17^th October  Udaipur, India to Valsad, India

I had a light breakfast organised by the grand daughter of the hotel owner. She had recently graduated from Indore University. Indore University it turns out are teaching degree courses under licence from De Montfort University, Leicester. When I had a real, proper, adult job, I was a lecturer at De Montfort University. Small world.

The winding roads continued toward Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is the state capital of the Gujarat. It is connected with Vadodora by an Expressway..... As I approached the expressway I was aware there were no longer any motorcycles on the road. I saw the signs prohibiting motorcycles. I kept going. I felt that finding an alternative route would be a hassle. I reached the toll gates and was told that I was unable to proceed. The staff asked me to head back against the flow of traffic and exit the road. I told them this was crazy and dangerous. Finally they suggested I enter the road and immediately make a U turn, 50 metres down the road, through the central reservation to head back to Ahmedabad........ Hello!...... I entered the expressway and let the horses fly. I could see the signs telling me that the expressway was 90km long, I knew I might run out of fuel. I knew that someone would follow or attempt to intercept me. I rode at very high speed, intermittently, highway staff tried to intercept me, vehicles chased me. I could see the intercept teams in the distance as I approached, I hid as best I could in the shadow of speeding cars. The teams attempted to step out and stop me, but in vain, always too slow, too late. Finally after 80km there were 2 teams. They stepped out with sticks.... they got me! They spoke little English apart from the word penalty. They sent me on to the exit gates at Vadodora. At Vadodora I fully expected arrest. What developed was something different. I arrived and was surrounded by 10-15 staff. The boss was called. He turned out to be friendly and entirely dissinterested in punishing me. He asked for a present from England. I gave him a set of Euro coins, he appeared delighted, he gave me directions to the nearest fuel station and then told me how to get onto the national highway fro Mumbai. I re-fueled with the guage showing 5 miles fuel remaining.

The NH8 to mumbai is a boring and busy road. I plodded on. I had a side swipe nudge from a truck, again one of panniers absobed the impact. I remained seated and chased the truck down and screamed abuse at the driver. Another near miss. Indian roads are full of danger.

I finally pulled into a roadside hotel in the late afternoon. The rooms were 800 Rs and were very nice. The Gujarat is a dry state, alcohol is unavailable. I asked in the hotel restaurant about beer and was directed to a sign.....

Fair enough.

Valsad mileometer 25046

16th October Kotputli, India to Udaipur, India

I set out from Kotputli early. My journey will take me from Haryana state into Rajasthan. My initial goal is Jaipur, the state capital of Rajasthan. This seems like an inconvenience, I guess that it will be time consuming and stressfull to cross the “Pink City” .... It turns out to be OK! I pick up some cash from an ATM and find myself in the heart of the city outside the Hawa Mahal, Jaipur's most famous building... “Palace of the wind” …..... Jaipur is named the pink city because of its tradition of using a dusky pink paint to decorate its building. Jaipur is not India's answer to Brighton.

Hawa Mahal

Rajasthan is geographically varied. It is easy to think of it as a desert state. In fact parts are mountainous and green. I travel along interesting mountain roads, through a landscape dotted with small lakes. Building stone is one of Rajasthan's main industries. The roads see trucks carrying huge chunks of marble and granite. The mountainsides are in places heavily scarred from the removal of this stone.

Ajmer is marble central. Hundreds of marble wholesalers line the main road. The air is full of marble dust from huge sawmills that cut chunks to slabs.

Nearing Udaipur a car hits me from behind! I am not thrown off the bike... just nudged. The driver had been tail-gating me, a metre of two behind the bike for a while as we climbed up a tightly winding road. One of the panniers took the impact and I am left a little shaken. The driver looks at me with incomprehension gesturing at me to suggest that my impoverished riding is the cause of the accident. I imagine burying my fist in his face. India's drivers have appalling road manners. I know this is a massive generalisation. I am sorry to say that a very large majority are India's drivers are aggressive, impatient, unwilling to comply with the rules of the road and generally unsafe.... My view is borne out by statistics which show fatality rates many times higher per capita than those on European roads (WHO stats..... India,134,000 road deaths 2011  v  UK, 2200 road deaths 2010. Most worryingly when you look at the stats "annual road deaths per 100,000 vehicles" the figures are astonishingly India 314 v Uk 7.......)

