The Great Outdoors (English)

We're typing this message on a rather slow computer now and hope / pray that the connection doesn't bail out on us.

Anyways, it's certainly time to give a quick update about our current whereabouts.. ..and yes: we have made it to Iran!

The Island 'Karachi':
As for safety reasons concerned we decided not to ride our bikes from Karachi to Quetta. The reasons being that one direct route through Balochistan was very instable and the local police authorities only wanted to escort us if the Dutch government / embassy would send a formal request to the Chief Security Officer of the Balochistan Home Secretary office (the provincial security department). Our Dutch officials were totally refuting our travel ambitions through Balochistan and thus only wanted to assist us by informing the Pakistan authorities. How this sounds very nice and friendly this did not comply with the local police officers request of going to the provincial authorities. Thus the first route was out of question. The second route was out of question due to the jubilee of the deceised Benazir Bhutto exactly 30 years ago on April the 4th. Benazir Bhutto is probably Pakistan's second most favorite statesmen in history (apart from Muhammed Ali Jinnah - the founder of Pakistan) and originates from the North Sindh province, nearby Larkana and Sukkur. And guess what: that was part of the second itenary option. Karachi became and island into turmoiled Pakistan rural areas; the turmoil being sweeped up from the North by the day, hitting hard on Sindh and in particular the central axis of Balochistan (nearby Bela, Wad and Khuzdar). We had to go out as soon as possible..

Do Superheroes exist??:
Batman, Spiderman and Superman are all comic metaphors for superheroes. Often you don't really believe that they truly exist, but you enjoy the storylines and the fact that justice and the good will prevail over corrupt and evil - ushered in a great spicy sauce of action. Well. Just leave out the 'action' part in this sense. Our superhero in our Pakistan journey listens to the name of Laiq Zaman. Again, this man has helped us a great deal in nearly each challenge. He arranged for plan C: taking the train. For your reference: it takes a minimum of two to three days to arrange train seating in Pakistan (with a spread of possibly a week). Including the bikes this could take even longer; you can never start to imagine how long.

But Laiq assured us that he could arrange the tickets and the transport of the bikes on one day - even on a Friday (being 'prayer day' - where complete Pakistan is free after twelve o'clock noon(!)). He arranged it. In the morning we called Laiq and within matter of minutes we were expected to show up at the Karachi City Train Station, not far away from our hotel. It was here that we met the crew of the Pakistan Railways under the leading guidance of Mr. Kamran. We were treated like VIPs, clearing our bikes, pulling them (literally) into the wagons and we got two good seats in a sleeper's compartiment. All the while we had chai with the Kamran crew (a good mixture of Balochi, Sindhi, Punjabi and (semi?)Pashtun people. Just before our train departed they treated us on our last Karachi biryani (s'thing like spice'up rice) and off we went: to Quetta: safely and swiftly.

Qoming into Quetta:
Arriving in Quetta the next day our bikes were slightly damaged.. ..yes.. ..booohhoooohooo.. ..slightly damaged.. ..it still hurts.. The bikes were stacked as sardines in a still-to-be-solved-generation2-Ruby's-cubicle.. ..in other words: it did not fit entirely. My Gummikuh'tje (my bikes German nickname) had a cracked windshield, carves in my front a serious cut in the fueltank (though luckily not all-the-way through) and suffered serious starting problems whilst firing up the engines - like Lisanne's Kawasaki. Lisanne had a big dent in her fueltank too and a pinched saddle.

While it was nearly pulling tears out of our eyes, we surely realize that this is a relatively minor price to pay for security and safety. The damage to our bikes was cosmetic and not structural. We could move on after fixing them briefly by cleaning the spark plugs and work-the-ducktape. For the ones who are not familiar with the great invention of ducktape: ducktape is your all-in-one silver-colored screw-set, glue-set, breakfix-set and no-so-fancy metallic paint surrogate. It's a must-have on journeys like these.

