to nowhere in particular

no idea where i'm going, but i'll get there Okumaya devam et

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to nowhere in particular Gezgin
kermanshah
20–22 Mar 2024, İran ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C
9 hours after almost missing the bus, we arrived at the small kermanshah bus terminal. getting a taxi was a real quest, but eventually we made it to the hostel hidden away in a dodgy looking alley, where we were welcomed the exact moment nowruz (the iranian new year) happened.

luckily, we still found an open convenience store, where i was the happiest person in the world because i thought i had found pre-made lasagna when really, i just bought 2 kilos of pasta plates. devastating. at least we found out that the products in iran are not, in fact, unmarked, instead, if you look closely enough, you'll find a little stamp with persian numbers somewhere on the packages. after lunch, we took a walk exploring some of kermanshahs back alleys. also bought a new usb c aux adapter for my phone, replacing the one i had kept taped to the back of my phone at the right angle to keep it working for the last couple of weeks.

just after sunset, we bumped into a chap who promptly invited us to his brothers wedding the next day. we were super pumped and exchanged numbers, but after a couple of messages his number stopped working. we couldn't figure out how to get back in touch with him, so there goes the persian wedding :(

while we were waiting for our snapp (iranian uber) the next day, a car pulled up next to us and offered to drive us. inside was a doctor couple taking their grandma carpet shopping. they drove us to taq-e-bostan, the local landmark. there, we became the main attraction for the first of many times. since it's a holiday in iran, there were tons of domestic tourists that are even more eager than normal locals to talk to you. as soon as someone worked up the courage to strike up a convo or ask for a picture, half the crowd wanted one. smile and wave.

we then went on a little walk into the mountainside, where i saw some rock climbers and struck up a conversation. 5 minutes later, i was already roped up and ascending some 7A. no idea in what grading system this is, but after half a year of zero exercise, the crux beat me. still a super fun experience.

back at the hostel, we had a new dorm mate from iraq. he was a super chill guy and together with an iraqi girl i would meet in isfahan a week later, he opened my eyes to the very real possibility (and relative safety) of travelling to iraq. according to them, the living standards there were better or equal to the ones in iran. there's some kind of a pilgrimage event every year where people from the whole country walk to a specific city, and apparently the security during that time is very good, so i hope i get to parttake in this journey sometime in the future.

the next day, we booked a bus to our next destination, shushtar, for which we had to wait several hours, so we decided to go somewhere else. i found a nice looking spot in nature on google maps, and as soon as we got close, we were picked up by a car and invited to join the drivers young friend group for a picnick.

as we were driving up to the spot, i thought we had accidentally run into a festival. there were hundreds of cars parked on this meadow, with tons of people spread out around the place sitting on carpets, barbecuing or smoking hookah. me and julia met the rest of our new crew, none of which could really speak english, but who cares at this point. the vibes were great, it felt like any other get-together of a german uni friend group.

we hiked up the hillside to some caves tucked away in a small valley, where we weren't going to be bothered by the masses down below, especially since i had carried two bottles of mystery water up the mountain. tents were set up, music boxes turned on, shots poured. we partied up there just until sunset, when we had to leave the group in order not to miss the bus. great times though. and we didn't go blind.Okumaya devam et
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shushtar
23–24 Mar 2024, İran ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C
upon arrival in andimeshk, we were, as usual, swarmed by taxi drivers. unlike in turkey, they usually leave you be if you say no, though. i notice more and more and more that it's an iranian trait to create problems where there are none. despite this, after some back and forth, we ended up taking a taxi to a spot in the city where you can share taxis with other people to cut costs for longer rides. that seems to be the way to go if there are no bus connections to where you're heading.

like this, uyiun and i met our new friend (whose name escaped me right now, he only mentioned it once). he was a man in his fourties and had come back from a family visit in andimeshk. after hearing that we weren't sure where to sleep now, he instantly offered to host us both. we were more than glad to accept.

coming into his apartment, we were greeted by a typical persian living room consisting of carpets and carpets, which makes a great place to sleep, as it turns out. he made some breakfast for us, we took a nap, and then he drove us out to the city center of shushtar, where a famous historical hydraulical system complex lies. looks cooler than it sounds.

