Friday's Place Kerala

Multan (17-11-09)

November 17, 2009

On Sunday 15^th November we woke up at about 5am (after only four hours of sleep) and   set off for Multan at about 6.30 am. As mentioned previously I’ve only been on the bike once before down to Rogate and back and this time we decided to do a 1,000km journey from Karachi to Multan. Remember this is a third world country and whatever distance you travel you have to double it due to the appalling state of the roads, the varied traffic consisting of overloaded lorries, bicycles, mopeds, donkey carts, horse drawn tongas, rickshaws and  beaten up cars. There are no lines and no rules. Wherever there is a gap there will be a vehicle trying to squeeze through and it takes a lot of concentration not to crash. Mark was amazing and I felt unusually at ease. He ’s either really brave or utterly mad and I haven’t decided as yet which one it is but I have the rest of our journey  to figure it out.

Anyway we set off on this trip to Multan and I really enjoyed being on the bike. Besides a few teething problems like my helmet being a bit tight and a few aches and pains we started off fine. The landscape was changing, becoming more rural and greener, full of cotton, rice and sugar cane fields.  We were told that it will take about ten hours to get to our destination and taking into account that we will have to do more stops to stretch our legs we added about two to three hours extra. We were confident that we can do it in one go although Mark has never done a journey this long in one go ever before (although he didn’t tell me that at the time). So we set off all enthusiastic and positive. Well, we did manage to do it in one go but it didn’t take twelve or thirteen or even fifteen hours. It took us altogether eighteen bleeming hours. It was painful and I still don’t know how we did it suffering from lack of sleep, cold (the temperatures drop quite drastically at night), physical pain and poor visibility. My first trip on the bike was a ten minute one while the second one  lasted a ‘bare’ 18 hours. I think I definitely deserve some brownie points here or even a badge. Mark thinks I’m great, I thing Marks great and that will definitely do. But what really keeps me going is the thought of the £100 I’m going to get from Steve on my return!!!!!

It was exhausting almost to a point of torture but we are here now recovering in Multan. We are staying with Mark’s friends in a lovely house with a hot shower and three servants. But more about that another time.

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