Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (23 page)

In the morning, I said goodbye to Philippe who reproached me for taking the bus to Islamabad.

‘But Russell! You must cycle all the way!’

‘I know, I know! I just rather spend my time somewhere more interesting than on a freeway.’

Dervla Murphy may have cycled every inch, every puff of dust and every back street but I’m sure some 40 years ago she didn’t have to contend with today’s traffic and pollution.

When I arrived in Islamabad later that day I realised it was just like Canberra, the capital of Australia. I haven’t been to Canberra and I’ve no intention of going but I’m sure it’s exactly like it because it was stuffed with bureaucrats, roundabouts and embassies. The streets were nice and wide and the Tourist Campsite I plonked myself down in was quite pleasant and filled with a conglomeration of the Swiss travellers in their camper vans and Jeeps loaded with solar panels, laptops and satellite TV.

However, I was warned off talking to a Frenchman who kept a Bactrian (two-humped) camel near his truck.

‘Don’t take photos of his camel,’ Greta, a Swiss doctor told me. ‘An English couple came over not knowing any better and he came out and demanded 40 rupees. Then another couple, German, took a photo and drove off. He chased after them trying to stick his head through the window screaming “YOU GERMANS SHOULD BE ALL KILLED!” Ja, he is crazy.’

I looked over at the camel roped to an old truck that looked as if it had once been owned by gypsies.

‘He says he came here with no passport for the truck,’ said Hans, Greta’s partner. ‘When he got to the border of Afghanistan and they asked him for his passport he said to them, “I have come from the stars and looking for paradise”.’

As I set up my tent a large four-by-four station wagon pulled up and I got talking to a blond man with a receding hairline and blue eyes. I thought he was American until I heard his accent.

‘I am Nacho.’

‘Like the chips.’

‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Like the chips. I am from Madrid.’ He’d been an advertising executive, but due to the stress, decided he and his wife needed to break from it forever.

‘It take my life. Now I am photographer. I mean, I
try
as I have only just started.’

He’d started in the US then into Alaska, had the car shipped to Thailand while he backpacked through South America and Australia, drove through India up to Ladakh and would’ve continued into China if they hadn’t wanted him to pay $US6000 to hire a driver and stay at their tourist hotels. His wife had joined him for six months but left as the driving got to her.

‘What did she think we were going to do?’ he pondered. ‘Sail a boat?’

We shared similar stories of travelling with our partners. ‘And look us!’ he laughed. ‘We are now travelling on our own!’

I was really looking forward to this next stage of my trip – cycling the Karakoram Highway. It was supposed to be the crème de la crème of cycle touring: gorgeous ravines, stunning views of the Hunza Valley, snow-capped mountains and friendly villagers. I hoped to get to Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, Western China, some 1200 kilometres away from Islamabad. I expected it to take at least three weeks, as it was quite mountainous, the highest point being Khunjerab Pass at 4693 metres.

As towns were somewhat far from each other I was going to need another burner, one that would easily work on dirty kerosene and so I found a shop in the ‘Urdu Bazaar’ in Rawalpindi (some 15 kilometres away south and the former capital of Islamabad) to fashion a smaller one, as all I had seen so far were cumbersomely large cookers. As I sat and explained what I needed whilst having tea with the owner of the shop, Falzal, a man of about 60 shuffled in and said a few words causing everyone to laugh.

‘He is making a poem about you. About your head,’ said Falzal. The old man turned to me in his green
salwa kameez.

‘I not fun you. You are a guest in my country. I say that “To go with no hair must have much enjoyment in the city.”We say a man that cuts his hair is
ganjaa
.’

‘Eh?’

‘He is making the joke about your no hair. Bald.
Ganjaa
.’

‘Oh!’ I laughed at the remark and told him not worry as people do everywhere, especially at home.

On the way back in the minivan, squashed with other men, a billboard caught my eye:

I burst out laughing then nearly barfed up a lung when the next sign flashed passed:

KEEP YOUR

CANNT GREEN

Fellow passengers laughed at me, one with very good English. I tried to explain, tears rolling down my face.

‘CANNT?’ said the young man, confused. ‘It means “Cantonment”. This is an army area. The Britishes used to have headquarters here. So this is why.’

Strictly speaking, ‘cantonment’ means ‘a temporary military headquarters’ though I’m sure to the local population it didn’t feel like the British were here just for the weekend when they invaded in 1849. In fact, this area became one of the largest and most important military garrisons of the British Raj until partition for almost a hundred years. Hardly ‘temporary’. Anyway, for whatever reason, the term ‘cantonment’ has become a permanent part of the Pakistani lexicon. As for my interpretation of the abbreviation … well …

On the way back, I popped into an Internet café. Rebecca had emailed wanting to know if I was going to teach English with her in Taiwan and then later travel with her through Spain. In short, would we be together?

I spent the next few days in a dark, dark anguish. I could see the same problems unfolding if I travelled with her again. And yet, despite how I unpacked these issues with cold logic, I realised that I still loved her.

But I wasn’t listening to my heart that day and typed the reasons why we should split. I don’t know why I didn’t call. Cowardice I suppose. I pressed ‘send’, but, rather than the relief I had been seeking, I could only feel that I had done something terribly wrong, not just to her but to myself.
xxiv

It was only when I returned to the campsite in Islamabad among Swiss and German Land Cruiser owners that I realised what a horrible day it had been for everyone else.

‘Ah, Russell! Four American planes have crashed into the World Trade Centre!’ gasped Greta, glued to her satellite radio. ‘It is so terrible!’

Hans, was less charitable. ‘Zese stupid Americans. Zey can’t even fly zeir own planes for shit!’

