Richard Trusson and Ann McLain are currently somewhere in Asia travelling. Their itinerary included trekking in Nepal, then cycling up the Karokoram Highway into China, and hence onward through China, etc. ending up in Australia and New Zealand.

Here are details of their latest exploits (extracted from an email sent in mid-August):

After leaving Islamabad, we bussed it 200km North up the Swat valley, before cycling over a 2000m pass to the Karakorum Highway at Besham. From here we were in the Indus Koistan Region of Pakistan, renowned for its lawlessness and fierce people. After three days of first hand experience of this we heeded the advice of some friendly(-ish) officials and got on a bus to Gilgit, the capital of the Northern Areas. Here we landed on our feet and found a really nice hotel and a good crowd of people to chill out with. We did a few trips from here. One to Skardu, 240Km away, the road was amazing, at times barely clinging onto the side of the cliff face, in places it had given up and fallen off! We were made welcome by many people along the road including the part of the Pak Army responsible for maintaining the road who gave us free tea, and in one case their beds and Mosi nets!

Back in Gilgit we got a group of 5 together to hire a jeep for 5 days @ US$20.00 per day to take a trip to Shandur Pass. This is at 3,800m high and at the start of July plays host to the highest Polo game in the world. Although Gilgit were the underdogs we supported them against Chittral and in an exciting, fast paced skill laden final Gilgit clinched the match in the final few seconds of play, the crowd went wild! (The previous match had been full of controversy and riot police had to go in and separate the machine gun waving crowd!)

Upon returning to Gilgit we set off up the Karakorum Highway towards China. On the way we did some trekking to get altitude fit. This involved treks up to Rakaposhi Base camp (4000m), Ultar One Base Camp (4500m) and the fastest moving glacier in the world (8cm a day) at 3000m. The Hunza Valley area is populated by Ismali Muslims, perhaps the most relaxed of the Muslim sects, they even let their women out of the house! The scenery was outstanding and every turn off the road opened up new vistas of snow topped mountains. We eventually ran out of road and were left with the climb to the pass at 4800m, the highest any of us had cycled. The weather was horrible. We had a blizzard that reduced the visibility to less than 10ft at times, we were both very cold. So much so that on the descent into China we were shaking so much we could hardly stay on the bikes or keep them in a straight line! Our lives were saved by the Army post 4km from the top, they took us in, warmed us up and fed us. The best interaction we have had with the Red Army so far. From here it was down hill over two days to the Customs post at Kashgar, 150km from the actual border, but still high at 3200m! From here we had to climb back to 4200m before dropping down past Karakul Lake and into the Ghez river canyon for the final 250km to Kashgar and civilisation. i.e. chocolate cake and coffee !! and maybe more importantly a shower, 8 days camping out etc. had made us a little dirty to say the least.

Kashgar has a huge Sunday Market where the towns population swells by 100,000 souls for that one day! From here we decided to get the bus over the next 1300km of dry desert. It took over 50 hours and at the end it felt like we would never get to Urumqi, but here we are. The land of electricity, Beer (Pak has none), coffee, chocolate cake, computers etc.

China is not quite as bad as some have made it out to be. No one smiles and the toilets are disgusting beyond description. But otherwise it is OK so far; beer is cheaper than water in most places and that is the only good thing we have to say on that!

Rich Trusson & Ann McLain