Two for the road, p.18
Two for the Road, page 18
The Sajji houses of Quetta serve the popular local cuisine: legs of lamb cooked on a stick over an open fire. We head out to dinner with Peter, Dagmar, Andrew, Bettina and Ube, taking one of the motor rickshaws, the popular local transport. We try chicken and lamb Sajji and it is delicious. Over dinner Andrew regales us with stories of his travels and the corruption he has encountered on the road. Ube and Bettina are having trouble understanding him, even though they speak very good English. Little wonder why. Andrew uses some rather colourful language. ‘I was getting sick and tired of being ripped off by the coppers. Every time they see foreigners as an easy way to get cash. I vowed I wasn’t going to hand over any more cash,’ he says in an Aussie drawl that makes us homesick. ‘A copper pulls me up and asks for money. No way! I give him fuck-all and tell him to piss off!’
It’s a hilarious story but poor Bettina and Ube couldn’t get the joke. Brian explains: ‘He didn’t give the policeman any money and told him to go away.’
Oh, right. Now they get it. But it is a lesson to learn.
Australian is a completely different language from English!
It is late when we leave the restaurant and there are no motor rickshaws on the streets. We begin the walk back to our hotel, breaking all the rules. Rohan Pike, an Australian Federal policeman working at the embassy in Islamabad, warned us not to walk the streets of Quetta at night. There are armed men on every street corner. They aren’t police and they aren’t soldiers. They are tribal men. We can hear the distant sound of gunshots. Quetta is a wild town.
Quickening our pace, we notice the only other unarmed person on the street is an urchin, probably about four or five years old. He sees us as we come out of the restaurant and follows close behind, holding out his tiny, dirty hand. It is very cold, and he is wearing only light clothing. I have some coins in my pocket and give them to him. I can’t bear to think of him walking the streets along with these gunmen. Glancing at the coins, he beams, showing perfect white teeth, and then charges off into the night. It is a heartbreaking encounter.
Some of the roads from Quetta are closed to foreigners even with an armed guard. We decide to take the road to Loralai and DG Khan and then on to Multan with Peter and Dagmar. Finding the road to Loralai proves a bit of a problem. We ride into a bustling market town called Sumuni. We know there should be a turn here, but we can’t find a road sign. A fairly new-looking car drives up alongside us. Its occupants wave madly. ‘Where are you going?’ the driver asks.
‘Loralai.’
The driver becomes very agitated. ‘No. Turn back. This is the road to Afghanistan. You are just 30 km from the border. Turn back. The road to Loralai is behind you.’
We are in real Taliban country. There were so many people in Sumuni we didn’t even see the road let alone the sign to Loralai. If we hadn’t turned back we could have ended up in Afghanistan or on one of the roads out of bounds to foreigners.
We find the road to Loralai. It’s potholed but not too bad. It is early afternoon and we are sure we can push on to DG Khan before nightfall. About 20 km further along the road, the asphalt disappears and is replaced by roadworks.
Brian: I think I can push through the roadworks for a few kilometres, but it just goes on and on. The clay and dirt has been ground into a fine powder by the ever-present trucks. In places it is more than 30 cm deep. The bike ploughs through it, and I feel the dust billowing up over my feet like a fine spray of water. Following trucks through this, all visibility is lost and I follow my instincts.
In places they have watered this mess, turning it to a slippery mass. It is like glass and treacherous for motorcycles. Even some of the trucks are slipping sideways. We slip and slide our way along, and I’m sweating with concentration and adrenaline. I turn on my lights and ignore the oncoming trucks flashing theirs at me. Lights on means ‘I am overtaking’ in this part of the world.
Shirley: The last 55 km from the service station has taken us an hour and a half and the road is getting worse and worse. We wind our way across sand traps and over potholes so big you could park a small car in them. My head is throbbing from the constant bumping and the sand and dust. I can only imagine Brian is feeling even worse. Light is failing fast and we need to find a place to stop for the night.