once again, the place was absolutely stuffed and more pictures were taken of us than of the scenery. we met a really nice family that helped us with the tickets, though. also, one of the daughters spoke some korean, which is far more common in iran than you'd ever think. all thanks to k-pop.

we concluded the day by hiring a private driver for 3 hours for 6.000.000 rial (~11€) to get us to an ancient temple a bit out of the city. we came at the perfect time for sunset, when the masses were already leaving, and even if i'm not a huge fan of old stone stacks, it was really pretty. we even met the family from earlier again.

back at the apartment, our friend was shocked to hear that we hadn't had proper dinner yet, so he whipped out some chicken to prepare some barbecue skewers. the guy was really the sweetest person ever and he got a lot of joy out of caring for us. by the way, he had the average iranian english competency level, which is zero. we had the google translate servers working 9-5 for us.

the next morning, he dropped us off at the bus station on his way to work and we said our farewells. sadly, we had to wait about 10 hours until the next bus to isfahan was free, so we had a guy from a grocery store take our bags while we went to the city park to wait it out.

we chilled for a couple of hours, surprisingly saw people smoking weed on more than one occasion (and were even offered a hit) and had some lunch before heading back to the terminal. the bus wasn't the newest, and uyiun next to me was sick from running around in crocs in the rain, but we survived and made it to the hostel.Okumaya devam et
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3 beğeni
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isfahan, pt. 1
25–28 Mar 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 9 °C
this time, we weren't as lucky with the check in time as in kermanshah and had to wait for a couple of hours until we could catch up on sleep. to all of our surprise, johannes, a german bikepacker i had met in the hostel in tehran, walked through the door all of a sudden. we collectively scraped up our remaining energy and went to have a look around the city.

isfahan is beautiful, great people, and the hostel especially is really worth the money. 4 to 5 euros a night, including all the tea you could ever want, breakfast buffet and great people to meet. if you ever plan to come to iran, start there.

towards the end of the day, i got the idea to go on a little sunset hike and johannes joined me. it started raining buckets as soon as we got to the mountain, but we decided to push through and were awarded with an invitation to a mountainside barbecue as well as a rainbow sunset. johannes also gave me his old tent for free, which i would in turn give to elias.

then followed just a couple of slow days spent at the hostel planning, socialising, relaxing. since i feel like i still haven't disconnected from using my phone and so on, i got the idea to do a longer trip to nature at some point in the future. the idea escalated from a 4-day tour in kyrgystan to the te araroa, a 3000km thru-hike spanning the whole of new zealand. we'll see.

i also realized that i might have to break my no-fly-rule after nepal, because tibet is only crossable with an expensive ass organized tour and tons of paperwork. either that, or i go back all the way to pakistan and cross to china there, which would also require lots of paperwork. once again, we'll see.Okumaya devam et
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2 beğeni
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tanamir strait
28–29 Mar 2024, İran ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C
after all the sightseeing and sitting around of the last weeks, i wanted to go smell some fresh air again and managed to convine johnnes to go on a little field trip, which turned out to be a great idea. we took a snapp-taxi out of the city, told him to stop on the highway in the middle of nowhere and started walking towards the mountains. after just 5 minutes of walking, a police car already rolled up on us, but after a bit of talking, we were given permission to proceed as long as we didn't go too far off track.

under the blazing sun, we started ascending and walked for the rest of day, before finally stopping on top of the huge mesa we had found ourselves on. the views were absolutely amazing, johannes' camera was running hot.

we had some dinner while watching the sun set and found two good wind protected spots to sleep in. because of low humidity and good weather, we even decided against the tent, so that we could sleep right under the stars. thought i heard some wolves at night, but didn't see any trace the next morning when catching the sunrise.

we packed up, hiked back down to the highway, and hitched a ride back to isfahan. good times.Okumaya devam et
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2 beğeni
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isfahan #2
29 Mar–2 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C
i spent 4 more nights at the heritage hostel with johannes and olli, a biker from finland who had just come from afghanistan. not too much happened. i didn't want to travel to more cities in order to have enough places "remaining" that i could visit with elias, who i'd pick up from the airport in tehran soon.

