Lon Las Cymru

Dear readers,
When Petra was meditating in Hereford, I cycled with Steve through Wales on the Lon Las Cymru (Welch for The Green Lane through Wales). This 400km route runs from Cardiff to Holyhead on quiet country lanes and often on abandoned railways. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the signposting, the scenery and the weather. Steve took pictures and put them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenlord/sets/72157624124871368/
It was great to see Steve again. We met almost 5 years ago in Lhasa and always stayed in contact via email. I contributed a little bit to Steve's latest book on bike touring (The Adventure Cycling Handbook, by Stephen Lord), my picture is actually on the back cover.
Love,
Peter

Vipassana

Learning Vipassana meditation was a great experience. I love it. Why did I do it? I thought it would be a good start for our journey. Travelling together is very nice because you can share a lot of beautiful moments but you are together for 24 hours every day. And I can forget to care for myself some time and don't do the things I want to do any more. By doing this course I learned to take care of myself.

Vipassana meditation has nothing to do with religions, rituals or sects. It is a technique, you have to work hard. It's like exercise for your mind. To keep our body fit we do sports and eat healthy but to keep our mind healthy people do almost nothing.
It is an intense course though: ten days meditating, ten hours a day, no communication (not verbally, mentally or with body language), getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning, eating only vegetarian, in the evening you only eat some fruits. But I loved it. Staying silent turned out to be quite easy. When we were allowed to talk again I didn't even wanted to. But you can't hide in the centre forever - the real world is outside. Eating less was no problem either. Sure, when you get up at 4 a.m. and you have to meditate for two hours and get your breakfast at 6:30 a.m. you have a rumbling stomach but after half an hour it's over, really.

The kind of people who subscribe for a course are great. I felt at home immediately at the centre. You meet all kind of people (about 160 in total, 80 men and 80 women): young ones, older ones, mothers, students, and so on. I met an architect, a woman who designs roofs, my room-mate Vanessa bakes raw chocolate cakes, an artist, a cycle tourer, some travellers. Everybody is so kind and friendly. As were the volunteers who cooked for us and did the whole management. You have to understand the following: Vipassana is a non-profit organisation. There are only volunteers there. If you follow a ten day course you don't have to pay anything but you may give a donation. A donation can be money but if you finished the course you are also allowed to serve. By doing this (money or serving or helping in the centre afterwards) you make it possible for another student to learn Vipassana. Because everybody is volunteering and is doing this with a lot of love, the atmosphere at the centre is very special.

I think everybody who wants to change his or her habits and tries to get a better person has to follow a 10-day course at least once. Just try it and judge afterwards.

Be happy!
Petra

As we promised: the pictures

We start to like cycling here. Away from London roads are much more quiet and there are beautiful (and steep!) hills. We had great weather last week (although Petra was still meditating for 10 hours a day she could enjoy the sun some time) but the farmers really need water. After the Vipassana course Petra cycled in one day to Wolverhampton (106 km after sitting for ten days) and Peter came from Chester. Happy to be together again we will leave our friends house tomorrow. We stay with a family, David, Ann-Charlotte, (little) Peter and Thomas who stayed with us in Utrecht last summer. We will cycle to Manchester to visit some friends (again!) and then go off to Scotland, taking the sun with us. Still no rain yet.


Peter spoiled the pumpkin soup.


Nuno, Joana, Petra and Peter. It was great to stay with them. They cycled from Alaska to Ushuaia. We saw a lot of great pictures and heard a lot of great stories.


Mark picked us up on the road while we were filling our bottles with water. We were allowed to camp in his garden and watch his huge amount of bikes and tandems.


Mark's garden.


Cooking.


View out of our tent.


The bridge from England to Wales. (We cycled on the other one.)


Peter and Rob, a friend Peter cycled with in Tibet. We stayed with him in Cardiff.


Cycling along a quiet little canal.


Another beautiful place where we camped.


Welsh hills.


Very beautiful weather.


A guy we met in front of a bike shop. Nice guy.


Blossoms everywhere.

Still no rain yet :)

You wouldn't belief it but we still had no rain yet. :)

At the moment we are in Cardiff at Rob's house, a 53 year old Welsh vegetarian who cycled with Peter in Tibet and is planning to cycle from Alaska to Ushuaia. We met a lot of interesting people in London and we would love to tell you about them but we are at a computer in the public library and don't have much time left to write. We promise you to upload some pictures and tell you about all the nice people we met next time.

Tomorrow we will leave Cardiff and cycle North. Petra will do a Vipassana meditation course in Hereford, which means no communication for 10 days. Peter will travel with our friend Stephen (from London) thorugh Wales. Afterwards we want to travel North, to Schotland and Ireland. We got a bit sick of all the noise and the cars in and near London and we hope that our journey will get a bit more adventurous.

That's it. Next time a more detailed post. Promise.

Love you all!