The field teams at the two charities are now using the money which you donated to help children and communities as planned. Here’s a New Year letter from Francesco at the M’Lop Tapang centre in Cambodia, explaining how the playground for which we have raised money fits with their wider work with people in Sihanoukville:

“M’Lop Tapang (“Under the Tree”) has been working since 2003 to provide a safe haven for street children in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. M’Lop Tapang’s mission is to provide street children with protection from all types of abuse, ensuring them a happy, healthy and safe childhood as well as a better future. We hope that today’s street children will in the future become responsible parents and members of society, ensuring a safe childhood for their own children.

2006 has been an incredible year for M’Lop Tapang: in December our 55 staff and volunteers have worked with over 800 children in our 3 centres, 2 shelters and in communities reached by our outreach team. These are significant numbers for an organization born 3 and half years ago.

Nevertheless at M’Lop Tapang we prefer to measure success in terms of children whose lives have been positively changed: children who are back with their families, children who now can study, children who are not ill anymore and children who are not risking abuse of any kind.

In fact the truest measure of our work is the ability to offer a chance of a better future to the street children of Sihanoukville, so if 2006 has been a year of fast growth, our focus for 2007 will be to improve the quality of our services.

We will have a new day centre where we will be able to work with more children and offer more services, including medical care. We will have a community playground for all the children and youth of Sihanoukville. We will step up our Child Safe campaign and efforts to protect all children from sexual abuse. We will reach more children around Sihanoukville and work with families in more slums. We will continue engaging young, committed students from local universities as well as from abroad.

Wishing you a happy 2007 we want to thank you for the support that you have pledged to M’Lop Tapang. Our activity would be impossible without the support of people like you, who provide financial means but also motivation to do our very best for the street children of Sihanoukville. We are committed to ensuring transparency and accountability to our investors. This is why in 2007 we hope to see you here in Sihanoukville to see in person what we do, together.

Happy New Year and Thank you!”

That’s the letter from Sihanoukville. You can read more about M’Lop Tapang at http://www.mloptapang.org

Thankyou again for being interested in this project! All the best for 2007!

Sue

Newspapers

There are still lots of materials I’ve yet put on the site, eg more recordings from all along the route. With Ben Haines’ help (he’s a Reuters person here in Canary Wharf who designed and manages this site in his spare time for NOTHING) these will soon be available. We’ll also keep you updated on how the Cambodia and Pakistan charity projects progress.

Hope you enjoy the site. Thank you! Sue

When people ask me about the trip, they often ask about what was really hard, or bad. It was pretty hard, well, very hard, sometimes. So I try to say
what it was like being so hot and so cold and ill and alone and tired with hills or headwinds or so thirsty or sometimes lonely, or scared. But of course it was also utterly FABULOUS, and working your way slowly along by bike in the wind and weather of each landscape, you see thousands of BEAUTIFUL things. It’s somehow not so always easy to explain that. When I read thru my own old stuff I wrote from the spring days in China and summer days in central asia etc, and looked at some of the photos and videos this weekend, I still can hardly believe myself that I was lucky enough to ride through all those places. I found lots of bits I’d sort of forgotten. So mainly for myslef I’ve jotted together a list of SOME of the most fabulous moments of the trip. It’s also an effort to show that although it was tough, the reward of seeing such places and meeting people there by FAR outweighs the bad bits. I do think I might write up a top ten “worst moments” too, but tonight I’m writing a list of some of the best…

I still think THE most beautiful and striking thing was crossing that pass over the Tianshan Mountains of Heaven south of Urumqi, northwest china. I suppose climbers must see that sort of thing all the time, but I have never seen anything like it. It was the one where my brakes and rims iced over and I got in real trouble actually, BUT it was fabulous - I’d climbed for two days, and when I finally reached the top of the pass, it was late evening, bitter cold, the last 10km all in deep shadow up hairpins zigzagging up the wall of ice to the top. You finally go over the top through a scary notch in the rock. Suddenly it’s not dark shadow anymore and you’re in a huge space of luminous blue yellow pink light. Ahead below me are snow-covered mountain tops just as far as you can see, lit pink in the sunset. You stand there cold and alone in the icy air. There was a bright white moon. You just could shout out loud it’s so beautiful. That was probably the most amazing moment of the whole trip.

