Bartang Boogaloo 2

The road grew rough and Strom felt off. The dashboard seemed shakier than normal, but maybe it had always been like that. It is entirely possible to imagine such issues, and in these situations one may actually wish to find a (small) problem to confirm their suspicions and put the doubt to rest. Like finding out it’s just gonorrhea.

I continued on a rocky track along the river with the secondary fuel warning light flashing - I had minutes to go. Suddenly the road vanished beneath a fresh landslide of sharp, melon-sized scree pouring straight into the river. There was no way around. Tire marks indicated that at least a few cars had made it across, but the path was sloped towards the river and not yet compacted down to a level surface. I was not at all confident in my ability to take this 600 pound machine across, but keeping the bike leaned away from the river in case I should drop it, I miraculously wrangled it across. 

From there it was about 10 miles to the first town when Strom died in motion. He started and stopped several more times, giving out on declines as the fuel pump struggled to slake its thirst. Astonishingly, I reached the top of a large hill from which I spied about 10 small houses, and coasted my way down.

Once more I begged for food and fuel and was given both, of dubious quality. Apparently a neighboring town had recently slaughtered a yak, and something like 600 pounds of meat were shared around. It was nicely flavored, but nearly unchewable. I was also given five liters of gas, enough to get me to the next town where I could scrounge for more.

Later on, I asked several people for "benzin" and received only empty stares, when out of a stone house came a beautiful woman speaking excellent English. She took me to a man with a truck who found a plastic can, blew the dust out of it, rinsed it with water, and siphoned out six liters - enough to get me through the valley as long as it didn't gunk up my engine too badly. He assured me it was not diesel, but octane 99 - literally race car fuel. Sure.

Onward, I happened to gaze down to see the two bolts which hold the entire front of the bike together coming far out of their brackets. What a relief.