Investment Biker

by Jim Rogers

  Here near the border there was no place to stop for a cup of coffee or to rest, so there was little to do but press on to Budapest. If something was wrong with Tabitha internally, better to be closer to a large city than out here in the middle of farmland.

  So we set out again. I had to hand it to her: I thought her driving might change or falter after the spill, but I noticed nothing in my mirror. Same steady course as before. We did have a recovery period because we were in a queue at the border shortly thereafter, but then we barreled along to Budapest. Such courage told me she was the right person to take with me. After all, at the beginning of any trip like this, there were bound to be problems. Still, the crash gnawed at me. These weren’t bad roads, not compared with what was coming up in the Central Asian Republics and China. Maybe a thousand miles of practice before starting out to motorcycle around the world wasn’t enough. Had my bullheadedness and optimism pushed Tabitha into a trip for which she wasn’t ready? I pushed the thought aside. I had no choice.

  More farmland, more plains. It didn’t take a genius to see that despite Hungary’s glorious past as the center of an empire, agriculture was its future. With a market of only 10 million people, it wouldn’t be easy to set up a manufacturing base, and it would be even harder to train Hungarians, used to the commercial standards of Communism, to produce high-quality manufactured goods, the hallmark of the nearby Germans.

  On the other hand, it made no sense for some of the advanced countries—Great Britain, France, and Germany—to compete with Hungary in agriculture, because they weren’t able to. It was absurd that Europe kept trying to subsidize British farmers when so many nearby Hungarians had vast fertile plains.

  As it grew dark we pulled into Budapest. Some time ago the city had been two cities, Buda and Pest, one on each side of the Danube, but now it was all one. It had been a major provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and back before World War I, it had been very rich. As I drove through the shadowy dusk, feeling like a Visigoth in battered leathers riding through Rome, I was awed by the beautiful nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century buildings with their classical stone architecture. I figured they would be here forever because the Hungarians didn’t have enough money to tear them down and put up new ones. Budapest was going to be a museum. It was built when there had been lavish amounts of money, and then the country had suddenly become poor. By the time Hungary becomes wealthy enough again to afford to tear these buildings down and replace them, they will be too historic and the Hungarians won’t allow themselves to destroy them. Prague, too, is in the same boat, a museum for decades to come, frozen in time.

  The next day we were off to Belgrade. That morning I had hosted a special for Financial News Network concerning the opening of Hungary. It was supposed to finish up in the morning, but as is typical in Central Europe, we didn’t finish till late in the day, and Tabitha and I got a late start. Both of us were unhappy over the delay, and we were hurrying to make up the lost time.

  I was still in front. The road got much bumpier, pitted by potholes. It became more winding, with terrible grading, less shoulder, and it wasn’t as smooth. I tore along, passing cars and trucks. Tabitha kept falling behind. At one point I passed another truck, accelerated, and looked in my mirror—no Tabitha! I kept looking for a few minutes—nothing! I pulled over and stopped. No cars, no traffic coming up behind me, and I had passed a slew of cars and trucks. I knew immediately something had happened back there.

  Tabitha! I had pushed her and she was inexperienced, which had caused that first spill, and now I had been pushing to get to Belgrade—

  I spun around and hightailed it back.

  I saw her on the side of the road, off her bike, picking up things. Tools, maps, sweaters, shoes—everything she had been carrying in her saddlebags was scattered over the road. A few Yugoslavs were helping her.

  But another miracle—she wasn’t hurt! I followed the path of her strewn baggage and looked over into the ravine next to the road, which was ten to twelve feet deep. The bike was at the bottom, at the tail end of a trail of spare parts and jeans and shirts and sweaters.

  I saw that Tabitha was all right, as she had been walking around for ten to twenty minutes before I got back. It hit me that she was only twenty-four and didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing, bringing her. Should I call the whole trip off before I led her into a fatal accident?

