Waiting for a head gasket.

Whenever my motorcycle won't run, which is frequent, I feel deflated. My body craves to be out on the road even if it's just to cross the Manhattan bridge to get to work. Sense of excitement every time my engine fires up. Feeling that I could hop on her and ride anywhere that I desired to. But without a head gasket there won't be any adventures. Soon. In the mean time I try to live vicariously through others. This is Elspeth Beard's story, The first woman to circumnavigate the globe by motorcycle.

Getting out of India proved to be a nightmare. The storming of the Sikhs' Golden Temple in Amritsar (close to the border with Pakistan) had recently taken place, followed by the assassination of Mrs Gandhi (the Indian Prime Minister) by her own Sikh bodyguard. In the aftermath, the whole of the Punjab region was sealed off and a special permit was required to get into it. The only open overland route west, via Pakistan, was through the Punjab but the Indian bureaucrats in New Delhi had not got around to actually organising the necessary permits which the politicians had decreed were now necessary. A growing band of frustrated westerners found themselves in a Kafka-esque situation whereby they spent weeks on end trying to obtain a permit which did not yet exist! In the end, Elspeth got completely fed up and simply forged herself the necessary permit. Since no official permit even existed yet, the border guards did not know what a `proper' permit was meant to look like, and she finally made it across the border into Pakistan with a great sigh of relief.

Having safely crossed Pakistan, (mostly on dirt roads) Elspeth and Robert arrived in post-revolution Iran with just seven days to cross the country from one end to the other. This was helped by the superbly maintained tarmac on the main roads, but hindered by the fact that Elspeth was so ill with hepatitis that she could barely stand, let alone ride. Her rear (drum) brake was rendered ineffective due to a leaking oil seal and her clutch had also stopped working, for want of a spring that would have cost just a few pence to replace, if only she could get one. Elspeth's battered Bell helmet acted as an unofficial `burkha' which she kept on most of the time, even when off the bike ("most people just assumed I was a man") and she and the Dutchman made it to the Turkish frontier with just hours to spare before their Iranian visas ran out.

Read more: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/features/122_0705_elspeth_beard/viewall.html#ixzz2fYeDNj9j

I dream of flying into Chile, buying a beat up old bike and riding her north across South America.