On the road again..............finally

Here are me and my new companion Kieran crossing the long awaited and belated border between India and Pakistan. The last few weeks have been a constant struggle to obtain the necessary documents to proceed to Pakistan and Iran but with a bit of grit and determination and the inevitable dollar we finally got everything wrapped up in Delhi last Friday so since then it has been all go, go, go. That for a man who has done nothing but wait, wait, wait for the past two months is about two and half goes too many. Leaving Mcloud Ganj up in the Himalayas on Sunday morning I calculated that I have spent 6 days on my bike in the past three months if my brain was not transmitting this fact to my subconscious my legs certainly were, it was a struggle to say the least and considering this first day to Pathankot consisted of a 1700m descent and the rest flat the tidings were looking rather grim. Thankfully though the body maybe weak but the mind is still strong so I am writing this 300km later in Lahore grateful for the days rest but feeling slightly more optimistic about my state then four days ago.

Delhi this time round was a much more civilised affair as I was staying with some good friends in a beautiful apartment in a quieter area of Delhi then my usual haunt around the main bazar. I have always been a champion of eastern hospitality but this about took the biscuit with all my meals being served and cooked by a smiling Nepalese maid and my friends doing everything in their power to entertain an Irishman bored of waiting, anyone who knows me knows that this is not an easy task! For all those lovely people who are reading this entry my heartfelt thanks go out to you and look forward to seeing you all again in the near future.

The cycle to Lahore was a monotinous trudge through the plains of the Punjab with a mixture of dust, trucks and incredibly fast and noisy buses. On the positive there are sikhs everywhere who are such a friendly breed of people you would not believe this coupled with cycling with a companion for the first time since Tibet made the pain in my legs bearable and in retrospect was probably ideal for my reintroduction in to the cycle touring trade as there was not a climb in sight. Our last stop in India was Amritsar where the Sikh's golden temple is situated which is quite beautiful and which also offers free accomadation to weary travellers such as ourselves which was very clean, warm and comfortable and run by an extremely friendly man who offered us tea every minute of the day and gave us a big hug on departure, probably my first from a big bearded turbaned man but hopefully not my last!

The border crossing was rather uneventful, I don't know what I was expecting maybe a few derogeratory slurs being shouted from one side to the other but unfortunately/fortunately it was rather peaceful. We also met a couple of Nepalese cyclists heading on the same route as us, they were part of the inspiring group of people who travel on 1 speed bikes and with about 2 kilos of luggage, really put us with our 27 speed bikes and 20 kilos of luggage to shame. We later found out that there 2 kilos of luggage mostly contained postcards and souveneirs from their country to give to people, bloody do-gooders!

The entrance to Lahore was an adrenaline rush and maybe one of the most dangerous sections of my trip to date. A 4 - 5 lane motorway filled either side for 3 kilometres with the biggest livestock market I have ever seen, sheeps the size of goats, goats the size of cows, cows the size of bulls, bulls the size of tanks and camels the size of giraffes numbered in their hundreds. Thankfully they were well marshelled and were not part of the obstacles that were needed to be avoided post haste, never before have I seen such a variety of animal and motor drawn vehicles going left right and centre and I dont think for a full 30 minutes I had the chance to blink. We managed to find a rather cosy room and after wiping off the mouse shit form my bed and eating a kilo of beautifully bar-b-qed red meat I fell in to a peaceful slumber.

So far the Pakistanis are everything I have heard them to be, extremely friendly without being obtrusive and willing to help in every way possible. I have barely been here 24 hours so yet to make a conclusive judgement.

Tomorow we will start to go towards Multan which may take about 3 days, from there it is about 7 days across the mountains, snow permitting, to get to Quetta where we will take a train across the rather dodgy Baluchistan to Zahedan in Iran.