we did get invited to a little house party, though. also, i had to say goodbye to johannes, who went off on his own to go push the envelope.Okumaya devam et
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3 beğeni
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tehran, pt. 2
2–4 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 16 °C
time to pick up elias, who i had first met a couple of months back in izmir. i took a bus to tehran, met the bloke at the hostel and spent two days revisiting tehran. also, i handed johannes' old tent over to him and made him buy a cheap camping mat and sleeping bag.

by accident, we found ourselves standing in front of the german embassy at one point, where multiple people wanted help from us to get in. of course, i couldn't really do much for them. it's sad, really.

at the hostel, there was also a nice pakistani guy who helped us complete the pakistan visa. green light.Okumaya devam et
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2 beğeni
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tehran #2
2–4 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
finally, elias' visa was approved and it was time to head to tehran to pick him up from the airport. under the name "mr. tourist", i took a 6h bus and met him at the hostel. we spent two days out and about in tehran, made some plans on where we'd be heading the next couple of days and met a pakistani tour guide in the hostel, who helped us with our pakistan visa application.

i also passed on johannes' old tent to elias and made him buy some cheap camping gear. we found ourselves in front of the german embassy once, where a couple of people immediately came up to us asking for help getting out of iran. we couldn't really do anything though. but that's the side of iran you don't see so quickly.Okumaya devam et
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0 beğeni
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isfahan #3
5–6 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C
after another night bus, i was back in the heritage hostel isfahan, basically my second home by now. olli, the finnish biker, was still there, now joined by his mate colin from switzerland, who was an equally chill dude.

i knew the sights pretty well by now, so we did a little speedrun tour of the city. notably, when we were on our way to the main square on the first day, a spanish dude heading the other way (back to the hostel) appeared quite stirred and frantically signed us to turn around. he explained that there's a war protest going on in the square and that he'd almost been arrested and robbed by secret police there. and indeed, there was a man in a white shirt following him, trying to look normal. we headed the other way. later, we heard from colin that he had also been to the square and almost got arrested because he took a picture. when we went to the square the next morning, the water in the fountain was red.

we were in the mood for some hitchhiking now, so after just one night, off we went.Okumaya devam et
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0 beğeni
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yazd
6–8 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 24 °C
hitchhiking to yazd was the best decision we could've made. after a quick taxi ride to the outskirts of isfahan, we tried our luck and an old afghani took us with him. he didn't speak a word of english and was illiterate though, so he didn't really get what we were trying to do and drove us to his house, where we were surrounded by his children. after a couple minutes of confusion, we decided to just book it and walk back to the road. it took a couple of tries, but we got another ride to an industrial town, where we were finally picked up by a young guy going to yazd.

he spoke great english and german as well and was super friendly, even bought us some snacks along the way and categorically refused to take any money at all. 4 or 5 hours later, now in the dark on the ring road of yazd, we tried to hitchhike inwards again and got picked up super quickly by another dude. he was super happy to have us and stopped at 10 different shops, everytime getting us another little treat and finally driving us all the way to our hostel.

we were greeted by our now good friend fuad, who was in company of his brother and his brothers girlfriend. the hostel is probably the most beautiful one i've ever seen and we stayed up late chatting with the guys in the courtyard.

the next day, we went out to explore the city. it's a one of a kind place and a must see in iran, an authentic mazelike city built wholly in a traditional mud building style. the pictures can't convey how cool it was to walk through all the little tunnels and alleyways. not only did we meet a photographer and had a little photo shoot, but i also met my wife on an evening walk with fuad. we played it as a joke, but her not so much. 😬Okumaya devam et
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taft
9–10 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
we wanted to take a night bus to shiraz, but had to find out that they were all booked out, so although the sun had long set and we were quite tired, we decided to just test our luck and try to hitchhike out. against all expectations, a single woman stopped after a couple of minutes, worried about us. it's (understandably) usually quite rare for women to stop for me, but for two strangers, in the middle of the highway, in the middle of the night, in the middle of iran, i would've never expected it.

she called a friend to translate and invited us to stay at her house for the night, no tarov. we couldn't refuse. after a bit of driving, we arrived and met her husband and child, before sitting down in the living room to have dinner. it was delicious, but we were quite sure that we were eating their pre-sunrise-meal (mind you it's still ramadan). they didn't accept anything but empty plates though.

