Real world rides, real world riders

Open road: Lead from the front

Come this way, me old China

It’s Day 33 of the inaugural Silk Road East Expedition and I’m in the capital city of Tajikistan, Dushanbe. An inaccurate road map is spread out in front of me, as our local Tajik guide explains of reports that the swollen rivers have taken out the road on our intended southern route to the Pamir Highway.

He is shaking his head, saying “not possible” in heavily foreign-accented English. A few phone calls are made to people in the local area with mixed reports. There is only one other road out of Dushanbe and it heads north.

This would be OK, except for the fact that reports from the mountain road are not good either. I groan, but it’s an easy enough decision to make. Better to tackle bad conditions on the northern mountain road, which is open, rather than risk being turned back on the lower valley route which runs along the Afghan border. I’ve not got the team through the past 6000 miles to let a few raging rivers stand in our way – the goal of this trip is to get them to China and Tibet and if Marco Polo could do it with a few mules in the 13th century, we were going to do it on our trusty GSs.

One year earlier we had been here on the research trip that would put plans in place for just such potential problems.  Adventure travel is about flexibility and adaptability. When travelling in remote parts of the world, you cannot expect everything to go according to plan and no matter how much you organise, you must be ready for change and on the spot decision making – especially when you have 13 customers waiting on your every move. Travelling with a group and on a schedule is a very different experience to completely independent travel and even more so with a trip that needs us to be at the Chinese border on a specific date.

Problematic

I had always known that this section of the trip was going to be the most problematic. There was the uncertainty of the road conditions, which even on a good day are unpaved, ill-maintained and often single track. These conditions make them unpredictable and totally dependent on the weather...  and this year the winter had held on longer than normal. The late snow melt and torrential rainfall was bound to cause problems, and if that didn’t, the political instability in this area might!

So the decision was made – it was to be the northern route out of Dushanbe and I explained the new plan to the team and why it was necessary. Changing routes at short notice can be a nerve-racking time, but the team has to believe and trust in you and your decision making. In these situations, you must lead from the front, gather the facts you have at the moment and get on with the ride.

Sweet and sour pork

So our route was set. Take the M41 mountain route via the 3252m Khaburabot Pass, then divert south into the Pamirs, along the Wakhan Valley, before picking up the main route north to Kyrgyzstan. We’d then got a five day loop riding across Kyrgyzstan, to the Torugart Pass where we would meet up with our guides at the Chinese border. Sounds straightforward enough! Gravel roads, mud, bit of sand, several high altitude passes and we’ll be eating sweet and sour pork before you know it.

If only it was that easy. While packing my gear in an oasis of luxurious modernity (namely the Hyatt Regency), the CNN is on satellite telly and the story unfolding is not good. Shortly before leaving the UK, the Kyrgyz President was ousted and an interim government put in place. There were a few incidents and the FCO had put Kyrgyzstan on an essential travel only list. But the news on the ground had been fairly reassuring. Now it seemed to be a totally different affair. The former president’s supporters had congregated in the south.  There were reports of shootings in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad. Our intended loop would not only pass through these places, but we were due to stay overnight.

As the situation deteriorated to ethnic violence, my concern was not only the Kyrgyz route, but our actual entry point into China. When entering China, the route is pre-approved by the Chinese Government, including the port of entry into the country. Ours was listed as the Torugart Pass from Kyrgyzstan into China. Turning up impromptu at a different Chinese border point was simply not an option. Everything had to be pre-organised and rubber stamped. The whole situation in Kyrgyzstan was seriously jeopardising the expedition.

Crisis management mode

Instead of a leisurely final night in Dushanbe, gearing up for our new riding route across the country, I was launched back into crisis management mode to find out the facts and determine what our options were to get from Tajikistan to the Torugart Pass or even if it was possible to do so.

To find out what was really happening in the area, I called our local Kyrgyz contact, Mirbek. He confirmed that the trouble was mainly in the two southern cities, but could not give us clear advice about whether the borders into Kyrgyzstan were even open. This didn’t help much, as we need to enter Kyrgyzstan in the south. The next call was to the British consulate in Bishkek. They told me much the same as Mirbek, but with a little more caution as the thought of British citizens travelling through an area of unrest was not something they could advise to do.

The management of this situation was completely different to our earlier problem of roads washed out. If I were to lead a team into a dangerous area due to political violence, it could potentially be disastrous. We also had the problem of our entry into China. If our port of entry was to change, we needed to act quickly and make a decision on the information we had now and what we thought might happen!