We drive up alongside Dagmar and Peter and they suggest we camp. They propose we stay the night in their van. It is an offer too good to refuse and we will forever be indebted to them for this display of friendship and hospitality.
The first camping spot we try is near a camp for road workers. Before Peter can ask if we can stay near their camp they chase him away. A little further down the road we see what looks like a deserted settlement on a flat section of land. We go off the road and follow the track only to find a small truck, donkey, dog, man, wife and three children in an adobe building. The man, who seems very young, comes out to talk to us. His wife stands at the door nursing a baby and two small children peer out of the door. I wave at the children and the wife begins to walk towards us. Peter is still talking to the husband and I get off the bike and say hello to the woman. She is quite weather-beaten and the hand she offers me is like sandpaper. Her baby has the most exquisite eyes, which are made up with kohl. The woman is very friendly. She seems intrigued by the foreigners but her young husband is nervous. He won’t let us camp.
Dark is falling quickly and we are all more than a little nervous. We must find somewhere away from the road and the workers’ camps dotted along it. There is barely any light when we find a suitable spot and park a long way off the road. We are all tired and hungry, and Brian and I are filthy. We try to clean up as best we can, but water is scarce and we would all rather have a cup of tea than a clean face.
What would we do without Peter and Dagmar? They clean out the back of the Land Rover and make a space for us to sleep. Then they open their food boxes and, on their kerosene burner, they prepare a meal fit for a king – pasta with a curry, tuna and vegetable sauce.
Dressed in thermal long johns, socks, jumpers, scarves and woolly hats, we climb into the back of the vehicle. We might not be the picture of sartorial elegance but we are warm. And although we can hear the trucks, they are a long way away and are not venturing off the road. During the night I wake a few times. My knees throb because I can’t stretch out and my feet get cold occasionally. When Brian turns over I turn over. Grateful to Dagmar and Peter, we make the best of our situation.
When day breaks I have a closer look at the collection of rocks near our camp. It is a cemetery! No wonder the locals gave us a wide berth. Our first visitor is a worker wandering across to the village, and he barely gives us a second glance.
We hit the road, knowing it will be a long, slow day. The sandy tracks lead us through more roadworks, where the sand is even deeper than yesterday. This is, without doubt, the worst ride we have done on any bike. Occasionally, as if to lift our spirits, we get back on the asphalt road, which is still potholed and littered with boulders, but preferable to the sandy track. We can’t believe they are actually repairing about 167 km of road all at once and without any warning signs or diversions.
A bridge is down and the track takes us across a river. Now the thick layer of dust on us and the bike turns into mud. And to make things even more interesting, there are animals on the road – dogs and goats running this way and that.
The roadworkers watch us pass. Some smile and others just stare. Everything is done manually here. Groups of men sit on the side of the road with piles of big rocks, breaking them down by banging them against smaller rocks. Other men take these medium-sized rocks and bash them into smaller rocks, and so on.
When the roadworks finally end we find ourselves on a very steep and twisty road that’s just one lane wide. The trucks move over to let us pass and always make enough room for the Land Rover to get through.
It’s been a long and difficult couple of days. We are looking forward to spending time in Multan in order to get cleaned up, wash the dirt out of the bike and our clothes and get some rest.
Brian: The bike is idling very slowly – 600 to 800 rpm – so I pull out the air cleaner and find it choked with dust, after just four days of desert riding. I use Peter’s air-filter cleaner spray and let the bike dry in the sun. The bike then needs three washes. Next, I belt the dust out of the sheepskin seat covers and replace the black spark plugs with my only spare pair. Surprisingly, the bike has held together well. I fire her up and adjust the idle by ear. First one side, then the other, and our faithful companion sounds like she’s raring to go again. The noise of the engine attracts spectators and I spend the next half hour explaining the bike and our journey to eager listeners.
Shirley: Since Persian times Multan has been known for its heat, dust, beggars and burials. Being Ramadan, beggars have converged on the town and are lying around outside its religious monuments. At the Mausoleum of Sheikh Rukn-i-Alam (a scholar who died in 1334 and is widely revered as the patron saint of Multan) children in rags and old men with horribly deformed legs wait for handouts from worshippers. A man with no legs crabs his way up the hill in a small box on wheels. He uses his hands wrapped in rags to pull himself along the rough streets. It is a depressing sight but fascinating to see how the more affluent Muslims give generously to this underclass during the religious festival. Without this generosity, the beggars would surely die of starvation.
Outside, a young man approaches and asks if he can be our guide. He takes us through the Multan bazaar. Stalls selling golden bangles shimmer under bright lights. Women fuss over the magnificently embroidered shalwar qamiz that, by Australian standards, are incredibly cheap – about $10 for pants, long top and shawl-cum-scarf. Dagmar and I can’t resist these one-size-fits-all outfits. There is much hilarity back at the hotel when I realise the outfit is so big, Brian and I and a small refugee family could all fit into the pants at once!
We are never alone on the open road. While in places the roads are modern, the traffic is something from the past – horse-, bullock- and donkey-drawn carts, bicycles with impossible loads, colourful trucks and buses. And the most important instrument on a vehicle here is the horn. Every time you pass or are passed by another, you are expected to sound your horn. The cacophony is overpowering and this safety device loses its impact after a while.
We are in Lahore, a large city with a population of eight million and diabolical pollution. Brian has taken to wearing a scarf over his mouth to filter out the acrid taste of the fumes. It takes us an hour of negotiating our way through bumper-to-bumper traffic to find the hotel recommended in the guidebooks. Every time we stop it takes just 30 seconds to pull a crowd of about 100. They spill onto the streets and stop the traffic, then the impatient drivers behind us lean on their horns continuously for several minutes.
We decide to take a taxi to the old city rather than deal with the traffic again. This proves to be even more terrifying, as the car zigzags its way around bicycles, motorcycles, rickshaws, buses, trucks, horses and donkeys pulling carts, and even camels hauling large loads.
The Lahore Fort is a knockout. Construction began in 1566, but it has been ransacked by the Sikhs and the British. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how regal this place was when it was home to the Mogul emperors. Unfortunately, as is so often the case in the Middle East, there has been little maintenance to retain the beauty and majesty of this monument.
Across from the fort is the massive, seventeenth-century Badshahi Mosque. It can accommodate 60,000 worshippers in the central courtyard alone. In front of the mosque is a pretty park with green lawns and a small pavilion. We see many people sleeping here, and our guide assures us they are not homeless, but tired after long journeys. This is interesting, considering the local paper says there is a problem with the number of beggars who come into Lahore during Ramadan to get easy money for food.
Walking through the old city, we find the Pakistan we can live without: the crowds, which push and shove their way past us, and shouting and horns. But the stench overrides everything else. It is stomach-turning. There are small open sewers along the laneways and rotting garbage lies about. Men urinate wherever and whenever they feel like it. They crouch down and hitch their long shirts up and pee to their heart’s content. In small alcoves, water runs into open gully traps. Men sit in these – bathing! It is an assault on the senses. The old city is dirty and run-down.
In the modern area of Lahore are shops catering to the more affluent residents, but you can’t get away from the reality of the Third World. While out for a walk we see a naked man sitting in a gully trap, washing. A woman and several children sit on the pathway, just watching the world go by, their clothes drying on a tree. The family must live on this part of the footpath. We can’t get used to seeing this kind of poverty.
The problem with trips like ours is the constant farewells. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time with Dagmar and Peter; a chance meeting in the yard of a scungy hotel in Iran has developed into a real friendship. We’ve shared experiences on the road that only travellers can understand. It is with enormous sadness that we say goodbye. Dagmar and Peter have had enough of Pakistan and are heading to India. We are heading up the Grand Trunk Road to Islamabad. But we promise to meet again.