then, to our surprise, they all said goodnight and left the flat entirely, essentially leaving us their whole home. textbook iranian hospitality, absolutely incredible. the next morning, the woman even drove us to a good hitchhiking spot, but not before showing us a viewpoint of her beautiful city and giving us food for the way.Okumaya devam et
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3 beğeni
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shiraz
9–10 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
this hitchhiking experience could've easily ended my trip. everything went super smoothly, until i got out of the second ride of the day and left my fanny bag containing credit cards, cash reserves as well as my passport and visa in the car. i was very frustrated with myself, this should never happen. i kept my cool though. thankfully, we had exchanged instagram contacts and after two hours of waiting at the spot where we had been dropped off, the guy came back with my untouched bag. i was beyond relieved and tried to give him money for basically saving my life, but he refused and said "i didn't do it for the money, i did it because i am a good muslim". damn.

now extra careful with our belongings, we hit the road again, and after a couple more rides, i finally got the opportunity to ride on the back of one of those blue nissan pickups that you see everywhere in iran. although many people do it, it's still illegal and we were stopped by police. luckily, they were only interested in catching illegal afghani refugees though and we got away lucky for the second time.

we finally arrived in shiraz in the evening and checked into the hostel. although many iranians told us that shiraz was perhaps the nicest city in the country, we didn't really find anything of interest there and felt like we had seen everything after half a day of walking around.Okumaya devam et
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ghalat
10–12 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
from fuad, we had heard that there is a place near shiraz commonly called "new amsterdam". needless to say, we had to check it out and took a snapp-taxi there. we didn't really believe it, but fuad told us you could just buy weed at the supermarket like it's nothing, so we went to a couple of shops buying a snack here and there, until the clerk in the third shop we went to actually made a smoking hand sign. i couldn't believe it.

but we still hadn't seen anything. the real part of ghalat is the old city. we hitchhiked there and were picked up by anoter... salesman. walking into the old town and the adjacent woods was like entering another world. hippies everywhere, people partying and barbecuing, music, everything. it was the same vibe as being at a good festival. we quickly found a nice calm camp spot in the hills above ghalat and settled in. the next two days up there in the nature felt like a vacation from iran and i met a lot of lovely dogs and people.Okumaya devam et
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bushehr
12–14 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 25 °C
departing from ghalat, we got on our way to bushehr to finally see the persian gulf. there was a traffic jam across the whole mountain pass, so it took us quite a while to get there. views were still great, though. bushehr isn't really a touristic city and doesn't have hostels or anything like that, but luckily we found a private contact that had been recommended to us. his name was farshid, we shot him a message and he immediately agreed to host us that same day.

farshid actually comes from norway and is a huge bodybuilding champion in iran. not only is he rich off of iranian oil, but also owns three very cuddly dogs and an organic bakery in bushehr together with his girlfriend and their daughter. they were amazing hosts and even baked special german bread for us. out great time was sadly interrupted by reports of iranian missile attacks. everyone we spoke to was relaxed about it, but i knew my parents wouldn't be, so me and elias decided to get to pakistan as quickly as possible now.Okumaya devam et
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GezginI hope you enjoyed 🇮🇷♥️
29.07.2024YanıtlaÇevirmek
Gezgin Local otter 😁
29.07.2024YanıtlaÇevirmek
3 beğeni
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speedrunning east
14–15 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌬 29 °C
in order to get out of iran as quickly as possible, we first had to go to the pakistani consulate in zahedan to get our visa interviews done. because zahedan was still more than 1.5 thousand kilometres away, we opted for busses instead of hitchhiking.

first, we took a 12h one to bandar abbas, where we arrived just in time to see the sunrise over the persian gulf, before taking another 12h bus to zahedan. while sitting near the beach, a dude wrecked his car into a concrete wall just behind me and just drove away with half his car scratching the ground. we arrived in the late evening and even found a hostel with some nice volunteers to stay at.Okumaya devam et
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zahedan
15–16 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ 🌙 17 °C
we left early the next morning to go to the consulate, where we met the single greatest embassy worker ever. we expected a harsh interview, but instead got drinks, snacks and a philosophy lecture from the guy. he talked to us about hospitality and how important it was for him to treat us well as a representative of his country. long story short, he gave us a 2x2 month multiple entry visa for the same price as the 1 month single entry we had applied for. absolute legend, i still have his business card.Okumaya devam et
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taftan border
16–17 Nis 2024, İran ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
because the process was so quick, we decided to just try to cross the border that same day. we went to the taxi stand looking for a shared taxi to the border, when we met anna from ukraine, who had the same plans and joined us. an hour later at the border, elias and anna were both accepted through the border. not me though. the guy at the embassy had made a little mistake and entered the day after as the entry date for pakistan.

