Here I am and I can not quite believe that I am. Home always has that timeless quailty that makes one feel that they have never gone away so thinking back to the series of events which so hastily finds me here is a strain on my dire memory even though it happened this past weeek.
Snow is indoubtedly the main reason, buckets and buckets of snow, in a twist of rather cruel irony, my favourite of god's precipitations and one on many a dry alpine night I have prayed for prevented me finishing my trip by land. The whole of the north of Iran is buried beneath metres of snow preventing any form of transport from getting anywhere thus most likely including my train from Tehran to Ankara. This left me with a decision, I could risk going to Tehran hoping everything will thaw but in doing so due, to financial restrictions in this country, would burn all my bridges in getting home if the train did not run. East was Iraq and west Pakistan, two countries I believe deserve a rather wide berth at the moment. So south it was to the sunny smugglers town of Bandar Abbas, a seedy town with the atmosphere of unpredictability sorely missing in the rest of Iran. Here was my gateway town to Dubai, a short hop across the gulf, and sweet financial freedom and see where it takes me.
Having been here in Dubai before and finding it a rather souless place in the blazing sun the addition of torrential rain persuaded me that my original idea of a couple of days on the beach should be scrapped and an immediate plee for a ticket to Dublin asap was happily granted at ticket sales. So after a meer thirteen hours plane watching in Dubai airport I hopped on an aerlingus flight and a degrading strip search later found myself a home for breakfast, a distance ten days ago i planned to do in 8 months I managed to do in 6 hours, its a funny old world.
Regrets you may ask, never, who knows what amazing adventures and oppurtunities this decision could lead to and what catastrophies i have avoided. Life is most definately too short for regrets. So in a briefer then expected sign off, that is that, 9months, 9000km, 9 countries and a fair few stories later I am nestled back in Blackrock with night time border crossings and kalashnikov waving guards a distant memory!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Better Irani Days
As expected I have had to eat my words about Iran, but only some of them. The fact that I predicted this occurence certainly sweetens the bitter taste that such an act usually enduces. the reason for this snack is mainly due to the above pictured family who offered their home to me in Esfahan for three days and treated and served me with the same supplication that Xerxes II must of recieved a couple of millenium ago. It is said round these parts that a guest has the face of Allah and one must treat a guest as such, and so they did, fruits, biscuits, meal upon meal and as much shishah as my lungs could take all washed down by countless cups of sweet black tea. The guiltiness and awkwardness about being served so grossly by the women of the famiy soon wore off and was replaced by a lust for an Iranian wife and a loathing for the sexual equality menace which has terrorized our society since the days of the suffragettes and for which I for one am willing to make a stand against.
I am of course joking so you can stop typing the hate mail and erasing me form your contacts. but the womens life in Iran is not as sheltered as maybe common perception has it believed. In comparrison to Pakistan where I did not speak to one woman, women in Iran are approachable and seem to hold nearly as many jobs as men. On a bus trip to Bandar abbas two beautiful young Iranian women started a conversation with me and proceeded to invite me to their house which I having become an Islamic prude in the past weeks was shocked by. Due to other priorities I had to decline but it made me realise the stigmas I had attached to women in Islamic countries and how wrong I was. The education of women in extremely high and despite the strict dress laws they live a relatively liberal life.
There are of course certain dos and donts, the daughter of the family I stayed with, recently married, showed me around the sights of Esfahan, the husband, a surly, mulleted, thick moustached, ex iranian boxer was none to happy about this and from what i gathered from the frantic farsee being shouted from family to mullet man, I was quite close to getting an iranian knuckle sandwich, and believe you me it would of been a rather one sided affair.
This husband seemed to sum up the majority of Iranians I met, ignorant pricks if you excuse the French. Think back to the most authoritarian, condescending police officer you have ever had the misfortune to cross paths with and that is the average 20-45 year old Iranian male (anyone who falls out of this category is without fail lovely). Like with the policeman they know that they have the upper hand, me not speaking farsee and a stranger to the country, so the only acceptable action is complete submission, any other act will end in repramands usually financial. Not being one to bite my tongue and cower like a dog travel in Iran was at the most part infuriating and costly.
