The Road to Pakistan
We left Bam with a police escort, our first ever. We also took the German with us. Our aim was to get across the border to Taftan on the Pakistani side by nightfall. The police escorts consisted of a truck of pumped-up teenagers with automatic weapons, working for the Iranian government. I tried not to worry. Our first hurdle happened worryingly early on, when the police swapped over, and the new police weren’t keen on the state of the German’s passport. (They would have been even less keen if they’d discovered he carried two passports…) They examined it for about 25 minutes while we stood around looking innocent. They decided he had overstayed his visa, and would be taken to the local police office. They made handcuff mimes. I had a brainwave. The lovely Mr Akbar at our guesthouse had given us his number in case we got into trouble. Daniel (the German) rang him and asked him to translate the real situation over the phone to the police, wh...