Somebody said that it couldn't be done...

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

      But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

      Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

      On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

      At least no one ever has done it;”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat

      And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

      Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

      There are thousands to prophesy failure,

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

      The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

      Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

      That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it

Edgar Albert Guest 

Less than thirty days now and it’s an upward spiral of anticipation and apprehension.  Anticipation because despite all the potential dealbreakers we appear to be on track to going.  There were a few things that would really have made this a non starter and they all seem to be cleared.  This includes the wife and the boss and his bosses clearing the leave, colleagues who are willing to cover the trauma calls and breast cancer workload, finding an events manager that would be devoted to all the paperwork .  if any of these hurdles were not cleared the process would have stopped. There is no way for us to manage this on our own.  Yet here we are still on track.

The apprehension comes because so many people have invested so very much into this that I dread something tripping this up.  This occupies almost all waking hours and the wife has caught me occasionally just off in my own world on more than one occasion.  I know the aim is to reach Sweden but I keep thinking just how far I would get before I would consider all this work worthwhile. How far before I could look all these people in the eye and said, even if we don’t make our goals, well that was a proper try.    Istanbul?  Samarkand? I asked Mike about this.  The answer was instant:  Karolinska.  Welcome to the swedes  and their literal mindedness. 

  I worry about my inadequacies as a rider and a mechanic.  After our brief sojourn with our 500 pound bikes offroad in mersing I realize that these aren’t the 200cc jobs we could just throw around like when we were in our twenties. 

Off road with a Vstrom 1000:  its not the XR250 of old...

There are new tyres and new suspension and new footpegs that should make all the difference but none of that really takes away the root problem  -  weight.  I keep thinking about what every overland rider has said to me,” you’re never going to wish you had a heavier bike”.  When the time comes it will be with horrific traffic, a deadline to meet and will likely last about 200km and not just our 20km into the Malaysian jungle. I know just the place where it will happen. Across the border from Laos into China, the road from Mojiang  to Kunming is 220km of some of the worse roads anywhere.  When we get there in late march it will still be cold, maybe even snow on the high peaks.  Last 4/4 trip on that road and its bike eating craters one of the Land Cruisers actually broke an axle.  

 Then there are the fears of the unknown.  With my dodgy record with high places I keep dreading the day when we will need to cross some rickety rope bridge across a ravine that does not appear on any map.  That or a four hour detour.  Again Mike Hartman has the solution.  He will have me Michael Jacksoned.  Propofol up to the gills, I pass out, he maintains airway and I wake up on the other side.  And put a tattoo in some unspeakable place.  Then the what ifs. What if the alternator burns up again, or the fuel filter clogs on the contaminated fuel or the air filter in the desert  sand. What if there is a rattle, or the brake locks up, or the bike just doesn’t start? 

I can remember when there were 400 days to go.  Now it’s less than thirty and somehow despite having made so many preparations I don’t really feel more prepared.  I know there have been things that I have been trying to sort out for months but had not had the chance to.  Like the bigfoot on the sidestand, the separate switch for the main headlamps, mounting the axillary lamps.   I also now know there are some things I wish had happened differently.

My main regret is the video team.  When we first met Jacqui Hocking, who had come highly recommended from our friends in the SIF,  I felt that we did not have to look further.  She has this attractive mixture of a video professional, a vision for a better world, a personal investment into the lives of the less fortunate, the experience of living uncomfortably  and most of all that direct honesty that seems to be a trait of people from her homeland.  Then the formal tender process for the university sponsorship shows one potential disaster – the perceived difficulty of an Australian passport in crossing some of the borders we have to get through. Although losing out in a tender is part of being a professional  I do still feel that we had misled Jacqui  and her team.  I called to explain and if there was any lasting bitterness she did not show it.  That she offered to help pro bono in whatever way she could only serves to reinforce the earlier impressions I have of her.  And makes going with someone else stick in the craw just a little.

Depending on how the day has been,  there are some days when I just want to get going, and other times when I wish we could have another six months just to sort out one or another lose end.  For the last month there is a sense that the other things are being cleared away.  No more new case breast cancers.  Fewer  trauma calls as the other consultant step up. One dry run to frasers hill with all the kit on board and 4/4 in convoy, then the farewell parties, and quieter times at home with the family.  Then living on the road without them for nearly four months. 