  I had worried about bringing Tabitha from the first day I’d broached the trip to her. Back then I had wanted to take my 1000-cc bike, on which I had mounted a custom seat, radio, extra gas tanks, and heated handlebars. Tabitha had wanted to take my classic 1967 boxer BMW R69US, a great bike but so classic it didn’t sport an electric starter, just an old-fangled kick pedal.

  It had been fine with me for her to take the bike, but it needed refurbishing, including a crash bar on each side of the motor to protect the rider. There was only one place in the country that could do that kind of work right, and it was in Ohio. So after the driving course and after practicing on the streets of New York, she had taken off alone for Ohio in the middle of winter to get this classic BMW in first-class shape for the mother of all motorcycle trips.

  January—rain, snow, and cold. Bursts of wind on the freeway. Ice patches, inviting spills under the wheels of tractor-trailers. I was worried about her. Pretty gutsy, I thought, and dangerous, but as she had put it to me before she left, if she couldn’t handle driving to Ohio on a smooth freeway in the middle of winter, she damn sure couldn’t make it across the ruts that passed for roads in Zaire and Siberia. The hours passed slowly, and I was anxious to hear her voice every night. The most dangerous time for any motorcyclist is the first six months of driving because she thinks she knows what she’s doing, but she doesn’t.

  She made it, proving to me she had what it took for such a tough trip. On the way back she stopped at her aunt’s in Pittsburgh. The aunt and the neighbors were impressed with her young niece driving up on a motorcycle, making her way from Ohio to New York. She didn’t tell them what she really had in mind, not wanting to deal with the flap that would have caused.

  Now that bike lay in a ravine in Yugoslavia—smashed up! I took a deep breath and climbed down. The bike was a mess. The taillight was torn apart, the luggage rack was bent to hell, and it looked like this was it, this bike had had it. Even one of the spark plugs was bent.

  There were a lot of guys standing around, so I commandeered them to come down and help me push it back up onto the road. The front wheel wouldn’t turn because the fender was bent into it, so we had to lift and push the bike up the ravine’s side.

  Tabitha thought the trip was over, that the bike was gone. But when I looked specifically at each part I saw that the bike could be made to run, although it wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. The fairing that had been lovingly crafted and pinstriped in Ohio was a mess, but I didn’t see any major cracks in the motor or the frame.

  Tabitha, however, appeared to be in shock. So much had happened since the spill yesterday that it seemed like an eternity had passed—a border crossing, Budapest, some sight-seeing, and then tearing off toward another border. She berated me for pushing the pace and I accepted it.

  It was now six or seven o’clock, dusk. The police showed up and we explained that we had to get to Belgrade, did they know who could take us? They disappeared into a little town and came back with a guy and a trailer, a little trailer. I just said to them, “God Almighty.” But I kept in mind that we were now in a Communist country—no parts, no mechanics, no BMW dealers, no nothing. What I did know was that in the past the Yugoslav police had ridden BMW motorcycles, so maybe we could find somebody who remembered how to fix one.

  Tabitha climbed onto the back of my bike, and I followed the little trailer carrying her bike. What had happened, she said, resting her face against my shoulder, was that she had tried to pass a truck. After she was past it, another truck had come barreling down at her and she whipped back in as fast
as she could, but the bike started fishtailing. She had lost control and went toward the ravine, but fortunately she’d been thrown to the side; otherwise she’d probably have been killed, five hundred pounds of bike on top of her. It was a very, very serious thing, and yet she was fine. If the bike had gone down into the path of traffic coming up behind her, she’d have been run over. She was sad and troubled, almost in shock; she questioned whether she should go home, but didn’t know what to do. I was furious with myself for pushing the pace, for getting her into any of this. I vowed to change my behavior.

