Still alive

I appear to have forgotten about the blog. I am still alive, and at the moment I am safely back in Australia. Not exactly home, but Frankenbici is parked up in my parents shed, and I’m several thousand kilometres west of there. I’ll try to write something about Pakistan (a great place) and India (a less great place) before I forget about it, or get overwhelmed by the day to day. The latter may have already happened…

Asian Internet

Iran filters it’s internet. In country, it has been dubbed the filter-net.

China does the same thing. It seems that Iran uses the Chinese technology to filter the internet. The China version is aka The Great Firewall of China.

Pakistan uses a slightly different approach. When you get online, nothing appears to be blocked. Or perhaps that should be “If you get online…”. Especially in the north, where I have just been.

I haven’t worked out just why, but Pakistan is having all sorts of problems with keeping the electricity on. I thought this was just in the north, way up in the mountains, but it is all over the country. I’m in Islamabad (the capital) now, and just now the power has gone off (Laptop + battery = power independence + I didn’t lose what I just wrote). The fan stops, and instantly it feels 10 degrees hotter. the locals tell me they are rolling blackouts, which implies it is due to a lack of generation capacity. This from a country that is proud to have nuclear weapons. Priorities?

So, when the power is on, there should be internet. Well, I found one satellite connection in Hunza… except the power was never on. And a few days later, a connection in Gilgit, and when the power was on, the internet didn’t work. At one point the stars did line up, and we had both, but it was so slow that it made dial-up look blazingly fast.

And so with no trickery at all Pakistan joins the last two countries I’ve visited as internet black spots. The problem is I could geek out and find ways to get around the filtering in Iran and China, but having the power pulled really makes things difficult…

Loss of a friend

As I wrote a little while ago (yesterday if you believe the posting date), I decided to ride back up the road to the pass to the Pakistan / China border to see the road, mountains, etc. After all, that is what I came here for.

Everything was going well, the construction crews were friendly and the scenery jaw-dropping. On the second day, at almost exactly 4000m I came to a slight problem on the ‘highway’. Right where the Chinese were constructing a bridge to go over a glacial stream, the same stream had washed out the road dirt track that passes for the KKH.

So I did what cyclist do in these situations. I jumped off, took all the luggage off the bike and carried it all over. In several trips. Simple. Not so simple for the trucks and cars that were lined up the next morning.

It seems I may have not put it all back on perfectly, because when I stopped to say hello to yet another construction crew only a few kilometres later I noticed that Ojo, my little purple misnamed bear, who had been with me since day one of the trip in Spain had jumped off.

Where’s he got to now?

I’d recently lost my ‘Oia Cycling Club Angel’ to a thief in Yazd, and was fairly cut-up about that. But at the same time, Ojo had been gathering charms – prayer beads in Esfahan, a hair tie in Yazd, and most recently a bracelet in Tehran. I wish I had a photo of him all blinged up…

I knew roughly where he’d jumped ship, so I went back to look for him. Roaming around looking for something isn’t a trivial task at over 4000m. I rode back and forth on the road where I knew he must have jumped off. I enlisted the help of the Pakistani road construction crew. They thought I was a little crazy, but searched anyway. I asked everyone who came along if they’d seen him, but no-one had (or would admit it). I stayed the night in the area, looking until dark but to no avail. Only the Chinese crew didn’t help (because we couldn’t speak to each other).

It appears that Ojo (eye) – who should have been named Osso (bear) if only I knew more Spanish – has decided to stay and help out with the construction of the KKH at 4000m altitude. 11 months and 19,000km of being together and he leaves without saying good-bye. I hope he enjoys it up there.

Later on, I saw some Yak, a family of Ibex and a tribe (?) of Golden Marmots at around 4700m. And the odd mountain. All is not lost.

Pakistan, Day 1

About 3 hours into Pakistan, I was ready to turn around and go home. I haven’t had such a disappointing entry into a country.

I had climbed out of China the last few days, with the Belgians I met in Kashgar. They finally decided to avoid any visa / monsoon hassles and stay in China and so we split at lake Karakol (which was a bit of a disappointment after 2 days cycling uphill). I know I wasn’t much company for them – day one I had some digestive problems, and day two I had had altitude problems. At around 3000m – I’m getting worse at this.

The high pass in China is only 4072m. I survived that, without even a headache, and rode hard to get into Tashkurgan in the mistaken belief that I might learn something there. I didn’t, but I did spend the last of my Chinese Yuan on an expensive (for my standards) hotel – and arrived too late to buy something to eat.

