Category: Pakistan

Today is the day we meet our initial goal of reaching the Chinese Border. The Khunjerab Pass is the highest border crossing and the highest paved road in the world. It is only 100km to the border but then we will turn around and ride 150 back to Karimabad

We’ve been told to expect rain, snow and cold of all bitter cold. I’m wearing three layers of pants: thermal underwear, Kevlar Moto pants and cargo pants on the outside. I have my big yellow Gortons fisherman pants at the ready in case I need water proofing or another layer. On top I’m wearing a capilene long sleeve shirt, a light sweat shirt and my First Gear Kilamanjaro jacket with all of the vents closed for the first time in the trip.

We ran into some rain early in the day so when we stopped for breakfast I put on the yellow fisherman pants. They look ridiculous and everyone in the group laughed. I has glad to have them on later when it got cold and snowy.

Fooled around at breakfast taking pictures holding hand the way Pakistani men do.

It was a long ride up up the pass.

Snowing on top

We were forbidden to take pictures of the Chinese military personnel at the border so I snapped this selfie

More rockstar treatment from people at the top Noble Joseph

The Pakistani people have a great sense of humor. I think it’s hilarious that the Chinese built a huge monument at the border and the Pakistanis put up a tiny building to house the highest ATM in the world!

Stopped to see a snow leopard

The ride back to the Hunza View hotel in Karimabad was uneventful for me. Michael had an off in some soft gravel. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt, just shaken up. Bagel had a terrible ride home filled with mechanical problems.

Diarrhea woke up feeling terrible… Took some Imodium and had breakfast and I was ready to ride. Once on the scooter for the day I was fine.

Fahima, Moin’s friend from Lahore and the singer from last nights party decided to ride along with us today.

Rode through the the longest tunnel I have ever been in. Pakistani tunnels don’t have lights. The tunnels were built by the Chinese when Abottabad Lake flooded a town and covered the KKH. Saw Abbottabad lake it was a shade of turquoise that I have never seen in a body of water before. The lake is feed by melting glaciers.

Went up the craziest up hill off road trail, can’t even call it a road, to get to a lake and tea house. It was the most difficult and technical riding I have ever done.The tea house had no tea. But we went for a boat ride on the lake and I met (insert name) from People of New York

Saw the Pasu Glacier

Hotel in Pasu had a great front yard to hang out in and this close to the Chinese border the owner had Chinese beer.

Fatima sang for us again. And so did Tom.

Woke up to incredible view off of balcony

First hot shower since we left Islamabad wash clothes with me in the shower and hung them to dry on the balcony

Assisted Michael Strauss with his WordPress blog… I’m glad I decided not to blog live.

Honey Omlete

Walked up huge hill to Baltit Fort

Hunza Bazar with Prince Mahmood

Eagles Nest… Crazy uphill scooter ride and Climbing in the Himalayas

Crazy downhill ride in the dark.

Wind picked up today so my clothes fell off the balcony and my underwear was spread across the courtyard. Not OK in an Islamic country.

The night ended with a party on the roof of the hotel our hosts had a band and we all danced.

Walked to breakfast. Sitting in cafe while Ragu ordered for us a truck tire blew out in the street and our entire group jumped. You can’t blame us it sounded like gunfire and we just walked by the army rangers stationed outside our hotel.

Moin led us on a detour this morning to ride over the rickety Danyore foot bridge. The interesting thing about this bridge is that it ends with a tiny tunnel that has a sweeping right hand turn inside of it.

Michael Strauss immediately pulled into a street stand after the tunnel and bought a snack. One was sugary fried dough type of thing called galabi, it was to sweet for my taste it was like eating fried maple syrup. I loved the pakora a hush puppy type of fried flour, onions, potato and chaat masala.

I started the highway portion of the day with mechanical issues. The bike would start and run fine until it ran at 50-60kmh under load, the load being me, and then the engine would sputter to a stop. It happens 6 times before we replaced the spark plug, the ignition wire and the coil. Later Bagel told me he though it was probably from the coil being submerged in the river the day before.

