I don't think I'm known for keeping quiet about my love of overland travel, especially by motorcycle. Jumping on my KTM and heading off in search of distant lands is what my life is about these days.
Travels
My original plan, when meeting up with Sophie for a week in Morocco, was to follow a few of the routes that I have done before solo. Show her a few places I really knew well and knew what the conditions were like.
Instead, we ended up trying a new route that turned out to be rather epic...
We are very lucky in the UK to have some great biking/adventure/travel related events take place in the Summer and I have been particularly lucky to attend a few of them so far.
It's time to say farewell to Idris, my BMW S1000XR. In the five years since I bought it, we have made a pretty good job of living up to the "adventure" category this bike supposedly falls into in the BMW Motorrad line-up. We have travelled across dozens of countries in two, nearly (!) three, continents and ventured off-road once or twice in that time.
“Would you like to come to my wedding?” I receive as a Slack message from a friend in the Drupal community.
“Sure! When is it? Where?”
“It’s in November, in Kota”
“Oh - wow - yeah, I’ll come if I can!”
At this point, it seemed like a good idea to look at a map - where on Earth is Kota????
For the last few years, I have made it a little tradition of mine to use the motorbike to get to as many DrupalCon events as possible, certainly all the European ones and I even had thoughts of how to do this for Minneapolis this year.
Of course, 2020 came along and everything changed. Still, given DrupalCon is a "high intensity" time in Drupal Association staff's calendars, I knew spending a few days riding after DrupalCon Global 2020 was definitely a good idea.
As Community Liaison, I find it important to liaise face-to-face whenever I can, and an opportunity presented itself to visit a community I have not been able to spend time with until now; that in India.
This was going to not only be the first time I’ve worked with the community in India but also my first time in India. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Will I see any elephants?”
As freelance web developer, my day usually involves working from home and, simply to make sure I speak with real, live human beings during the day, in local cafés. So, why not do the same but from another country, whilst riding my bike at weekends? Here goes...