What I failed to learn, until the next morning, is the Chinese Police wont let you cycle out of China. You must take the bus. I had been expecting this, so everything went well (except I didn’t have any Chinese currency left to pay for the bus). I had also been led to believe that I could get out of the bus as soon as we hit Pakistan. The Chinese Immigration people agreed, and even helped me by asking the bus driver to let me out as soon as we’d left China (since I couldn’t talk to the driver myself).

KKH on the China side is a little dull, so driving along it didn’t stress me out too much (although I would have liked the challenge of going to almost 5000m again). What did get me stressed was just across the border the Pakistani police wouldn’t let me off the bus as I’d planned. Despite my pleading, and then begging. And the road goes from tarmac to horrendous dirt track literally on the border, so not only was I sealed in the bus, but it was bumpy as hell. Then the bus broke down (which I had to help jerry rig a fix). Then the scenery got amazing, and I was flying past in a bus. And the scenery got better, and I couldn’t even take a decent photo, we were bouncing around so much. The final insult was a check point where they demanded we pay a park entry fee. I might have lost my cool for a while there. I was seriously entertaining the idea of just bussing straight to Islamabad to get the hell out of this country.

Then we arrived in Sost. I was still fuming at the waste of coming all this way to just see the road from a bus. Immigration turned out to be fairly simple – I got a visa on arrival as I’d hoped. And it was cheaper then I’d expected. Although the Immigration guy must have caught wind of my bad mood, because he did offer to deport me. More than once. Perhaps it was something I said. But then the police / customs / immigration people allowed me to ride back up the ‘highway’ to the pass. And the Chinese bus driver offered to even take me back there and drop me off (tomorrow). And I found some good, cheap bread (a rarity in China). Suddenly I was riding around in the mountains, and everything was right with the world.

Could I be so superficial, that just forcing me to sit on a bus could turn my mood south? And it can all be repaired by letting me ride my overloaded bike up a dirt track? What is wrong here?

The people I met on the road are super friendly. Many of the Taliban-bearded, dark looking evil Pakistanis (which we could all recognise thanks to the propaganda we get fed in the West) broke into some of the biggest smiles I’ve seen when I rode past and gave them a grin.

Maybe I’ll give this place a second chance. Hopefully I get to the pass tomorrow – otherwise the immigration people might start to worry about where I’ve got to.

Hair loss

I’m still in Kashgar. Mentally preparing for what’s coming. Well, no, I’m waiting for a Belgian guy to turn up so I can ride with his mate. I think a small group for the next bit is a good idea. (See? I am sensible, after all).

This seems to be a hub for travellers. Yesterday there were 9 cyclists in the youth hostel – and I know of others. And a few ‘traditional’ back packers. And they are all French. Something strange is going on here. Maybe Sarcosey has sent them all away for the elections.

So I went out to eat with some of the French. For a lot of the time, they were speaking English, just for me. In amongst all the other traveller conversation, for some reason the girls started talking about how their hair is falling out. They came to the conclusion that it was the diet and altitude that was causing it.

Eureka! I’m sure it’s not true, but I think I might have to recycle that excuse.

Massive Cheat

When I started this little ridie thing, I had a crazy idea that I might be able to cycle all the way home. Except for the obvious bit that was frequently pointed out to me in Europe – the last part between about Singapore and Darwin.

I was doing pretty well until Greece. Every kilometre had been peddled. Then someone turned on winter and the plan started to get a bit wobbly. I tried pretty hard to work out a way to get out of winter without flying, but it turned out to be damn near impossible (without making some rather absurd travel arrangements, such as going all the way back to Venice to take a boat via Syria to Egypt – with accompanying visa dramas). As you probably noticed, I had to cheat to get to Egypt and start the ‘Revolution Route’ side trip. Riding though Egypt during a revolution, which, it has been pointed out to me, it took me a week to notice.

And then the problem of what to do post Iran became a reality. I like the idea of riding through Central Asia, and probably will do it one day. But I couldn’t stand the idea of making a plan, and then arranging all the visas around this. It just didn’t fit (and another reason has surfaced that will become evident in September). So I looked at going through the other options, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some crazy people are travelling in Afghanistan, but I’m not that crazy. I couldn’t get a Pakistan visa (without flying back to Australia to organise one – and that seems rather silly to me).