Maybe because of the high expectations I held, the brilliance of Pakistan and my state of mind I am not a fair judge of this country but it is the one place I have visited that I would not hurry to go back to. And just to note all my original complaints still stand true. Though I will not go in to it again, the treatment of gusts in Islamic countries puts us christians to shame as we both share the same rules in both religions but we have seemed to ignore. I shudder to think of their reaction when they recieve the treatment I have seen other tourists recieve in this country.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Judas
Judas is the name I have quite aptly given myself due to a quite radical decision which has been brewing for the past few weeks, as we speak Rocanante is broken in to little pieces and is winging his way back to the emerald isle. I on the other hand have swapped my paniers for a rucksack and will continue on home by petrol powered locomotion leaving a much harder and more determined Kieran to peddle on solo with only his Jesus beard to keep him company, hence my new name.
This to some may come as a rather rash and spur of the moment plan but to others who have spoken to me in the past months may not be as surprised. I think the main reason is I am just tired, tired of being sick, tired of being cold, tired of looking like a concentration camp survivor and generally tired of being tired. I no longer look forward to meeting new people in abstract situations which to me is a sure sign to quit.The thought of facing three months of one of the harshest winter on record in these parts and camp through the snow and ice just seems too much for me and what makes me respect Kieran even more for carrying on, he really does deserve alot of kudos.
So from here I will take the bus to Esfahan for a few days, then to Tehran where I will catch a long and considering the conditions a potentially exciting 3 day train journey to my friends house in Ankarra, then Istanbul and from there who knows, but with so much snow falling everywhere the call of the Alps is very strong, so Morzine here I come.
I will continue updating my blog but without good old Rocanante the adventures to recount may be few and far between but if there is something of note I will let you know. To keep in touch with a real man check out Kieran's site at delhi2dublin.blogspot.com.
This to some may come as a rather rash and spur of the moment plan but to others who have spoken to me in the past months may not be as surprised. I think the main reason is I am just tired, tired of being sick, tired of being cold, tired of looking like a concentration camp survivor and generally tired of being tired. I no longer look forward to meeting new people in abstract situations which to me is a sure sign to quit.The thought of facing three months of one of the harshest winter on record in these parts and camp through the snow and ice just seems too much for me and what makes me respect Kieran even more for carrying on, he really does deserve alot of kudos.
So from here I will take the bus to Esfahan for a few days, then to Tehran where I will catch a long and considering the conditions a potentially exciting 3 day train journey to my friends house in Ankarra, then Istanbul and from there who knows, but with so much snow falling everywhere the call of the Alps is very strong, so Morzine here I come.
I will continue updating my blog but without good old Rocanante the adventures to recount may be few and far between but if there is something of note I will let you know. To keep in touch with a real man check out Kieran's site at delhi2dublin.blogspot.com.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Persia
People usually do what I am doing in reverse, there are of course obvious reasons for going west to east, the fact that you are departing your home ( for europeans) and the added bonus of everything getting cheaper. Iran has taught me another important reason for going the opposite way, when you go east to west as I am doing countries get considerably more dull, boring and sanitized. Maybe a little harsh but I have been having to continuosly remind myself that I am not infact in Argentina bi-daily, I actually greeted the man in the hotel lobby by "Buenos dias" yesterday morning. There are two abvious reasons for this besides my obvious lack of intellect, ther first is like Argentina is you close one eye and squint the other you could well be in Paris or Madrid, of course here rather then Argentina the lack of womens hair, alchohol and the abundance of Soviet cars is a constant reminder. The other reason as I calculated as I suffered from a bit of a bout of insomnia is that in the last 16months I have stayed in a grand total of different 128 rooms, not including the 30 nights or so that I have camped, surely enough to adle any brain.
I am not so far as you might tell terribly impressed by this country, it seems to be lacking charachter that the past countries have had such an abundance of, the culture shock is minimal and despite the stunning architecture at nearly every corner there is very little that new. I will now move on to the two most dissapointing parts of the country so far, the Iranian diet seems to consist of kebabs, burgers and pizza, oh yes, and roast chicken. The bread which I have been loking forward to, seems to have been baked with a flour substitute cojnsisting mostly of rubber, great for a yeast flavoured chewing gum but not so good when rapped around your kebab. Secondly and this almost brought me and Kieran to tears on discovery is that the no good do gooders of this world have arrived here and banned smoking in public places, surely not too big a deal for non-smokers, but when my idealogical picture of me in Iran is sitting in a musty tea shop, sipping on strong sweet black tea, pondering my next move in chess and being reassured by the theraputic bubbling sound as I take another draw on my apple flavoured hooka can be no more then a dream I feel like packing my bags and going to a more civilised hooka smoking nation. Basra is only a few hours bus ride from here, well on second thoughts maybe not.
