14 Nov 2003 - Dassu, Kohistan (750m). Karakoram Highway (KKH). Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Day 228, 10946km

They jumped out of nowhere.

Appearing suddenly on the road 50m from Alex's speeding bicycle, the 3 men made a makeshift roadblock and forced him off the road onto the soft desert sand where his bicycle got impossibly stuck. They grabbed him and forced him into the bushes, and the burly, violent men were armed - one had a flick knife and another a hammer of some sort - and were very violent, but not very well organised. For some reason only one of them held on to Alex whilst the other 2 were holding the bicycle (which was obviously not going anywhere) so he managed to distract the robber by giving him his hat and Rudy Projects, thus making his hands full. Although he was being dragged into the bushes, Alex, full of compusure and kancheongness, whacked the robber's other arm away and tearing his Shimano jersey to shreds in the process, broke free and ran onto the road.

That was the culmination of our overexciting past week and a half in Pakistan - 10 days that had our adrenalin pumping more often than the whole of the past 6 months, and that wasn't anywhere near the end of it. It all started in Quetta...

Quetta, where we left off our last update (a long long time ago, sorry - we've been rather busy) was a terminally dusty, frontier town filled with war refugees, beggars and policemen. Drug addicts call the dank squalid odor of the huge local drain (on the map it’s a river, but the thin stream of water does nothing to hide the layers of rubbish and faeces) their home, and there are more shops selling Kalashnikovs than shoes. Basically it’s a town you would expect out of a serious Clint Eastwood movie. Here amongst the chaotic bazaar and death-defying traffic they had found Al-Qaeda's no.2, and a bomb in a bus increased the town's already unhealthy death toll about 2 months ago. Well, we knew the place wasn't Singapore, but it sure made us wake up when those 3 bombs exploded.

The first went off not 300m from our hotel, and Jo distinctly remembers the walls shaking as he was leaning on them, typing his log. "Nuclear test," Jo thought jokingly - Pakistan's reputation and seeing many an unidentified explosion in the hills got the better of us. But the second explosion, a minute later and almost as close to us as the first, rocked the city and made us rethink our half-baked assumptions. The third, in the outskirts of Quetta but still distinctly audible, went off a minute later. We contemplated having sentry duty, and not venturing into the town tommorrow. We took a long hard look at how safe we were, ourselves and our expedition and decided that, bombs or no bombs, we'll have to go on.

The next day we found out that no one was hurt and in fact it was really hard to discern that 3 bombs had exploded in the immediate area just last night. The daily chaos of the street bazaar and traffic went on, the kids had school, the men had tea. The people we asked about the bombings responded with highly concerned "ah only bombs" to nonchalant "Don't worry! You can do what you like, everything is under control!" The local paper demoted it to a 3-inch single column somewhere at the bottom of the front page (that was the LOCAL TOWN paper - the national papers had better things to do, like Pakistan's upcoming cricket matches).

So we got used to the everyday life of Quetta, and cycled on through the hills.

24 Oct @ Loralai
We reached here after a 101km day and checked into Hotel Al Habib for about 50Rupees (1USD is roughly 57) per person. The other hotel available was Hotel Saddam. The moment we settled into our room 2 men from Military Intelligence arrived and asked for our particulars. Out of curiosity we later learnt that we were in a tribal area and the police were "here to protect you. You are our guests." We were asked if we had weapons for protection. When we replied that we hadn't, "Why not?" came the reply. "You should have guns to protect yourself." We enquired if we could buy grenades. "Why not?" Yes, our confidence in Pakistan was truly elevated that day. Later we were escorted for our grocery shopping and dinner. The following morning when we left, a police car with armed guard escorted us out of town while the locals ogled at us. We felt like celebrities having such VIP treatment.

Here came incident #2. Andreas, one of two German cyclists that joined us for Pakistan was holding up the rear of our entourage alone because he was not that strong up the hills. A truck driver stopped in the middle of the road, grabbed him and tried to lift him off the bicycle. Andreas wouldn't budge, but the huge beefy guy was threatening to get his way. He tried to pull the bicycle out from under him and that was when Jo decided to cycle back and see what was going on (not that both Andreas and his skinny ass could take on The Truck Driver with his decades of hard earned bulk). For some reason when he saw Jo's skinny ass approaching he decided to get back into the truck and drive off. The normally jovial Andy spent the next few minutes muttering, "That was NOT funny."

And we thought, ok, we've reached the end of Baluchistan. Everyone says nice things about Punjab so things are going to get more peaceful.

NOT.