Of all days to break up with someone, I had chosen a day that would penetrate the consciousness of the world – September 11.

Campers flung their concerns around the campsite like jigsaw pieces.

‘They are saying it is Bin Laden.’

‘Afghanistan!’

‘Ah! It is only 300 kilometres from here!’

‘We must head for the Indian border before they close it.’

‘They’ll kidnap us!’

Within two days the campsite emptied itself as Land Cruisers and vans sped to the Indian border. What was once a lively little campsite of clothes hanging off car doors, barbecues, and foreigners sitting around in fold-up chairs discussing the merits of Swiss catalytic converters, was now deserted. Only myself, the mad Frenchman and his two-humped camel remained, pondering our fate. As much as I wanted to leave, I couldn’t: my passport was with the Chinese Embassy awaiting a visa.

Urged by Alan to register with the Australian Embassy, I went to the next-best thing – the Australia Club, an expatriate bar behind the Australian Embassy which ‘registered’ all too well with me.

The bar was filled with red-faced bureaucrats barking through thick Australian accents (why do Australians overseas always seem
sooooo
Australian?) and dressed, as
Spinal Tap
would say, ‘like an Australian nightmare’.

I got talking to an embassy official who bore a striking resemblance to the Australian Immigration minister, Amanda Vanstone. And like Ms Vanstone, she was as wide as a caravan and dressed as a fruit salad.

‘I’d wait a few days before continuing on with your trip,’ she said. ‘We just don’t know what’s going on yet.’

Next to her was Phelan, an Irish engineer who had been evacuated that morning from Afghanistan. He had been working for a Non-Government Organisation called Concern.

‘Very bloody
Concerned
!’ he spat into his beer, then eyed me suspiciously. ‘You’re not a journalist, are you?’

‘No. Cyclist. Was it really that dangerous there that you had to leave?’

‘No, not really. The bombs have a minuscule chance of hitting NGOs. It’s the fall-out from locals that’s the problem.’

When I told him I was headed for Sost, way up along the Karakoram Highway, he said, ‘Do you know that you’re going through one of the most fundamentalist Muslim areas in Pakistan? And not only that, it’s only eight kilometres from the Afghanistan border!’

I turned to ice, especially after he said I’d need to get on a bus and get a police escort through some of the tribal areas. What was I doing?

The next day, business was as usual, except for one paranoid white guy on a bike. However, it seemed clear that Pakistanis felt that they were being coerced by the United States, and apart from Pakistanis
’
 general dislike of the United States, the Taliban had threatened neighbouring countries with reprisals if they acquiesced to George W Bush’s demands.

Feeding on the growing tension, I could not stop sweating and fidgeting and looking over my shoulder, especially when big, moustached men called out ‘Hello, AMERICAN!’

I was beginning to feel like a target, and sometimes when entering restaurants or packed mini-van-taxis, I found myself blurting out, ‘I’m not American! NOT AMERICAN! Australian!
AUSTRALIAN
!’ And then, when Australia became involved in the war, I changed this to ‘New Zealand, bro! FROM
NEW ZEALAND …
CHOICE!’

I was still on my China idea. It was 800 kilometres away, over the mountainous Karakoram Highway. I figured I could probably do it in three weeks – surely enough time before the United States started bombing? Although, stuck in my throat was that fundamentalist Muslim issue that Phelan had mentioned.

None of this washed with Alan, as his latest email showed:

I decided that I was going to finish this trip, despite Alan’s warnings, though even externalities – ‘the universe’ as Antony would probably say – were suggesting otherwise: my new camping stove kept bursting into flames like a downed MiG fighter jet; my rear tyre was suddenly frayed causing the tube to stick out like a big, fat testicle. So I bought a Chinese-made tyre but the bead (the wire on the inside of the tyre) tore out as I pumped it up (I later bought an Indian tyre). Lastly, to add insult to injury, my Chinese visa was restricted to two months, which meant I wouldn’t be able to complete all of the trip on bike. Yes, something was conspiring against me and maybe I should’ve listened.

The last thing that I had packed for the trip was … a gun.

I know. Not very Buddhist but before you judge me let me point out that Dervla Murphy had cycled with a handgun and it had saved her bacon a number of times.

My reasons were just as admirable. Sort of. Kind of. Nearly. Alright, not at all!

You see, I wasn’t going to put up with stone throwing youths like I had when I first arrived in Pakistan and especially after what I read on the Internet in Lahore:

‘I had one kid throw a rock the size of my head,’ said a New Zealander. ‘It hit my front wheel, luckily. I got off and chased the little bastard. He could’ve killed me.’

A German recounted a similar story. ‘I went to cycle off, and zis man tried to put a stick through my wheels as I rode. I fell off and hurt myself badly. Why they do this?’

A man on two wheels, for some reason, sent some Pakistanis wild – like dogs barking at cars.

So, in a dusty little hardware store, I bought a gun from a smiling gold-toothed gentleman in Rawalpindi, who was more than happy when I lied to him that I was going to India with it.

Anyway, on my first day leaving Islamabad it came in handy. There I was, huffing and puffing up endless, steep hills, some 34 kilometres from Muree (a town only a short distance from Islamabad), when a group of boys of various ages were standing by the side of the road laughing and pointing at me. This had been happening all day – boys leering and saying God knows what. (Female cycle tourers of the world, I salute you!)

As I neared, they suddenly went quiet, as if a schoolteacher had suddenly entered a rowdy classroom. I felt instinctively that they were going to do something unpleasant. And I was right. Just as I passed, I felt a pair of hands trying to push me off my bike.

‘Bugger off!’ I spun round. The culprit, a lad of about 14, dodged behind a friend. I shook my fist at him and kept riding. A stone flew past, just missing my ear.