I will have to recap the last few days as I am sure you havenoidea where we are. Aftre spending a day exploring Kerman which had to be fair a rather nice Bazarre, we packed our bags the next morning and left with the first rays of sun, after doing a 9km detour because of completely wrong directions from a "nice teacher" we finally found the way out of Kerman and felt sure we were going in the direction of Yazd.
A quick sidenote just to explain the problems of cycling in Iran, there are huge expanses of nothing especially in the south east where hundreds of kms seperate village from village where any sort of accomodation is doubtful, camping is of course possible but to get out of sight of the road you have topush your bike for miles and even then it is freezing and with no chance of anything resembling water, so one must pack ones bike to overflowing point.
So where was I, oh yes, we were joining the only linking road between Kerman and Yazd and to our horror it was an 8 lane highway populated by extremely smelly trucks. After struggling in to a gale for 20km along this ro0ad and contemplating another 400 of the same we stopped took out the map and made a slight change of plan, a wussy plan if you will but I am a very grateful wuss for doing it. We put our tails between our legs and cycled back to Kerman, where we got a bus to Shiraz in the western mountains bordering with Iraq, here there seems to be a large amount of secondary roads leading to Turkey to please us and also will offer us a change of scenery from the monotinous dessert.
While I am on this anti-Iran rant I have never met a more money hungry rip off artist bunch of people who seem to do anything in their power to take your money and use the advantage of you not knowing the language and being defenceless entirely to their advantage. I am sure I will end up eating my words as what usually happens, but having heard so many great things about these people I am absolutely appalled especially after the reception I recieved in the last Islamic country. I will give you an example, the only time we were ever ripped off in Pakistan by a few cents at a street stall, a crowd of people who were there started complaining and shouting at the vendor and calling him cheat untill he gave our correct change, here after already paying through our teeth for the privalage of putting our bikes in the luggage hold of the bus to Shiraz midway through the journey they started to demand more, we of course refused but to get us back they demanded us to leave the bus 23km from the centre of Shiraz at 11 o'clock at night, the whole bus was watching this but no-one did anything, I could not believe it.
The photos I am publishing are of Persepolis about 40km from Shiraz where about 2500 years ago Darius and Xerxes used to welcome visiting dignities to their land until Alexander the Great raised it to the ground. It was quite incredible to see and really very inspiring but as i am sure you can tell I will need alot more then this to remove this bitter taste from my mouth.
Hopefully the cure for this bitterness is get the hell out the cities and get on your bike, which is what we will be doing as of tomorow morning, we are going to go camping in the mountains for a few days on an abstract route to Esfahan which will hopefully introduce us to a higher class of Iranians. This all depends if I can fix Rocanante who is not in the best of shape, our explosive diarrhoea which has been attacking us for the past few days subsides and the rain and snow lets off for a while.
That is all from a very disgruntled Will in Shiraz who may offer this piece to the Iranian tourist board or more likely the Department of Defence in Washington!!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Belated Seasons Greetings
Happy Christmas, New Years and all the seasons cheer that goes along with it from Kermann in Iran, the great escape from Pakistan was completed yesterday after a quite amazing couple of weeks which I will try to describe as briefly as possible. The last entry seems like an eternity ago but I start where I left off, Lahore. there are only two stark memories from this city, one is the horrific pollution, to think I used to moan about it in New Delhi, I really had no idea how lucky I was and secondly the mouse shit on my bed turned out to belong to his rather larger cousin of vermin who was not adverse to paying me midnight visits, he was as you can imagine rather happier to see me at that hour than me. Pakistanis say that you have not seen Pakistan unless you have seen Lahore, if this is the case they have a pretty poor opinion of their country, even the Mausoleum and fort failed to inspire me.
