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 as before and loaded one of the panniers with all the heavy stuff that would not identify me as a hijacker when it went through the XRAY. You would not believe the trouble my spare bike parts made on the way out. Man, I was so tempted to leave out “bike” in the preceding sentence.
There was some luck involved as the check-in girl had just dealt with a very difficult old woman 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 quite 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 wasn’t staying with CityBike this time around. The woman on reception was great but the room wasn’t, not for four or more people anyway no matter how friendly they were. 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+Euro 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 
Hi PJ really enjoyed reading all your very interesting info and all the great pictures. You must get photos of you and the bike also as it will be surprising how much extra that will add to the whole adventure when brousing through much later on when the trip is finished
much love
mum xx
Hi mum, welcome to the real world!
I will get more pictures of myself especially when I dont block the whole shot!
The pictures here only represent a tiny fraction of those I have taken, if you read the post about Skriveri in Latvia you will find a link to a Latvian newspaper with a picture of the bike and me.
PJ