Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

We were at the Iran / Pakistan border.  We got ourselves out of the country promptly by sole virtue of our pallid skin.  I have little doubt it would have taken 2 hours longer at the very least, if we hadn’t been whisked out of the queue to the front of the line.  Adam met a scared Kiwi biker, crazily pleased to leave Pakistan.  He said it was ‘all going off’.  He managed to petrify Adam completely.  I never met him, and wish Adam hadn’t either.  The Pakistan side of the border was ramshackle and chaotic, but in an identifiable way which pleased me greatly.  We shuffled after old Pakistani officers in their excellent salwar-kameez denim cotton uniforms with badges on the arms.  We met some incredibly nice Quetta police men who sat us down and gave us real tea and biscuits, and talked to us about the difficulties in arranging weddings, and other nice conversations like that.  They laughed at us when we sat outside and ate our boiled eggs ...

This was it anyway, we were on our way to Pakistan now, well and truly.  I was somewhat nervous to say the least.  Pakistan has recently been statistically proven to be one of the top two most dangerous countries to be in at the moment.  However, I would like to say, I was definitely not as nervous as our German friend.  He was very worried.  I had met the Englishman from Nepal, and his cheerfulness was keeping me buoyant. Our next voyage was to Bam, the tourist spot that was sadly flattened in the 2003 quake.     The road was hot, dusty, never-ending:  the usual Iranian road-trip. And then a ridiculous side-wind blew across the flat desert, kicking up monstrous dust clouds and causing us to wobble horribly for hours.  The sand sort of whipped against my skin, and stung like crazy.    Then road-works started up, just to take away any pleasure we might have been squeezing from the experience.  We had to keep veerin...

A ride to Kerman was uneventful, excepting a very large, very dead camel that we saw on the way, which someone had graffitied on.  I wondered if it was one of the drug-smuggling ones you hear about.  Apparently, 80% of Europe’s heroin comes through Iran from Afghanistan, and one of the key ways to smuggle it through is in camel’s humps.  Camels have handy natural homing instincts, like pigeons (though presumably they aren’t as likely to crap on your head from a tree.)  Anyway, this one was very dead. I got bored on the road.  To keep myself amused I sang at the top of my voice.  Mostly Phil Collins, to my shame.   (Sometimes I fall asleep. This is particularly dangerous on motorways, which is irritating, because that’s exactly when it happens.) Somewhere en route to Kerman I saw a strange and inexplicable sight- there was a pick-up truck whizzing along, with sacks in the back, with what looked like feet poking out here and there, in a manner which...

After getting more and more excited and nervous and a bit unreal, we finally left our caravan, with a two week stint to say goodbye to everyone in Wirral and Oxford. In Wirral Steve attached our mascot to the front of the bike, and he has become a fixture we are fond of (the mascot, not Steve, though we are also fond of him...). We left Sue and Steve and were a bit upset, but will be seeing them in Thailand. We then had a horrendous ride down south with sidewinds and our very first attempt with all the luggage and panniers on, which left us both wondering if really this was such a good plan. Especially when we accidentally rode up on the kerb on the way out the drive. Some might say we should probably have had a trial run with the luggage... the bike fully loaded. possibly excessively... Anyway, we said our goodbyes to all my lot in Abingdon and had a good send-off, with a 'Bon Voyage' cake in the shape of our motorbike! Everyone waved us off and that was that, we set ...