The Kiteflier in Quetta:
We found excellent refuge and a place to fix our bikes at hotel Bloomstar. Hotel Bloomstar is definitely 'overlander' hub hotspot number two in Pakistan. Like the Foreign Tourist campsite in Islamabad, nearly everyone traveling overland from Iran to India crosses (or has to cross) hotel Bloomstar. It's allegedly Quetta's oldest hotel existing and it has some fine hosts and a locked private parking lot. Mr. Ahmed, the son of the owner speaks a wise-man's kind of English. As a student, he studied English literature and is full of great proverbs (like his 'nothing is never more than something'). In addition he is a big fan of kite-fighting; probably Quetta's largest kite-enthusiast as he had lifted Quetta's largest-ever kite into the air on the celebration of the prophet Muhammad's birthday mid-March last.

The giant kite was about five-and-a-half-meters tall and flew over Quetta like a dark maiden over the desert town. Contrastly this unmanned flighing object was largely celebrate in Quetta as a great show. Put this into perspective that army forces wanted to fly drones (unmanned army bomber/scout aeroplanes) over Quetta to scare the local Taliban forces indiscriminately thus also scaring the local people of Quetta and surroundings.

Looking at Ahmed, silently and skillfully working his kite in the air, this region doesn't need bombs, or unmanned scouting planes moving about in numerous amounts. It needs kites in the air. People amuzing themselves while 'fighting' for honour through cutting each other's (kite) lines. Anyways, its just hard to judge all these people that were incredible hospitable, honest and articulate about their lives and future while listening to them in the train to Quetta and while staying at hotel Bloomstar. Sure enough, we did not see anything else in Quetta as a matter of safety precaution; walking in the streets of Quetta as a Westerner is like walking in the Bronx, New York; it's just not safe.

Tower of Babylonian Balochistan:
But it's not safe because people just don't understand each other - there's not dialogue. No communication other than via the media. Funny enough, the media loopglasses on the Balochistan region - even the Pakistan media. You can be quite sure that no positive news comes from Balochistan. To give an example: we read a news article in the local media heading "from our reporter in Quetta: two people killed in Balochistan". At first you think: 'okay.. ..that's another examplar that stresses the instability of this region..'. But than you continue to read the article and it goes like this: "Sandeep Archalla Kahn shot himself terminally while he was cleaning his rifle in Noshki..", followed by: "Bandir Zinnibad was driving his lorry on the wrong side of the way when he accidently had a frontal collision with a local tractor in the region of Kalat.." My point being: if you are a reader and skip the text under the headline, you think: Balochistan: warzone. Otherwise if you inform yourself about the extra text than you find yourself concluding that maybe it's just 'mediaplaster'.

Whilst media is now the only 'mediator' between the people you can consider the difficutly of the current situation. There is no direct dialogue, there are only so-called 'Chinese whispers'..

Escortmen:
From Quetta Ahmed arranged our first escort. In the morning a pick-up truck appeared with three soldiers and we fired-up our bikes. Soon enough we were driving the highway out of Quetta with our police escort. The landscape in Balochistan is as impressive as it is deserted. Our bikes were great. Fully-packed we drove from police-post to police-post. At a certain moment we did not even get a police escort. The local police just assured us: "just enjoy, relax and experience Balochistan as it is. You will be fine and you will like it." It was as if the local police wanted to prove us wrong: that our probable incorrect impression of Balochistan will be dimished by our own personal experience. In brief that's (at least my experience) Pakistani Balochistan effort: they want to prove that this largest province of Pakistan is friendly, hospitable and perfectly safe to travel through.

Our first day we had an ambition to drive from Quetta to Taftan, some 600 km's. Quite a stretch. Sometimes the tarmac road had a close resemblance of a Belgian cyclepath. Sometimes we had no tarmac, just grind. Sometimes we had to drive through desert sand. Sometimes.. ..well, we drove over undefined soil, really..
The road to Taftan (at the Pakistan/Iranian border) was predominantly occupied by big Pakistan 'Elefanti' trucks and high-geared Daewoo-tourist coaches; the desert locomotives of Balochistan. Big bikes (as the Pakistani called our bikes) are a seldom rarity on this road. In every village and police post we past, people ran to the road cheering to us: unbelievable. Sometimes, people just stared..

Then suddenly while being just some hundred twenty kilometers from Taftan, we faced our first giant wall-of-sand: Mr.Sandstorm. Suddenly, a huge force pulled our bikes to the side. All the while, rough and cutting sand was charging us, as if was blown from a bannister...

...more to come.. have to eat now..