  The next day, down an old dirt road that could have come out of the Alabama of my boyhood, we found, as I had hoped, a mechanic who had worked on BMWs back when the Yugoslav police had used them. In the makeshift shed behind his house I pointed out to him what he needed to do to make Tabitha’s bike run again. He even found an old Honda taillight in his junk box, which we agreed to take. We couldn’t afford to be purists now. He would weld the luggage rack back together. We had packed extra spark plugs, but even though we looked through everything, we couldn’t find them. Lost in the crack-up, we supposed. The worst part of the damage was done to the fairing, which was smashed.

  “Come back at five,” the mechanic told us.

  After Tabitha was checked over by a doctor, we spent the rest of the day running errands, replacing lost items, and touring Belgrade. It was run-down, seedy, dreary, and gray. It had never had a period of great wealth, but there were some distinguished old buildings. Historically Belgrade had mainly been a provincial center under various empires, but it had been more like a Chattanooga, not an Atlanta or a Pittsburgh. The Communists had run it down further. Its few new buildings were Communist-style architecture—drab, square, gray boxes. No lines, no dazzle, no imagination, just the odd hammer and sickle tacked on.

  We got a good night’s sleep and were up at five for the drive to Turkey. A couple nights’ rest and a day off and Tabitha was her old perky self, ready to ride. I vowed to take it easy.

  Even though these Communist countries were drab and gray, the motorcycling itself was fun. Riding the bike, having the wind in our faces, seeing the countryside firsthand made it exciting. There wasn’t much to stop and marvel over, but we saw, felt, experienced the fields and roads and the air in a way we wouldn’t have by plane, train, or car.

  This time I let Tabitha lead and set the pace, and we made great time. I was delighted that we had lost only a day, because I had been mentally mapping out the trip, figuring what would be our problems, trying to anticipate them.

  We had a deadline imposed on us by the Chinese ferry system, the Siberian ferry system, and winter. I had conceived of the trip as a two-year summer trip. By moving constantly around the globe and by crossing back and forth from the northern to the southern hemispheres at the right time, I figured we could stay in summer throughout the trip, or at least in late spring and early autumn. However, if we missed the first ferry from China to Japan, we would then likely miss the Siberian ferry.

  In the United States, ferries run every day, and if you miss one you wait a few hours for the next. The ferries from China to Japan and from Japan to Siberia go only once a month, and even then not on any regular schedule. If we missed one, it could throw us a month into the Russian winter, possibly two, which could prove fatal to the trip and to us. Napoleon and Hitler both blithely thought they could conquer the Russian winter. As history has shown, they found it was nothing to play around with. Plus, if we were delayed too much, it meant we’d wind up in Europe, Africa, and Australia in the winter. We’d go from a worldwide summer trip to a worldwide winter trip, which was madness. It was urgent that we meet the ferry deadlines.

  We reached Bulgaria, our third Communist border. We had allowed hours to cross from one country to another—you never knew what you were going to run into—but the world was changing, and it was a fairly simple crossing.

  Shortly after, Tabitha’s engine began to run in a raggedy fashion, as if the fuel line were clogged. A drain plug from the engine’s right carburetor had fallen out, and it wouldn’t hold gas. We searched back along the road for it, but no luck. She rooted in the garbage by the side of the road for something makeshift.

  I had visions of having to find another truck to haul us into God-knew-where. Nobody out here would have that damned particular carburetor plug. With this kind of luck we’d never make it to the ferry to Japan. Had I come off half-cocked, with an amateur for a mechanic and without thinking the real problems through?

  As I saw it, the problem was that Tabitha had ignored my brilliant advice. I had wanted to buy her a BMW R100RT motorcycle like mine: a heavy 1,000-cc machine with electric starter, cassette deck, heated handlebars—all the comforts of home. More important, it would have been new and less likely to have problems, plus we’d have been using the same spare parts. She’d refused to ride a bike so big and cumbersome and ended up on a classic that wasn’t bearing up well.

  Tabitha held up something that looked like a muddy black snake.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just what we need,” she said. “An old inner tube.”