So I stressed and bit my nails, read lots of things on the internet and finally decided that one part of Pakistan didn’t sound too dangerous, at least relatively. And it sounds like it is possible to get a Pakistani visa at the border with China. So I crossed my fingers for the Pakistan visa, got my Chinese visa in Tehran, and tried to work out how to get to the far west of China. I failed to find any decent option on the internet, but through blind chance (while at a diplomatic function at the Norwegian Embassy) I was told about a direct flight to Urumqi on a Chinese airline (by an Italian Architect).

Long, long, long story short I got a plane ticket and enjoyed my last few days in Iran. Louis and Lysanne, a couple of Quebecois cyclists doing something similar to me, helped me out no end by arranging a (very small) bike box and a place to crash in Tehran – while I watched lunar eclipses and ate watermelon and ice cream, although not at the same time, in Yazd.

L, L & I spend the better part of a day and a half solving the puzzle that is packing three bikes into boxes that are far too small for them. Some cursing, much gnashing of teeth and at least one stupid mistake on my part when removing the pedals and the bikes were packed away. Poor Frankenbici had all manner of bits pulled off him for the packing. It’s the first time I’ve had to remove the forks (and pretty much everything that can be removed) to put a bike in a box.

I tried to send some winter clothes home but at the post office I had a change of heart, when I decided I didn’t have any confidence in the post and besides they wanted to charge me an arm and a leg to post 3kg home. So L, L & I had a final kebab and I re-packed my bags one final time.

A taxi, which had been generously arranged for me by our host, Sasan, came to pick me up to take me to the airport. The driver took one look at the bike box and the big bag holding the panniers and decided he didn’t need the job. There followed a comical few minutes while the bike was loaded into the ute, unloaded, and we stood around while the Iranians, err, discussed the situation. The bike was again loaded into the ute and we drove around town for a few minutes. I was at  loss as to what was going on, but there was much shaking of heads and it appeared I wouldn’t be getting to the airport this way. Sasan had come with me, and somehow he arranged another taxi which did take me to the airport. I’d left plenty of time, so there was no stress – at least for me, but I did end up leaving Sasan somewhat stranded. Thankfully the last few minutes in Iran didn’t go smoothly, otherwise I might have taken away a different impression of the country. Although the check-in at the airport went far too smoothly, they took my bike and allowed me my 35kg of luggage (while I was almost bent double with my carry on bag).

And then the massive cheat began. I flew from Tehran to Urumqi in far North Western China, leapfrogging 4 countries, several serious mountain ranges, and a whole bunch of cyclists who are more hardy than myself. Somehow a 4 hour flight took from 11pm until 7am – that’s what you get when China is on a single timezone.

I got to Urumqi, a new country, a new language and a new currency without a Yaun in my pocket. I tried to get some at the airport, but the money changer was closed. I couldn’t take a bus or taxi, because I had no money (there’s a hole in my bucket…). So I took the obvious option – put the bike together. I had quite an audience of Chinese taxi drivers, but I managed to get it all back in one piece (despite it being 4am in my own personal timezone, and having  slept for about an hour).

I rode into Urumqi city, blearily looked around, had breakfast and then tried to find the train station. A gazzillion people had the same idea. One of the harrowed ticket agents managed to tell me that there was no train today, the cost of the train, and indicated by a surprised expression that the bike wouldn’t be welcome. So I went off to find the bus station. Found it, and despite only really being interested in the timetable, found myself on a sleeper bus about 15minutes later.

25 hours on the bus later and I’m in Kashgar. The end of the world – at least the end of the Chinese world. To the south is Pakistan (and then a left turn to India), and a border that all reports say is open and issuing visas on arrival. All non verified, unofficial reports. But I’m here now and I’ll go ride up the ‘hill’ and check it out in a day or so. I hope they let me in, there are some big mountains to see between here and Islamabad. Some really big mountains (I can’t wait!). Karakorum Highway, here I come!

The next case of visa stress will be India before another cheat – there doesn’t appear to be any way of getting out of India without flying…

Now, aren’t you glad I didn’t have time to write a blow by blow account of Iran?

Iran

Lets just forget about writing blogs about Iran, shall we? The censor-net didn’t help, and most of my censornet time was taken up trying to find an airline that would take the bike to China and then making the same airline take my credit card. It is not a trivial task when you’re trying to use a credit card in Iran. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.

I did met some amazing people. A few will be extremely difficult to forget in a hurry.

And I don’t want to write anything that might really upset the authorities. Who knows, I might want to go back. So I guess I could just write: