The End of the Road -1

I wrote this as a stream-of-consciousness on the morning of 16th April 2022, capturing my thoughts and feelings at 7:06am.

Today I woke up and realised that this might be the final day I cycle east, ever. I hadn’t seen it coming.

Tom and I are in Assam, and today we hope to cross into Arunachal Pradesh. AP is the state that borders China, we are hoping to ride through the mountains to get as close as possible to the Chinese border.

However, currently no foreign travellers are being granted a Protected Areas Permit – this is required to cross the “Inner Line” – i.e. the border region of Arunachal Pradesh. We had been advised to try our luck at the checkpoint, and see if we were able to get across. Apparently the people of AP are very welcoming and there is a good chance they might be able to sort things at the border. We would reach the Inner Line after another two days of cycling.

Yet we found out yesterday that, in fact, we need our PAP to cross into Arunachal Pradesh itself.

We don’t have the PAP, and so today will be the moment of reckoning. When we reach the border of Arunachal Pradesh, will we be allowed in?

If not – and there’s a reasonably high chance of this – then the ride eastwards ends today. That will be it. A day like any other – at least on the bike – starting with coffee, writing, breakfast. Staying in a hotel, packing up the bike, setting off. A day like any other. Yet it might be the day that heralds the end of this journey.

This is a totally odd thought. Because there has been no build up. No climax. Nothing – at all – to suggest that this two year adventure might come to an end today. The last few days have been steady, unremarkable , whilst building towards the Chinese border in the AP mountains, still five days riding from where we are.

How can the ride stop at this point? It was supposed to finish in Beijing – with grand celebrations (in my mind at least) – and at the very least, a sense of culmination, and achievement at having finally reached my destination.

But in the world that we live in, in 2022, this does not seem possible. Much like in life itself – it rarely goes according to plan.

I certainly have been witness and subject to this. However, I kind of thought that my Bristol2Beijing cycle expedition might be the exception to the caprices of life and the world and fate. That somehow, through strength of will and determination – and the help of many wonderful people who have rallied round to support this expedition – I would defy the odds, and achieve the impossible: and reach Beijing, despite the global pandemic.

Yet at this point, I appear to have run against cold, hard, reality. China’s borders are as firmly closed as they were two years ago. And currently over 30 million people (almost half the population of the UK!) are under complete lockdown in Shanghai and the surrounding areas. Whilst we should be able to enter China once the covid situation has stabilised – who knows when that will be, to China’s satisfaction? We’re probably looking at the end of this year, or sometime in 2023.

And here in India, despite having benefited from the Indian government’s support to cross the Pakistan-India Wagah border (the first traveller to do so in 18 months), it seems like this final hurdle – entering AP – will be beyond us.

And thus it seems like the exceptionalism has run out. Despite having managed to cross the borders of eight countries that were officially closed at the time (Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India and Bangladesh) – it seems like now the magic has finished.

That afternoon Tom and I reached the Arunachal Pradesh state border. At a tiny police checkpoint, a man in a purple shirt with a stack of rough-written A4 forms told us we could go no further. My journey to Beijing was indeed at an end.

At journey’s end at the Arunachal state border.