here's the thing: the 3 day escort we would be getting from the other side of the border only departs a couple times a week in the early morning. the next day was one of those departure dates and i would have to wait multiple days if i missed it. the guards told me that it wouldn't be a problem if i crossed the next morning and that i could catch the escort on the other side. i still had to spend the night on the iranian side of the border though.

on the parking lot there, i luckily met a couple from the netherlands who were also waiting there with their jeep. they allowed me to sleep in their side tent, charge my stuff and even cooked some dinner for me. later, we were joined by an old german man in a sprinter, who, at 68 years old, turned out to be the possibly most seasoned traveler i've ever met, even if his classical retirement home attire didn't make him seem like it. he had a lot of fun stories to tell of travelling in "his days".

the next morning, we got ready to cross asap, when elias texted me, saying that the police convoy wanted to leave in a couple of minutes. the border office on my side still showed no sign of life. about an hour later, it finally opened and i rushed through as quickly as i could. elias, meanwhile, was holding his ground, now being in a screaming argument with the police to wait for me. on the pakistani side, i was luckily allowed to use my western privilige to skip the whole queue. an officer made a phone call to the escort police to hold out five more minutes, loaded me onto his scooter and got me to the departure point just as they were already leaving. one minute later and i would've missed it. sadly, nothing more could be done for the chaps i had spent the last night with. i was still more than relieved though.Okumaya devam et
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dalbandin police station
17–18 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C
the escort group on the pakistani side consisted of more people than i had expected. there were elias and anna who i already knew, of course. together with me and a dimitri, a russian, we made up the backpacker section of the group. additionally, there were two friends from serbia and bosnia on motorbikes and matthieu, a young french bikepacker. together with him and elias, i shared the front seat of an absolute monster of a vehicle, a huge converted army truck belonging to petra from germany.

there was always at least one levie car accompanying this group, although, sitting in that truck behind 2 inch bulletproof windows, it felt more like we were escorting them, not the other way around. at least every hour or so, we had to stop at a checkpoint, show our passports, and wait for a new police vehicle to escort us. it started out fine, but after some time, the constant stopping and waiting, which could be organized a lot more efficiently, drove especially the drivers insane.

the landscape on the first day wasn't too scenic, but fascinating nonetheless. mostly just empty, flat desert with a few camels sprinkled throughout. we did however see a very recent train wreck right next to our road. also, petras truck was so huge that she snapped two wires hanging above the street in a village we went through, so i was assigned to be on the roof and hold up the cables. when we finally arrived in our safe house, the police station in dalbandin, where we would be spending our night, we cooked some food together and got settled in an empty room.Okumaya devam et
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quetta police station
18–19 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C
the second day of the escort was the most adventurous one. we saw multiple accidents on the roadside, dozens of flooded road sections and ran into a huge traffic jam collumn consisting purely of those typical pakistani pimped out trucks. the police got us through by skipping the line. one of the bikers also fell in a curve because of the slippery surface and the rain, but he was okay.

the checkpoints got denser and denser and the escort size increased with time. as we were passing a mountain pass just before quetta, we were even accompanied by the anti terrorist squad for a while. all of them were super chill though. normally, i'd have a bunch of pictures with guns, but i had to transfer all of them into a cloud because some countries really don't like to find them in a phone search.

late at night, we finally made it quetta. right from the go, it was a different world. everywhere you look, there's something crazy going on, chaos everywhere. but i actually liked it and got really excited for the rest of pakistan. that exitement seized rather quickly as we were brought to our hotel, though.