There were loads of other beautiful things… Here’s a list of some…

Listening to mountain birds whistling cries in the roses and hedgerows along empty high hilly tracks east of Guilin

The cuckoos calling in every valley in Guizhou, south west China in spring, among the cornfields, fields of oilseed, and cypresses

A spring sunday in Chengdu in west China, sunny avenues, tricycle rickshaws with green awnings, tea houses with chairs and tables in deep shade
under climbing plants on trellises.

The evening sun as I climbed an empty road along a green tributary of the Red Water River in China’s Sichuan province, fabulous mountains, clover and purple vetch and flowering trees and wild grasses.

The 17th c mosque in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, China, with its pink roses, lattice screens, cobbled courtyard, and wooden pagoda above the prayerhall

Huge ice-topped black rock mountains, pine forests, and turquoise rivers in the Cham Tibetan region of northern Sichuan province, China. Wild horses on the hillsides, goats, massive black yaks, and huge birds of prey circling overhead, golden eagles or black kites, Tibetan people wearing trilby cowboy hats, travelling on horses, or galloping across the green.

Bells on pagoda eaves ringing in the wind at the city god shrine over Songpan, NW China, thin blue mountain air

Climbing through deep snow in Mountains of Heaven in late spring, silent except for melt water trickling through stones and crying of a few small birds, huge black kites above, and from time to time sharp cry of some furry brown animal like an otter trotting on snow then standing to watch me.

Riding across the northern edge of the Taklimakan desert in Xinjiang, listening to Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard ensemble, the music and the hot land and road under the huge sky just made my hair stand on end

Listening to distant calls to prayer from mosques down in Osh, south Kyrgyzstan heard from high on Babur’s House, a hill above the town

Camping near Zhabagly Aksu in southern Kazakhstan, by a small river, watching huge flocks of birds flap upstream at dusk, and then a warm yellow moon reflected in black river water after sunset.

The southern Kazakh steppe a huge plain of grass and corn and earth the colour of butterscotch.

Big old villas with tall louvre shutters along the roads of eastern Georgia, with grape vines on trellises, yellow stubble and blue mountains of Great Caucasus behind, hay carts, roses, blackeyed susan, fuschias.

The road from Borjomi in Georgia as I left the Lesser Caucasus mountains
and headed into Anatolia, a glorious valley of pine trees and oak trees and birch trees all ruslting and rattling in the wind, a green river, cattle on bright green meadows.

The high Anatolian steppe in northeastern Turkey, endless bare pale green hills, no trees, no fences, sun getting lower over huge huge open land, and me doing 60kph down long curves into the shallow valley in the early evening

Riding over the northeast Turkey high grasslands on a summer morning,
rough sweeps of wild flowers, dark blue spikes like lupins, purple thistles, yellow ragwort, purple vetch, white meadow sweet. Distant hills pale green pale blue, dark swifts with arc wings diving across the road above

Trebizond in eastern Turkey - cobbles, cafes, old wooden and plaster houses painted pink yellow green with red tiled roofs, gulls crying, the sea, Aya Sofya greek orthodox church with pine trees around it and blue blue sky
and sea

The Kostandagi Pass in eastern Turkey (again), stony roads above a vast beautiful empty landscape, bare hills, clefts, lonely valleys, silence except the wind

Alevi muslims playing saz mandolin and singing in ruined 15th hospital in Amasya, north east Turkey (again)

The fabulous rich turquoise of the Black Sea on Turkey’s northwest coast, deep blue further out, with patches of grey blurred rain.

Wind and birds at lonely burial ground with pines on low yellow hills of turkish thracian plain

Glorious deep woods of endless autumn beech trees in central Bulgaria, strands of mist, dripping, grey.

A men’s choir unaccompanied in the gallery of an orthodox church, Bucharest, Romania, deep deep bass and beautiful tenors

Hungary’s Great Plain, huge expanses of wild yellow grasses tossing in the wind and marshy green tussocks.

