Dont let anyone tell you that it couldn't be done !

Don't let another moment slip away ! (Michael Franti.. )
Its been a week of emotions as I reflect on the past and present. The events leading up to the final leg of the silk road in Pakistan were more than I ever expected or dreamed of. How many times people had said NO, it cannot be done. Where it all started even confuses me, just by the title of my blog: Garths Africa. I had no idea I would ever be here, never really thought things thru,  calculated the risk or challenges. But here I am !
The difficulties of getting into Iran on a motorcycle, the Iran guide, the visa, insecurity in Pakistan, worries about westerners taken hostage,  up to 5 police staying the night at a hotel, escorts to walk down the street...  A quick road side stop to add air in a flat tire was an issue,  knowing I was not in a place where fixing a flat was an option.
It seems behind me now, in a region of Pakistan where friendly shop owners refuse my money for a coke & chips while I rest from the heat. Pakistan is concerned about there image and is working very hard to change. Police are for my safety , the locals all ask what are my thoughts about Pakistan's. They care and do not support what has happened before and want to show others that its safe to be here. Most westerners would see police escorts as a big problem, but as its often said here: there is no problem , we just want you to be safe !

Taftan is the dirty border town between Iran and Pakistan, comparing it to the border of China in the north cannot be done. Brits, Canadians, and Americans are not allowed on the final leg of the KKH ( Karakum Highway ) the famous highway is one of the worlds highest paved roads linking Asia to Europe and replaces the original Silk Road. It took some begging, diplomacy, senior officers, and refusing to let No be an option but in the end,  myself , Dan and Heiko were granted permission to travel the final 50 miles of Pakistan to THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA !

If ever there was a loop to ride,  this ride will forever be remembered. The day started at Eagles Nest Hotel in Kirimabad , it over looks mountain peaks exceeding 21000 feet, north of Gilgit , the gateway to K2,

the worlds second highest mountain.

A massive land slide about 5 years ago completely wiped out about 15 k on the KKH . Now the Chinese have partnered with Pakistan to rebuild the highway.   Until the road is rebuilt goods to and from China to Pakistan are all loaded from large trucks to small boats. Porters work endlessly unloading trucks into boat after boat, and again back onto trucks 15km later.

The challenge of getting a 200kg bike on and off a small boat was easy in comparison to the river crossings that followed. The KKH will always be in need of repair by the very nature of its location.

In Georgia I met a fellow rider Dan. We enjoyed beers, laughs, fantastic rides, and struggled thru the diplomacy of overland travel. Departing ways in Gilgit,  I wanted to travel alone again. It may be a foolish thing traveling alone after the recent river crossings, and police escorts, but I know I will always have a friend close by ...

The loop unlike many rides around Washington State leaves you breathless .. picking up a bike in the river after a ride to 15075 feet ( 4720 meters)  is hard work. The past few months of poor diet, and constant moving about, have shed any muscle left on me to nothing. Looking in a mirror I ask what happened ? the skin is hanging off me ...!!  I worry the eagles may be looking at me for lunch if I don't start doing some push ups or something...

India is the next stop ! I have a 6 month

visa !!

leaving Iran and onto Pakistan !

Silk carpets cover the floor of a local gym in a repurposed water holding tank . Its a cool place  30 feet underground. Classes were complete for the day, so no work out.  While in Pakistan I did have an opportunity to watch some fights..

It was a full 9 hour day to travel the final 50 KM of Iran. It started in the morning at the hotel reception asking for our passports. It seems during the night the hotel had called in the troops of our position and at 7am the police were waiting.  Police held onto our passports ensuring we travel with them to the Pakistan border.  An untold number of checkpoints made travel very slow.The Pakistan border post is Taftan, in the province of Balochistan.

The ongoing conflict and attacks by sectarian groups in Balochistan put any hopes of  security escorts ending when in Pakistan.  A warm " Welcome to Pakistan !! " as I road across the border by police was comforting.  Like many border towns Taftan is no different, dirty, dusty, money changers, etc.  .. keep on riding if possible... It was already to late in the day for police to arrange escorts, but they did give up some floor space in their compound. It's also shared with prisoners and pilgrims .

