(Daniel) Judging by the last few days, we felt that we were owed some luck. But that’s not how Pakistan works. That’s when you fall into the trap of thinking that everything that could go wrong, has. When you have accepted your fate has played out and are back on your way, that’s when Pakistan has you in it’s grip again, ready for another whooping. This is Pakistan.
We woke up in the Levies compound at about 8.15, the Levies guys were all up and about, and were very helpful with hot water ready for us to wash, hot tea was served up in the Mess. We thanked them for their kind hospitality, and gave the officer a gift, the remains of our Earl Grey tea and a thermos flasks which, so that he could have tea whilst on patrol. Then we climbed into the Wolf, and headed out into the unknown again. Pretty soon the road surface ended and we were on gravel and dirt. Lorries picked their way across the corrugated surface which shook the Wolf violently as we tried to maintain a reasonable rate of progress. I might have gone faster except for the trailer which we did not have much confidence in, since the axle breaking. So we just shook our way slowly across 120kms of bad tracks.
Along the way, we stopped in a small dusty town for breakfast. The usual crowd gathered again, so we were ushered into a back room so as to eat in relative comfort. As we ate a group of men watched us from across the room. Here in Pakistan they tend to eat with bread, instead of utensils, and as amateurs we probably made quite a mess of this method, despite having got some practice with the Levies the night before. When we finished eating, we got back in the truck to leave. The men followed us out, and then became quite frantic, asking us, infact almost begging us to stay, telling us that they would keep us safe, and look after our every need. On one level, it seemed nice, in the way that Iranians had wanted to host us for a kind of merit, on the other hand, it was somewhat creepy. Either way, we had to push on, and said our goodbyes.
After a few hours more, the road surface returned, and we cheered as I was able to accelerate up to 100km/h again. We soon came to a small town where the police stopped us at a checkpoint just before the mountains. This was the Punjab border, and they asked us to wait while they radioed ahead that we were coming. While we waited I tried to fix the trailer brakes again which keep working themselves loose on the rough roads. A caravan of camels was in town, and just before we were given permission to go, they pulled out onto the road, which made for quite a sight. The officials let us go then, so we waved at the caravan as we passed them and headed up into the mountains.
The roads quickly turned bad again, and the trailer took a few potholes quite hard as we climbed to the first pass. We had just got over the crest when disaster struck, again. The axle broke, the wheel came off, again, the brakes came apart, and components sprayed all over the road, again, and we were stuck, again!
I looked at Rowan and Gabbs, who didn’t seem at all surprised. They just settled in for a wait. It turned out that the wait was not long, as a policeman quickly arrived and told us that he would go and fetch a mechanic. I wondered at how quickly the policeman had arrived on this remote road. It occurred to me that we might be being followed. After about 20 minutes a mechanic arrived on a bike, has asked if I had tools and told us that we should be back on the road in around 2-3 hours. We settled down and waited for him to disassemble the suspension, and remove the axle. Then he drove off with the axle and returned an hour later to refit it. As he was fitting the axle the sun was starting to go down, and we discussed our reduced options. Basically we had two options, either keep going to our destination in the dark, or we could look for another policeman, and ask if we could stay in his station, then press on again in the morning. The second option sounded better. As the mechanic had now finished, we paid him, thanked everyone, and carried on down the mountain, even slower now, as we were even less confident!
The sun began setting, just as we entered the most amazing mountain road that I have ever seen, sheer drops, without barriers, winding hairpins and amazing views across the valleys below. If only we hadn’t been limping along in near darkness this would have been one of the most beautiful sections of the journey to date. We drove down for about 45 minutes and eventually were stopped by the police at the station marking the bottom of the mountain road. They made us fill out the ledger, and then started to repeat the same words, it sounded like “police, spy.” Remembering our questioning only yesterday, I feared the worst, but they were actually insisting that an officer accompany us to the main station down the road. We took him with us, and pressed on, arriving at a very large police station about 30 minutes later.
Many police came to meet us, and asked where we were going. To which we replied DG Khan. “This is DGKhan province,” they said, “but you are not allowed to stay in DG Khan, visitors are not allowed here without a permit for… Various reasons.” We asked if we could stay there, but they explained that because of this ruling we could not stay anywhere in DG Khan, and that we would have to drive all the way to Multan another 3-4 hours on from here, in the dark. I couldn’t believe it, another 3-4 hours in darkness, with a poorly repaired trailer! This was crazy, but there was no telling them. They explained that we would also have to be escorted the entire way, and that they had implemented their ‘Diplomatic protocol’ for us. We got back in the truck and drove with a two car police escort, sirens blazing to the edge of town, there anther vehicle picked us up and continued the escort. We drove all the way to Multan, with at least 6 cars, and a good 30 policemen all carrying machine guns, involved in the escort. During this time, I became very tired, and Rowan and Gabby tried to keep me awake and support me.
Eventually we arrived in a town signposted ‘Multan’, the last escort car did not pull off, instead the officer got out and walked to the window. “Which hotel!?” He shouted, very angrily, I hesitated and he grabbed the book from Rowan and tried to read it, then he came back to the window, and said, “At 1 o’clock we get request for escort, we have been waiting here in the road for 10 hours, 10 hours!!” Then it dawned on us, the radio call that the men, at the checkpoint before the mountains, was to arrange this escort. All of these cars had been waiting for us while we were broken down in the mountains and picking our way through the roads. Why he had been waiting here all this time though, I didn’t want to ask. Now having realised the situation, we tried to be apologetic. I was not feeling in the best of moods myself and so had to bite my tongue.
The angry policeman drove us into town, where we found a hotel, and parked the Wolf in the courtyard. Then our escort went home, presumably to explain to his wife where he had been! Once safely inside our room, we ordered food from the reception, and watched a movie on the laptop before going to sleep.
Distance driven 490kms