So we waved goodbye to the noxious fumes and my teary eyed room mate and pedaled as fast as we could along a busy, misty motorway untill we arrived 130km later in, on first opinion, a very dusty dirty town by the name of Okarra. Luckily for us all the hotels around the noisy bus stand were closed for Id so with the help of a gang of incredibly friendly youngsters we pushed our way through a beautiful bustling bazarre until we reached a Christian run hotel which was open for the muslm holiday. Despite our tiredness we hastened to return to the thronging crowds outside full of the festive need to buy anything shiny. We could not move without people inviting us for a tea, something to eat or inviting us to their house as in one case they were sacrificing a camel the next day and wondered if we cared to join. That evening we only accepted a couple of offers as the tiredness soon kicked in so we returned to our hotel to passout, high on the generosity of the people.
The next morning Kieran was not feeling so good so we decided to stay another day, it was the first of the three days of Id so the Bazarre was deserted but I volunteered to try and pick up some food for breakfast. I had just finished my morning chai in front of the mosque when a street sweeper aprehended me and stated in broken english that he was a christian, seeing I was too, he stopped everything and brought me to a juice stall and bought me a juice, soon one of his friends passed who was also delighted to see me, I was shoved on to the back of his bike and brought a kilometere across town to the rectors house where I was endulged with tea and biscuits, after an hour of being thouroghly entertained I remembered Kieran and made my excuses not before they bought me a few kilos of bananas to bring back to my ailing friend. There was just one more stop off to make at the family of another man where yet more tea and biscuits were indulged and where a greatfuly accepted a lunch invitation in a couple of hours. I was then walked back to my hotel as they continuosly bought me food as gifts arriving back at the hotel my head in a spin. I roused Kieran from bed to make the lunch time invitation but on arriving at the house found nobody there, a case of cross comunication, so we went to a snack cart at the end of the road and started eating some chips, it was not log untill we were surrounded by well wishers with one inviting us to his house around the corner which ofcourse we accepted. It was not long untill a mass of friends and family joined us for tea in the living room which after being drunk we were again whisked off to the other side of town with another man to his family house, where we passed a incredible six hours talking, laughing, eating and a bit of dancing. It being Id everyone was off work so there was a continuous line of people stopping in for a quick chat from airforce pilots to college proffessors to college students and many more besides all eager to chat and answer our many questions concerning their country and their religion and vice versa. We had to forcibly insist that we would stay in our hotel and not their house but only if we promised to come back in the morning to join their family for the sacrifice of a cow for Id. Just a little note to describe Id, it is the muslim holiday where they celebrate Abraham's sacrifice of his son Ismael to Allah to show his true devotion, Allah realising how devout he was substituted Ismael for a goat and hence the manner of celebration. The streets at this time of year are drenched in blood and the smell of fresh meat in the air is intoxicating. We returned promptly at eight o'clock the next morning to see a beautiful large cow being pulled in to the courtyard, it was the first time I had witnessed a slaughter so was interested to see how I would react, the process was over quickly with my friend making the incision at the throat and the bellowing sounds of the cows last breaths gently subsided in the rush of blood, feeling a little queesy the invitation of breakfast was reluctantly recieved but I managed to hold down the Pakistani staple of eggs and parotta....delicious. As the butchering continued outside, we continued where we left off the night before as more and more interesting people arrived and although we planned to leave at ten we did not hit the road until two thirty, not before feasting on the freshest of fresh stew containing the heart, kidneys and liver of the recently deceased tender does not give it justice.
I can not continue describing all these occasions quite as fully as I will be here all day but yet I feel I have not given them enough to describe quite how at home and welcome I felt in their presence and this was not an isolated occasion, such hospitality was continued at every restaurant, tea house and town we stopped in. The emphasis Pakistanis put on friends and family puts us in the west completely to shame, walking the streets with them was a constant meet and greet with heartfelt hugs and handshakes the norm and a feeling that there is not a hint of fakeness about it which is so apparent in some countries.
I hesitantly fast forward so many occasions like this to the 27th of December when we left Multan, our home for Christmas, where we planned to cycle that day to Deri Ghazi Khan about 100km away. This was our first day in Pakistan off the motorway and the cycling was beautiful, past villages resembling habitations I used to fashion on Brittas Bay dotted with date palms and the inevitable sugar cane fields all being sustained by the massive Indus river. Tough I was surrounded by much beauty I felt uneasy and had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were not quite as welcome as we had been elsewhere, but after a good conversation with a local at lunch I struck it off as unbased paraoia. On arrival in DG Khan we were just about to look for a hotel when an official took us to one side and informed us that we were not allowed here and especially not without a police escourt as we had entered tribal territories of which I will describe later and that we were not safe, so we were bundled in to a police van and brought back to Multan by some very entertaining and armed to the teeth policeman.