if they don't allow you to stay at the police station, the bloom star hotel is the end point for everyone that makes the crossing, as you can clearly tell by looking at the sticker-filled glass front. the problem is, since the police force you to stay there, the hotel can pump up the prices at will. they charged us a comical amount, and we flat out refused to pay and told them we'd just sleep right in front of the reception. i was already half asleep in the lobby chair, when elias finally managed to haggle them down to an expensive, but somewhat acceptable price and we finally got a couple hours of sleep in.

the next day, we waited 3 hours until our escort finally came to drive us to some office to get our paperwork done. basically, we needed a document that stated how and when we would leave belochistan and that we'd be responsible for ourselves from there on out. elias, matthieu, anna and dimitri were all planning on going to islamabad to get the lengthy indian visa process started, so i decided to join them.

because the people from the office told us that we could take a train to the capital later that day, we agreed on going as a group. back at the police station in quetta, we were now told that trains only run in the morning and because our document said "by train", we weren't allowed to take a bus either. so, one more day of waiting it is. this time, after a lot of arguing, we were allowed to put our tents on the roof of the police station instead of going back to that godforsaken hotel.

this time, everything finally worked out and we were brought first to a breakfast place (btw, my stomach was already killing me from the pakistani food i had had so far, little did i know that feeling would last more than a month) and then to the train station. after a lot of stress and confusion with the authorities, we got a tiny 6-bed bunk compartment in the very back of the train and finally said goodbye to quetta, the city that had kept us for way too long.Okumaya devam et
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night train to rawalpindi
20–21 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
just a couple of minutes before our departure, we learned that the journey would actually take more than 30 hours. thriller. the vibes were surprisingly good pretty much the whole way through, even if we still got passport checks (always including an elaborate photo shoot with us) at every single train stop and there was one policeman accompanying us all the way to the border of belochistan. although we were quite annoyed by all the security ckecks at this point, i still appreciate the fact that the police does all of this for free just to make sure we're safe.

the views were great though, we passed through wildly different parts of the country, from the belochi desert through tiny villages to lush, green farmlands and i realized that i had actually missed the greenery in iran more than i had thought. every now and then, we got off at a train stop to catch some fresh air or buy some 30 cent diarrhea rice.

somehow, we pulled through the 30 hours relatively smoothly. i spent a lot of those hours sitting in the open train door watching the landscape whizz by with my headphones in. it was super nice to be honest, and the four others kept me great company.Okumaya devam et
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rawalpindi
21–24 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
after arriving in pindi, we managed to find an atm and spent our first couple of rupees at a burger joint. after dinner, mathieu and elias went off to find a hotel while dimitri, anna and me opted for couchsurfing. anna had arranged everything with the host, so we were pretty surprised when we found out that our host had a huge villa, including a private chef. the guy was super chill as well.

the very next day, we got straight to preparing our visa applications for india. turns out they need two weeks to issue it and still want 130€ for it. also, they gave us a list of things they wanted for the application: vaccinations, a hotel reservation, a motivation letter and much more bs. there were a lot more reasons than just this bit of bureaucracy, but in the end, i made a split decision and just trusted my gut feeling that india maybe wasn't exactly what i was looking for right now. central asia sounded a lot better. in retrospective, fabulous decision.

now with new found time on my hands, my favourite activity became booking ultra cheap scooter taxis to drive me around the booming streets of rawalpindi. you see no women, the traffic is absolute carnage, traffic rules are regarded more as suggestions and it's super crowded simply because there is no space for that many people to go. slowly, i got adjusted to the spicy food, but my stomach was still far from having a good time. the others weren't better off either, at one point mathieu (the two guys moved in with us after one night in the hotel) took a double dose of imodium and he couldn't shit for days xd

in the train, i had told matthieu about my plans to do a bit of bikepacking myself and he had happily agreed to accompany me for a little tour through the himalayas while his visa was getting processed. fantastic, now, all i had to do was find a bike.Okumaya devam et
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3 beğeni
to nowhere in particular Gezgin
islamabad
24–29 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ 🌙 24 °C
after 3 days of couchsurfing together and with the visa applications done, we finally decided to split up for good. dimitri decided to go back down to karachi, anna and elias stayed in rawalpindi seperately, and me and mathieu set up our tents on the outskirts of islamabad.

