So tomorrow is finally it - after 7 weeks, I’m leaving Bishkek for another crack at the Chinese border, a week on Friday.
I’ll be riding with another motorcyclist, Aussie Brett, who's been hot-footing it across Europe and Iran to get here ASAP and fellow Brit Hassan (travelling with his dog Aries), who’s in a 4x4.
….and this is where things start to get a little bit dramatic.
The next part of the trip is probably going to be the most difficult yet - put simply, it’s going to involve crossing two major mountain ranges just as the Central Asian winter is really starting to get going.
And none of us are under any illusions - there are real risks here. Kygryzstan is a mountainous country. Whilst it can justifibly claim to being 'the Switzerland of Central Asia' when it comes to the landscape that isn't the case when it comes to the roads here nor the reliability of their gritting and winter maintenance.
Or Toblerones and cuckoo clocks for that matter.
On and off, temperatures in central Bishkek have been hovering around freezing for several weeks now and outside of the capital many of the roads are closed due to snow and ice. A summer of haring through Europe's backroads not wearing much more than a helmet, boots, shorts and t-shirt suddenly seems like a long, long time ago.
If we don’t make it through or are delayed for any reason - there’s no Plan B, because the passes in and out of China will soon be closed for winter.
The first crossing, into China, is over the Tian Shan Mountains. It’s at 3,750m and the temperature will be around -5 celsius. Not too bad.
But the second crossing, 4 days later and out of China via it’s south-western border over the Karakorum Mountains into Pakistan, well that’s a ripper. It’s a big boy at 4,700m (3 miles up) and the temperature will be around a balmy -15 celsius.
All three of us have spent the last 5 weeks jumping through hoops to get visas and sort out the paperwork for the mandatory minder for China, not to mention dealing with courier companies that keep losing passports, plus (in the case of Brett) busted motorbike cylinders. Working against a hard deadline at the end of November, it’s been pretty frustrating at times. My already receding hair-line has retreated at least another centimetre in that time.
So why bother? I mean, at the end of the day just air freighting directly to India is a viable option. And that's been a tempting option. As one respected, veteran overland adventurer advised me:
“I know you have you heart set on doing it right by overland all the way but..ask yourself if in 5-10 years you will be really concerned that you didn't do it the exact way you wanted….flying is a totally ok option. Most bikers do it.”
This has been the first big decison of this trip so far - there's been a multitude of things to chew over - the road safety aspect is obviously one, as is the weather but there's also a financial one and the wider security situation too.
But the most significant factor for me has been the raison d'etre of the trip and whether to move away from an important principle I'd set at the start of it, which was to ride as much as the distance between London and Sydney overland as possible.
Every person has their own motivations for doing a trip like this. For me, it's not just about freedom or exploration, about learning new things or seeing things with your own eyes. It's also, without taking too many crazy risks, about sticking to the challenge to reap the reward at the end of it in a way that stays with you for a lifetime. Air freighting (and I am not judging the efforts of others for one second) without at least trying to find a route out of here otherwise just doesn’t sit right.
So one of the things that this decision has taught me already - even before I hit the road again, and even if it doesn't work out - is that there are times when it's important to listen to your heart as much as your head.
I’m not going to lie - there have been times over the last 7 weeks when I’ve wavered on that. And if the cost of air freighting was cheaper, then it surely would have been a more tempting option.
But for me abiding by the overland rule is what defines this adventure - because for me that’s what is truest to the spirit of covering the miles between London and Sydney by land and of fulfilling the kind of true overland adventure that I set out to achieve in the first place.
Time to go put on me thermals - all 3 sets of ‘em.