Chap Shuro samosa at street stand in the village of Nagar whose main industry seemed to be Sheparding or butchery shop owner.

Chap Shuro is delicately spicy deliciousness

Stopped for a cup of Chai in the tiny village of Minapin. As we sat on the patio sipping tea we had a great view of Raka Poshi

Dinner on the roof of Hunza View Hotel

Roof top party with friends of Moin from Lahore with Hunza Water the local moonshine

The day started out at a standstill. Soon after we left Naran we found a truck had taken out the bridge over the Kunhaar river in Bata Kundi. This put a big delay on our day but added incredible value to our adventure.

We eventually convinced locals to help us out and carry our Vespa over the broken bridge.

On the other side there was a small tributary steam that we decided to just ride across. Easier said than done. Both Bagel and I stalled in the middle of the stream and had to get off and push the rest of the way. Then we had to remove our spark plugs and dry out the cylinder to get the scoots started again.

Once across it was a short ride to breakfast were we saw a Wild ferret scampering down the street. At first I thought it was a chipmunk or a squirrel but it was definitely a ferret.

Saw my first glacier today it was a small one but came right to the roadside. The locals had hollowed out a space and were selling ice cold bottled drinks to passing cars. I hope I caught it on the GoPro as I drove by.

We went over Babusar pass today. The summit is 13,700 feet after a few minutes of being at the top I felt a little lightheaded. We had to wait for our passports to be processed before they would allow us to ride down. And what a ride down it was. The steepest hairpin turns I have ever ridden. The absence of guard rails added to the excitement. Any mistake would have been a grave error.

Roughest roads yet today makes for a very long tiring day. On the upside I remember thinking after riding a particularly difficult section that if I can ride this on a 50 year old scooter with 8″ wheels I must have some skills.

Soon after we got to the super rough section Moin cracked his clutch casing and had to stop. As our mechanic Gurdu went about fixing it. The rest of us went on ahead. Soon due to different riding styles, stops to take pictures and minor scooter maintenance stops, we were spread out all over the highway. I spent most of the day relatively on my own. Only to meet up with each other at checkpoints and other logical stops. At one point I remember riding along thinking I’m alone at risk and riding a motor scooter thought Pakistan on the other side of the world. I have never been so free.

On the opposite side of the valley we hit a sand storm. riding uphill into a headwind while being sandblasted raw. By the time I got to the top going any farther was out of the question. Lucky for me that’s where I found Bagel sitting in a roadside chai hut having a conversation with Professor Ahmad from the University of Islamabad. We had met Ahmad earlier in the day while we were stuck at the bridge. Ahmad and a friend are also on a motorcycle adventure up the KKH.

I joined them for tea and soon after Michael caught up and joined us. The tea house was conveniently adjacent to the viewing point for Nanga Parabat, the ninth tallest mountain on earth. Soon after that Moin caught up and warned us that the aftermath of the sandstorm would be very dangerous in the mountains. So the rest of the day was a 50km single file race with the professor in tow.

Right after the teahouse was a checkpoint where Moin took our passports as usual and did all of the talking. Because of the mounting storm we were ushered through the checkpoint to ride on while Moin did all of the paperwork. We rode on without our passports.

We raced on to Gilgit with fits and stops all of our Vespasian having issues with fuel starvation from clogged jets due to the sand storm we rode through. On one of the stops I also started taking photos of the mountains. Right away a man across the street in a military uniform started yelling and motioning for us to come across the street. That’s when I notice that it was a military base across the street. Ohh this is not going to be good. As I pulled over to the man I was thinking I will just show him that the pictures on my phone are just of the mountains not the base… I mean he will understand right? I’m not a spy. As I shut the scoot off I had a panic thought “oh shit! Moin has my passport! Pakistani prison here I come!” As It turned out he just saw a white guy and wanted to meet me.

