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.