The train journey from Quetta to Lahore goes over a distance of approximately 1300 km – right across Pakistan. It took us 36 hours – 36 hours, which were quite an adventure, but, to be honest, which we don’t really want to repeat – especially not with the heat during this time of the year. And we even were lucky, because we heard that the journey sometimes can take up to 50 hours…..

Originally we wanted to travel this part also by motorcycle. But since we couldn’t get the NOC, which is basically the permission to continue travelling from Quetta, due to security issues (see our last blog post), we had to load the motorcycles on the train and continue to Lahore this way.

However, this had also some positive side effects for us: on the one hand there was of course a special experience and a new adventure waiting for us by travelling on the train; on the other hand we could also spare Heike’s damaged rear tire. And we had decided to spend a little bit more to get tickets for the better air-condition class in order to escape the heat because the route goes through the apparently hottest area in Asia. Well, at least we thought we could escape the heat this way…

The first adventure of the journey was to load the motorcycles onto the train; they had to go into a small cargo wagon. With the help of quite a few carriers we managed to get the heavy bikes up the 50 cm from the platform onto the train, where we secured them with all our cords and belts. Around the motorcycles, tires, boxes, mangos and parcels were piled up. Of course this way of loading left some marks on the bikes, but nothing serious – only a few scratches. However, Heike is still furious at the dumb freight official that wrote the destination of the train with a water-proof pen on the engine of Filippo’s motorcycle. Well, he didn’t try to do the same on Heike’s motorcycle after he was told “you are not going to write on my motorcycle with that pen!“ in an ice cold voice that left no doubts – probably the right decision for him… Heike was fuming!

After the successful loading of our bike onto the train, we started to look for our seats, and after some minor territorial fights with the families around us (which we won!), we felt rather comfortable in our seats. Air-condition worked after we had left the train station, and temperatures were actually not too hot. But this changed just before we got to Sibi, the hottest place in Asia: the air-condition stopped working, and it got hotter and hotter in the train. In Sibi we then had to wait for more than an hour for a new engine at temperatures around 50° C.

This was also where we found out about the negative side of the supposedly better air-condition-class: you can’t open the windows. So, this was the moment where we started to throw envious looks at the cheap 3rd class, which we had pitied before because of their open-windowed wagons. We were sweating buckets and our clothes were soaked before the train could finally continue its journey, and the air-condition had cooled down temperatures to a tolerable level.

After this experience, the air-condition worked most of the time – but still with some shorter or longer disruptions in between. This lasted until the afternoon of the next day, about 4 to 5 hours before we arrived to Lahore, when the electricity in the train completely stopped working. The reason was simply that the diesel for the generator was empty. We still don’t understand why they weren’t able to calculate the right amount of diesel, to fill up when necessary, or at least to switch of the air-condition in the night, when the temperatures outside were not so high and it actually started to get a bit chilly in the train.

In the night or whenever somebody wants to sleep the seats in the train are converted in bunk beds. This is actually rather comfortable, and we could sleep quite well during the night. When we didn’t doze away the hours in the train, we were watching the landscape outside pass by. With a speed of maximal 50 km/h there was quite a lot of time for detailed observations. First we were travelling through the mountains, then through an endless seemingly dessert, until we reached the Indus-plains where the landscape was more fertile and a lot of agriculture was present. Further in the direction of our final destination Lahore, the landscape became increasingly populated and cities were more abundant.

What we saw during the journey was not always pleasant, and sometimes rather sad and appalling. The dirt, the waste, the mud everywhere – and always people living right in the middle of it; children are sitting in the dirt next to the animals, and people’s homes consist often of not more than old tents or plastic sheets. We also saw some refugees’ camps, especially near Quetta, located right next to the train tracks, and also surrounded by piles of waste. We heard that mainly refugees from Afghanistan are living there. If this is the better alternative for them, the conditions where they come from must be really dramatic.

Well, the journey on the train was an adventure – and we made it to Lahore. But we were really happy, when we got our motorcycles back and we were free to go wherever we liked. It showed us also a very negative aspect of the country. And we really value now again, how fortunate we are that we can simply climb on our motorcycles and ride away just like that.