Pakistan #1 – along the Afghan border

Bernhard and I had a dreamlike thought once of riding the whole way from Bam, Iran to Quetta, Pakistan in one Day — 1200 km. On the first day we didn’t even get over the border, less than 300 km. We had frequent escort service, I once thought that a escort service is usually a beautiful woman who is your accompany to a business event. But those escort services were no woman at all and usually heavy armed. First a motorbike, with a police guy with a machine gun on the back picked us up at the hotel. Then we drove to a hotel were we waited for some Chinese people. And together with them we had we had a short ride. The escorts changed often, 10 times this day. Always with waiting included, once over 2 hours. And you can do nothing against it, they take your passport and don’t give it back, not even during the escort. So behave! As the evening came near it was clear that we would not get over the border. So we had to stop and spend the night in the city Zahedan, nothing worth to see. The next was a bit more smooth, the escorts changed only 6 times but we were able to reach the border before noon. The scene at the border was quite funny, we met a group with a bus who was already waiting at the Iran border since 6 o’clock in the morning. We got there and after 10 min we had our stamps and were allowed to leave, maybe a Swiss and Austrian numberplate are still better than a UK one. The border of Iran was looking like a usual border and when we were allowed to leave we saw some raw dirt huts and a too friendly guy who was waving at us. We decided to doge this guy in these strange clothes, because this, in no way, could be an official. We were wrong, the Pakistan border consists only of small huts, for the customs office to get the stamps for our bikes we had to drive while, nowhere a fence or something like it. Already there you could see that it is much a poorer country than Iran.
But the officials with their weird nice clothes were much more friendly than the ones in Iran. We were able to move on and drove straight into a desert which was looking like you usually would imagine it if you think/dream of desert. Beautiful dunes, a constant wind blows sand over the street. Almost no traffic. Sure it is the dangerous part, along the Afghan border, but we just had to stop some time to take some pictures it was amazing. We had a quite a way to drive and couldn’t stop for too long.

With the little bit of money we changed at the border I filled up the tank but I knew it would be tight for me to get to Dalbandin. The small city were we intended to spend the night. It was night when we arrived, luckily we found our hotel straight away, we drove our vehicles in to the back of the hotel and two meters inside of the fence my bike stopped for good, no drop of gasoline left. Two long days done and others were following. The morning after I decided to check out this town and look for a place to exchange money or maybe even an ATM. I walked through the streets and was quite overwhelmed. Extremely lively and totally Asian like. Everything moving, screaming, selling fruits, the smells, the sliced animals, it’s hard to write down those impressions. But I left the camera in the hotel. I found banks but they don’t change money. I saw one police guy looking not so happy at me. I got an offer for a Pakistani Chai with milk and after that I went back to the hotel. When the hotel manager brought us to a place where we could change money the police guy came with two other armed guys.
And the hotel manager got some problems, he would not have been allowed to let us walk free on the streets. Of what we heard a guy was kidnapped 6 month ago in this city. So we got an armed shadow again, even though the shadows are really friendly and would even go for a sightseeing tour with you, we preferred to leave. Pakistan, yes it is maybe dangerous, but what is not. There were bomb attacks in the major cities and sometimes people get kidnapped. So many travelers are going through this country, if it hits you, it hits you.
I survived riding in Tehran and the odds are good that I get to India as well. The people and even the police guys are really friendly in this country and I think that makes it’s visit worthwhile and I haven’t even seen the mountains yet.