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Turkey-Iran-Pakistan-India
Hi folks,
we are planning our overland trip to Nepal. For germans its not possible to apply for Visa in Turkey(Ankara) presently, they dont give you the recommended paper which the Iran/Pakistan are asking for. They (germanembassy in Teheran and Islamabad) say the area between Kerman-Zahedan-Quetta ist very unsafe (kidnapping....). Maybe we get the Visa in Germany, but still I`m worried about to drive through Beluschistan. Does anybody has actually news from the road between Kerman-Quetta? Should we quit our plans and try another route? Does anybody has some informations? Thanks for your help und be safe on the road! Thomas |
Kerman-Zahedan-Quetta is never safe .... ı mean there is always a danger in that road and doesnt seem that it will change in near future.
But ı felt more uneasy through Quetta-Lahore route. I dont know why, maybe i was tired,too much heat etc... :) .... Another route?....ı dont know if there is another route. |
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what is "safe" ?
My experiance is rather old. It was in 2002 I rode through that area, but I do not think things have changed all that much.
The question is: What is "safe" and what is "dangerous". Ofcourse I can NOT awnser that question, you have to do so for yourself, but this is the way I see it: Riding you bike around the world is NOT safe. Personaly I have lost one friend and three other friends have had serious injouries (broken bones). Further I have heared of several more of these broken bones, from the top of my mind a handfull. But all of these accidents had nothing to do with "dangerous countries" or "instable political situatiuons". They were all road-accidents and they could have happened everywhere in the world. (although you have a better chance in hitting a bus in India then in England). I myself almost died on the road from Taftan to Quetta. Not from an accident, not from gun-fire, not from stone-troughing mobs, but from simple food-poisening. It left me unconsious in the middle of the dessert, and as you can imagine that is not a good place to be unconsious. I was saved by local people. They brought me to a small emergiancy-post where I had to wait one hour for a doctor (this means the doctor had to travel for one hour to get to me who cured my salmonella-poisening, re-hydrated my body with a 1,5 litre IV, and fixed my face (I broke my fall with my face). he never wanted one cent for his effords or the medication. Later I went back to this little town (while everybody told me that was stuppid) to thank them. I would go back anytime without any fear. Why is this road called "bandit road" ? I don't know and I don't know if it's dangerous, but I would have no problems riding my bike up and down that road for many times. Maarten |
Hi,
We (wife and myself) travelled this road in October (I think) 2006, all the government websites were full of bad stuff about this area, like you will die for sure if you go into this area and we take no responsibility for your safety etc etc. We did it anyway as the only alternative is Afganistan via Kyber pass, or central asian stans to China then the KKH to Pakistan. Anyway, I completely agree with Maarten, not that we tried out the local medical services like he did. Only thing we did wrong was we travelled through too quickly hardly even stopping to take pics because we were still a little worried, but when we did stop (ie Dalbandin overnight and few times for black market fuel) the locals were really friendly, wanted to talk to us aussies about cricket and get their picture taken with the bike. We did have some kids throw rocks at us and two cars swerved toward us in one area between Dalbandin and Quetta, but otherwise nothing too bad, certainly nothing compared to the idiots using the roads in India. Now Indian roads are really something that need warnings on the government websites...... I would ride Baluchistan again no problem and my wife agrees (and she is not a big risk taker). Sure bad stuff could happen, but bad stuff can happen anywhere, the Baluchistan people seemed really friendly to foreigners when we were there. We met a few cyclists that had spent a week or two cycling across Baluchistan (one guy by himself) and they camped out in the desert, camel trains had given them water and showed then where water wells were..... Now that takes a lot more guts than riding through in 2 or 3 days at 100km/h and staying at hotels like we did.... Regards John & Alanna www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/skillington |
Just do it! You are not the only bikers travelling along that route.
If you can get from Germany to Pak in 3 months then get the visa by mail just before you leave. If not, get a second passport and organise it with your folks back home (there is a fresh topic about exactly this here somewhere.). Alternatively, hop across the gulf (without bikes, perhaps) and get the visa in Dubai. Cheers, Peter. |
Hi Tom, when are you folks leaving?
i should be in Turkey approx Sept2007 and going to India too..... |
Hi we will be leaving in June from the UK London so will keep ypu informed via our website.
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We are also heading on the same route but skipping Turkey. If all goes well, we'll be in Iran by August. So, if you find yourself ahead of schedule, may be we can hookup in Iran. It would be nice to have some company on the Kerman-Quetta route. |
Hi, we changed the beginnung our RTW Trip....In Juli we are flying to Halifax and travel North- and Southamerika, then we will see.....Greets Tom
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My brother drove this road last month, as part of the Lone Wolf Transglobal Expedition, our route went from Mirjaveh/Taftan to Dalbandin to Quetta, then on to Dera Gazi Khan and on to Lahore.
We too had heard horror stories of the Belochistan, and these stories got worse as we got nearer. There is banditry in this area. However, you are more likely to be robbed, in my opinion in the towns than in the desert. One of my friends (Pakistani) gave me some slightly reassuring advice, that was, the Pakistan Government are so hot on clamping down on crime against westerners, that there are excessive punishments for attacking foreigners, one example he gave me, was a UN convoy was robbed, and to teach the locals a lesson, the government used an airstrike on the area. His summation was, it is simply too much hassle for the locals, so they don't do it. At the same time, we were given full police escorts through to Lahore (we were given no choice), so if anything did happen, it would have been seen. The police are to be treated with a certain level of mistrust though, but they did bend over backwards for us while we were there, implementing "royal protocol". Interestingly, like mmaarten says, your biggest concern is food poisioning, as it was this that hit our team hard in Lahore. The road from Quetta to Lahore is HARD, and we broke the axle on the trailer we had in tow driving down it, however, this is a beautiful place, and the people are generally willing to bend over backwards to help. This unfortunately, stopped being the case in Lahore and Islamabad. Read our journals for more information, February 2007 Hope this helps, Nicholas Moylan ________________________________ Lone Wolf Transglobal Expedition 2007 Home Team |
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