#snelfietsen

The Wakhan valley is a bit of a dead end street; the closer you get to the end, towards the Chinese border, the rougher and quieter is gets. All normal vehicles must return the way they came, and only serious 4X4’s can challenge the rocky path climbing out of the valley, winding through the mountains back to the M41 highway. Well, and cyclists that is.

This connection section to the country’s main road easily has the worst roads so far from what I’ve heard, and not a single sign of civilisation for days. Just pure wilderness. It feels a bit risky in my current condition; still recovering massively from being sick and not eating, heading out into this remote area without any doors to knock on, should I collapse. The locals that I tell of cycling the stretch on my own like this, shake their heads. But there is no real alternative other than to go forward and give it what I‘ve got. Luckily I’m feeling a bit better and could hold in a bowl of noodle soup for dinner, but unsurprisingly I still have very little power.

Looking at my schedule and knowing that my medicine should be available somewhere down the road, I decide to head out the next morning. Not having been able to eat for 3 days, I feel incredibly weak and am literally shaking on my legs trying to hold my packed bike up straight. The homestay is only about 50 metres off the main road down a little path, but I certainly wouldn’t have made it back up there without one the host family’s kids helping me push my bike.

The first 20k’s are tough as hell, getting back in the rhythm of demanding performance from my recovering body. Every bump in the tire deep pebble road feels like climbing mount Kilimanjaro. So I just make lots of stops to catch my breath and slowly but surely start eating some tea biscuits with honey that I buy passing a kiosk.

After a morning of cycling I make it to the pharmacy, that appears to be closed! But no way am I leaving without my medicine. So after harassing some passing locals they find someone, somewhere that seems to know what he’s doing. The guy gives me three types of medicine, without an information leaflet, and only one in packaging -that is in Russian… He tries to explain what to use when, and in which quantities but I don’t understand a word, so I just have him write some Cyrillic instructions on the prescription, hoping I will bump into someone along the way that can translate it.

Day two in the Wakhan. The deeper I get into the valley, the rougher the roads. Around midday I try to escape the scorching sun in some sort of a Sovjet bus stop where I run into a groom, nervously sucking on a cigarette. He and his posse are on their way to the bride and guests in a big white Lexus (the local wedding vehicle standard) covered in lace ribbon, fake flowers and two massive plastic wedding rings on top. It would make a great episode of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Wakhan edition.

My map hasn’t prepared me for a seemingly endless climb later that afternoon, with a deep gravel, washboard surface. When I finally reach the top, of what the topographer apparently doesn’t consider a highpoint of any sorts, I’m completely destroyed. I plump down on a rock besides the road and try to eat some sense back into me with a victory Snickers. It takes me half an hour to see the breath taking view I have over the Panj river. The Wakhan lives up to its reputation on every level.

Utterly exhausted and feeling like puking I reach a homestay where I meet Andy again. I’m so nauseous that I have a hard time getting (and keeping) any of the rice with eggs and naan in. An hour later, halfway through my plate I give up and hit the hay.

The next morning I feel like a wreck. And as the Wakhan doesn’t know any ‘easy days’ I decide to stay at the host family a bit longer. Andy continues onwards and I wave him goodbye with a bit of a heavy heart, knowing that I most probably won’t see him again this trip. I get back to bed, but during the day my condition worsens and I have heavy stomach aches.

The next day is even worse; I’m in constant pain and puke out everything I eat. The only thing I can do is lie down and keep hydrated, drinking the ORS I brought. Using hands and feet I attempt to describe my condition to my host family, and in reply they pick some terrible tasting herbs from their garden. To no avail. Then they bring out the mother of all Sovjet medicine; a large shot of vodka with what is at least a table spoon of salt. I coin this cocktail ‘Scorching Seawater’. Drinking alcohol on an empty stomach definitely makes me feel better, but after the buzz dies out the heavy pains are back, even worse than before. I’m laying down in a foetal position, praying for it to stop. My condition keeps worsening despite the local kill or cure remedies, and I can hear my host family worriedly whispering outside my room about what to do with me. They don’t own a car or any other means of transport to get me to a doctor, so I’m basically stuck here.

If reaching my limits ever had a heroic or aspiring ring to it, it sure as hell doesn’t now. 

Laying in this shabby room, thousands of kilometres from home, staring at a ceiling for days and not being able to eat or communicate; I just feel so incredibly alone. The uncertainty of what’s wrong and how I’m ever going to get out of this is killing me. Having all the time in the world to go over the worst case scenario’s isn’t helping either.

The good news is I’ve stranded only a few kilometres away from the last ‘hospital’ for the next 200k’s or so. With my situation sort of stabilized the next day, I muster all my courage and strength, and cycle over. Wandering around the small complex of military style barracks, I manage to find a doctor that speaks some English. He lays me down on a worn waiting couch in his hallway that doubles as examination table, and quickly diagnoses ‘gastrit’. Something I’ve never heard of, and his English isn’t good enough to explain what it is exactly. But he writes me a prescription and strongly advises me to stay away from goat meat, if I have interpreted his bleating and fingers-as-horns impression correctly.

My ‘gastrit’, as it turns out, is an acute inflammation of the stomach’s lining. The combination of stomach acid running through this same space makes it…sub-optimal. That explains the burning pains, especially when consuming anything –in particular vodka with salt.

Back on the road, solo! It was cool cycling with a group for a bit, but nothing beats the freedom of being on your own, stopping whenever you like and moving at your own pace. I’m now entering the illustrious Wakhan Corridor, junction of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. A dream come true!

Just before lunchtime I run into an Italian cyclist coming from the opposite direction, pushing his bike up the sandy track and we exchange information on the road ahead. “It is bad. Real bad. You will have a LOT of pushing to do in the Wakhan valley” he says, looking disapprovingly at my heavy loaded bike. He rides a lightweight mountain bike with suspension and only 2 panniers. I have a heavy duty steel trekking bike with 4 panniers and a big rack pack… But at least he doesn’t sound as furious as the Russian cyclist I met a few days back, who couldn’t stop cursing the roads and those who made them. So there’s still hope.