On arrival in Multan the news of Benazir Bhuttos asasination arrived, bugger, we thought what now? The gates of our hotel were locked all the streets were blacked out and the man with the shotgun who manned the entrance seemed a little edgier than usual. We were told to stay in our room as we watched on BBC world as the chaos ensued around Pakistan. We went to sleep that night not sure of anything.
We were woken the next morning by our friendly policemen who told us of the plan to recieve police escorts the whole way to the Iranian border about 2000km away, great we thought but it would mean we estimated changing vehicle every 35km at the end of every police territory and taking 52hours of straight travelling over dodgy roads in Baluchistan. Always up for an adventure we accepted but the arrival of crowds on the streets blocking our way with burning tyres it had to be postponed untill the next day.
The Punjabi leg of this journey went along rather smoothly but as we were aproaching Baluchistan we soon realised we had put a bit too much faith in to the organisational skills of the Pakistani police. 50km from Baluchistan and realising that no more police transport was coming we were bundled in to a private truck to take us to the Baluchi border, irritated and angry at not moving for the past 2 hours and having already used 6 modes of transport we graciously hopped in, 10km from the border we were unceremoniously bundled out with not a policeman to be seen in the middle of nowhere, hmmmmmmm, we thought in the PG version of things, a policeman soon arrived and gruffly told us to hop in to the back of a pick up truck where we froze our ass off in minus conditions untill we reached the Baluchi border where the police had no idea what to do with us. We eventually hopped on our bikes and followed a motorbike through the darkness untill we reached the police station in Rakhney where after we told them of our plan to get a police escort until Iran they practicaly laughed in our faces and told us they could no way have the resouses to do this, hmmmmmmm, we thought again, they suggested taking local buses to Quetta the next day, fine but what about tonight?. Luckily the son of the local tribal Lord was there and spoke excellent English and invited us back to his house to eat and spend the night, yes please. We passed a very interresting night with the son and his cousins explaining to us about Baluchi tribes and their fight for independence from Pakistan and how the police have no power in this area but is entirely held by the lords, perhaps public transport is the best way!
We awoke the next morning to a sumptious breakfast and were soon after escorted by our friend to the bus station where he organised everything for us and we departed on our 10 hour and two mini bus trip to Quetta. We were told before that in no way should you arrive in Quetta in dark but there was nothing we could do. We had no idea where to go and were tired and nervous after a uncomfortable scenicaly beautiful bus trip. We asked everybody where the police station was and after getting conflicting signals from everyone we finally got a man with a kalshnikov to show us the way. Grateful to finally arrive in a bit of safety the very nice chief of police described the situation in Quetta, stating he can not leave his house after dark for fear of getting shot, hmmmm, quite nervous again, after finding a vehicle with fuel in it we were escorted to a hotel where we could rest our aching bones.
We managed to organise seats for the overnight bus to the border the next day which went smooth enough which in no way relates to the state of the road and despite my bike getting trashed on the roof we arrived to the border town of Taftan in one piece. This place is the epitamy of a border town in my opinion, dusty, dirty and with dodgy people two a dozen who were our companions as we waited 4 hours in the freezing cold for the beaurocrats to peel themselves out of bed.
The border crossing was the usual irritating affair and after a night of no sleep what was to follow pushed me to the limit. They insisted on giving us an unarmed pre pubesant guard to look after us until we left the Zahedan area of Iran which was fine but it turned a straight forward one hour taxi ride to the bus station in to a 3 hour costly process of having to change guard six times extremely slowly. We finally got to the bus station where we had to pay 6 euros for two tickets to Kerman but 18euros for two bikes, I screamed bloody murder but to no avail as noone speaks english and was nearly certain the police guard was getting a large cut, it was just one of those situations where you have to admit defeat. We finally reached a grotty Kerman hotel at two thirty am which like everything else is horribly overpriced. We ended up spending 65euros yesterday, our budget for a week in Pakistan, hmmmmmmm, we thought.
Well that about brings you up to date, I will reserve my judgement on Iran because as you can see it was not a great start. As regards to Pakistan I leave her nervous about her well being, such incredible people do not deserve such a turbulent future in prospect and I do not see a peaceful conclusion to the current problems. I could have written far more on the generosity of the people and the passion of which they talk about there country and religion which only attracts rather than terrifies but will have to leave it to another day. Photos will follow.