I arrive in Udaipur at around 5.00pm. Udaipur is famous for its lake palace. I ask for directions to the lake and am met with blank looks. I chance upon a minor palace hotel.... Rangniwas Palace. 1200 Rs is cheap for an interesting and characterfull hotel. My room is furnished with some nice colonial antiques. One of the owners has a vintage Triumph which clearly hasn't been ridden for a very long time, but adds to the ambience. Bike geeks... name that bike?

Udaipur Mileometer 24720

15^th October  Amritsar, India to Kotputli, India

I got up at 5.00 am. Over the next few days I will riding alone again. My aim for the day was to ride past and beyond Dehli. I had heard that the roads heading toward Dehli were “under construction” and that the road beyond Dehli was wonderfull.

I set out in darkness, the air crisp and cool. The road I was following was the NH1 (national highway 1)  Fundamentally this road used to be a single carriageway construction. India is home to more than a billion people and single carriage way roads do not meet the nations needs. The Indian government have decided to convert it into a 4/6 lane highway…… project planning….. there is an absence of. What they have achieved is a series of stretches of decent road punctuated every few kilometres by a diversion. Today I road through 70-80 diversions. The diversions re-route traffic onto the former single carriageway, bypassing the tricky / ambitious constructions… like aerial roads, that are yet to be completed.

I eventually reached the outskirts of Dehli. My SatNav told me to head onto an SH (state highway)… Oh wise SaNav! Local knowledge had advised that Dehli mid afternoon is easy and that I would save time by getting onto the marvellous NH8 sooner rather than later. Let me tell you this:

Dehli is: A furnace, never quiet, never still, a maze, enormous, poorly signposted. My SatNav rescued the day saving me from an eternity trapped within this vast metropolis. At one point I found myself on a road where I covered 100 metres in 20 minutes…. Nuff sed.

I finally exited the city… and ploughed on. The marvellous NH8… is not a wonder of the civil engineering world. It is beset with the exact same project planning issues of its northern brother the NH1.

I settled for a roadside hotel. The Triputi Hotel *** deluxe. I made a good choice it is lovely. ... serves beer, has limited internet… and is metres away from rejoining the highway tomorrow morning.

Sites and sounds of the day… Beep beep beep. I am now desensitized and use my horn vigorously too. When in Rome! 

I spy elephant, camel and monkey on India's roads.

Kotputli mileometer 24392

13^th  October Okara, Pakistan to Amritsar, India

We get up very very early. I for one am enthusiastic about leaving the Madhina Hotel, leaving Okara, and leaving Pakistan.

Stephen, Richi, Martin and myself rush onward. Stephen and I are going to Wagah, Richi and Martin to Lahore. We say our goodbyes somewhere on the Lahore highway.

Stephen and I reach Lahore and find our way through the city with relative ease. When we are on the road to Wagah we are exhilarated. 

The border crossing is easy.... yes easy. We arrive at 10.00am and quickly progress through Pakistani formalities. There is a helper on hand who doubles as a money changing parasite. He even picks up and uses official stamps to mark up our documents, but apparently has no official status.  Wagah border is famous for its long corridor and flamboyant daily ceremonies. We ride down the corridor and say farewell to outsize Pakistani soldiers and move through gates into India. 

The Indian immigration centre is quite huge. On this day we are apparently the only travellers crossing. In the Indian officers are friendly and well spoken. I score 2 cups of tea. 

After 2 hours in total we are free to ride out into India. Bharat Machi.

Stephen's friend, Moksha Jetley is waiting for us. Moksha is an Enfield Motorcycle tour guide who Stephen has travelled with before. She offers us garlands of carnations. Journalists from Amritsar are on hand to chat to us about our journey and to capture the moment in digital splendour.

After 20 minutes we are in Amritsar. It is joyfull to have reached India. 

Amritsar is one of the major cities of the Punjab. It is the spiritual home to the Sikh religion and contains the Golden temple, the holiest of all Sikh Gudwaras. We check into the "Ritz" hotel. A nice place but possibly over named establishment.

I investigate getting a train to Goa. I buy an Indian sim card and visit the Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is a very beautifull place. It is serene and calming. An excellent way to migrate from Pakistan into India. If you ever find yourself in Amritsar, visit the Golden Temple, it is wonderfull in many ways.

