ple, the heart-warming feeling by the
mothers that hugged and kissed me
as if I was their own, is something
that truly touched me.
This is what we love about humani-
ty – that whatever happens, whatever
the news reports and no matter what
we read online; no border, no govern-
ment and no religion can take away
from us what truly connects us – our
living souls.
Riding and camping in the Maran-
jab desert in Iran was an incredible
experience. Iran is truly a gem when
it comes to nature and we think it is a
must-do for over landers and people
who love off-road.
We will never forget a funny ex-
perience we had in Iran. We took a
lot of photos with random people
as well as friends in our one month
stay and for us, it is natural to smile
and put our thumbs up when posing
for a shot. We had noticed people
grinning sometimes but never really
knew the reason. Finally, after three
weeks, a friend told us that this has
an offensive meaning in Iran … it is
like sticking the middle finger out in
the western world. Suddenly, it was
all clear. We laughed a lot.
Crossing from Iran to Pakistan was
a tedious week. By coincidence, we
TRAVERSE 53
had met other European bikers at
the border and it was fun in the be-
ginning, but being a large group con-
stantly escorted by levies and police,
stopping at dozens of checkpoints to
fill the same details and being forced
to sleep at expensive hotels was sim-
ply nerve wracking. To make this
worse, just as we reached Quetta, we
were involved in an accident where a
car crashed into us and we were very
lucky not to get hurt.
Whilst we were still in the Baloch-
istan, around 3 days after we had
started crossing, we tried to escape.
We managed to get away with sixteen
stops but were eventually stopped
by an SUV full of very angry, armed
policemen. Towards the end of the
week, before reaching Lahore, we
tried to escape again, and we man-
aged.
Despite this, through what we were
later observing whilst exploring Paki-
stan, we felt sorry for how this nation
is looked at and how the authorities
are so scared that something bad
happens to a foreigner which would
make things worse and continue to
put a bad light on this beautiful coun-
try and its people.
The north of Pakistan is unique
and even though it was already very