Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

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...

The next morning we were expecting escorts, and there weren’t any, which cheered us.  We set off, and promptly lost the German. He was doing 80kph again.  Apparently he had somewhere to be.     The land was still beautifully green, with bee-keeper boxes dotting the sides of the roads.  We were rounding the bottom of the mountains, following the river.  We stopped at a check post, where a guard tried to surreptitiously hold my hand while showing me a poster of Switzerland.  It was odd. We were escorted for 15 minutes through the most dangerous part of Kohistan. It didn’t look any different to the rest, and nothing untoward happened.       The mountains were snowcapped, the light amazing, and the waterfalls suitably sploshing.     Shame about the road-  it disintegrated further, with streams flowing over it, and bits of road tumbled into the ravines below.  The pot-holes were truck sized.      ...

  We didn’t get attacked by any cheetahs.  There was a fairly horrendous attack of food poisoning though.  I woke in the pitchblack, covered in sweat and groaning with stomach pains.  I spent the next 6 hours until daylight making painful urgent excursions up the hillside with a headtorch on to deposit my Pringles in strategic locations.  Vomiting whilst wearing a headtorch is a bizarre experience… With daybreak, I started to deposit from the other end too, which got a lot more difficult as people started walking up and down the hill.  Then my legs gave way in the middle of the path, and I sat there pathetically, unable to stand, while Adam and the German slept on.   Eventually Adam got up and rescued me. They were quite sweet about it and barely mentioned the violent noises they’d been subjected to all night. I had a beautiful private moment of hilarity at about 7am, when I had made it up to truly spectacular spot to erm, deposit.  I squatte...