Bomb attacks on pilgrims were of a concern in the area, and with two large pilgrim bus's parked outside the police compound,

 I wondered how safe I really was that night. To my relief that morning the pilgrims were gone. Maybe part of a way to relieve tension we joked as we traveled the province,  Pilgrim bus's constantly seemed to be close by. Escorted the entire country of Iran , I was more than ready to travel freely again, but the next 1500 miles or so in afternoon heat of 109 degrees made the next 8 days go pretty slow. Check point after check point we stopped , showed our passports, gave details, drank water and road off again. Police escorts changed often, sometimes every 10 miles. If there was ever an incident it was will documented where we were at all times.

Invited to spend the night at the home of a friends contact, I was given some in site to the culture. The Government of Pakistan and the police had taken responsibility for my safety and were not about to release me into the hands of someone else for an evening . Police preferred a safe hotel with security , and to escort us if we wanted to go out for food. We met out host who invited us to stay at his home in a parking lot with our police escorts. The parking lot is where a poker game started between our host and the police.. Who would win the right to take care of the American, English and German !

There were a number of phone calls to who's who in Pakistan . We went from staying at our hosts home, to some big developers place. The police went from local authority to provincial and political authority. At one point the police had claimed victory and we were on our way to a hotel for the night. 30 miles down the road their cell phone rang and we changed course again to a private home. Our original host was not a strong enough figure in the community to stay at his home, but he was not about to be shamed by the police and started calling his friends to one better the police. The struggle ended with a full police envoy pulled up in front of a prominent doctors home. I was greeted first by a senior intelligence officer who took our passports and then  introduced me to Dr Khurram.  Only minutes earlier the Dr said bring us to his house,  he was inviting us for the evening. The police had  agreed to let us stay unescorted until 7am the next morning.

Its Ramadan and everyone fasts until sunset. At sunset Dr Khurram fed 20 or more police men and officials in his garden, and invited us inside to feast on local food and drinks.

The doctor seemed to take some pride as he smiled and asked me : " What do you think about our excellent security ? "

 

Pakistan wants its

its visitors to be safe., and escorts are a big part of that effort.  About 80 miles before Lahore the police left us ride unescorted. I am now in Islamabad and if I can get a permit to travel the Karakorum Highway before my visa expires, I will see the mountains of Pakistan !!

Tehran

Dan from London leads the way today.

Wow, I am in Iran !! It was an emotional day when it finally came. The effort to enter Iran with your own motorcycle was incredible, but with out question it was worth it. The standard questions , where are you from, my name, what city do you live in, the motorcycle, and so on,  start at almost every place I stop at. It may only be a brief stop for a bottle of water , but someone is going to see me and want to know more.. The people tooting there horns , smiling  and a wave as they drove past me on the road made riding in the Heat a lot easier .. Tehran is a big city in excess of 14 million people, traffic is as you would expect, but I can say I have seen worse !

Soltaniyeh, the worlds 3rd largest domed building 1303 AD

I hope you enjoy seeing more photos of me, I have been told it would be nice ... The first night was at Hosseins guest house not far from the border, then off to the Capital. Its going to be a faster visit than I would like, so its a busy schedule of riding early before the heat, and visiting the many sites in the evenings.

The photo here is in front of the old American Embassy ... Its a large compound surrounded by walls of graffiti . The graffiti is what it is, but does NOT reflect the general feeling of most people in Iran. I have been told just today that they wish for better relations between the countries, including Canada.

In Esfahan I was taken below the bazzare to see the dying of cotton, how they used camels to  turn stone wheels grinding spices, the making and repair of carpets , and hand painting of fabric . Esfahan has a long trading history as part of the silk road to Bagdad. .

Iran

Today is the day !! I am excited to finally be moving forward with my travels East. Thanks to a lot of work and planning, I will put some miles on the bike again. I will travel the length of Iran , with stops in Tehran and Estafan for a rest and site seeing.

My final night in Turkey included a few beers, some music and street food on the way back to the hotel. The Kurdish people of Turkey are all very friendly, welcoming and sincerely interested in other people visiting their country. Nothing but good memories will fill my head when I think of Turkey in the Future !! Thank You to everyone in Turkey for the wonderful experience ..