Kismet and Other Things

Kismet and other things

”Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Its less than eighty days before we leave and the truth of the matter is that this ride has pretty much taken over our lives. There is still the clinical work, one paper to revise, post graduate teaching responsibilities, and one clinical trial to review before resubmission, but most times away from work are  occupied with ride preparations instead of the usual academic routines.  Much less of medical journals and Pubmed, more of Chris Scotts’ wonderful Handbook of Adventure Motorcycling and Horizons Unlimited’s forum pages.

Trip paperwork is also taking on some urgency with Carnet and international driving licences to settle, thankfully no vaccinations are required and visas are being sorted out with various authorities.  The work with local collaborators have been confirmed in Penang, Chiang Mai, Yunnan, Szechuan, Almaty, Copenhagen and Stockholm. 

Bike preparations are taking two completely different approaches.  Mike is on a BMW GSA 1200 that needs very little work done.  More on replacements of liable bits with the drive shaft seals and possible electronic starters.  Beemers are expected to do just what is required out of the box.  My Vstrom has required a real re vamp.  Throttle bodies and alternator coils and stator motors replaced, steel braided cables for brakes and clutch, 4mm aluminium bashplates, extra tall windshield, hepco boxes and crash bars, and most recently Pivot pegz off road footpegs and backup Enduriston waterproof bags and Rox cables.  K60 Heidenau tyres and Progressive springs still to arrive, hopefully within the fortnight.  The cost of the upgrade from a vstrom for normal daily use  - probably less than 5K, still considerably less than a second hand beemer but whether this has been the correct approach remains to be seen.

Matt Black's tailor made 4mm alluminium bashplate for VStrom 

Now that I’ve had the chance to talk with all sorts of people who have done this before, I am still very happy with the vstrom.  Nevertheless if I could get a bike tailored ideally for this trip I would probably start with something smaller, maybe a KLR 650, suzuki’s excellent new DR 650

or the F800 beemer, but we’ll see.  A common comment I’ve heard is that when you’re on the road you’re never going to wish you had a bigger bike.

A rather unique experience as we apply ourselves to the preparation is how things seem to come together despite astronomical odds to the contrary.  Doors which seem firmly shut and sealed creak open with mere nudges. And when we first started making travel plans and finding collaborators in these countries there seemed to be more closed, keyless doors than open ones. As things developed we have had engineers – complete strangers at first -  who are willing to come aboard and modify the 4/4 support vehicle; although the Singapore International Foundation was unable to help us directly they put us in contact with a freelance filming company that seems to be just what we need; a couple I met at a birthday party happens to have extensive business interests in Kazakhstan which has turned out to be very interested in how we can start up their breast cancer services – we have a two day workshop planned in Almaty with them.  The list goes on – but the strangest, longest kareem abdul jaabar skyhook kismet ever must be Dr. Cynthia Chou.

Breakfast in Copenhagen - Victor, myself, Eng Soo, Cynthia and James

            Cynthia and I had met in university in 1986.  I was a third year medical student and she an anthropology masters student.  We hung out together until she left to do a PhD among the Orang Laut which kept her on some Sulawesi Archipalaego or other for years.  We lost touch over time , during which she obtained a position in Cambridge (something called the Division of Vanishing Cultures – something JK Rowlings would have trouble dreaming up).   She met and married Dr James Liang from Leiden University and then moved to University Copenhagen where is presently associate professor of cross cultural studies.    After not meeting for over twenty – five  years, and while we had been trying and failing to find a collaborator for the anthropological aspects of breast cancer presentation in Asians, we meet by sheer kismet at the Coffee Bean at Kent Ridge MRT station in August last year .  Again by sheer fate I was to travel to Copenhagen with some anesthesia colleagues to attend a trauma congress in October – some 20km from where she lives.  After some hurried discussions we discover that an MOU exists between NUS and the U of C – allowing both funds and collaborators to look at the cultural aspects of why Asians present with breast cancer later. Slam dunk!

            These happy coincidences seem to be a result of a ride that is not taken as an end in itself.  A large part of the preparations is similar to any mad plan to cover the distance and take in the sights.  Nevertheless the eagerness of people to help, the range of experiences we’ve had even before leaving, have come about because of the breast cancer cause.  It does encourage the prospect of knocking on more doors in the future.