There is a magnificent tollway connecting Lahore and Islamabad. It avoids all the towns and the dangerous drivers, but we can’t use it. For some reason motorcycles are prohibited. This is ridiculous when you consider our bike is bigger and faster than so many of the cars in this country. We have to take the historic Grand Trunk Road. The towns we ride through seem more modern than those in the country’s west. There are still bustling marketplaces and masses of demonic traffic, but the towns seem relatively affluent. The shops are more modern and the cars outnumber the horse-drawn carts. As we get closer to Islamabad, the weather gets colder and we hit some rain. The further we go the worse the weather gets, and soon the rain is pelting down amid thunder and lightning.
On the outskirts of Islamabad all is very different. Gone are the narrow streets. In their place are wide, paved boulevards with the traffic keeping to designated lanes. Police man the intersections and the drivers seem to take notice of their directions. Islamabad is quite easy to get around. The city is divided into sectors, and with a minimum amount of stress and fuss we find Rohan Pike’s home. Rohan is a friend of Brian’s cousin, Tim, as well as a Federal policeman working at the Australian embassy, and has offered us a bed for a few days. We have been more than grateful for his advice along the way and are looking forward to meeting him and spending time with an Aussie.
Islamabad is a modern capital city, very un-Pakistani. There are obvious security issues for foreigners living here. Rohan, like most foreigners, has 24-hour security on his house. There is a house boy, Faisal, and an exuberant puppy named Harry to greet us. Rohan has been working in India for a few days and will be home later.
Faisal shows us our room, which has its own bathroom and a huge, comfortable double bed. As an Australian High Commission house, it is wired for Australian appliances and you can drink water out of the taps! We find our way to Rohan’s beer fridge and discover cold Hahn beer and some good white wine. It’s time for a drink. We have arrived in heaven!
Faisal wanders around in his socks and regularly frightens the living daylights out of me when he appears, silently, behind me. I am on my way to the laundry when I hear him: ‘Memsahib. You cannot wash. I will do it for you.’
After peeling myself off the kitchen ceiling and collecting my pile of clothing from the floor, I agree that it is Faisal’s job and leave him to it.
My hair continues to be a bother. It is lank and scraggly and, worst of all, the grey is showing through. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror. Brian thinks I spend far too much time worrying about my hair: ‘Most people would be worried about getting killed on a trip like this, not whether they have grey roots showing!’
I doubt finding a good hairdresser is easy anywhere in Pakistan except Islamabad. In rural Pakistan, we have seen people getting haircuts and shaves under a tree on the side of the road.
Rohan’s assistant at the embassy gives me the name of her hairdresser. She works from home on the edge of the city and Jan assures me she is very good. ‘Working from home’ conjures up an image of a chair and mirror set up in a kitchen. In actual fact, the ‘salon’ is in the basement of a very swish house in a wealthy area of the city. Security men guard the house and downstairs a staff of about six young Pakistani women fuss over expat women who are there for manicures, pedicures or to have their hair done.
For the next hour I am pampered and preened with a head massage, treatment and a colour that makes me look years younger. When I am done and have passed over 2500 rupees – just over AUD$60 – I ask about getting a taxi back to Rohan’s. There are no taxis but the ‘driver’ will take me to the taxi rank in the salon car. I sit back and relax in the limousine – this is the life! When we get to the taxi rank, the driver gets out and speaks to a taxi driver, then turns to me with a huge smile: ‘Madam, the driver will take you home and you must pay him no more than 100 rupees.’
What a service. Not only do I get a limo ride, I don’t even have to barter the cab fare.
Brian likes my hair, but I don’t have the heart to tell him how much I paid. ‘It was cheaper than in Melbourne,’ is all I say. He seems happy with this.
One of the highlights of Pakistan is the Karakoram Highway that links the country with China. With winding roads that follow the course of the Indus River through the mountains, it is a motorcyclist’s dream. It is here that the Himalaya, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains meet. The scenery is said to be spectacular and it is the main thing we have been looking forward to seeing in Pakistan.