Our agency in China had to have a minimum of one week's notice to make the changes to the paperwork for the entry point. In this type of situation, many do not want the responsibility of making the decision in fear of it being wrong, but it needs to be made and the job of a good leader is to make that decision with the safety of the team as a priority – not to mention the reputation of my company.

Flurry of paperwork

I made the decision to change our entry point into China. Trying to get to the Torugart Pass would involve riding the loop through Kyrgyzstan via the problem cities. So our new entry point would be the Irkeshtam Pass, which curtailed the journey into Kyrgyzstan to only a one night sleepover in a yurt camp at the small village of Sary Tash and then a 50-mile ride east to the Chinese border. Yes, we still needed to enter Kyrgyzstan, but we would be hundreds of miles south of the troubles. There was still a risk that if the situation worsened, by the time we arrived at the Kyrgyz border it could be closed, but that chance I took. As it was a different entry point into China, this set our Chinese agency into a new flurry of paperwork – could they change the entry point in time? So!  We had only been two days in Dushanbe, but already two major changes to the plans for the next eight days had been made.

The team came together again later that night over a beer and I went through the next tranche of changes with them – only one day’s riding in Kyrgyzstan and a different untested border crossing into China. It was nail-biting stuff, very frustrating but there was a genuine prickle of adventure in the air. All the riders wanted to reach China and they understood that I was trying to achieve that.

Cold and wet

The next day was cold and wet, with heavy black clouds in the sky. The team was well rested, raring to get back to the challenge and the bikes revved to be unleashed into the unknown conditions on the Pamir Highway and the rebellion in Kyrgyzstan. I’m all front, leading the way, but hugely conscious of the unpredictable difficulties of Mother Nature, political turmoil and Chinese bureaucracy. Getting to China was not certain by any means.

Barely 60 miles out of Dushanbe, we had already four river crossings under our tyres, before we started to climb to altitude. Each metre chilling the air, thickening the mud and providing an ever increasing sprinkle of snow and wisp of fog. Several riders started to go down and the going was slow.  I was trying to keep Charles in my mirrors – at 70 years old, he’s my oldest customer and I thought he might need a bit of a hand here and there, but he’s a tough old turkey. He sailed through the rivers where others failed and I only had to pick him up once when we slithered on ice. It took two days to reach the remote town of Kalaikum on the Afghan border, but finally, we were in the Pamirs.

Morale booster

Gathered around the small yard outside our home-stay, I broke open my first morale booster as congratulations for the team – a bottle of Penderyn Welsh Single Malt Whisky. It was greeted very well and helped to give us that warm feeling you get after a long hard day's riding and finishing in a very remote part of the world that very few travellers, let alone motorcyclists ever go to.

The road running through the superbly remote Wahkan Valley is exceptional. A good quality gravel road with stunning views runs alongside the river, across which is Afghanistan. In the 13th century, Marco Polo travelled this route and more recently at the end of the 19th century it was part of the territory wrangle entitled 'The Great Game' between Russia and Great Britain. Now it is a perfect GS playground, with almost zero traffic, ancient forts and stunning views across to the Hindu Kush.

But there are some obstacles that even a GS can’t traverse. As we rode into the small village of Langar, we learnt why there had been no oncoming traffic. Eight miles beyond, yet another road had collapsed. While the team set about finding sleeping bag space in the home-stay, my right-hand man, Mark, and I headed out to take a look. There was a huge gash in the mountainside where a massive section of road had slipped into the valley below. Without wings, there was no way we could get the bikes across.

Some locals arrived and there was talk of blasting overhanging rocks to try and fill the gap, but with no machinery and no dynamite, it was never going to be realistic.  And this was supposed to be our way to the southern border of Kyrgyzstan and then into China... another setback! The only solution was to retrace our tracks back to the M41 and continue on the main route to the border. Back at the home-stay, I gathered the clan for another change of plan. Things were getting tight time-wise and there was little contingency if anything else went wrong. I warned caution – now was not the time to take undue risks.

Mother Nature

We were finally blessed by two uneventful days and arrived safely at the small tin huts that denoted the Tajik-Kyrgyz border post and thankfully, it was open. The muddy quagmire that was supposed to be the road through no-man's-land was the worst I’ve ever encountered. Trucks laid trapped at the side of the road not going forward or back. Riders were wide eyed, weary but unwavering even though the snow was starting to fall heavily. The fears of revolutionaries seemed utterly nonsensical – it’s Mother Nature that could cause us the greatest harm.