The hotel in Gilgit has a wonderful airy veranda

Plus the entire place is decorated with stuffed goats! and who doesn’t like that?

Dinner was another spectacular feast of Pakistani cuisine at Cha Cha’s chicken house. Cha Cha is uncle in Urdu.

The stairway to the dining room was kinda scary though.

A longer day today but I really didn’t feel the distance until the last 5km. We started at 8am and worked through some traffic leaving Abottabad. Stopped for a breakfast of omelette and naan at a small cafe about an hour into the ride. A man at the cafe stopped me to say how pleased he was to meet me. The people of Pakistan are so nice that this is a very comon occurrence. Moin started shooting video of the conversation and prompting the man with questions to ask me. Where do you come from, are you enjoying Pakistan, what are the differences between Americans and Pakistanis? An impromptu interview.

We spent most of the day in the Kaghan Valley with a few gains and losses in altitude. A fun day of riding with switchback climbs and sweeping twisty descents.

Rough roads
The roads today were the roughest I have seen yet. I’m having a great time with some of the most challenging riding I have ever done. There were long stretches of near single lane because the hillside lane was filled with debris from rock slides. Pot holes were everywhere and almost as bad are the roughly patched pot holes that are really just a load of concrete dumped in the hole and not flatten to the road surface. When you hit them they launch you like a jump. All of those years of BMX and mountain biking are really paying off. Before the trip started I had been concerned about doing the Water crossings on a Vespa with 8 inch wheels. We hit a quite a few water crossings today.most of them quite small but a couple caused a big splash. My concerns were for nothing, they are actually kinda fun.

An unexpected surprise today was seeing a huge mountain with our first snow covered peak. I wondered what great name mountain I was seeing. I asked Moin at the next stop and he said, ” nothing special… Just a hill, you haven’t seen the mountains yet”

Speaking of snow covered peaks while stopped on the side of the road a motorcycle with a box on the back and a speaker blaring “it’s a small world” drove by slowly… WTF an Ice cream man way out here in the middle of nowhere in Pakistan? We waved him down and enjoyed a treat. Ice cream was only 50 rupees, I gave him 100 and you would have thought I had given him a million dollars. He was a good sport and posed for pictures.

Both Bagel and Moin ran out of gas today within 1km of our final stop in Naran thank goodness for the support van. I can’t imagine how difficult this trip would be without assistance. When we stopped for Moin’s fuel issue there were a bunch of small children who were fascinated by us and the scooters. Bagel became the ambassador and handed out candy to them. I took the moment to take photos of their grandfather.

Just as we were getting into Naran, I was getting tired. The ride up to the hotel included riding straight through the bustling Naran Bazaar. The town of Naran is located on a hillside and the bazaar tightLy lines both sides of the street on a hill that is just steep enough to be troublesome to navigate at slow speed. It was crowded and stop and go. That’s when one of the things I have or ride about happened I stalled the Vespa in the middle of the Naran Bazaar! I was in first gear and the car in front of me stopped. I didn’t grab enough clutch in time to prevent the stall. So there I was in the middle of a crowd, trying to kickstart a vintage Vespa while trying to keep it from rolling down the hill backwards (the front brake doesn’t work) and then I had to jump on and get moving again.

While we ride all day and enjoy ourselves these guys work tirelessly in the background to make sure our every need is taken care of. They work on the scooters, handle hotel check-ins, carry our luggage… Everything. An expedition is only as successful as its Sherpas.

Gurdu – Head Vespa mechanic
This guy has 50 years of experience keeping old Vespas alive.

Raghu – the guy who takes care of everything

Nasir Mahmood – Support van driver and chauffeur straight out of Bollywood this is a handsome guy and he knows it!

Syed Atzaz Shah (Shah G) – Filmmaker
A friend of Moin’s who came along for the ride to document our journey. He’s shooting on Canon 5d, OSMO and GoPro Cameras

They truly embody the Maman Navazi, take care of the guest, concept of the people of Pakistan.