since there is no real culture around cycling in pakistan, bikes are mostly looked at as childrens toys, so there aren't even any real bike shops in pindi. i thought i'd try my luck online and after a lot of searching, actually found a couple of promising second hand candidates. the first two i had a look at in real life were in no condition to make it to china, but the third one looked promising. 47 thousand rupees later, i was the proud owner of a new mountain bike.

the next couple of days we spent hopping from guesthouse to guesthouse and from camp spot to camp spot while preparing my bike and repairing mathieu's. i ended up buying a lot more equipment: cycling shorts, luggage rack, bottle holder, repair kit, helmet, and a cycling shirt i just thought looked cool.

just when we thought we were ready to go, elias decided to rent a bike and come along as well. also, getting a bus to the start point of our tour, gilgit, was much harder than we thought, but after two days of trial and error, we finally found one that would take us and our bikes to the mountains.Okumaya devam et
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5 beğeni
to nowhere in particular Gezgin
night bus to gilgit
29–30 Nis 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C
this bus was not it. apart from a nice breakfast stop, i couldn't really move or sleep for twenty hours, my headphones were broken and the road was atrocious. nonetheless, as the sun came up, at least the views made up for it. the road up to the mountain city of gilgit is one of the most scenic ones in the world, shame we had to do it by night bus, but we had to, otherwise we would've gotten another police escort and that was not in the books for us. later i found out that we actually passed right through abbottabad, the place where osama bin laden was killed 13 years ago.

we were now on the kkh, the infamous karakorum highway, and everything you hear about it is true. straight rock wall to your left, straight 300m drop to your right. as scary as it is, especially considering the pakistani driving style, it's beyond beautiful though. just the place to go for a little bike ride.Okumaya devam et
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6 beğeni
to nowhere in particular Gezgin
gilgit #1
30 Nis–1 May 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
we arrived in gilgit with no idea where to go, but were quickly able to find a cheap hotel. we rested in the room for the rest of the day. elias got cocky at one point and made a bet that he could drink 1.5 litres of water in one go. he lost, but see for yourself.Okumaya devam et
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5 beğeni
to nowhere in particular Gezgin
along the indus #1
1 Mayıs 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C
on the first of march, we packed our bikes and finally hit the road. ahead of us were about 200 kilometres of mountain roads to skardu. we were all super exited to start the trip and in a super good mood. we did have to overcome one or the other problem, though. matthieu had to fix a puncture in his back tire, while elias struggled with keeping his backpack from falling off the luggage rack. also, of course, everyone single one of us had diarrhea, but it's become the new normal at this point.

halfway through, we were stopped by the tourist police, who told us that there had been a huge rock fall and that the road to skardu was blocked. we just banked on the hope that they'll have fixed it by the time we'd eventually get there. also, we were invited for a chai by some policemen at a checkpoint and even took some pictures with them and their guns (once again, i hid them away on a cloud for now).

the scenery was stunningly amazing the whole way through, there wasn't much traffic and we had great weather. also, we didn't realize it at first, but all of a sudden, we found ourselves standing in front of nanga parbat, the killer mountain. totally amazing, that was the cherry on top. towards the end of the day, we managed to find an abandoned shepherd's tent nestled into a boulder field and decided to squat it for the night.Okumaya devam et
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4 beğeni
to nowhere in particular Gezgin
along the indus #2
2 Mayıs 2024, Pakistan ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C
woke up to a nice view and got going. the day before, we had only covered like 40 kilometres, so we had to put a bit more effort in if we wanted to make it to skardu anytime soon. 40 really doesn't sound like much, but in that sun, on that terrain, with that weight, with no shorts allowed because of islamic law, and completely out of shape when it comes to cycling, it's a proper ordeal.

also, the nourishment situation wasn't looking too bright. between gilgit and skardu are only a couple of villages scattered along the valley, and pretty much all they sell there is chips and softdrinks. i had oats with fanta for breakfast and oats with pepsi for lunch. matthieu taught us, you gotta keep that blood sugar going.

in the first village we came across, i managed to get a wooden plank from some locals and we strapped it onto elias' bike to fix his luggage-falling-off-problem. the sun kicked our asses, but we eventually made it to a village, where we were invited to stay at a guy's guest house. turns out he also owns a lot of gem mines in the area and is a hobby geologist. he was very eager to show us his rock collection. great guy.Okumaya devam et
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3 beğeni

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