Feb. 19 - Hasan Abdal, Pakistan

Sunday, February 19 :: Hasan Abdal, Pakistan :: 9km today / 4740km total

Rain! The first real rain of my trip. I had planned to take the bus back along the Grand Trunk Road anyways, so I walked the muddy 3km to the bus station, rolling my bike along beside me. Things were a little confusing at the terminal but eventually I was on a bus going in the right direction, and off we went. There was some sort of strike today (Danish cartoon issue), and parts of the major highways were blocked, so we had to take a LONG detour around. At 3pm I was dropped off about 5km from Hasan Abdal.

On loading the bike I discovered that one of my aerobars was cracked. Why not, eh? I walked over to a welder, who could not weld it (my aerobars are made of something other than steel, I guess), but attached a sort of ring clamp brace. I'm not sure if this will hold or not - my aerobars bear the weight of most of my gear, and I have some hilly roads ahead... I will try to address the issue further tomorrow. But for now, the bars seem solid enough, and I pedalled slowly along the Grand Trunk Road into Hasan Abdal.

Several large signs at the main junction in Hasan Abdal mark the beginning of the KKH, Pakistan's Silk Route, and it was within a few hundred metres of km 0 that I found a place to sleep. Its 800km to China from here. Tomorrow I have at least 2500 feet of climbing.