Jeroen finally made it to Amritsar. He left Karachi on a badly wounded bike. He managed to reach Sukkur and then the rear suspension unit failed. He found a truck to transport himself and the bike to the Wagah border for $300. In Pakistan $300 is a lot of money. He then had to push the bike through the Pakistan / India border complex (several Kilometres). Rather him than me. All of this meant we deserved a beer.

We travelled back to the Ritz on a cycle rickshaw organised by Moksha. Neither Jeroen or I felt particularly comfortable about the thought of a man weighing about 50kg pulling along 2 guys with a combined weight of 190kg. Upon arrival I took the rickshaw pilot for spin. My first few metres were particularly demanding, the pilot then released the hand brake.....

Cycle rickshaw pilot ...over the limit

I have arrived in India !!!!!!!!!!!!! I have left Pakistan behind !!!!!!!!!!!!

Amritsar Mileometer 24022

12th October Sukkur, Pakistan to Okara, Pakistan.

We left Sukkur early and found the highway with little effort. A decent night's rest didn't make Pakistan's roads or drivers more bearable. I find myself hating (not too strong a word) all other road users. Mentally, I project abuse at my road mates to maintain sanity... haha.

Richi resting on a charpoy at a roadside dhaba.

We ride on for hour after hour, undertaking and overtaking. We frequently undertake on the unmade fringe of the road. This riding is dangerous and dusty... if you undertake you might run out of verge, encounter a pedestrian, or run into rocks. We leave the main highway to travel cross country and bypass Multan. The road is a single lane road and very busy. A constant stream of trucks to tango the afternoon away with.

We regain the highway and are nearing Okara when we realise that the road ahead is blocked. We are uncertain as to what is happening.... as we get closer we realise that a huge crowd is milling around on the highway. Maybe 300 - 400 men..... some carrying sticks, all looking agitated and aggressive. I can only speculate as to what was going on.Probably an accident where a local was hurt ... or worse. We very quickly turn tail and head against the flow of traffic in the opposite direction. We leave the highway and head into the countryside. It is almost dark as we escape on unlit, unmade roads to nowhere in particular. The other guys use their GPS's to good advantage, we rediscover the highway ahead of the blockage.

As we enter Okara it is dark. Okara is not a tourist destination. We have a list of 3 hotels. We are guided to the first. "Hotel is full sir" a refrain that is all too familiar and becomes yet more familiar as the evening becomes night. After a 3rd hotel refuses to offer rooms we find ourselves in the Bazaar. Madinha Hotel is first a rate hovel. As always I am ushered forward by my fellow travellers to negotiate. We agree a rate of 1200 rupees a night. We ride our bikes into the lobby / internet cafe, using rocks and manpower to negotiate steps and narrow openings. A large crowd of youths are hanging out in the foyer. They are excited by our bikes and by nasty American porn. 

I am stressed and go to my room. My "peace" is disturbed by a visit from 4 of the hotels staff. I am informed that the owner has unilaterally renegotiated the room rates. I very quickly loose my temper. I finally scream "neh, neh, neh" at the top of my voice. My loss of control is so violent that the staff are swept away from me on a tidal wave of my anger. The staff, really no more than boys, fall over each other to get away. Minutes later senior management arrives. I am desolate and have lost the will to communicate... I listlessly hand over more ruppees, making a shit hotel that was already overpriced, a scam black hole of misery, resentment and filth.

Night panorama from Hotel Madinha

Our view as we exit the Madhina hotel the following morning. Pakistani squalour at its most glamourous..... We are maybe 100 miles from India. Jai Ho.

Okara Mileometer 

11^th October…. Karachi, Pakistan to Sukkur, Pakistan

Yesterday we relaxed in Karachi. I did some blogging, had a Pakistani haircut, withdrew some money from an International ATM….. first time we managed to find one working!  Checked out the possibility of shipping the bikes to Lahore by train or truck… and concluded that it would be a nightmare.

4 of us checked out early this morning…. Jeroen stayed in Karachi waiting for a high spec battery for his bike. We managed to leave the city and get onto the bypass within 30 minutes using the highway. As we left the city we saw people sleeping under bridges and on pavements. Outside the city there was dense smog, huge ammounts of pollution trapped by a high pressure cell.

