PRESS REPORT
|
| KANSAI
TIME OUT |
October 1995
|
| On Two Rims
and a Prayer |
| By Richard Gregg |
|
| Tasilhunpo, the seat
of the Panchen Lama, a religious figure second only to the
Dalai Lama |
In September 1990, British cyclist Richard Gregg set out to
ride solo around the world. Having passed successfully through
Europe and Africa, he tells of his journey from Pakistan to Japan
Banditry was the official reason the police refused to let me
cycle through the Sindh desert (a stroke of luck). I had to ride
the circuitous and remote way over the high deserts of Baluchistan,
to Lahore. Crazily, I ended up getting an armed police escort
for 600kg anyway. It was thankfully a cool trip for me, shiveringly
cold for my motorcycle escorts.
Crucially, in the most dangerous area the police would accompany me no further. Greet! That meant I was free to mix with the wild-eyed, baggy-turbaned, gun-toting, bullet-belted tribal men prevalent in that hostile environment. In fact, when I met these men, their hospitality ranged from unlimited cups of sugary tea and chapatis to letting me shoot their long Chinese rifles. Shooting and gambling and praying to Mecca would carry on simultaneously on a barren, stony mountain side as the red sun dipped to the horizon.
I dropped down to the warming-up Punjab, turned back eastwards to visit the historic Khyber Pass and then set my wheels towards the Himalaya, achieving one of my long-time major goals.
This time I tracked the River Indus along the Karakoram Highway to Gilgit, gazing dumbstruck at the huge, monolithic, ice-crowned Mt. Nanga Parbat (almost 8,000m high) on the way.
Though close to China, I had to see India and Nepal first, so I resumed to the now blistering hot Punjab to use one of the few open (but still uncertain) border posts with India. Hindered only by a minor encounter with the Indian military I got through to Amritsar and sampled the tangibly spiritual and mystic atmosphere of the entrancing Golden Temple.
But the Punjab was baking so I turned again to the Himalaya and rode to the summit of the 3978m-high Rohtang pass, blocked with snow at the top. Then I visited a Tibetan Dharamshala and wound over a tortuous mountain route to Kashmir, "Heaven on Earth". Too often opposites attract; the heaven and the hell.
While staying on a luxurious houseboat on serene Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir, cradled in a fertile bowl in the mountains, I stepped in an uncovered manhole on the boat and tore a knee ligament. I left virtually all my gear in Kashmir and flew to New Delhi for surgery, then had to return to the UK for more surgery and nine months of physiotherapy --frustrating and hard work.
Flashing green parakeets patrolled overhead and roosting, ugly vultures eyed my passing as I trundled across northern India, mixing it with bullock carts, rickshaws (both clanking cycle ones and buzzing auto types) and mushroom-like overloaded trucks, and on to the body-burning ghats of Varanasi on the holy river Ganges, for many the gateway to heaven, with hotels catering for those close to death.
I passed on that opportunity and left the trials of India behind for more relaxing Nepal and, once again, the Himalaya. I couldn't get enough of those mountains! I did some exciting whitewater kayaking (on a river far more suitable for dying than the Ganges, in my book) and an exhilarating trek to Annapuma Base Camp. Then I fueled up on chocolate cake and lasagna in Kathmandu. Self-denial was to come in the spartan, high-altitude wastes of Tibet.
The border-crossing into China was suspiciously easy. Looking back on it, the guards were probably laughing inwardly and just waiting for me to give up and turn back. The road I was attempting incorporates the high est total climb of any road in the world, from 500m in Nepal to 5050m at the top of the first big pass in Tibet.
I was hampered by blizzards, dysentery and an all-pervading abrasive dust (when there was no snow) adding to the torture of the suffocating altitude. But evidently the countless prayer-flags at the summit were fluttering enough prayers to carry me up. There I beheld a mountain-and ice-scape below me that few people ever see. The memory is intense and precious. And the victory wasn't marred by any intense headaches signaling possible High Altitude Cerebral Oedema. That would have meant a fast descent. Perhaps that would have been a wise move anyway.
