Four months ago I made the decision to pause the trip and head to India for the winter. I arrived back today, there was the expected stress getting everything on the plane but I used the same strategy and loaded one of the panniers with all the heavy stuff that would not identify me as a hijacker and got on.

There was some luck involved as the check-in girl had just dealt with a very difficult old woman before me and although attentive was still a little phased, so I made it as easy as I could for her, had everything ready and showed the small black rucksack on my right shoulder, not hiding just not highlighting the pannier also hanging on my shoulder and weighing a bit more.

The flight was a breeze, after four months cycling just under 3000km, and the preceding days journey which included 27hrs on a train a few hours in an air conditioned room being fed food and alcohol in a comfortable seat was easy.

I was met by Relika from CityBike at the airport, I had left stuff with Citybike and she had brought that with her too, so I added my gear to the van and we headed to the apartment I had booked as I wasnt staying with them this time around.

The woman on reception was great but the room wasnt, not for four or more people anyway. So I lugged all my stuff up four flights of stairs and looked for an alternative. I had already spoken to appartment.ee and they still had an apartment for me so first thing in the morning I checked out and Relika moved me to the new place, I was 600+euros down and hoped that I would get the cash back.

The second place was much much better, there were two bedrooms a bathroom that you didnt have to crouch to get into and a good kitchen, so I set about loading the fridge with food and beer, the guys were arriving tomorrow and I wanted to have things ready. It took me four trips, there is only so much you can carry at a time and when you need to equip the kitchen from scratch it a lot of stuff, well that and the beer was in bottles