A BRITISH adventurer imprisoned after straying into India in search of medical help when he became exhausted and emaciated while retracing an ancient trans-Himalayan tea route pleaded for his freedom last week.
Speaking to The Sunday Times at Haridwar jail in the foothills of the Himalayas, Daniel Robinson, 38, who runs a catering business in London, described how he staggered into an Indian army camp severely weakened by altitude sickness, pneumonia, malnutrition and a kidney infection, only to be arrested as a suspected spy.
He had walked for more than 200 days along the 1,400mile Tea Horse Caravan Road from Deqin in Yunnan province, southwest China, to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and was continuing on foot with two horses to Nepal where he planned to apply for an Indian visa.
Robinson’s journey took him through some of the world’s harshest mountain terrain and he survived partly on handouts of flour from villagers along the route.
He was resting his lame horses when plummeting temperatures forced him to change course and descend a mountain into Uttaranchal, one of India’s Himalayan states bordering China, where he appealed for help at the military camp.
After initially being welcomed by the officers, he says, he was arrested, blindfolded and forced to march for three hours to an Indian intelligence interrogation centre, where he was accused of spying.
Robinson, who has a teenage daughter, set off last April to join a group of travellers following the ancient Pu’er Tea Company trade route, where tea has been traded for horses for more than 1,000 years.
The route, which can take a year to complete, crosses both tropical jungles and and icy mountain passes, scaling 17,000ft peaks. At some points on the journey the horses had to be winched across steep gorges.
Robinson said he had launched the expedition as a spiritual journey that would test him to the limit and bring him face to face with death. Having survived sub-zero temperatures at high altitude and crossed raging Himalayan torrents, he said he had accomplished his mission.
Puzzled by his treatment and the severity of his 18-month sentence but glad to be alive after the ordeal of his journey, he admitted he had been “foolish”, and wished he had headed straight for Nepal.
“I nearly died crossing a river. The current was taking my legs away, freezing cold. When you reach a point close to death it’s like turning towards the light again and it brings you alive and makes you realise that everything in life has a great value,” he said.
“I walked on a sprained ankle for five days, suffered constant diarrhoea from drinking river water and ate nothing but fried cabbage and rice for 65 days. I marched more than 18 miles every day without stopping. After Lhasa I went on my own. It was extremely difficult and only nomads in yurts live there.
“I decided to come south at the end of October because the temperature was dropping. I had no map. I didn’t know where India started or where I was going.”
According to Robinson, he was forced to climb a 17,300ft mountain on his way south and suffered severe altitude sickness on the ascent. “The horses became more sick and I had bad headaches. There was snow and I thought the possibility of surviving it was slim. I cried because I couldn’t see my way through.
“There was a 100ft drop down to a river, and then the horses bolted and we all fell down the slope. If we’d slid for another 4ft we would have gone over the edge into the river,” he said.
At the Indian camp he realised he was in trouble when he glimpsed an army intelligence letter that referred to him as an “intruder”. He was questioned by four intelligence agencies before they were satisfied that he was a harmless, if unworldly and ill-prepared, adventurer.
Nevertheless, Robinson was charged under India’s immigration laws and pleaded guilty after being told he faced two years in custody awaiting a trial date if he protested his innocence. “I didn’t think I would end up in prison, because I’m not a criminal – maybe a fine or deportation,” he said. “I hoped they might give me a visa and I’d be able to meet my daughter and spend Christmas in India.”
Robinson said his hopes of release now depended on an appeal hearing on February 12. “I may be stupid but I don’t have any bad intentions. I got carried away with the spirit of adventure and I just didn’t know how or where to stop.”