Georgia

Good morning from Georgia ! Its been a few fun and frustrating weeks poking around Georgia and the Black Sea. I had no idea I would still be here a month ago, but here I am .. Batumi Georgia is the destination of choice to hang out while trying to get onward travel sorted out.. Iran changed some travel rules for Americans/ Brits/ Canadians & ?? AFTER I left home. In a nutshell I need a guide from the border of Turkey to the border of Pakistan.. Iran has a lot of guides, as well as a lot of other motorcycle guys touring the country... The issue is none of the guides want to be bothered doing a trip thru the country , they would rather take the easy peazzy trips... I have not given up, and hope the next blog post is to say I am on my way to Pakistan and NOT the airport !
An option was the Stans across the Caspian sea, but it involved a number of visas, a guide thru Turkmenistan and China, added to the confusion I needed to get into Pakistan before my visa expires on July 24th ...
My hopes remain good that eventually things will work out..
Tourists from Iran like to visit Georgia and Turkey, and all that I have met are very welcoming, with offers to contact them when I get there. Likewise Pakistan has some fascinating places to visit including their gun markets ( not like Sudan's camel markets ) where hand made duplicates of any weapon can be found to exacting details, While Turkey is great at duplicating cloths from the worlds top designers at a fraction of the cost westerners pay,
Also home to Pakistan is the : Karakorum Highway ! This is the highest paved road in the world ! its at an elevation exceeding 15000 feet ! ( Mt Rainier is 14,400 ) The region is home to 5 of the worlds 8 highest mountains. Not sure what to expect riding a motorcycle at the elevation, but its definitely an opportunity I will not miss. The road was built to connect China with Pakistan thru the Himalaya's ...
I have been healthy ( hmm...  the odd hang over ...  ) the motorcycle has a bad shock again , but I can deal with  it. The past few weeks have also been a little different as I ride with " Dan " from England ..we have met other riders along the way and enjoy beers while sorting out the usual travel details ...

Balkans and Turkey

Hi guys,
Its finally not raining,  but I am inside on my computer writing a blog post... go figure.. The past months  have been great as I made a small loop around the Balkan region,  as far west as the Adriatic coast of Montenegro. It started in Bulgaria where I travelled clockwise, first south west in Greece to Macedonia, then north east to Turkey .. Some countries are small ( like Kosovo ) and it seems I just entered a few days and leaving again... others like Croatia have a way of keeping you from leaving with a  beautiful sea coast.  The coast  draws people to it from central Europe all summer looking for a vacation in the sun.
Lots of mountain roads and passes,  all awesome places to be on a motorcycle. Some days were very wet, and cold ... taking a toll on me... and bringing on my first cold in years..

My" must have" items now includes baby powder to tame the smell of my riding boots,  they have had better days.. Things should dry out soon in Turkey and I hope to not be called smelly biker as I head east..

The visa process is going slow , but its going.. The Pakistan consulate did a phone interview , Friday I interview with India, and I expect to know more about Iran soon..

In the past number of weeks I have seen a lot of churches, monastery's , Mosques, temples , and fascinating museums.. A camera cannot capture the feeling inside some of these places. Nor do I  have the words to describe a dome soaring inside over 100 feet in diameter of the Blue Mosque. The domes dominate the skyline of the city of Istanbul. Dating back over 5000 years there is lots to see , that returning again and again is common for many visitors.

fresh squeezed juice is always a way to stay healthy on the road. I wish Seattle had more places like this.

 This photo is on a Sunday afternoon in Istanbul. People love to walk, shop and just be outside. Park benches are everywhere.. cafes , candy shops, locals love to spend afternoons playing backgammon , an

endless sea of people...

Businesses have contracts with private companies that collect their employees in small buses and bring them to work. 10s of thousands of people are all pooled to work every day in an effort to ease traffic, and keep the city humming along.. Trains are everywhere, as well as ships,  taking people from the Asian side of the city to the European side..

