Last bus to Taftan
On the overland track from India to Europe it's hard to go around Pakistan, it's a land of geographical beauty, immense cultural diversity and very friendly people. The distances in Pakistan, however, can be mind-boggling. After a forty hour train ride from Rawalpindi (Islamabad) to Quetta I was exhausted. All I wanted was a good nights sleep and a decent meal. Sleeping on the floor in the over-crowded 3rd class (which really should be renamed to "Cattle Class") really took it out off me. I decided to make the next leg of my journey easier on myself and opted for a bit of comfort, a first class, air-conditioned coach with all the bells and whistles.
There is plenty of travel operators next to the Muslim Hotel in Quetta. Choosing a travel agent is about as educated and well researched as choosing a hotel. As an average backpacker, you either spend hours analyzing and comparing your options or you go with your gut-feeling and choose the first agent that looks half decent. My travel agent was extremely helpful, cheerful and gave me some good tips for the city. He even reminded me to be an hour early for my departure. A very nice guy.
Quetta is the largest city in eastern Pakistan. It's a busy trading post for the local farmers, nomads, herders and Afghanistanis (It's close to the Afghanistan border). In the bazaars here you can get anything imaginable from pocket knifes, fruit, a shave on the street, "down with India" stickers, fake designer jeans to used chinese army boots (somehow I got the feeling they were pulled off fallen soldiers). It's a busy and colorful place well worth exploring for a day or two. As anywhere in Pakistan, there is lots of English speaking people, I had the pleasure of skimming over one students presentation on Islam, which he was to read out to his class the following day. He asked me to correct it, I could not find anything grammatical to correct, however the contents were begging to be rewritten without the very strong anti-western theme. I didn't dare to point this out to him for fear of spoiling a perfect afternoon in a Muslim city. I complimented him on his English, finished my chai (milk tea) and moved on.
The following day, as soon as I got there, my travel agent organized an auto-rickshaw to take me to the bus station. I was under the impression that the bus was to take off from the travel office, but hey, he volunteered to pay for the cab, so who was I to complain? After a warm farewell, and a reminder to look after my luggage, I left for the bus terminal.
As soon as I was dropped off at the terminal I was besieged by an army of touts, all wanting to sell me a ticket to anywhere I wished to go. I proudly produced my already purchased ticket and asked one of them where I can find my bus. Instead of telling me where my bus is, the gentleman laughed in my face and informed me that the cost of a bus ticket to Taftan is 200 Rupees at the most, my ticket had a big, red "300 Rp" written on it. In a flash the whole bus station knew what I forked out for my ticket. In the hour before we boarded the bus, I had to cope with numerous questions relating to how much I paid for the bottle of water that I was carrying, how much did my apples cost, and did I really pay 300 Rupees for my ticket. Judging by the curious looks and pointed-fingers aimed in my direction, I was definitely the center of attention.
To pass the time I had a chat to an elderly fruit seller, he wore traditional Pakistani clothes, loose pants and a long shirt down to his knees, an Afghanistani hat, the shape of a squashed mushroom and a traditional beard parted into two. He had an uncanny resemblance to the Afghanistani Taliban freedom fighters that I've seen on TV in the last couple of weeks. It sounds good when you say "my Urdu was twice as good as his English", the truth was, I knew two words of Urdu, he knew one of English. The general impression I got from him was that his fruit were the best and the cheapest in town and that I made a mistake to buy from someone else. I think he forgave me though, me being a tourist and all.
My air-conditioned bus turned out to be a clapped out hunk of scrap-metal with two missing windows in the back and no sign of the air-conditioning unit on the roof. My friendly ticket agent lied through his teeth and there's really nothing I could have done but find a comfortable seat away from the missing windows. As I took my place, I though, why did I ever choose to travel with air-conditioning? It's an overnight trip and from experience, overnight air-conditioned bus rides get very cold. The trip was not working out as planned, but at least the bus only had about a dozen passengers, I could spread myself out.