Pianos from open windows, and people practising trills on trumpets in Budapest’s old town

The roads in the eastern Czech republic in autumn, swinging gently up rolling hills, virginia creeper bright red, yellow oak leaves and yellow sycamore leaves, manor houses and churches, silver sun reflecting off fallen apples and white dog daisies and chamomile daisies…

I’ve missed out loads of equally lovely moments, but that’s my top list tonight, as I sit here in east london and think about some of the amazing things along the long road from Hong Kong to here.

I’ve now cycled over 10,000km on this journey, probably the slowest relocation ever from Hong Kong to London. We’ve raised enough money to build a sports centre for street children in Cambodia, and set up sports initiatives for children in the earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and both those projects are already starting now.

So many people have helped me that I hesitate to try and write a list, because I am sure I’m going to make a mistake and miss out somebody important. BUT, I’ve tried below to identify some of the people who have helped me do this trip.  If I’ve missed someone, please write and tell me, but meanwhile, I write today to thank the following people:

The teams at Deutsche Bank, Crosby Capital, Prudential, Lloyd George and ADM Capital for their generous corporate donations to the charity initiatives.

Alice Tee at Kodak for the brilliant V570 dual lens camera

Angelina Wong at Virgin Atlantic for flights hong kong to sydney

The team especially Luis and Jason at Beeline Bicycles Oxford for my bike, panniers, shoes, and patient advice over phone at any moment

All the people who’ve made personal donations and given messages of support

Julia Fuller, Reuters Corporate Responsibility Manager, for finding Ben, helping design many aspects of the project, and writing articles

Ben Haines, Information Security Analyst Reuters London, for designing and managing the longroadhome.org website in his spare time and spare bedroom

Kenneth Tsui head of Reuters North Asia for bringing me to Reuters HK in 2000 and for everything that came after, including rallying the help of the reuters greater china extended team for this adventure, ensuring communications and insurance were ok, and even alerting the HP field engineers across China in case I was in trouble

Mark Redwood and Stephen Wilson in Reuters Sales and Trading product division, and especially my colleagues in the Exchange Traded group for their forebearance and patience whilst I’m away

Denys and Rob, and Lisa and Alex and everyone at ADM Foundation for tons of things, including huge help selecting charity projects and identifying great corporate support

Charles Lankester and the team at Edelman for helping me match up with sponsors in Hong Kong

Tara Joseph from the Reuters HK bureau and Vincent Lai from Rtrs HK exchange-traded division for being the people who received my "heartbeat" messages, and would call the police if I went missing

Simon and Nicola and Simmons & Simmons for legal support (and the chine=
se bond certificate leaving present)

Han-Yang Yap at reuters asia for holding all my important personal numbers
Rico, ayako, dan, polly, vincent, fidelia, helena, and the labci team for lovely leaving presents, including my SW radio, PDA, and camera SD cards, and Vincent (again) for ALL THE PLASTIC BAGS and clever alternative power supply gizmos

Elisa for pccw plug adapter and red luggage cover (sorry I lost it on a bad day in azerbaijan)

Yan for spare tyres and cassette cracker tool

Kitty for the SAVLON

Rick and Polly for rick’s trip up to meet me in northwest china, and the gloves and warm sweater and treats from hong kong

Elisa, Kitty, May and others from the Hong Kong cyclists for maps of china’s provinces which you spread all over the floor of my hk apartment, for the trips in Guangdong, and for riding with me right into china, AND joining me near Wuzhou

May Tam for lots of things, including organsing the Wuzhou trip - and even bringing the Cateye instruction leaflet in english

John and Chris working on Chevron Tenghiz projects out in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, for looking after me in Baku

Rebekah for helping me out in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Iris and Phil for trying to meet me in Bulgaria (sorry I was so far behind….)

Denys, Rob and Mary at ADM Capital for a brilliant welcome to Istanbul (amongst lots of other things)

Ka Kee and Jonathan for the teeshirts and ginseng, and coffees and encouragement

Margarita and the team at Reuters Tbilisi for welcoming me and starting to get tv coverage in the Caucasus

Anca, Viktoria, Toufik from Reuters who helped get tv media coverage through Europe (and thankyou also for biscuits, cakes, lunch…)

Alex Hungate who was the only person who wrote with practical information on how to deal with altitude sickness

Alexey Shupov from an Almaty medical equipment company for cheering me up in Kazakhstan

Anna and Ian Billington and Alex, for a great farewell party at their house, and for the GPS

