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Blue Lake (Tajikistan) to Qala-i-Khumb
Now that was a tough day! I lost count of how many times I nearly came off. We're still following the M41 and it had rained all night so we were forced to cross innumerable streams running down the mountain side each one swollen by the rain and running at full pelt. The second one nearly had me as my right foot slipped off the peg which left me hanging off the right side of the bike clinging onto the left bar to retain balance pity there was no-one with a camera it would have looked messy but cool. There were so many dodgy crossings that I've lost count but most of the bad ones were captured on video so you'll be able to watch it on the DVD. The first serious problem occurred when we arrived down in the river valley where there'd been a bridge wash out. The stream we were trying to cross was in full flood and deep enough to flow over the top of my panniers. Simon was one of the first guys across and didn't make it, the bike fell over in the middle of the stream and sucked a bucket of water into the cylinders we got him out ok but after clearing the water out of the cylinders the bike still wouldn't start. It turned out that the top of the starter motor casing had fractured leaving poor Simon in the van. Then we started up the 4300 metres pass through the Hasraji Shoh Range of mountains and it started to rain. The pass was one huge mud bath punctuated on the upper slopes with snow slides - I lost count of how many people came off or got stuck in the mud but it was a real mess luckily no-one was hurt. The place most people fell was a snow slide that had just been cleared by a bulldozer it was on a steep downward slope and there was no grip at all I had the bike in first gear and the rear brake full on and it would not slow at all it just slid down the slope, luckily when it arrived at the bottom I was still on it. Into the next home-stay better but not much.
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