It was 6 p.m. and the motor was running with the bus driver behind the wheel. All looked fine to me, but obviously not to he driver. He turned off the motor and ordered everyone to grab their luggage and change busses. The second bus turned out to be just as bad as the first, it also had two missing windows. I took my place and made idle chitchat with a couple of Afghanis that were going to Iran to find work.
At 7 p.m. the gears crunched into first and we left the terminal. We circumnavigated the bus station twice and then started heading west, towards the Iranian border. Within 5 minutes the bus stopped and all the men jumped off the bus into the dusk. No one that stayed behind spoke English, so I'm not sure where they went I assumed it was prayer time. I crossed the street and bought some rotis (flat bread) for the long, long night ahead. By this time I knew that the estimated 14 hours to Taftan was definitely going to drag out into some astronomic figure that I did not want to even try to imagine because it would only make the trip even more psychologically trying.
Within a couple of minutes all my male travel companions magically reappeared, and we take off. The driver and his helper were doing all that they could to get people into the bus. They started picking up anybody off the street that was willing to go in our direction This was done screaming out "Taftan, Taftan" at the top of their lungs and whenever someone showed a bit of interest they were quickly pulled into the vehicle, sometimes without the bus even stopping. Within an hour, all seats were taken, there was luggage and sacks of grain in the isle and I had to surrender one of my seats to an Asian looking gentleman with a thermos of hot chai. My roti, water and sandals have spread themselves out over the length of the bus, it was pointless looking for them, it was just too crowded.
Within minutes of leaving the city we found ourselves on an unmade road. The woman in front of me had opened her window which had the effect of sucking in all dust raised by the bus into the cabin, and subsequently into me face. The man next to me covered his face with his turban, another good use for a turban. I asked her to close it but the best I could get was a grunt and a 2-centimeter gap, which she widened on the sly whenever she didn't think I was looking. Games like these are not my cup of tea, but it is a long ride and there is nothing else to do, so I decided to keep closing the window whenever I didn't think she was looking. This kept us amused for hours and I think she appreciated it as well.
In the meat time, the guy behind me started forcing my seat into its upright position, I angrily told him to stop. He did, for at least 15 minutes, and then resumed his pushing with even more fervor. I had another battle on my hands. If I didn't know any better I would have thought that they woman in front and the man behind me were working together to drive me nuts. It was only the second hour of travel. "What's next?" I wondered.
The music! How can any overcrowded bus trip be complete without ear splitting music blaring all night long? I was fortunate enough to be sitting right underneath the speaker. There seemed to be only one on the bus so the driver cranked up the volume to the max. I could not miss a single note, word nor distortion from my vantagepoint. I enjoyed listening to these exotic Pakistani melodies for the first couple of hours, they broke the monotony of vegetating in an overheated and overcrowded human sardine can. Pity they only had one tape.
The next couple of hours passed in relative peace. At about midnight we pulled up in the middle of nowhere. Thinking it was a toilet stop I jumped off the bus to do what nature was screaming out to do and stretch my legs. By the side of the road there was a heard of goats, ordinary looking beasts, you see a few of them in Pakistan and Quetta was well known for it's goat legs from the spit. The bus driver and a couple of other individuals were busily repacking some of the luggage in the luggage lockers underneath the bus. I went for a short walk. Walking in the desert at night is really an experience, with no other light sources the stars seem brighter then ever and you get the feeling you could touch them. The night was so still, the silence only being broken by a distant bleeping of a goat. The cool fresh air encircling me and permeating my dusty clothing made me feel alive again. I was ready to take another 5 hours of torture in the cramped bus.
On the way back to the bus I noticed a group of my travel companions gathered at the side of the bus gesticulating and discussing something feverishly. I approached them and realized that all luggage has been taken out of the lockers and in its place the bus driver and a goat herder are filling the empty compartments with livestock! The heard of goats that I first noticed was being systematically packed into our luggage compartments. The first and largest of them had 4 females, the subsequent two compartments had 3 females each and the last one had two males. The males with their impressive 25 centimeter horns took a while to pack in because of their head ornaments which got in the way of the closing door. After a few shoves and pushes the driver managed to lock them in. Looking around I noticed another 3 goats, looking quite lost and out of place. I'm sure they didn't like the idea of travelling in the luggage compartments. I thought that they were going to ride with us, after all they could not tie them to the bus! Could they? To my surprise the remainder of the herd landed on the roof of the vehicle amongst our luggage.