In Sary-Tash, we awoke to almost complete white out. This was not good. Today was the D-day. We had to cross the pass and enter China; our guides were waiting for us. I pulled out yet another morale boost for the team for what was going to be another tough day – Wayfarers All Day Breakfast – a boil in a bag taste of home, including baked beans no less! I was worried about the roads and if we could make it, but I got the team together and showed no signs of concern. It’s another boost of positivity, chat about teamwork, help each other and take regular breaks. “If it takes all day, it doesn’t matter as long as we all get there.”

Mud, snow, ice

The first 15 miles or so it is Tarmac but then deteriorates rapidly to just damn appalling. Mud, snow, ice and barely 50m visibility. Bikes are getting stuck everywhere. If not in the mud, then on the ice with wheels spinning. People start to go down and I am concerned about injuries, but luckily the bikes slide away and the landing is soft. At one point the clouds clear and we regroup. Looking up the mountain, we see a long line of trucks ahead and a 'road' which is nothing more than a trench of mud, bulldozed through the snow. Are the trucks stuck or is this the queue for the border? Time is slipping away, progress is painfully slow and spending the night up here could turn to reality.

But first, let’s go and recce the trucks. After slip-sliding my way to the rear of the last truck, I park my bike and have to go on foot. To the sides the snow is over my knees and where the trucks have churned up the surface, deep water holes wink. It soon becomes clear that one vehicle has got stuck and it is causing the hold up. The bulldozer arrives and it cuts another path past the dead truck. Soon things are crawling, but it is still slow going and I know we are all up against it. Mark and I keep stopping to help anyone we can and the team are sticking together, pushing and pulling and picking up. It is times like this that you really appreciate a great bunch of people. Here is not the place for individual whims or selfish action – we all have to pull together for us to succeed.

Lucky 13

It takes us seven hours to do 40 miles. When we finally arrive at the Chinese border we take stock. Forty bike drops and zero injuries among a lucky 13 riders. Although it has been one of the hardest day's riding we had all ever done, everyone was exhilarated. We have done it and now we will enter China, to Kashgar, the famous livestock market and barbecue camel feast to celebrate!

The last two weeks had made us work hard to get here. It had tested the team and kept throwing problems at us. But we stuck together and got through. Each crisis had a set of facts, a few unknowns and some things that I knew would just be beyond my control. You use your best judgment to come up with the options and then make a decision.

A week or so after we entered China, several hundred people in the Kyrgyz city of Osh were reported dead and the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan was closed.

Be careful out there.

Kevin & Julia Sanders

It’s not the critic who counts

Most of us have been there. A group of you are riding together. Maybe it’s a Sunday blast or maybe it’s a few mates on a week’s ride in Europe. When you end up organising your own thing, someone ends up having to step forward as the leader and make the decisions about the ride – where to stop, when to stop, which way to go. Most don’t want to take the responsibility, knowing that it’ll be them getting the flack if the café is shut or the road is closed for roadworks or the hotel wasn’t booked and it’s full.

It’s normally the very same riders who haven’t lifted a finger that will be first to lift their voice, giving the brave soul who did step forward, their opinions of how it should have been done better. But then they’ll sink back into oblivion when the next real time decision needs to be made. Just remember, “it’s not the critic who counts”.

Try running the ride as a democracy and the whole thing falls to pieces; everyone has a different opinion about what time to leave, what the end destination should be and how long to spend drinking coffee. The best of friends can squabble like sulky teenagers and then no one ends up deciding anything because they know it will be an evening full of “I told you we should have...” It’s a recipe for inefficiency because no one will make the decision.

I once had a disgruntled customer tell me on the trip that he didn’t like the way that I made all the decisions on tour – there should be a bit more voting by the group on what should happen. Voting on which restaurant to go to is one thing, but anything vital, especially when in little known parts of the world where the practical experience and knowledge of the route rests with me, is not an option.

As an Expedition Leader, I have to take full responsibility for being the man in the arena, leading a team of riders in some of the most isolated and wild regions on the planet. This means leading from the front, instilling confidence and giving direction in stressful situations, where riders need help and advice. And not voting on whether riders would like to try to make a border crossing or not.

The first Silk Road East – London to Beijing Expedition is case in point.

Kevin Sanders