The government frowns upon drinking , so high taxes move people to other social activities besides backgammon and drinking tea all day.. As men wash there feet to enter Mosques its very social , as well as smoking water pipes , and fishing in one of the worlds busiest waterways. Health clubs are also everywhere !!,  as the culture of old Turkish baths shifts to younger interests. Health clubs have annual dues starting at about 1000 ( dollars )

I dropped my lens cap in the water here.. ( Europe ) across the larger bridge is Asia.

Countries such as France and Switzerland ceased billions of Arab dollars in the Arab spring, moving Arab investment money to countries like Turkey.

 Russian investors, as well as Europeans are all moving investments in the new world system to Asia and away from the American dollar.

Turkey is hosting world conferences with people in the thousands coming to visit. Waits to visit famous museums are long,  forcing some to stay open 24 hours a day. An owner of a hotel told me we are building ghost cities. Most people own two homes, and have moved investments out of the banks. Its common to see small cities of condo towers that look completely empty. Home owners love to have a place along the coast they visit a few weeks a year, as well as a place in the city.  Some cities are almost all Irish, or Brits, or Russian, or ... newspapers are in local languages for these new cities. as well as radio and TV. As the shift away from dollars continues to Asia it will no longer be as cheap as it used to be to visit, but for now,  I love it all, as I travel east.

Rila Monastery: Bulgarian Hospitality

Hi again, its been a few frustrating weeks at the Moto camp in Bulgaria. Before leaving the camp last year " Peach " said he could make repairs and have the motorcycle ready and waiting ... Not So..
After 100 KM the rear hub was destroyed because of a missing spacer while remounting the back wheel, that also put the chain sprockets out of alignment bringing them to an early grave...
Parts and the rebuilt wheel finally came and I am mobile again. It was a huge waste of some serious cash, thinking this guy knew what he was doing.. mistakes happen, but the apology or return of some of the money never did. lesson learnt ... what kind of name is " Peach anyway ??"

I did enjoy some really good hospitality while stranded at the camp. Its in a village of some 80 people. Friends are very social,  having dinners, movie nights, sharing rides to town for shopping, the endless Happy Hourzzz, everyone is welcome and treated awesome.
 Niki Kisimov in Sofia is a certified BMW guy who saved the day and my pocket book from further damage.. Niki would think nothing of ,  charging me for labour to rebuild the wheel, and completely go over the bike before leaving.. He could not stand the Chinese parts the bike had acquired while in Africa and replaced what he could free of charge with genuine BMW parts.. including a new mirror. The morning turned to noon and his family brought out lunch, then it was dinner, and they put on the BBQ, eventually the bike was good to go and time to see the historic bits of Bulgaria.

 The Rila Monastery started in the 10th century, and remains an important part of Bulgarian history. Not sure where all the monks were. I saw about 3..

 Veliko Turnovo in Bulgaria, about 25 k from the moto camp. Its been a cool spring in Bulgaria, as well as Greece.. so travel will be slow as I wait to here from the Pakistan and Iran embassy about visa applications.

 Rome... I have a lot of pics from Rome,,, but I am sure even with all the practise using my camera you can still find better pictures on the net..

 Alexander the great, and if I had it a picture of Marco Polo...and Genghis khan ...who knows the connection ?  Picture is also from Thessaloniki, Greece.

 Finally arrived in Greece.. Thessaloniki, its a cool city, filled with a lot of coffee shops, drinking holes, tourists, and ruins. the city is built over top and around of what is left.

 Rila Monastery in Bulgaria again, I wish I could show more photos, but for some reason your supposed to act pie es ? no picture taking or silly tourist questions at a monastery ...

 Martins and Jeana's place in the moto camp village.. cost about $10,000 remodelled ..

The final picture is also Greece.. where I made a point of stepping foot in the Mediterranean as part of my next adventure.. it will be complete if I can step foot in the sea of China... There are a number of Silk Roads, including a northern route, southern thru Iraq, as well Iran into India, China, and of course Afghanistan.. Travel overland thru most countries is no longer possible. My goal is to see what I can, taking as long as it takes.. Marco Polo spent years, or it can be done by train in about 3 months.. visas, as well as shipping and bmw parts :(  will determine what I see of the silk road.