Me at the river Qwai 

 

So Far....

Arrived in Delhi at the begining of June. Cycled around Kinnaur and Spiti, hugging the Chinese/Tibetan border before joining the awesome and legendary Leh Manali road passing over two 5000m+ passes including the Taglang La, the worlds second highest motorable road at 5328m abv sea level on the way to Leh.
Stayed a few days in touristy Leh, a Himalayan town at 3500m above sea level before cycling the Khardung La at 5602m, the highest motorable road in the world. 
From Leh I headed westward to the green and fertile but also troublesome Kasmir and holed up in Srinagar for a few weeks to rest and to try to put on some weight after losing 10kg.
Then headed south by bus through the very hot and busy Kashmir Valley to  Amritsar, the home of the Sikhs.
From Amritsar I headed into Pakistan to Lahore and then to the amazing border city of Peshawar, the Kyber Pass and the staggering gun workshops of Darra Adem Khel after which I headed northwards to Chitral over the Lawori Pass, then eastwards over the Shandoor pass to Gilgit, a nondescript town with on of the best chillouut gusethouses on the travelscene.
From here northwards the scenery is simply stunning as the KKH winds it's way through 7000m mountains and glaciers almost touching the road. The Pakis like to call the KKH the eigth wonder of the world and it seems a fair enough claim?
Cycled to the magnificent glacier and basecamp of Rakoposhi, probably the first ascent by bicycle, then onwards to the tourist centre piece in the Northern Areas, Karimabad.
North from Karimabad the mountains soar upwards taking ones breath away.
At the border town of Sost I headed west to the newly opened to tourism Chapursan Valley and the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and this vallet remains the highlight of my trip.
Finally I made it to the Khunjerab marking the border with China. I saw this point as the final challange before heading downhill back to Gilgit where I sold my bike and enjoyed the easy but boring life of bus tourism.
On my way back to India I checked out the spectacle of the flag lowering ceromony on the Indian/Pak border before making my way to Delhi then Bangkok before heading back to England for a few weeks visit.

If all goes well I'll post a travel log as I go including plenty of photos, so please keep calling back for a look.

If anyone would like to contact (abuse) me please feel free to do so on the  Forum link on the left hand side of the screen and I'll reply as soon as I can....which may be a few weeks!
For those of you who are having difficulty with the forum just click on the Forum link, click on "indianakev" post stuff here and simply read the messages and leave a reply if you want to.

For those of you who want to mail me direct (because the forum can be difficult to use) with any Pakistan/India questions then please do so at
<1111-cyclingkev@usa.net>.

Thanks....

Kev!

 

 

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