Someone informed me that these lucky creatures are on their way to the slaughterhouse in Taftan. The gentleman was also quick to apologize to me for the barbaric and uncivilized behavior that I've witnessed. "This would never happen in your country, Sir", he concluded. I informed him that I thoroughly enjoyed the whole spectacle and that the mere fact that these goats are on the bus with us tonight shows how resourceful the Pakistanis really are. The horn sounded, we all hoped back on the bus and climbed over the rice sacks, luggage and whatever else there was to take up our respective seats.
The next 3 hours passes in a daze, blearing music, pathetic cries of horror from the goats beneath me, the man behind me was still wrestling with my seat and the woman in front still insisted on keeping her window open. The road deteriorated to what seemed like a couple of stones and pools of dust. You could feel the bus plunge into craters filled with the fine powder. This was immediately followed by an incredibly thick cloud of dust, which would fill up the whole cabin. The dust was so thick that it was hard to breathe, even the woman with the open window realized the error of her ways and voluntarily closed it. This didn't make any difference. I resigned myself to chewing sand for the rest of the night, if I could only find my water bottle.
At about 3 am we stopped for a meal break. There were already other people at the eatery, they looked liked real desert dwellers, most of them had their own water bottles and all wore turbans. I decided to join one of my newfound friends for dinner. We all ate sitting down cross-legged on large mats, I guess that's the desert way. Funnily enough the only thing on the menu was goat! I ordered mine; not really knowing what I'm going to get apart from the fact that it was going to be goat. It turned out to be in a spicy sauce with a serving of roti and chai. Put simply, it was delicious. I had no remorse, knowing that my dinners brothers are stilled locked up in the bus.
All too soon we were back in the bus. Full stomach or not, it didn't make any difference, the ride was still as bad as before. I decided to stay up all night it was only perhaps 2 more hours to sun rise. The condition of the road hadn't changed much. In the early morning sunlight I could see we were following the train tracks, the road wasn't well marked out. I did read that if you're travelling in your own vehicle in these parts (which is highly unadvisable) it's best to follow the train line to avoid getting lost.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw some buildings on the horizon in front of us. Could this be the border? It is way too early in the day. As it turned out it was only a passport check point, one of many that you need to cross before you actually get a stamp in your passport and cross the border. At about 9 we stopped for breakfast, I turned down all offers of food. I was too tired, all I wanted was to jump back on the bus and finish the trip.
We were soon on the bus and after another 6 hours we reached our destination. Looking around the bus I could see everyone was just as happy as I was to be finally getting off this wreck. There was a general rush for the door, people was clamoring over one another to get off. I patiently waited and helped a couple of the boys to unload the dusty sacks of rice from the bus. When I finally managed to step on solid ground I was wandering if the goats survived the trip, but my attention was seized by the group of moneychangers that stormed me. Each was carrying a plastic bag full of money, US dollars, Pakistani Rupees and Iranian Rials. Once again you have to take a punt and choose a moneychanger, "bargain hard" I kept telling myself. Later I worked out that each one of these guys must have had at least 2000 American dollars in their bag, this is substantially more that a years wage for a lot of people in this country.
With the remainder of my Rupees I bought a drink and a plate of sad bad looking and tremendously over-priced dhal (thick bean soup). Having finished my meal I walked into Customs, the procedure was very quick and painless. Walking out of the Pakistani customs I headed straight for Iran. I was quickly stopped by an uniformed man who demanded to see my papers. He insisted that there is something wrong with my paper work. As it turned out the customs people stamped an "Entry into Pakistan" stamp in my passport, I had to go back and get it changed to an "Exit from Pakistan" stamp. Within 10 minutes I was filling out Iranian immigration forms and quietly telling myself that buses in Iran cannot be any worse that in Pakistan. Goodbye Pakistan, I will be back!
Nick Mleczko (2/99)
© 1999 nick_mleczko@hotmail.com