So after all that adrenalin pumping excitement, we were more than happy to tone down a bit. After spending a day in the historic (seriously. It dates back to 2000 B.C., and is a main centre for development of Buddhism) town of Taxila, Alex and I went to get our Chinese visas (which I now won't get to use dammit dammit dammit) in Islamabad and came back to finally cycle our dream, and the main reason for the expedition - the famed Karakorum Highway (this is where the exalted soundtrack kicks in, if I ever make this into a movie. Starring Rowan Atkinson as myself and Gurmit Singh as Alex "I say old chap, I wonder what these natives are trying to tell us." "You stupid isid? Use your blain use your blain... They say the mountains blardy cold we shouldn't cycle lah. But of course we must try. For Singapore!" but I digress).

At this stage I feel the Highway needs a bit of an introduction. Conceptualised after the British left (and using Indian-Chinese animosity over the Dalai Lama to build a 'friendship highway') it took over 20 years to buiild and many lives of both the Pakistani soldiers and Chinese engineers. The Karakorum Highway (endearingly referred to as the KKH) was literally blasted into the side of the mountains of the beautiful Karakorum, and with its long winding roads, overhanging cliffs, steep vertical falloffs and nothing-short-of-fantastic scenery, it looks like something out of a BMW advert starring James Bond. And well it should be too, rock avalanches are a constant feature and a mis-timed brake can lead to a little fall off a big cliff. In short, it was bloody magnificent.

8 Nov @ Dubair and Dassu, almost 300km into the KKH
It had been drizzling incessantly for the whole night. The day before, we caught sight of our first snowcapped peaks on the sub-3000m mountains that stand right next to the Indus river which we are following on the KKH. We could only dream of how the higher peaks of the exalted 8000-ers (mountains of more than 8000m. There are only 14 of them in the world, and the highest concentration can be found in the Karakorum) would look like as they stood much further to the north, in the HinduKush region, building a mountainous bridge between the glorious Himalayas and the dangerous Pamirs. But the sight of the snowline at way below 2500m did put a sliver of doubt in my mind. The Khunjerab was 4733m. We were, in the cycletourists' technical jargon, in deep shit.

The alarm went off at 5 in Hotel Dubair but hearing the thunder and rain outside, we conveniently excused ourselves from getting up. When we finally with great effort got up at 8 in the tiny mud-walled room where the 4 hard rattan beds took up 70% of the floor space, our fans (local children who found us foreigners interesting) were already waiting for us at the entrance of the hotel-restaurant (most restaurants usually have a few beds for overnight truckers). Apparently they were already lying in wait, braving the impudent rain, since before 6am, when the first of us went to toilet. Reluctantly got up from our 50rupee-a-night bed to "greet" our fans. The restaurant guy chased them away but our loyal supporters refused to give up and climbed onto the roof, and with umbrellas sheltering them against the rain basically just stood gawking at us as we went about the daily routine of cooking and eating (inside the room. We did not want to insult the sensibilities of the fasting muslims. Especially when I was a non-fasting muslim. Eh, you try cycling 100+km everyday with a slight fever).

Said goodbye to our die-hard Dubair Fan Club at ten and we cycled off into the rain.

Marcel sped on ahead but the three musketeers (Andy, Alex and I) took a bit longer than expected climbing the hills and negotiating the slippery rain-and-pebble encrusted bends that fall straight into the raging Indus below. It got dark at about 515pm (the time where the Sunnis break their fast) and we were still 8km short of Dassu. It had been a slow day on the KKH. The incessant rain caused more than a few rocks to fall near us, so we kept to the middle of the single carriageway to avoid being hit. To top it all off, it was cold (sub-10 degrees, I was wearing 4 layers) and we pretty much couldn't see where we were going. Alex had to change his gearing with his palms as his fingers were too numb after a day of rain that had soaked his woolen gloves to the core. So to summarise, we were wet, cold, cycling in the freezing rain, with no visibility and a road that had (in the starlight) the same colour as the torrential river hundreds of metres below, and pretty much no protection from stopping us (if we mistimed our brakes) from going over the edge. Pretty much the worst conditions I've ever cycled in, and I've cycled in some pretty heavy shit.

Then came the icing on the cake. At about 530pm I probably hit a pothole a little too hard and got a puncture. As they say in Pakistan, why not? While trying to pry open my tire to get at the tube, due to the extreme cold, my tyre lever shattered. After much fumbling in the cold dark drizzle with stiff fingers a new tube was put into place. Even Andy, the cold?-this-is-summer-in-Germany guy was visibly shivering. A group of sheep were huddled together under cover of an overhanging cliff nearby, and we could feel them mocking us. "Baa. Stupid humans. Arent they cold? We're cold and we've got this thick wooly thing. They must have the IQ of a goat. So what were you saying about where the ram put its horns?"

New tube in, old tube out. Pump tube. Pump not working. Blardy 'ell. So we got Alex's pump and managed to get the pressure to a cycleable level again. But the chapter stubbornly didn't want to end there. There was cherry on top of the icing for the damn cake.