But every conversation still sounds like an argument in Urdu

Today is the day we leave Islamabad and start a the riding portion of Scootistan 2016.  Of concern this morning, the Pakistan army broke the ceasefire on the Kashmir border yesterday. https://www.google.com/amp/m.economictimes.com/news/defence/pakistan-violates-ceasefire-along-loc-in-poonch/amp_articleshow/54024370.cms?client=safari This happened in the Poonch region which is only about 177km (100 miles) from here. I’ve fortunately never been this close to war. And we are riding in the opposite direction today.

It will be a short day on back roads to Abottabad to get a feel for riding. Our fourth member Micheal Strauss’s flight from South Africa was delayed so he didn’t get in until 1am. I feel sorry for him having to turn around and ride today. Packing up gear, eating a little breakfast, checking out of the guest house and waiting for the driver to pick us up and take us to Moin’s grandparents house where the Vespas are getting their last minute adjustments by the mechanic after yesterday’s shakedown ride.

Not excited about riding in Islamabad traffic again!

 

 

We climbed up out of Islamabad for most of the day to a nice road of twisties through many little towns until we reached an 8000 ft peak and plunged down a lush green canyon to Abottabad. Highlights today included many many monkeys on the road! They seemed to hang out in the road near roadside stands and beg the customers for  handouts.

I decided not to stop and take more pictures of the monkeys for fear they would climb onto my scooter and I wouldn’t be able to shooo them away.

 

I stopped to signal a turn for the other riders and some locals offered me cold drinks, when I refused the man took a pack of gum of of his pocket and offered it to me he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

 

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We stopped for chai at a roadside stand

We got Abottabad just as rush hour was happening and the streets were complete chaos. This was the craziest driving experience of my life. Complete white knuckle driving with cars, big truck, motorcycles and pedestrians flowing sometimes at a good clip and sometimes at a standstill. Horns blowing pedestrians walking everywhere utter mayhem! At one point I was unable to bridge a gap and got separated from the group. There I was alone in Pakistan!, lost, confused and highly stressed. Nothing to do but forge on and hope for the best.
After a while I was sure I had passed up the hotel so I stopped to get my bearings and along come the other three in the opposite direction. They had also gone too far. I turned around rejoined the group and within 5 minutes the stress melted away and we pulled into the Hotel DeManche compound where the support crew was waiting to greet us.

After we checked into the hotel we ventured out for a late night dinner.

The Kabab was wonderful and we all got a lesson in using our hands and a piece of flatbread to eat rather than using silverware.

Felt very stupid last night. When we first arrived our host supplied us with $50 in Rupees to make sure we had some walking around money. After 4-5 meals and a taxi ride yesterday I was out of Pakistani money. I asked my host I I could exchange more money… His simple answer? “Have you tried an ATM”

Scootistan 2016 began for real today!

We met up with our host Mr. Moin Khan and started with a meal together. Afghani BBQ at a restaurant named Kabul BBQ. The food was absolutely amazing and this was just the beginning! I can’t wait to eat my way across this country.

Then we went to go see our scooters for the first time, meet some of the support crew that Moin has hired and have a short shakedown ride.

I picked the black Vespa 150 Super. I shall name it Darth Vespa!

The scooters are rough! I’m not sure what I expected but wow, I can’t believe that I’m going to ride 1200 through the Himalayas on a 1960’s Vespa that has been banging around Pakistan for over 50 years!

The test ride was terrifying! Islamabad traffic is chaotic mayhem unlike any driving experience I have ever had. Lanes are nearly a suggestion, vehicles driving into oncoming traffic is commonplace, large trucks try to fit into any gap and Vespas are the lowest man on the totem pole. All while trying to get my brain wrapped around driving on the left hand side of the road.

My scoot had no 2nd gear and navigating traffic while reacquainting myself with hand shifting and a foot brake rather than a handbrake. This old Vespa shook and shimmied the whole ride, It’s a wonder that I am still alive.