27 Oct @ Dera Ghazi Khan
No sooner did we step into the Punjab province did we encounter trouble, although we did not know it then. At the edge of the town we stopped at a petrol kiosk for a break. A man was cutting his hair at the barber shop nearby that showed great entrepreneurship - it consisted of a single chair in front of a mirror hung on a tree. He invited us to stay in his home near the city (of course it turned out to be 10km away), and we were treated like kings - people were pouring water for us to wash our feet, locals waited on us to refill our glasses as we ate the sumptuous spreads they provided. As Alex took a nap on the rattan bed, our host even covered Alex with a blanket. We felt that at last we were getting the famous Pakistani hospitality we've heard so much about. Then the trouble started. Our Olympus digital camera went missing, and we pleaded with our host to help us find it. The problem is, everywhere we go we 're treated like mini-celebrities and many people would come to see us, talk to us, stare at us and seemingly wait for the antennae to sprout from our foreheads. So there were many people in the room who could have grabbed the camera, and our host worried himself sick trying to figure out who took the camera. Literally - he ran a fever, which miraculously one paracetamol cured. Amazingly, the camera turned up in a pouch that Jo checked not 10 minutes ago, and everyone was laughing at him for unfounded worries. Jo laughed too, but inside he knew something funny was going on.

His suspicions were proved right in the morning when 2 of our cameras disappeared (so much for the first day of ramadan), but this time the only people around were our host and his 2 friends. Basically we knew who did it but had no hard proof, so we couldn't be blatant. Whilst the 2 Germans made a big show of rifling through a haystack nearby, Alex and Jo played the poor, sad travellers pleading with him to help us get back our cameras. He made a big show of having to leave to see his 'sick father in Karachi' (a subject that never came up before) and that we have to leave as school was starting in the schoolhouse that we stayed the night in (although there were no kids around and yesterday he said the school was closed). Finally Alex offered him 500rupees (bargained down from 500rupees per camera) to get the cameras back from the 'bad children that stole our things' and the cameras magically appeared in the haystack that the Germans had spent a good half an hour on. Our German friends were less lucky as they lost 2000rupees.

This was getting irritating.

29 Oct @ Fatehpur
And it took only 2 days before we cycled straight into a riot. The police and students blocked the whole road, and the smoke from the burning tires filled the sky. At first we was happy that here was a crowd that was not formed by us, but as we cycled closer, the gravity of the situation became clearer as scores of policemen in anti-riot gear carrying long batons came into view and the students held up sticks, many of them were holding books in one hand and rocks in the other. The philosophical and social image had to be relegated to another time though, as we had better things to think of; namely, how to get out of this alive. The riot took up the whole street. The sides of the street were filled with non-cycleable desert sand, and we were practically in the thick of things, with students all around us. Luckily some of the students motioned for us to cycle around through a small channel in the ocean of people and we did so very thankfully. Alex was slow that day as his knee was hurting and so cleared the mess last, but within seconds his eyes started to fill up like pepper was thrown in his face and breathing became difficult. And that's how Alex got his first taste of teargas and he had to stop and blink a few times to compose himself, and some students laughed at his predicament. He knew the laughter could just as quickly turn into stone-throwing anger, so he got out of there with more than a little urgency.

And by now it seemed Pakistan was really just out to get us.

30 Oct @ Dullewala
And it didn’t take long to prove its point as the next day was the day of the robbery, and we rejoin the action as Alex was pushing his heart rate to abnormal levels, even for a cyclist. With his cycling jersey tattered and torn and him jumping up and down in the middle of the road for attention like a monkey on hashish (actually the vision is pretty funny right now), he saw the 2 Germans who got the hint and raced to help. The robbers were nowhere to be seen though, and they decided to go back to the petrol station where they had had a break and get help. Jo was far in front, cycling slowly because he was fasting (actually he had passed the 3 robbers on the road, and the only reason they didn't stop him was they couldn't figure out who - or what - he was. They did chase him for a good 150metres even though he was going WAY too fast, and flung good-sized rocks at him) so Jo didn't know what went on till later. Alex and Andreas managed to get a lift to the next town to go to the police station, by way of a local who demanded 100rupees for his services (up till today that's the thing that miffs Jo the most), and was soon joined by Jo.

A million things raced through Jo's mind, but many of them were abated after finding out Alex was alright. But still, what would we do if we couldn't get the bicycle back? And the numerous essential gear and personal effects that was on it? All that thinking was in vain though when together, we went back to the scene of the crime and after searching through the bush, found everything like it was. Apparently the robbers got spooked when Alex got away and decided to drop everything and run.

After recovering Alex's bike we put it onto the back of the police pick-up and travelled for about 15km to the police station where he had a brief interview with Sub-Inspector(SI) Amir. That became the second time where Alex had to be supported by a motorised vehicle to close distances. The first being the ferry to cross to Calais, France from Dover, England.

The robbers were probably amateurs while Alex probably had all his lucky angels watching over him on that day. Alex did not suffer any major bodily injuries except for his strained quadriceps (had to flee at high speed) and a bruised lumbar which was hit by his saddle as the robbers grabbed his bike forward when he stood between the top tube of his bike.

You now know why he does not wear his favourite yellow Shimano jersey any more. The shredded top is now our rag for cleaning our bikes. So sad.

We've been very lucky so far. We just hope we haven't used up our quota. But we take it as it comes, some days are good, some are bad. One day a kid gives you a freshly picked apple, the next they throw apples at you. Guess that's part of what travel is about, to see it all - the smiles and the tears, the joy and the pain. Maybe we should live a little less.

Nah.

NB: that was the end of THAT 10 days. But big doings in the world of Alex & Jo still to come, stay tuned, and don't change the channel.