My brake levers refused to close after we put in the wheel and no amount of leaning the wheel to one side and shifting the brakes worked. Alex suggested that I cycle without my rear brakes as staying any longer in the cold dark rain would not be wise. I had to concur, and this particular night cycling was turning out to be no fun at all. So off we went, me holding my rear brake lever down to remind me that it didn’t exist, and continuously pumping my front brake to keep control around the potholes that I could only see less than a second before I hit them.

Yearning to see beams of lights (from Dassu) was what kept us going in the dark valley while we strained our sight to stay on the road while avoiding the potholes. Our only loyal companion was the "thud, thud, thud" made by the rain on our waterproofs. And, we finally arrived at almost half past six at Hotel Arafat (what's with the dictator hotels?) which was experiencing a black out (happens at least once a day, nothing unusual) at that moment.

At the hotel, we met Alvi, a Lieutenant Colonel who has retired from the Pakistani Army. He was supervising the construction of bridges in the Kohistan district. The Colonel Shab (term of respect that the locals used for him) later hosted the hungry, cold and dirty cyclists to dinner. Highly coincidentally, the Colonel's brother-in-law used to run a computer shop in Sim Lim Square that I frequented, and I spent many a happy hour trying to fix his modem (and consequently the ONLY internet connection in Dassu). So we had many things to talk about, and the Colonel helped us tremendously in the days to follow.

After the dinner we returned to the hotel to discover that the night was STILL not over. Alex took a look at my bike and found a 16cm tear in the rear rim on the sidewall (where the brake pads grab the rim) and an even more awful one on the inside of the rim (where the rim grabs the tube and the tyre). So that same accursed night I took a 9-hour rough and tumble bus ride (which was classic, but I'll save it for the book. Hey, you guys will need something original to read inside THAT, right?) to the capital to get a new rim and after a whole day of running around like a headless chicken (saving that for the book too) ended up with a local crap-ass rim that I hoped will last till the next town with a 26' wheel. Problem was, from here all the way to Thailand (a good 6000km at least?) there was NO WAY I'd get a rim to replace my Mavics. Top rated rim my skinny malay ass.

10 Nov @ Dassu

And just when I thought the shit was over for now, the real shit finally began. Goes to show, when the shit hits the fan, there's no friggin where to run.

Taking a break from the ardous task of fixing my bike, I went upstairs to the Colonel's room to have a look at his dead modem again and that’s when my fever came back with a vengeance. I get fevers and flus sometimes, and they normally go away after 3 days fo sleeping, but this baby was different. I lost my appetite totally, and Avex Trax started using my skull for a baseline. Seriously, the migranes were terrible. I read somewhere once that migranes were the second most painful thing a man could get, next to a gunshot wound. Now imagine a sharp migraine jackhammer hitting various parts of your head at 5-10 second intervals, and you can see why I was shivering and moaning under the covers. After 3 days of that I gave up and Colonel Alvi brought me to see the doctor at the local polyclinic, who diagnosed me with a lymph node infection (which I totally believed cos I had one before) and the medicine made me better. For all of 2 hours. After 2 more days of forcing myself to eat oranges ever so slowly we went to see a different doctor.

This one was classic. The office was a dingy hole at the end of a dark passageway behind some shops, and looked more like it dealt with the promotion of substance abuse than the cure of it. He had no lights, and had to bring me to the window to look at my eyes. But still I was thankful for him of course, as the 'mild temperature' I thought I had turned out to be 103deg (about 39deg C). He refused to accept any compensation, as did the polyclinic doctor before him. "You are our guests" came the standard, hospitable reply. Alex promptly got us a taxi for the 7 hour ride to Abbottabad, where the hospital was. The taxi ride was as bumpy and wild as the bus, and I had to hold back from throwing up many times. But we got there, and in a total daze Alex checked me into the A&E, where after a quick glance at my doctors' referral, the thermometer stuck under my arm, and a chest x-ray (35rupees, under S$1) I was admitted to Medical Ward C.

Now the hospital at Abbottabad was no ordinary one. It was a Teaching Hospital, and one of the best in the country, as evidenced by students that come from States and Canada (albeit the fact that they were Pakistanis that basically found it easier to study back in Pakistan than try and get into a Medical College there). And I received VIP treatment - I needn't have to pay any hospital charges, the senior doctors told me. "You are our guests". Some days, people give you apples. So I could've stayed there for months and only had to pay for the medicine and syringes (oh they loved to give antibiotics with needles. Luckily they were very adept at it, and I have no fear of needles. In the past 3 weeks I've had more needles in me than a rich heroin addict.)

But still the conditions, compared to a Singaporean hospital of course (I don't think that's a fair comparison, but it’s the only one I can make) were appalling. At night mice rampaged my bread, sitting on the table next to me. Baby cockroaches had a field day with my bed (whilst I was still in it), and the toilets were hardly cleaned. Stools would sit at the toilet bowl for days, and you couldn't see the colour of your urine from the lack of any lighting. The stench of the main corridor was nauseating, and people spat everywhere. I was highly distressed especially at one tetanus patient that came in whose friends were basically having a spitting compeition around his bed. He died 2 days later. In fact, 2 out of the 3 people that got put in my room both died (both were in the same bed. God I was so happy not to have been given that one) and I now know the Urdu expression for pain. Its basically moaning, in a loud voice, "UUUURRRRNNNNGGGGHHHH" but longer and more drawn out, ALL NIGHT LONG. By now my headaches had subsided though, my fever, though still high, was coming down, but Metallica playing base drum with my head was replaced by god making me feel what a contraction COULD feel like. And women, if the pangs in my stomach were anything like contractions, I kowtow low low to you.

