I must have gotten out of the wrong side of bed today; a combination of a (small; distant 5.1 magnitude) earthquake at 11PM the night before waking me up with the rocking of the building, a freezing cold hotel room, and all of the complaints tabled in yesterday’s blog.

To add insult to injury, it was a relatively adversarial morning for me. The hotel decided to add a few charges which were undisclosed (they gave a gas heater for an hour, which only in the morning they mentioned was chargeable), and while the cost was small, I decided that on principle it was not something I was going to pay for, given the poor experience at the hotel and the fact that the cost and the fact the heater was chargeable was never disclosed. It is not reasonable to have 4 degree hotel rooms, give a heater for ~1 hour, and then later say that it was chargeable! It culminated in the hotel attendant trying to stop me from leaving by pulling in my clutch on my bike, and me leaving anyway (he loosened his grip and I was off).

Mid-dispute

It was one of those days where I didn’t really enjoy the ride, despite nice conditions. There were plenty of curves and beautiful scenery, but I was not really in the mood for riding - it felt more like an obligation today.

Today’s route went through Kagan Valley, through the hills of KPK (Khyber Pakhtun Kwah) through Abbottabad (where Osama Bin Laden was found), and then to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Today’s route in blue

river-bed cricket

traffic jam

the valleys of KPK

incredibly 3D

My first dose of real Pakistani traffic was found in Abbottabad, which I managed to reach during school pickup time. It was complete bedlam; there were two lanes each side, and about four lanes of tuktuks (which seem to be all Chinese QingQi branded variants) and small vans trying to traverse. It was very different from the organised chaos I have seen in other parts (eg Hanoi/HCM, Vietnam), where there seems to be max utilisation of the bandwidth of the road. There were definitely negative sum dynamics at play here, combined with just a lack of attentiveness:

• People would cross the road without looking
• Tuktuks would choose inopportune times to U Turn
• Half of the time, people would be stopping and blocking a lane to do pickups/dropoffs without parking properly and getting out of the way.

I tried to get out of this situation by using the expressway to Islamabad, but alas, there seems to be strict enforcement of a no-motorcycle on expressway rule.

One surprising interaction I had, was while I was pulled over at the market taking a breather, I was approached by a group of four people in modest wear, but wearing heavy makeup. Upon closer inspection, they were actually men(!) (or at one point in their life had been male). They were begging for money. This was super surprising to me, that this was a part of Pakistani society. I could not imagine this being tolerated in the Gulf, and had imagined Pakistan to be a stricter islamic society. I later found out that this was a relatively widespread phenomenon; so much so that they are depicted in Pakistani popular media. People generally acknowledge that they are often discriminated against (families would generally disown them, they have trouble finding employment), and thus rely on begging to get by. As a result, society generally does give them donations, due to the precarious situation they find themselves in as a result of their identity conflicts (it was described to me that “god made them this way, and it is not their fault they find themselves in this situation”).

I battled for the next three hours on my way to Islamabad. I stopped at an ice cream shop for a break, and after ordering, I was quite confused because they refused to take my payment. The staff later explained that it was a gift. After finishing the ice cream, I went to the counter, left some money, and ran back to the bike to try take off in time. I did not make it; the store attendant chased me with the money and gave it back to me.

free ice cream

It was quite difficult going, and by the time I arrived I was completely exhausted.

I am considering whether or not I should continue to Karachi by bike, or if I should ship my bike there instead.

I’ll be here for another day as I make my decision.

Some stats:

• 276 KM travelled
• 10.3L fuel added
• 30g coffee consumed
• 6 unique interactions

Route 2 progress update

Complete route to date