Pitigliano before continuing along an unpaved road to the wonderful hamlet of Proceno. A brief downhill section was followed by another ascent towards Acquapendente and then onwards to San Lorenzo Nuovo, where we were greeted by a grey, drizzling view of Lake Bolsena.

We dipped over the edge of the ancient volcanic crater and picked up an enjoyable unpaved path with great views across the lake. It eventually led us into Bolsena, where we found somewhere to eat before rejoining the traffic-laden Via Cassia.

Leaving Bolsena behind, we wriggled along the lakeside while our bikes were rocked by every wannabe F1 driver who zoomed past. The long climb to Montefiascone eventually took us away from the lake and, shortly afterwards, we escaped the state road once again.

The final stretch towards Viterbo took us onto the ancient paving of the Via Cassia, zigzagging through fields and over one final hilly stretch. From the top, we could see the industrial outskirts of Viterbo. Our wheels did not stop until we reached our bed for the night, tucked neatly inside the medieval walls of the old town.

From Viterbo, we continued towards Sutri before heading on some of the finest roads in Italy to Formello. By now, the end was finally within sight. The final push from Formello brought us onto the final cycle path that would lead us into Rome.

Then, rather anticlimactically, the cycling stopped.

Looking back, though, it feels like we got exactly what we came for: to know the country where we have settled a little better. The route delivered the Italian landscapes we had hoped for, from the flatlands around Milan and the Po to the Apennines, the hills of Tuscany and the volcanic countryside around Lake Bolsena. There were quiet gravel tracks, beautiful country roads, medieval villages, spectacular views and, of course, excellent food.

Now, somewhere north of Rome and still apparently several hours from Milan, the bikes are safely stowed and our legs are beginning to recover. The journey home may be taking longer than expected, but after cycling from Milan to Rome, another few hours on a train seems a small price to pay.

Besides, we have two bikes.

Apparently, that is complicated.