So we waved goodbye to the noxious fumes and my teary eyed room mate and pedaled as fast as we could along a busy, misty motorway untill we arrived 130km later in, on first opinion, a very dusty dirty town by the name of Okarra. Luckily for us all the hotels around the noisy bus stand were closed for Id so with the help of a gang of incredibly friendly youngsters we pushed our way through a beautiful bustling bazarre until we reached a Christian run hotel which was open for the muslm holiday. Despite our tiredness we hastened to return to the thronging crowds outside full of the festive need to buy anything shiny. We could not move without people inviting us for a tea, something to eat or inviting us to their house as in one case they were sacrificing a camel the next day and wondered if we cared to join. That evening we only accepted a couple of offers as the tiredness soon kicked in so we returned to our hotel to passout, high on the generosity of the people.
The next morning Kieran was not feeling so good so we decided to stay another day, it was the first of the three days of Id so the Bazarre was deserted but I volunteered to try and pick up some food for breakfast. I had just finished my morning chai in front of the mosque when a street sweeper aprehended me and stated in broken english that he was a christian, seeing I was too, he stopped everything and brought me to a juice stall and bought me a juice, soon one of his friends passed who was also delighted to see me, I was shoved on to the back of his bike and brought a kilometere across town to the rectors house where I was endulged with tea and biscuits, after an hour of being thouroghly entertained I remembered Kieran and made my excuses not before they bought me a few kilos of bananas to bring back to my ailing friend. There was just one more stop off to make at the family of another man where yet more tea and biscuits were indulged and where a greatfuly accepted a lunch invitation in a couple of hours. I was then walked back to my hotel as they continuosly bought me food as gifts arriving back at the hotel my head in a spin. I roused Kieran from bed to make the lunch time invitation but on arriving at the house found nobody there, a case of cross comunication, so we went to a snack cart at the end of the road and started eating some chips, it was not log untill we were surrounded by well wishers with one inviting us to his house around the corner which ofcourse we accepted. It was not long untill a mass of friends and family joined us for tea in the living room which after being drunk we were again whisked off to the other side of town with another man to his family house, where we passed a incredible six hours talking, laughing, eating and a bit of dancing. It being Id everyone was off work so there was a continuous line of people stopping in for a quick chat from airforce pilots to college proffessors to college students and many more besides all eager to chat and answer our many questions concerning their country and their religion and vice versa. We had to forcibly insist that we would stay in our hotel and not their house but only if we promised to come back in the morning to join their family for the sacrifice of a cow for Id. Just a little note to describe Id, it is the muslim holiday where they celebrate Abraham's sacrifice of his son Ismael to Allah to show his true devotion, Allah realising how devout he was substituted Ismael for a goat and hence the manner of celebration. The streets at this time of year are drenched in blood and the smell of fresh meat in the air is intoxicating. We returned promptly at eight o'clock the next morning to see a beautiful large cow being pulled in to the courtyard, it was the first time I had witnessed a slaughter so was interested to see how I would react, the process was over quickly with my friend making the incision at the throat and the bellowing sounds of the cows last breaths gently subsided in the rush of blood, feeling a little queesy the invitation of breakfast was reluctantly recieved but I managed to hold down the Pakistani staple of eggs and parotta....delicious. As the butchering continued outside, we continued where we left off the night before as more and more interesting people arrived and although we planned to leave at ten we did not hit the road until two thirty, not before feasting on the freshest of fresh stew containing the heart, kidneys and liver of the recently deceased tender does not give it justice.
I can not continue describing all these occasions quite as fully as I will be here all day but yet I feel I have not given them enough to describe quite how at home and welcome I felt in their presence and this was not an isolated occasion, such hospitality was continued at every restaurant, tea house and town we stopped in. The emphasis Pakistanis put on friends and family puts us in the west completely to shame, walking the streets with them was a constant meet and greet with heartfelt hugs and handshakes the norm and a feeling that there is not a hint of fakeness about it which is so apparent in some countries.
