TigertoThailand & elsewhere: Schoolboy error, so the Tiger takes its first nap

Day 8 - 325 km (total 3030 km)

Today was a long hot day travelling down the Adriatic coast and taking in Croatia, a little bit of Bosnia, back to Croatia & ending in Montenegro. Border crossings getiing a little more formal now with long queues, luckily on a bike people dont seem to mind you riding past most of them.

Back to the start though & that Tiger nap .... I met Alan last night, who is travelling a similar route and was staying inTrogir. We agreed to meet at my roomstay in the morning & ride together, as it was on the road out. Unfortunately he didnt find it, though I could see him at the side of the road a few hundred metres away. Unable to attract his attention I decided to do a U-turn in the tight driveway I was waiting in and ride down to him. I paddled backwards uphill slightly, trying to navigate the small gap between the gutter and a parked car, just about did it but then put my foot down & the floor at that point was about 6 inches below where I expected it to be. Well phyiscis takes over, once you have 250kg pointing towards the ground and you have lost your footing, there is only one outcome!

I manfully adopted the position to try and lift her back up (which I knew I was unlikely to be able to do without removing the panniers). It was then I realised that I was directly outside a small beauty salon and the 5 occupants were all staring straight at me with looks of concern/amusement, not sure which, on their faces.

To be fair they all came outside and tried to help, one gave me a manicure, another wanted to paint my toenails and a third was waving a pair of straighteners around as if that might help! Before I got too engrossed in what would surely have been a memorable encounter, a suitably big beefy croatian man pulled up on his sportsbike and flipped mine upright with his little finger, well not quite, but you get the idea.

Bikers the world over you gotta love em. After a few minutes chat he headed off & I checked for any damage, which was none, the panniers were the only things to touch the ground really.

Nicely warmed up, with straightened hair & nicely painted nails, I made my excuses to the salon girls & headed for the hills with as much dignity as I could muster!

The guy who stopped to help had warned against using the coast road due to numerous traffic jams, so we headed for the expessway for a bit of free movement. The toll road around here is actually quite nice, a combination of big sweeping bends cutting through rugged hills, with the odd tunnel or bridge thrown in.

Once we took the turning towards Dubrovnik, however, the road became a standard one and moved over to the coast. Stunning views but slower progress, much more traffic and hence extremely hot.

There were 3 borders to cross today - Croatia into Bosnia &H, then 30 minutes later Bosnia & H back into Croatia both before reaching Dubrovnik. The third was from Croatia into Montenegro. These were all fairly smooth, but had very long queues, maining a sweltering wait in the hot sun, even though we manged to drive past the longest part of each queue.

The road towards Dubrovnik itself is pretty special ...

So no rich tourists there then !

Dubrovnik is a lovely place, if a little popular with the cruise ship crowd. My wife & I spent part of our honeymoon there 32 years ago, when it was all still Yogoslavia of course.

We did try to venture down into the old city in the bikes , but turned around once we got embroiled in a multitude of cars, tour busses & tourists - not to be reccomended on heavy bikes on a hot day!

So it was along the neautiful coast road towards Kotor for the night.