So there we were, me in my personal pain shivering under the covers and 2 other patients in their not-so-personal pain moaning away in a nauseating place. The only godsend were the doctors - they were the nicest bunch of people I could ever hope for, and I got personal attention from the A.Prof who was second in charge of the ward. The doctors and nurses were all extremely good to me, but when told I was obviously jaundiced (no, not only babies get jaundice, and no, walking around in the sun didn't help) but they still couldn't trace the cause, but it would take 4-6 weeks for me to recover and another 4-6months before I could cycle again, I basically gave up. Pakistan won - there was simply no point in me staying in the hospital for months taking up people's time and resources, and I had to think about Alex, of course.

My main man stuck by me (oh god that sounded so gay) all the way, and in Pakistani hospitals the nurses don't do everything for you - you're supposed to come in with a family member or a friend who would take care of you, and buy you medicine from the pharmacy, small things like that. I was in a perfect daze and couldn't do jack shit, and thank god for Alex who sacrificed himself so much during those 10 days. I felt (and still do feel) like an extreme dick for causing him to miss his dream, to cycle the whole of the KKH, and I will probably never be able to make it up to him. I know sorry will never be enough, but there is truly nothing else to say.

Alex got me a ticket home, and my sister arranged to meet me at Karachi airport. Alex followed me all the way to Islamabad airport, and as the van pulled away from Ayub Teaching Hospital, I couldn't contain myself and cried my eyes out. To be at the foot of your dream, to have to turn back because of some silly circumstances, to be denied a chance to LIVE... Was all too unbearable for me. The tears flowed freely and I made no effort to hide them. I said goodbye to the majestic snowy peaks and vowed to return. Its not over yet, Pakistan. You won this round, but as Allah is my witness, I'll be back.

I hugged Alex at the airport, and it was all I could do to say sorry. I swear I don't know what I would've done without him. The checkin, red tape and flight to Karachi was all done in a hazy daze, and all I remember was keeping my sunglasses on all the way so people couldn't see my yellow eyes (I had a letter from the hospital stating I was fine to fly, but there was no reason to get anyone alarmed) and there being a free internet terminal not 100m away from my geeky self and yet I was too weak to get up and use it. At Karachi I met my other guardian angel, my sweet sister who flew to Karachi to pick me up, and I was (and still am) extremely grateful for that. I was a blardy living vegetable, only managing to pull whatever was left of myself (and my little acting skills from my little theatre experience) together and get thru the customs and immigration without too much suspicion about why this fool was wearing flashy sunglasses INSIDE a building.

The plane was thankfully empty, and ever attentive MAS attendants (I throughally agree with their #1 cabin crew rating, even if my sis is an SQ stewardess) let me take up a whole row of 4 seats in the centre and I plonked myself across them and slept like a pig. My stomach couldn't bear anything more than orange juice that I had to force down too, and for the first time in my life I didn't eat the food or watch the movie. God I must've been REALLY sick.After what seemed like an excruciatingly long flight to KL, we touched down and my sister booked us onto the connecting flights to Changi. She had to take an SQ flight a full hour before me though, so I was left with an hour to puke my guts out in the KLIA toilet. The last of the Pakistani food left my system (the inflight food from Islamabad to Karachi, and good riddance too) and I felt lots better as I took the flight back home. It was again heavenly to see my sister welcoming me at the gate, and after getting my luggage (its easy to spot a bicycle going around the conveyor) I met my friends outside who took me to the hospital and my luggage home for me. God its good to see old friends again, especially when you feel like dying. Cheers you up no end.

So now I'm in CGH, diagnosed with malaria that I probably got from the huge ass mosquitoes at Mianwali, that basically I cycled with and pushed myself too hard to become jaundice and affect my liver and kidneys. I've become quite an interesting patient, so the med students have a field day with me (I was the subject of a lot of their tests and basically felt like a medical guinea pig, which I'm used to and frankly didn't mind in the least), the doctors were nothing short of great and and the nurses really took care of me. And my roommates are really kinda fun, and the neverending stream of friends and family I'm eternally thankful for. God its so good to see them again, and especially EAT SINGAPOREAN FOOD. I tried to resist the first few days but then I gave up and the rojak, mee goreng and prata all came. I even had a whopper, such was my craving for food that I missed. I never thought I'd say this, but though the circumstances of my return were much less than happy, and I'd much rather be back with the wind through my hair and the world at my feet, its good to be home, Singapore. I missed you.

But that doesn't mean I'm through with you yet, rest of the world. In the indomitable words of Ahr-nold, I'll be back.