The highway towards Lahore is a wide strip of tarmac…. No road marking as such. The road has a lot in common with Elmer the Elephant…. A patchwork of many different colours. The surface is highly polished and has been finshed with copious amounts of diesel and engine oil… a bikers favourite.

The road is very, very busy, trucks streaming from Karachi and its port toward Lahore. There are no rules of the road as such. Trucks and cars drive where they want when they want. The concept of an overtaking lane doesn’t exist.  Vehicles move across the strip of tarmac without rhyme or reason. Now that sounds ok? Add pedestrians walking down the centre of the road? Add donkey carts? Add camel drawn trailers, Add rickshaws travelling against the flow of the traffic, Add herds of 100’s of sheep being shepherded by a teenage girl, Add buffalos crossing the road….. And the road surface itself…. The tarmac has worn or melted into ruts and troughs…… you get the picture I hope.

Finally, a tricky road. I hit a traffic cone at 50mph, luckily it didn’t throw me off or wipe out one of the guys behind. This road is not Pakistans most interesting. It lies on the flood plain of and follows the path of the mighty Indus river. We dont see the river once. Concentration required constantly. A lifetimes exposure to diesel emmisions in one day.

We arrive in Sukkur around 4. We use a rickshaw driver to guide us to the best hotel in town, The Forum Inn…. “House is full sir” The manager directs us to another quality establishment. The bellboy follows us outside and insists that the “City palace Inn” is a better choice….. obviously his mate’s place. We follow the bellboy’s advice. The City Palace is OK, good wifi, and within minutes the bellboy has turned up to collect his commission ….. he helps us out by doing some beer shopping,  and makes another easy dollar.

Parking at the City Palace was in the foyer itself..... just enough room for the other guests to squeeze into the hotel.

We order some takeaway pizza. A straightforward order, from a Pizza Hut?! 30 metres from the hotel. All 3 pizzas wrong…. But edible. We drink a few cans and have a laugh about Pakistani efficiency and service.

Tomorrow Okara. This will take me within a few 100 kms of the Indian border.

Sukkur mileometer 23505

9^th October Quetta, Pakistan to Karachi, Pakistan

Our escort arrives at 7.00am sharp. Great, but Steven has overslept. We manage to leave at about 7.30. We fuel up and are on our way.

The day starts with temperatures at 12C.

The first 50-60 miles of roads were, in parts shocking. Suddenly the road has completely disappeared. It has been replaced by deep dust with a talc like consistency. As we ride through this dust, visibility is close to zero. At times it is impossible to see your front wheel… stopping is risky. Who or what will crash into you….

The day ends with temperatures that have peaked at 40C. The thermometer on my bike is very accurate. 40C means 40C. This sort of temperature is unbelieveably hot, all your senses feel 40C heat. In the desert humidity levels are very low and you don’t sweat in any conventional sense. The desert stealthily robs you of moisture without your knowledge. This heat diverts and distracts you. Mistakes become more common. After one stop I did not lock my pannier lid down properly. The lid came of at 70mph. A pair of jeans and my carnet flew….. luckily no real damage done…. And Richi who was riding behind me didn’t catch the pannier lid in the face. Martin a lost spare tyre without even realising it. Heat and riding like you stole it….. dangerous!

Minutes before we passed by......

We are very keen to reach Karachi and avoid getting stuck in a remote isolated region. We ride hard and fast hour after hour. We reach the Karachi bypass with 15 minutes of sunlight left. We are unable to locate the hotels that a Pakistani on the Karachi road told us about. We have no choice but to divert into the city centre. Karachi is home to 15,000,000.

2 of the bikes have Pakistan GPS maps. 1½ hours later they have led us close to the The Beach Luxury Hotel….. sounds great doesn’t it.  Those 1 ½ hours were fairly, very, monstrously, horrendous. The GPS maps we have are simple and guided us on the most direct route… probably the shortest… definitely the most chaotic and wild. Jeroen’s bike stops. All our bikes are making strange noises. The last petrol re-fill was obviously with tainted fuel (probably cut with kerosene)

After a further ½ an hour entailing driving the wrong way down some of the busiest roads on earth, getting separated from everyone, and coming close to disaster on numerous occaisions we arrive at the hotel.