Polly, Rico and Vincent and the reuters hong kong and Labci people for organising my office farewell party, and all those who came to it in Hong Kong’s Soho

Eric Hall and many folk at the reuters bureau in hk for advice on china, cameras, sending media files etc

Dr Susannah Chua for medical advice

Istinna, Bella, Maria, Elaine and Jennifer in hong kong HR team for handling such an unusual relocation case so enthusiastically and patiently

Helena Mok for still being a fantastic personal asssiant long after I’ve left hk

Mr and Mrs Harrison and Henrietta for keeping a place for me to stay in london when I get back

Chris and Ann Harris who took the first trip photos (lying horizontal on Black’s Link footpath, HK). Brave brilliant inspiring Ann has since passed away, life is crazy and NOT FAIR.

Bethany Isenberg for the self-defence spray given (ok, lent) to me in azerbaijan - to be returned unused…

Ed Latter for Turkish history lessons by email, and inspiring travel tips
Andrea, Arthur, Lea and Fiona, and Andrea’s mum for the brilliant welcome in The Hague, Holland, including even the banner you made and hung on the house

My parents, Nana, brothers, cousins, uncle and their families for almost^ never being cross with me for causing them so much worry (^Nana WAS very fiercely cross when I told her I was ill with altitude sickness)

There are also lots of people who who have helped me, but who are never goi=
ng to read this because they maybe didn’t even ask my name, including:

A young tibetan woman in northern sichuan who nursed me better from altitiude sickness

A couple from xinjiang driving a coal lorry who rescued me off a ice-bound mountain pass in the tianshan

A club rider in germany who rode with me for 20km then gave me his helmet because I’d lost mine

The Secmenler brothers for my birthday glass of tea in Turkey

Sarkan and his family and friends for helping me get to the safety of their hut in the mountains north of Trebizond, eastern Turkey

The map maker who helped me get through the mountains of central Turkey…. and countless countless poeple in villages and on the long road, all the way from China to Holland who gave me food, water, shelter, and a bit of company on the way.

That’s my list.

I’m riding through Essex on Sunday, aiming to reach Reuters Square, Canary Wharf, London on Monday after lunch. In case anyone wants to meet me in Reuters Square, I’ll write another post either Sunday night or Monday morning with an expected time of arrival. (By the way, thanks to Julia and co, there’ll also be a "do" of some kind tbc in November at Reuters Building, London).

Still can’t quite believe I’ve really done this.

But, AT LAST here’s the announcement of the winner of the Virgin Atlantic competition to win a pair of air tickets hong kong to sydney.

To win the tickets, you had to answer correclty the question, "through how many countries did my original route pass?"

The answer - including hong kong as one, as indicated - was 16:

Hong kong, china, kyrgyzstan, uzbekistan, turkemnistan, azerbaijan, georgia, turkey, bulgaria, romania, hungary, austria, czech republic, germany, holland, england.

A lot of people sent in answers but a lot were wrong, mainly because people put "the caucasus" as a country, which it’s not.

Anyway, Angelina Wong, Head of Marketing at Virgin Atlantic in hong kong picked out IRIS CHIM from those who got the answer right. So Iris you are the winner of the tickets! Congratulations!

Iris is a school teacher in Hong Kong’s New Territories, who as you’ll see from comments on this blog, is one of the people who’s followed my route super attentively all the way along. Hope you enjoy your trip! Thankyou to everyone who entered, and thankyou very much to Virgin Atlantic for their involvement.

And about LONDON - I hope to arrive in Reuters Square, Canary Wharf, on Monday 30th afternoon. Can hardly believe I’ve really nearly made it, but I’m aiming to cross the North Sea from Hook of Holland on saturday evening then ride from Harwich to London.

As you’ve probably noticed, thanks to the forebearance of my manager and colleagues, I’ve been able to spend longer on the road than originally planned. This has meant I’ve been able to attempt to finish this journey properly, rather than cut off short or come thru europe by train etc. I appreciate very much their patience.

More later on arrangements for the finish.

That’s all for now - I’m racing across Germany as fast as I can but I still have some long days to do to make my planned schedule. I am eating my dinner here at a small town near Muenster, with German and Dutch maps all over the table, figuring out this last leg…