I hesitantly fast forward so many occasions like this to the 27th of December when we left Multan, our home for Christmas, where we planned to cycle that day to Deri Ghazi Khan about 100km away. This was our first day in Pakistan off the motorway and the cycling was beautiful, past villages resembling habitations I used to fashion on Brittas Bay dotted with date palms and the inevitable sugar cane fields all being sustained by the massive Indus river. Tough I was surrounded by much beauty I felt uneasy and had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were not quite as welcome as we had been elsewhere, but after a good conversation with a local at lunch I struck it off as unbased paraoia. On arrival in DG Khan we were just about to look for a hotel when an official took us to one side and informed us that we were not allowed here and especially not without a police escourt as we had entered tribal territories of which I will describe later and that we were not safe, so we were bundled in to a police van and brought back to Multan by some very entertaining and armed to the teeth policeman.
On arrival in Multan the news of Benazir Bhuttos asasination arrived, bugger, we thought what now? The gates of our hotel were locked all the streets were blacked out and the man with the shotgun who manned the entrance seemed a little edgier than usual. We were told to stay in our room as we watched on BBC world as the chaos ensued around Pakistan. We went to sleep that night not sure of anything.
We were woken the next morning by our friendly policemen who told us of the plan to recieve police escorts the whole way to the Iranian border about 2000km away, great we thought but it would mean we estimated changing vehicle every 35km at the end of every police territory and taking 52hours of straight travelling over dodgy roads in Baluchistan. Always up for an adventure we accepted but the arrival of crowds on the streets blocking our way with burning tyres it had to be postponed untill the next day.
The Punjabi leg of this journey went along rather smoothly but as we were aproaching Baluchistan we soon realised we had put a bit too much faith in to the organisational skills of the Pakistani police. 50km from Baluchistan and realising that no more police transport was coming we were bundled in to a private truck to take us to the Baluchi border, irritated and angry at not moving for the past 2 hours and having already used 6 modes of transport we graciously hopped in, 10km from the border we were unceremoniously bundled out with not a policeman to be seen in the middle of nowhere, hmmmmmmm, we thought in the PG version of things, a policeman soon arrived and gruffly told us to hop in to the back of a pick up truck where we froze our ass off in minus conditions untill we reached the Baluchi border where the police had no idea what to do with us. We eventually hopped on our bikes and followed a motorbike through the darkness untill we reached the police station in Rakhney where after we told them of our plan to get a police escort until Iran they practicaly laughed in our faces and told us they could no way have the resouses to do this, hmmmmmmm, we thought again, they suggested taking local buses to Quetta the next day, fine but what about tonight?. Luckily the son of the local tribal Lord was there and spoke excellent English and invited us back to his house to eat and spend the night, yes please. We passed a very interresting night with the son and his cousins explaining to us about Baluchi tribes and their fight for independence from Pakistan and how the police have no power in this area but is entirely held by the lords, perhaps public transport is the best way!
We awoke the next morning to a sumptious breakfast and were soon after escorted by our friend to the bus station where he organised everything for us and we departed on our 10 hour and two mini bus trip to Quetta. We were told before that in no way should you arrive in Quetta in dark but there was nothing we could do. We had no idea where to go and were tired and nervous after a uncomfortable scenicaly beautiful bus trip. We asked everybody where the police station was and after getting conflicting signals from everyone we finally got a man with a kalshnikov to show us the way. Grateful to finally arrive in a bit of safety the very nice chief of police described the situation in Quetta, stating he can not leave his house after dark for fear of getting shot, hmmmm, quite nervous again, after finding a vehicle with fuel in it we were escorted to a hotel where we could rest our aching bones.
We managed to organise seats for the overnight bus to the border the next day which went smooth enough which in no way relates to the state of the road and despite my bike getting trashed on the roof we arrived to the border town of Taftan in one piece. This place is the epitamy of a border town in my opinion, dusty, dirty and with dodgy people two a dozen who were our companions as we waited 4 hours in the freezing cold for the beaurocrats to peel themselves out of bed.
The border crossing was the usual irritating affair and after a night of no sleep what was to follow pushed me to the limit. They insisted on giving us an unarmed pre pubesant guard to look after us until we left the Zahedan area of Iran which was fine but it turned a straight forward one hour taxi ride to the bus station in to a 3 hour costly process of having to change guard six times extremely slowly. We finally got to the bus station where we had to pay 6 euros for two tickets to Kerman but 18euros for two bikes, I screamed bloody murder but to no avail as noone speaks english and was nearly certain the police guard was getting a large cut, it was just one of those situations where you have to admit defeat. We finally reached a grotty Kerman hotel at two thirty am which like everything else is horribly overpriced. We ended up spending 65euros yesterday, our budget for a week in Pakistan, hmmmmmmm, we thought.
