TRAVEL FEATURE - PAKISTAN
MICHAEL SCHELLER
WELL WORTH THE EFFORT
In the late 1960s and 70s , an overland route from Europe to India gained some popularity as the “ Hippie Trail ”. Hippies in Volkswagen Kombis would stream towards Goa on India ’ s West Coast to live an easy life , some of them getting stuck in the Middle East in Afghanistan . Not that Afghanistan was a conflict zone back then and years before the war , it was more for the broad availability of opium that took their motivation to go any further …
Others made it through and settled down on the subcontinent . Imagine leaving home and arriving in an entirely different climate zone and culture , in a time with no GPS devices and no internet .
The dream of leaving your country by road and arriving in a country much different than yours never got old and some 45 years later , I had the same one : to take my motorcycle from Germany to India .
I got a map out and looked at the countries I needed to cross , deciding to stick to the Hippie Trail as much as I could , Afghanistan being off the cards of course . I would take a detour and stick to the Gulf of Oman in Iran , which would leave me with Pakistan to be crossed in order to get into India .
Traversing Pakistan arguably was the biggest adventure of my journey . Anticipation consumed me , with mixed feelings about riding through the Middle East in general . Travellers ’ tales of people being kind and hospitable contrasted with news reports about kidnappings , political instability , and terrorist attacks . Maybe the truth would be somewhere in the middle ?
First of all , I needed to sort out a visa . In preparation and when still at home , I put the application through the consulate in Frankfurt where I needed to show up in person . The consul wanted to see me , to chat
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