Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

The next day we were invited to an English class celebration by the river bank. We met many young men keen to practise their English (some even more keen to try practising it on me).  The group included a very mature and bright 13yr old girl, the only woman there, and amazing in her bravery.  I wouldn’t have done it at that age, especially as she shyly hid behind her dupatta to tell me she hated it when all the men of Gilgit looked at her.    She spoke to me about a car accident they had had a couple of days previously on the cliff edge when their car had stalled, and said that Allah forgave them for it so it was not bad.  I asked her favourite subject and she said Islamic Studies, where they are taught the stories from the Koran in Urdu.  (They did not learn Arabic, meaning they learnt the Koran’s prayers by rote.)   I asked her for a story from her Islamic Studies class, and she told me of Fahuveen.  Fahuveen was a young man of who...

The way down to Gilgit was fairly uneventful, and a lot faster than the way up.  Just as we were getting there, there was an enormous truck that had fallen through the road and was stuck, half on the road and half off, with steel cables all over the ground.      There was no way round. The trucks had amassed a few miles back.  We had to turn back for an hour to the next bridge.  We arrived to find the Karimabad gang already in situ.  We spent another pleasant evening chatting, and found an English guy riding an old Aussie postie bike called Dot Cotton from Australia to the UK.  We went trout-fishing.  In Pakistan.  It pleased me greatly.     A shabby old jeep took five of us, with only three rods and two hooks.  We had adventure in our hearts and the smell of grilled fish in our noses…. We didn’t catch one bleeding fish the whole time.   The actual fishing was very relaxed though, despite the strange numbers of Pak...

The next day we headed for Gilgit.   I was still unwell and weak, and had a horrible hysterical moment of lying collapsed in the dust by the side of the road, trying to force down 3 strawberry cakes just to have something in my stomach.    I have never met a cake I didn’t like, but this was similar to being force-fed polystyrene wrapped in cotton wool. The roads were really not roads now.  They were mostly rock-strewn dirt tracks wedged tightly against massive cliff-drops.  We bounced along and didn’t look down.  Me and God renewed our occasional acquaintance.   The Indus river churned impressively below us, looking like it wanted feeding.       We found a restaurant with real food, and I was so pleased I ordered two of everything.  Sadly my stomach had shrunk.  I still ate until I physically could not stuff any more in, but it was less than I would normally have for a snack. The German, prone to periods of rapid accelerati...