It’s not how hard you fall, or how far.

It’s if you get back up again. And again.

It’s World Cancer Day and I thought this would be a good thought to share.

I have low points – just as everyone else does. And they’re just as low. The last couple of weeks in India have been really tough for me (maybe a surprise behind all the smiling photos).

I hadn’t been looking forward to Christmas in Delhi especially. For the first time in my life I would be spending Christmas Day by myself. Loved ones were 10,000 miles behind me, and even though I was in a city of 26 million I felt alone. I tried not to think too much about Christmas, hoping the day would pass as painlessly as possible.

There are few times when I have been genuinely astounded on this ride, but Monday afternoon was one of them. With Sukhdeep, one of CanKids’ team, and Dev, a CanLiver-cum-ethical-hacker of seventeen, we visited the oncology department of a hospital in Chandigarh.

There is also a bureaucratic side to Pakistan, where the problem-solving attitude we had so often experienced disappears. With only 50 kilometres to Battagram, where we were planning to stay the night, it seemed straightforward. It turned out in that short distance there was a preposterous 1,000 metres of climbing, so we slogged our way up at a snail’s pace for hours on end up gradual climbs. Our easy day turned into an ordeal.

Our most memorable evening was spent up a valley in the Shangla area of Pakistan. We had been invited to speak at the school that Malala had set up in her home town and we spent the evening with her cousins in their family home. It was spacious but not ornamental; the covered courtyard was bare apart from eleven wicker mattress-like chairs and there was a framed photo of Malala holding her Nobel medal aloft.

The last two weeks of cycling have been some of the toughest of the expedition so far, and it was with a sense of relief that I leant Chris against the wall of the hotel in Islamabad. TJ and I had got here in one piece, but with a myriad of stories to tell: of kindness, struggles and frustration. 

Before flying out to Pakistan, travelling up to the Khunjerab Pass, the restart point of my expedition on the Chinese border, seemed like a huge challenge, belonging to a different person and place.

Let’s start with the basics. I’ll be flying out from London Heathrow at 0840 on 26th October to Islamabad in Pakistan, with TJ, a friend from uni. We will then get as close as possible to the border with China – the Khunjerab Pass, at 4,693m – to restart the ride.

I was surprised by the number of people who thought I might not be carrying on with the Bristol2Beijing expedition following my last blog post.

To many people’s surprise, I always say the physical side to this expedition is one of the easy bits. Even when cycling the Pamir Highway. I don’t cycle every day. In fact, I probably only spend half the days cycling.

There was a time, back when I cycled through the hills of Bavaria and along the banks of the Danube, when I wondered “why isn’t anyone paying me attention? I’m riding a tandem, by myself, and it’s bloody pink and blue!” Surely I must be an unusual sight? 

Diet was one of the pillars of my life that I could control when I was going through chemotherapy. Along with exercise, it was one way I tried to improve my chances of living a bit longer. I had found myself in a situation over which I had no control: being diagnosed with cancer. Yet I could still choose how I acted in that situation. Cutting out meat, sugar, white carbs (to avoid sugar spikes) and increasing the amount of vegetables and pulses in my diet became important, following the advice of The Anticancer Diet by Dr David Khayat. I became vegetarian, then vegan. It’s also when my love for oatcakes, hummus and cucumber reached new heights.

Various shades of bright lycra bounced up and down outside an Almaty park – perhaps a late night party that had lost its way in the bleary morning light. 

Despite the early hour, there was palpable excitement in the air, which rapidly infused into my own waking body. We, a group of fourteen, had gathered to do our own B2B challenge – and believe it or not, this was the first time I (by which I mean Kate) had organised an event en route to bring people together. I was left wondering why it had taken so long and determined to do more in the future. 

Last week I visited two special cafes in Almaty. This adjective is not given lightly; the cafe competition is intense in Kazakhstan’s former capital – globalisation has hit and I’ve been spoilt for choice over where to make up for the lack of bitter espresso and steamed milk I experienced between Shymkent and Almaty, and my typing is surrounded by the hiss of misters and glow of fairy lights.

Uzbekistan is perhaps the country most associated with the old silk roads, however what I will take from it is not the majestic madrassahs, the comforting caravanserais or even the iconic blue domes, but the warmth of the Uzbeks who lit up this leg.