Right no turning back now...

Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Permission required for reproduction

OK no turning back now…

We knew that when we wanted to take on Asian breast cancer as a cause that there would be days like this, but it’s been pretty hectic nevertheless.  You see Mike and I are not natural publicity people.  Our purpose in professional life is to try to stay out of the papers.  But for what we have to do it’s something we need to get used to.

So the boss makes a few phone calls and soon we undergo Media Training.  For the uninitiated like myself I soon found out that there is more to this than I thought.  Under the capable and altruistic tutelage of the indomitable Ms Amy Tan, we learned the basic rules.  Some things are probably drummed into my bones permanently, like, “the fullstop is your friend”, “2 stories, 2 social statistics and 1 sound bite” and  “go back to your message house”.  Most of all we learnt context, content, credibility controversy and control. That the media encounter mantra is, perhaps a little counter – intuitively, not about the person being interviewed.  Rather it’s about the external audience that the reporter serves. 

So yesterday we went public. (see http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/nus-professors-ride-singapore-sweden-breast-cancer-research-20131017)   Interviews with the English press  at lunchtime, camera stills and movie shots follow and by teatime it already online when we head down to Mediacorp for the very short live televised interview. By this morning it’s pretty much everywhere – meaning everywhere online.  Well wishers generally dominate the comments columns and I have a fresh idea of just how far and fast the reach of this new media is.  A fellow Vstrom rider I have never met from Spain sends his godspeed within 2 hours of the story hitting. 

Then comes that trickle of criticism which at least for the moment is just a trickle.  I remember what someone once told me about how being anything but completely anonymous in Singapore needs most of all a thick hide. A few  suggest that this is paid for by the university as some sort of sabbatical. Nothing is further from the truth.  Its three years annual leave rolled into one.  We did not even apply for no pay leave because that would keep us away from our patients longer than what we were normally entitled to. Of course there are the silly ones too:  That we should not be allowed to take this up because we are not at risk of breast cancer ourselves.   On the whole though the positive comments far outweigh the negative ones so I still have some hope that people see the positive side of what we are trying to achieve. 

It's been a learning experience how the different people  want different things, because they serve different audiences (see above mantra).  The day before the press release we presented our little adventure to schoolboys at my alma mater. Talking to young teenage boys about anything to do with breasts is always going to raise a certain amount of twittering, but I hope some of the message did get through.  While raising breast cancer awareness and fund raising are our primary goal, we had other reasons to go to schools.  The idea of promoting  “cultural intelligence - CQ” was put in our minds when we first met with Ms Euleen Goh the chairperson of the Singapore International Foundaton last year.  The SIF is a charity organization which has as one of its aims to “tell good stories of singaporeans doing good”.  While raising funds for research is an admirable goal, another possible application of our trip is to expose Singaporeans, children especially, to an education outside of the classroom.  This is especially needed as singaporeans seem to have missed out on CQ.  This is seen in the way we react to foreign cultures and practices among the immigrants in our country.  Ms Goh’s contention is that this shortcoming might make singaporeans unsuitable or unprepared for a life outside their own cultural comfort zones.  What could be better to correct this than a shared experience of two singaporeans obviously all at sea in foreign lands relying on the help of locals.  


There is another reason for going back to school with this.  In the late seventies I remember a certain ex ACS boy who had successfully taken his Honda CB 750 from Singapore to London.  Surname of
Wong I think.  His younger brothers followed in his footsteps a few years later.  As a primary schoolboy then I thought this the height of adventure and always wondered if I could have a chance to do the same. Last wee i asked the school administrators if there was any record of this  and unfortunately they drew a blank.  it was a long time ago but I don't think i have this wrong.  it would be grand to meet them.

As reporters ask for real practical details – the route, who we are meeting, how are we getting from here to there, it hits me that these questions are not just being asked in my head anymore.  Not even just over maps and coffee and stale pizza.  It’s out there in the wide public. General knowledge.  With our names and faces on them.  This is the real difference between a private yomp and a ride with a cause.  By announcing our intent we have pinned colours to the mast. Over a short time the mood switches from “please let me go and try this” to “please don’t let me fail”.