Survival guide: Cycle touring

You know something has gone very wrong when your other half is willingly putting his hands down his pants in public. In our case it's at the top of a snowy 4,800-metre mountain on the Sichuan-Tibet border, freezing cold and stuck in a blizzard. Thankfully, the only onlookers were a bunch of ominously horned yaks who seemed rather mystified as to why two white folk with fully laden bikes were interrupting their usual peace and quiet with various expletives about the weather. "I've read that your groin is the warmest part of your body, I'm trying to defrost," says Charlie, offering an explanation for his bizarre behaviour.

We had been cycling for hours, it was too cold and rocky to set up camp at altitude, and there had been no settlements for kilometres. To top it all off, the sun was rapidly setting."Why on earth did I agree to this?" I wonder, as we finally began our freezing cold descent, snot dribbling down my nose and my hands turning to ice. From the look on Charlie's face he was clearly thinking the same thing. "This" is cycling from Malaysia, where we had been living and working for the past 18 months, back home to Britain. Welcome to cycle touring.

A few hours later, warm water in hand, ensconced around a small fire in a village shop with a bunch of locals scratching their heads at our presence we remembered why; if you like travelling, cycling gives you a unique, off-the-beaten track experience, one I have never found elsewhere.

Ernest Hemingway is reported to have said: "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them."

It's been over a month since we left Tibet — and having left drops of sweat throughout Southeast Asia and China, but been rewarded by stunning views and the smug satisfaction of having hauled my backside up the said hills, I am inclined to agree with him.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH