Traffic on the left side, had to get used to it, but it ain’t hard. I’m kinda good at it, I even got a record to prove that I am able to overtake on the right side. I got this record in Switzerland
by the police and it cost
me a fee about 1500 Dollars and my driving licence for a few month.
A bigger problem is, on the motorbike you have to have one mirror at least in Switzerland.
I lost my other one and as usual, I lost the wrong one. Duesi, another friend from Austria
I met in Trabzon wrote me of the problems they had between Quetta and Multan. Most of the road was only in the size of one line and 60 km of it would be sand and stones and that they were not allowed to stay somewhere, they had to drive the night through. He strongly recommended me the way over the south which
is over the double length. Well, Bernhard and I were the opinion that we had to check out this by ourself. Bernhard told me about a discussion he had with a friend who works in a tropic institute. He wanted to know how risky the snakes are and what he should do if he got bitten. What his friend told him fits for me perfectly as well:
The greatest risk you have in these countries are: An accident
Than the second largest risk you might have is: An accident
The third largest risk, would be for sure the accident
And then, for a long time comes nothing. And this statistic fitted perfectly, once more. On one of those road where you have only space for one car, too less distance to Bernhard and the car in front of us went into the brakes suddenly. And sandy streets, I can tell you, are increasing the way of breaking extremly. I didn’t hit something except the ground. Got only a few scratches. Lucky me, as usual. Why two lines for the traffic when one line is working as well? For a motorbike and even more for a small chopper it is a bit annoying to ride in the dirt next to the road than on the road. Therefor you try to stay on it, even when there is traffic in the opposite direction. In such situations you just think, will the space be enough? You try to stay as much on the left side as possible and is hopping that the other one is doing the same.
But more often then seldom the other one gives a shit about it. Or he even thinks what nice weired motorbikes and is heading in your direction. And if a vehicle just doged another, just with speed back on the road. And then he comes flying in your direction, but you are only a bike there is enough space! Maybe. The 60 km more or less offroad, was possible, even though it took a bit of endurance. Quite often on the way you have Police checkpoints. They always asking the same question. But they are friendly and they even give you tea or water sometimes. It was getting dark and we knew that they would not let us ride without escort and they would hook us up with those Balochestan police people, in their nice circus like dresses. We decided to sleep outdoors would be less risky than ride those streets at night, even though it was near the Afghan border. We found a place where we could not be seen from the street. And the only people we saw were some nomads in the distance. During the night we found out that there was a hiking road nearby our camp. We heard people saw some flashlights, but the bikes were placed behind bushes and we were left alone. It was a damn good place, because a few klicks more and we came across the next police check-point. We got quite easy to Multan. Except that I had big problems with breathing and felt like shit. From the dry desert into the thick air with high humidity. By the time we arrived in the hotel I was done. And one of the worst nights I ever had was following. Whatever water I drank it went straight through. Sometimes, the toilet flush didn’t even had time to fill up again until another use. I used a whole new roll of toilet paper this night. We spent three nights in this more expensive hotel, mid-range. I knew Bernhard would have preferred to travel ahead, but he stayed. Thank you my friend! If it would not have stopped I really would have had a problem. Not able to give liquid to the body in these countries, you can’t keep that up for a long time.