Travel Tips

Sukkur, again, looked like a film set from a disaster movie. In town I left Juliet with our gear and picked my way through the mud and pools of brown flood water looking for a hotel.

I tried nine in total. All were full bar two available rooms. One was like a cupboard, stank like a corpse and you couldn’t see the floor for rubbish and scrapes of food. It was unbelievable.

The other was a beautiful room in an exclusive private guesthouse with a predictably high price tag. We took the latter.

With Juliet resting I went for a wander, dodging donkey-drawn carts, rickshaws and beat-up trucks. There was little to see so I turned back. On the way I was collared by armed police. Now they knew we were in town we would be escorted wherever we went.

People often ask why I never became a supermodel, rock star or movie icon. Good question. Well, here is an illustration as to why I turned down the chance to front Pink Floyd…

We needed bicycle oil. Four police officers were summoned. Under armed guard we were shadowed like visiting celebrities. Children who came too close were threatened with the back of a hand. Adults, mostly men, as few women were seen out on the streets, pushed from our path. It was painfully embarrassing as no one posed a threat. They were just naturally inquisitive.

In the town center one guard was dispatched to look for oil whilst we hung around like forlorn, incapable rock stars as the townsfolk looked on.

The officer returned triumphant, bearing two tubes of bike oil and refused to take any payment for them. That nearly all the police and military who mothered us were such nice people was infuriating. It was impossible to enter a healthy argument over our ‘restricted freedom’.

The morning we came to leave I begged the hotel staff not to telephone the police, but they were under orders. There was nothing else they could do.

We loaded up and cautiously picked our way through mud pools and garbage, the omnipresent police jeep crawling behind.

The air was wonderfully warm. An English summer – on a sunny day, that is – had finally arrived. For the first time since Syria I was back in tee shirt and three-quarter length shorts. Some would say not appropriate attire for conservative Pakistan, but they understand cycling is a sport and no one ever made any derogatory remarks. Juliet remained covered, however. Unfortunately, it was a very different matter for women.

After crossing the mighty Indus river, huge carrion eagles, or ‘cheels’, circling overhead hoping to scavenge the remains of a fallen cyclist, we joined the Grand Trunk Road north.

Despite being a main highway – we had no proper map to search for minor roads – it was a pleasant ride. There was a good hard shoulder, the traffic light and the scenery of rice paddies and sugar cane plantations wonderfully green.

Frequent towns and villages made cycling fun, with shouts of hello and motorbikes and bicycles racing alongside with the curious eager to chat.

The escort frequently changed as we moved from district to district. That day we had a total of twenty-three policemen and army commandos taking charge of our safety. Its no wonder they had security problems in the North West Frontier Province. Most of Pakistan’s police and army were too busy taking care of us!

We arrived in Rahimyar Khan and booked into a $6 room for the night.

Juliet wasn’t feeling up to dinner so I went out with my two bodyguards for gorgeous samosa in yoghurt and Kashmire chai, which is a bright pink tea flavoured with dry fruit and very tasty.

The unfortunate bodyguards had to spend the night sitting in the reception of our cheap flophouse.

The following morning we were ordered to ride the first four kilometers in the back of a police jeep. It was unsafe to ride. "But you’ll be behind us – four crack commandos with machine guns – how unsafe can that be?" But my protests went unheeded, and our four kilometers turned into forty.

At the next district where the escort changed we were again allowed to ride. It was a shame that some people were afraid to approach us with our bodyguards, but the cycling was very enjoyable.

We bumped and rattled into the muddy, messy town of Ahmadpur East. After booking into a cheap hotel we took a wander around the bazaar with our escort. Passing the hotel again, about to buy some food, we were summoned inside by the chief of police, looking agitated as he waited with a number of his officers in the downstairs restaurant.

“You are not to leave the hotel,” he ordered.
“But we need to buy food,” I argued.
“You stay here. They will bring anything you need.”
“We don’t know what there is available. What’s the problem if we have an armed escort with us?”

Perhaps the chief of police wasn’t used to being answered back to in front of his officers and he exploded. Unable to look me in the eye, his face turning the colour of beetroot, he pointed to the stairs and barked, “GO TO YOUR ROOM!”

No one had said that to me since I was seven. I just couldn’t help myself and broke down laughing.

“Im not going to my room!” I spluttered through fits of giggles. “I’m going to sit over there and have a nice cup of tea.” Which I did. The chief of police stormed off without another word and we never saw him again.

In the morning our escort arrived. We were to ride in the back of a jeep again. It wasn’t safe. “Yes it is,” I mumbled, now a bit fed up with the dramatics. “I know, how about we ride and you follow.”
The officer thought about this, shrugged and said, “Okay then.”

So we peddled off up the Grand Trunk Road and by day’s end arrived in Bahawalpur. We booked into a slightly shoddy, over-priced hotel and for twenty-four hours a police officer remained in the reception, but evidently we just didn’t appear to be kidnap-worthy and he left us to it. We never had an escort after that.

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