Karachi mileometer 23191 (in excess of 430 miles covered today)

8th October Quetta, Pakistan.

During the previous night we hear gunfire from the city centre.

We attempt to leave the hotel to buy petrol but are refused exit by the hotel staff. We are not allowed out with an escort. We are told that we must visit the authorities to collect an NOC... No Objection Certificate. Seems simple enough...... Hello! this is Pakistan.

Richi and I leave the hotel in the back of Police pickup with armed guards.

In the back of a police pickup in Quetta central you feel very conspicuous. One of the cops asks me to hold his AK47, while he rolls back the canvas roof of the truck. I dont refuse ;-) 

We have a good laugh on the way to the Government office, the mood changes as the hours pass by. I don't know how many offices we visited this day... many many. At one police station we check out a notice board of Pakistan's most wanted...... for some reason Jeroen's picture is missing........

We finally left the city centre after perhaps 6 hours..... with our NOC. This permits us to move onto Karachi! For those of you unfamiliar with Pakistani geography (ha ha) this is a very backward step and takes us in completely the wrong direction by 730km, and then requires a ride of a further 1250km to reach Lahore. We are told that we are unable to proceed on our planned route because the roads have been washed away by serious flooding. Whether this is true at any level is questionable.... and when all is said and done we have semi off road bikes that can handle tough terrain..... a disappointing development, lol!

Karachi detour.... Thankyou Quetta police

The mood back at the hotel is depressed.....

Hey Ho. A few tins of Murree's drives spirits upwards. The staff at the hotel tell us that there has been a bombing in Quetta today. A bus has been blown up by a remote control bomb. A young girl dead, 15 seriously injured. Where the bus was in relation to the offices that Richi and I visited I dont know, just a couple of km I guess.... close call. Large Helicopters thrum through the night.

7^th October. Dalbandin, Pakistan to Quetta, Pakistn

We set out early. Our escort guard is on time. The Taftan to Quetta road has a big reputation. It is considered one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Bandits, Dacoits, Terrorists….. Our Levies guards take their job quite seriously. Jeroen’s bike is overheating badly, as is Jeroen. He expends a great deal of energy on abusing our guards. They soak it all up quite well, I think abusing men carrying AK47s is incautious.

Finally Jeroen discovers that his bike is carrying no coolant. It swallows up 2 litres of water. How it hasn’t seized I don’t know.

   

Desert checkpoint. The string draped across the road is the barrier.

Hay store

This youtube video gives a taste of riding in Pakistan... enjoy
(Thanks to Martin and Richi from Austria for capturing the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoE5ZbYU8PY

Truck art appears to be very important in Pakistan. I would compare and contract with Narrowboat folk art. It is a competitive game, gaudiest wins.

The landscape is awe inspiring. Huge moutains to either side of the plains that we ride on. We see camels on a regular basis.  From time to time we stop for fuel, food, drink and more frequently for check-posts. At every check post we have to fill in a logbook. We look over past entries and can see who has followed the same route before us.

 

As we near Quetta we climb a steep hill toward a mountain tunnel. A camel herder is driving 20 or so camels along the road to pass through the tunnel. This strikes me as being daring and skillfull.

As we exit the tunnel we drop down towards Quetta. We stop at a checkpoint. If Jeroen were a nuclear reactor… he would have gone critical, near meltdown. We are waiting a long time for our final escort. The atmosphere is tense, primarily because of Jeroen’s behaviour. Standing alongside the road probably wasn’t the safest place to be, standing alongside Jeroen, even more risky.

Our escort arrives. A truck with commandos, guns a plenty. We head down the hill and into Quetta. Quetta is medieval, there are more donkey carts than cars at points. For some reason the escort takes us through the heart of the city even though our hotel is on the outskirts. The traffic is very heavy, our progress slow. As we enter the heart of the city we are joined by more guards. Finally we are surrounded by 2 open sided buses each carrying 20 men and 2 pickups with commandos… a small army.

We discover that 2 policemen die every day in Quetta. The Pakistani state of Balochistan is very poor but has huge mineral resources. There are many Balochi’s who desire a better deal and independence…. And are willing to kill for it.

Maybe having large police escorts is reassuring but is it necessarily safer?!

Quetta mileometer 22762