Well that about brings you up to date, I will reserve my judgement on Iran because as you can see it was not a great start. As regards to Pakistan I leave her nervous about her well being, such incredible people do not deserve such a turbulent future in prospect and I do not see a peaceful conclusion to the current problems. I could have written far more on the generosity of the people and the passion of which they talk about there country and religion which only attracts rather than terrifies but will have to leave it to another day. Photos will follow.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
On the road again..............finally
Here are me and my new companion Kieran crossing the long awaited and belated border between India and Pakistan. The last few weeks have been a constant struggle to obtain the necessary documents to proceed to Pakistan and Iran but with a bit of grit and determination and the inevitable dollar we finally got everything wrapped up in Delhi last Friday so since then it has been all go, go, go. That for a man who has done nothing but wait, wait, wait for the past two months is about two and half goes too many. Leaving Mcloud Ganj up in the Himalayas on Sunday morning I calculated that I have spent 6 days on my bike in the past three months if my brain was not transmitting this fact to my subconscious my legs certainly were, it was a struggle to say the least and considering this first day to Pathankot consisted of a 1700m descent and the rest flat the tidings were looking rather grim. Thankfully though the body maybe weak but the mind is still strong so I am writing this 300km later in Lahore grateful for the days rest but feeling slightly more optimistic about my state then four days ago.
Delhi this time round was a much more civilised affair as I was staying with some good friends in a beautiful apartment in a quieter area of Delhi then my usual haunt around the main bazar. I have always been a champion of eastern hospitality but this about took the biscuit with all my meals being served and cooked by a smiling Nepalese maid and my friends doing everything in their power to entertain an Irishman bored of waiting, anyone who knows me knows that this is not an easy task! For all those lovely people who are reading this entry my heartfelt thanks go out to you and look forward to seeing you all again in the near future.
The cycle to Lahore was a monotinous trudge through the plains of the Punjab with a mixture of dust, trucks and incredibly fast and noisy buses. On the positive there are sikhs everywhere who are such a friendly breed of people you would not believe this coupled with cycling with a companion for the first time since Tibet made the pain in my legs bearable and in retrospect was probably ideal for my reintroduction in to the cycle touring trade as there was not a climb in sight. Our last stop in India was Amritsar where the Sikh's golden temple is situated which is quite beautiful and which also offers free accomadation to weary travellers such as ourselves which was very clean, warm and comfortable and run by an extremely friendly man who offered us tea every minute of the day and gave us a big hug on departure, probably my first from a big bearded turbaned man but hopefully not my last!
The border crossing was rather uneventful, I don't know what I was expecting maybe a few derogeratory slurs being shouted from one side to the other but unfortunately/fortunately it was rather peaceful. We also met a couple of Nepalese cyclists heading on the same route as us, they were part of the inspiring group of people who travel on 1 speed bikes and with about 2 kilos of luggage, really put us with our 27 speed bikes and 20 kilos of luggage to shame. We later found out that there 2 kilos of luggage mostly contained postcards and souveneirs from their country to give to people, bloody do-gooders!
The entrance to Lahore was an adrenaline rush and maybe one of the most dangerous sections of my trip to date. A 4 - 5 lane motorway filled either side for 3 kilometres with the biggest livestock market I have ever seen, sheeps the size of goats, goats the size of cows, cows the size of bulls, bulls the size of tanks and camels the size of giraffes numbered in their hundreds. Thankfully they were well marshelled and were not part of the obstacles that were needed to be avoided post haste, never before have I seen such a variety of animal and motor drawn vehicles going left right and centre and I dont think for a full 30 minutes I had the chance to blink. We managed to find a rather cosy room and after wiping off the mouse shit form my bed and eating a kilo of beautifully bar-b-qed red meat I fell in to a peaceful slumber.
So far the Pakistanis are everything I have heard them to be, extremely friendly without being obtrusive and willing to help in every way possible. I have barely been here 24 hours so yet to make a conclusive judgement.
Tomorow we will start to go towards Multan which may take about 3 days, from there it is about 7 days across the mountains, snow permitting, to get to Quetta where we will take a train across the rather dodgy Baluchistan to Zahedan in Iran.
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