After miles of desperately bad roads literally carved out of the mountain sides I was flagged down by a Police officer - another passport check - or so I thought. 'Do you want to see a snow leopard?'. Er, why not? He waved me into an walled compound and closed the wrought iron gates behind me. Odd. I realised then he wasn't dressed in Police unifom. Four other men stood around. One of the guys was washing a white van down - Jeez! He's washing out the evidence of the last tourist they sliced up and fed to the 'snow leopard'...'This is it. I'm going to be robbed!'.....

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At that moment a man came from behind the building followed closely by - an unchained snow leopard! He put it on the bike, then gave it me to hold. It was a huge cub, about 6 months old, and it soon wrestled itself out of my nervous grip. They'd caught it and were going to release it after 10 months. Right. I thought of the BBC guys who’d waited in a freezing ‘hide’ for six weeks and had only managed a long telephoto shot of this rare creature. Amazing.

Over the next few days I pushed on up the KKH driven on through the deteriorating weather by thoughts of the warm welcome awaiting me at Sost. It would have been - if they'd had any power. I rode into town and was invited to join Bin Laden's brother for tea. At least, that's who he said he was....

Click on MORE below for dramatic tales from the KKH and travelling the legendary Khyber pass - with an armed guard.

The Khunjerab Pass.....4750m. With a lightened bike I began my attempt on the summit. 85kms away. Easy. If it hadn't snowed above 3000m. I paid my National Park entrance fee and, waving confidently, I rounded the next corner and rode into - ice. The entire section of road that was in the shadow of the surrounding peaks was a single lane width of grooved ice. This was going to be a long day.

Two kms further on, I nearly called it a day. A Chinese Earthquake supply truck had jack-knifed off the edge into the ravine due to thick ice on a down hill section. Luckily no one was hurt and recovery work had begun. The locals eased me through the worst section with my back wheel sliding out from underneath me. My God…. I was still 40kms from the top - surely it’s going to get worse? 'No Problem!' 'Road OK to top'...Sure.

With my heart in my mouth I eased the bike through the icy patches and climbed steadily thinking of only one thing. No, not my sofa, but the Chai house at the Chinese border crossing where I'd be greeted like a hero by the hardy local traders and the Mongolian truck drivers amazed that I'd ridden solo to the peak..... You know where this is going, don't you.

Chisel-jawed I leaned into the icy wind as km after km passed slowly by. It was COLD but at least the sun was shining. At last, the terrain levelled out and I picked my way along the icy road, passed frozen lakes and, at last, the border came into sight. It really is the last few kms that are the worst. I whooped! Euphoria was short lived as I realised the border crossing was one man stood by a barrier. No cafe. No wood burning oven. No congratulations from the mountain men of Asia. Nothing. I wanted to cry. Instead I put all my remaining clothes on, took a quick photo and began the descent......dreaming of my sofa, a log fire and a pot of tea.

Hotel 'Sky Bridge' obviously appears in the same guide book as Hotel Paris. No hot water. No heating and intermittent power . There was one 'bathroom' (I use the term loosely) for the whole Hotel. It should be in the Tate Gallery next to 'Unmade beds'. Someone had set fire to the plastic cupboard above the sink and the whole thing had melted down to become 'one' with the sink. Bizarre.

"Next morning I pushed the bike through the crowd that had gathered at the Hotel. Men shook my hand proudly, the women tried to hold back the tears...Miss Sost 2005 leaned forward and kissed me pressing her mobile phone number into my hand. What a party that had been last night......."OK. OK. In reality the Hotel owner grunted as I struggled through the doors with my bags. I pulled my collar up against the biting northerly wind and I set off southwards with the prospect of another long day in the saddle.

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My Pakistan visa was running out. I really wanted to get to the legendary Khyber Pass so had a couple of long, hard days over some of the roughest roads I'd ever ridden, arriving at a heavily polluted sunset at Peshawar, about 50kms from the Afghan border. (See map)

Peshawar is 'Bloke City'. Where ARE the Pakistani girls? Tis a drab life these guys lead. I looked forward to the Bollywood Girls of India.

I'd read that I could travel up the Khyber Pass on the bike with an armed guard but, to be honest, by now I was feeling knackered and 'Mountained Out'. I accepted the persuasive ways of a local guide - Mr Prince - who arranged all. The following morning I squeezed into a dented Suzuki taxi with Mr Prince and swarthy driver, and gunned it to the place where 'No foreigners passed this point without Armed guard'.

I forgot to mention that I'd had another haircut. At one point I'd decided to leave it and grow a beard but after 3 weeks I realised I looked less like Clint Eastwood in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and more like Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees circa 1975. The last haircut, in Turkey, had left me looking like an officer from the 163rd Panzer Gruppe - this one had me looking like an American GI on leave. Just the image I needed at the Afghan border.....

Negotiations and hand shaking followed and an 'Armed guard' joined our party.This was it.The Khyber Pass - steeped in History....So with Pakistani Pop music blasting out of the tinny radio and drinking Coke, we raced up the pass which was busy with trucks and overloaded minibuses heading for Kabul. Apparently, a lawless stretch of road populated by rival tribes. There were, indeed, murderous looking armed men at regular intervals along the road - mixed with laughing, waving children in blue school uniforms. Bizarre. A chai in a rough street cafe, photos overlooking the Afghan border clutching Kalashnikov then back down to Peshawar.

Rawalpindi. The tales I could tell about Rawalpindi...but I won't. So many stories are hitting the cutting room floor - to reappear in The Book!

I steered through the 'Pythonesque' closing ceremony at the Indian border and enjoyed my first beer for weeks. Amritsar was the first stop. I'd planned on booking into a really comfortable Hotel but found myself meandering into the narrowing alleyways of the Old Town. I was waved through and, before I knew it, I was at the gates.'
'What are you doing at the Golden Temple?!' demanded the bearded guard. Now what?!

To be continued.