Hors Catégorie (3/3)

Did I mention that the road was pretty awful?

A few days later the serenity of the lake was but a distant memory. There were more serious things on our mind. At last the time had come to take on the Khunjerab Pass, a 4693-metre beast that seemed to have shaken off the ribbon of tarmac that once adorned it in one big fit of laughter. We pretended not to be impressed, tried to ignore the appalling road surface, and grew increasingly smug as officials at various checkpoints told us that we were the first this year to cycle to the top. 'And quite possibly the only,' we were quick to add.

From the icy plateau that is the Khunjerab Pass, it was a 2000-metre descent back to the village of Sost—an inevitable piece of backtracking given that the Chinese insist that cyclists bus it to Tashkurgan, the first town on their side of the border. The bus ride itself was largely spent worrying about our precious bikes strapped to the roof of the bus. Fortunately, it only took customs and immigration on both sides of the border nine hours to rifle through everyone's belongings and establish that the bales of tea carried by Pakistani traders really only contained tea and that our bicycle panniers were stashed with nothing but a harmless assortment of odd-looking tools and dirty laundry. By the time we reached Tashkurgan—it was 3am—we'd given up all hope of making it to scenic Karakul Lake the day after. We decided to take that day off and limited our activities to eating, sleeping, acquanting ourselves with a new culture (in these parts Central Asian rather than Chinese), congratulating ourselves on having reached China and revelling in the thought that the worst lay behind us.

The (very) cold, hard proof that we actually made it

How wrong we were. The two-day ride from Tashkurgan to the ancient city of Kashgar, terminus of the KKH, was every bit as nasty as anything we'd done before. On paper it looked fair enough: a 1000-metre ascent to Ulugh Rabat on the first day, then a night in a yurt on the shores of Karakul Lake, followed by a long but mostly downhill stage to Kashgar.

Had we grown too self-confident? Too optimistic at the sight of the lovely Chinese tarmac that stretched out before us? Hard to say. The only thing I know is that Ulugh Rabat, at a mere 3955 metres not nearly as high as the Khunjerab Pass, is the biggest lung buster I've ever climbed. High up on the Khunjerab Pass we'd noticed the effects of altitude—we were a bit short of breath—but on the flanks of Ulugh Rabat we were panting like pneumonic packhorses. The hailstorm on the summit did little to improve our mood.

God bless China and its heavenly tarmac

And the KKH hadn't finished with us yet. On the last day a fierce headwind tried to blow us back to Pakistan, forcing us to ride in each other's slipstream. Out of sheer exhaustion (or, quite possibly, dim-wittedness) we then missed several turnoffs to Kashgar, something we didn't realise until the flat countryside consistently refused to give way to anything resembling a biggish city. This little detour bumped up that day's total to a positively loopy 219 kilometres.

And here we are. In Kashgar. Too dazed to look back, too tired to look forward. The only mountain I'm interested in right now is the mountain of smoky kebabs served at the tiny restaurant next-door; the only lake a lake of cold, smooth, and yes, at last, legal beer.