More passes, higher but warmer, and a ridiculously bad, corrugated road took me sore to Shigatse in just under three weeks. From there beloved tarmac (I now understand the Pope's penchant for the stuff) sped me in three more days to fabled Lhasa. Lhasa is swollen with Han Chinese, but still dominated by the beautiful, but hollow, Potala Palace. The Tibetan soul lives and breathes in the haunting Jokhang Temple though; its golden Buddhas are devoutly revered by masses of people.
A ride higher still to escape tough Tibet to the bottom comer of the Gobi Desert and a few days downhill to the erosion-scarred Yellow River plains, and I reached China main. I raced against visa-time in what was anyway an illegal cycle ride across the People's Republic. The police never gave me trouble I couldn't deflect. I only once ate dog meat, unavoidably, in a small village. Powered largely by beef noodles I reached my final prize in China, the (truly) Great Wall. Seeing that was worth all the effort. However, it struck me that building it was a colossally silly idea. But who am I to comment?
I took a ship from Tian Jin, near Beijing, and arrived in Kobe in September 1994. I was somehow let into the Land of the Rising Yen (falling bubble? ... pah! ) without money (I think nobody leaves shrewdly capitalist China with any money), without employment and without an onward flight. Wonders will never cease.
Richard Gregg's bicycle Odyssey is scheduled to continue next year with a ride
from Japan to Australia.
22 Tips for Planning an Intercontinental Bike Ride
1. Tell a lot of people you are going to do it.
2. Keep telling them.
3. Save some money. If you live cheaply and avoid exchanging
money for marble models of the Taj Mahal and mahogany elephants,
$10 per day should be ample for the route I took (until you get
to Japan). Sometimes you'll need nothing and sometimes much more.
If you are subject to the laws of gravity and random physics and
not immune to every affliction known to the World Health Organization
then buy insurance also.
4. Buy a bike with carrier racks and panniers capable of transporting
a load of 35 to 40kg while being ridden at speed down the middle
of a tailway track. Tools and spares are often quite useful too.
5. Get on and start pedaling. Stop when it gets too uncomfortable.
Start again when the feeling (in your head, bum or grazed knees)
comes back or the pain goes. Repeat the process.
6. Do not try to buy your Chinese visa in Kathmandu.
7. Smile a lot, wave a lot and generally do as many silly antics
as possible (apart from leaving it until Kathmandu to buy a Chinese
visa) to distract potential stone-thrower and prominent-lever-tamperers.
8. Know how to mend a puncture (of tyre and of body).
9. Learn to speak English and as much of the local lingi as possible.
If nothing else, learn the words for 'hello', 'water', 'food', 'sleep',
'thank you' and, if your understanding of body language is a bit
poor, 'stop or I'll shoot!'.
10. Don't pick up suspicious packages, partners or animals.
11. Check the fire exits of the buildings you stay in. Amusingly,
you'll probably find they are locked.
12. At all times remain calm unless it's 10 rupees you are being
ripped off - then do your nut, roll your eyes whilst foaming at
the mouth and threaten to summon the Duke of Edinburgh. This probably
won't help, but in the slim chance that it might, you can't really
lower the Duke's name any further.
13. Know how to wash your underpants under pressure.
14. Avoid talking about politics and religion, especially to
people with firearms or within easy reach of stones, pebbles, Molotov
cocktails, official government rubber stamps, etc.
15. If someone steals something of yours, don't let them get
close enough to be able to bite you too.
16. Smile more and laugh a lot more.
17. Don't let the dogs chase you. Face them down. You'll find
they're chickens underneath. My score with this trick is 100%. Should
you score lower, console yourself with the thought that you have
probably encountered the only properly attack-trained dog for miles
around. Either that or you've overloaded a bit with 'Bonios'.
18. As above for Silverback Mountain Gorillas, but I doubt it
really makes a lot of difference when encountering lions, leopards,
rhinos, elephants and mosquitoes.
19. Like (or at least pretend to like) eating spicy food, meat,
twigs, leaves and pickles, drinking nail varnish remover, and sugar
with a little tea added, sitting cross-legged, and singing karaoke.
Simultaneously if possible.
20. Be different. Make sure you stand out. The trucks will run
you off the road otherwise.
21. Look after number twos.
22. Be positive. It could be worse. |