  “Come on, Tabitha. That’ll never work.”

  “Get out that magic 3M tape you packed,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  She cut a piece of rubber and cleaned it. She used the tape to strap it to the bottom of the carburetor. We cranked up the bike. It sounded all right, and no gas was leaking.

  She gave me a big smile of triumph, and I had to grin back even though I was worried. The next town was Sofia, but the book said there was no BMW dealer there. The next one was in Istanbul, four hundred miles away, and I saw us stopping every few miles to retape the rubber to the bottom of that carburetor. I made sure we packed the dirty inner tube.

  “Let’s push it,” I said, “see if we can get to Istanbul tonight, get this fixed.”

  We did push it, and to my amazement we got to Istanbul without the jury-rigged plug coming loose. Tabitha was ecstatic we’d met this problem and conquered it.

  At the dealer in Turkey we found the right carburetor plug and we bought spark plugs. Tabitha spent some time with the mechanics going over her bike. Between us and Tokyo, six thousand miles away, there was only one more BMW dealer, and he was in Ankara, only three hundred miles farther on.

  We looked around. I had been in Istanbul before, Tabitha had not. She had been an Islamic studies major in college, so to her this was enthralling. She spent a day going from mosque to mosque. I spent the day bringing my log up to date, which is to say I wrote a string of postcards covering our travels to my parents. Since they save all my postcards, I have killed two birds with one stone. I did my daily six-mile run, and I got our laundry done, all of which served to pull me together. The trip had been on top of me up to this point, instead of my being on top of the trip.

  In the back of my mind I’d had the idea that eventually I would invest in Turkey. Even though it’s been the “sick man of Europe” over the past couple of centuries, historically it’s been a political and economic crossroads between Europe and the Middle East. Now that it was becoming reattached to Europe, I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t be as important as it had been in earlier centuries when trade between the East and West had flourished, especially with the opening of the European community. So I tried to find a reason to put some money here, but I couldn’t. Not only was it still in the grip of statism, nothing seemed dramatically cheap, nor was the government on the verge of making some big economic change. True, the market was wildly overpriced and I could sell it short, hoping to profit on the downturn, but selling short requires more attention than being long. I was not in any position to be attentive for the next couple of years.

  Tabitha and I assessed how we were doing. She blamed her accidents on the fast pace.

  I agreed. We both realized that she needed more experience, so I suggested she stay in front. In fact, I’d wanted her in front from the beginning, but she’d wanted me to set the pace, find the ri
ght road, steer around the potholes. Also, I was worried about her getting rear-ended, because to me it seemed she never looked in her rearview mirror. As a truck passed her she would swerve to the right as if she hadn’t seen him come up. I would keep muttering, “Look in your rearview mirror.”

  So, with Tabitha reveling in the Muslim culture, we pushed on. We drove into the Cappadocia region, passing breathtaking views much like those in Arizona and Utah and around the Grand Canyon.

  We were now on the last leg of the old Silk Roads, the fabled east-west trade routes from China to Europe that for two thousand years carried Chinese silk, millet, anise, ginger, rosebushes, and mulberry trees westward. Through this network of trails and mountain passes the Persians exported dates, pistachio nuts, peaches, dyes, and the resins, frankincense and myrrh, into China and Europe. Through here India shipped spinach, the lotus, sandalwood, pepper, and most important, cotton.

  Through this route in the thirteenth century Marco Polo, seventeen years old, made his first overland journey into China.

  In my mind’s eye I saw the early caravans, some of which were composed of a thousand camels and dozens of soldiers. For months at a time these living freight trains would move through some of the harshest landscapes on the planet, impeded by searing, waterless deserts and snow-locked mountain passes. Storms, filling the travelers’ mouths, eyes, and ears with sand, would force them to pause for days. As they picked their way over rough, broken paths, they would be assaulted by mountain sickness and snow blindness. Of course bandits, attracted by the rich cargoes, were a danger, too.