Where to go? Where to go?

After 5 days in India I find myself (and Will of course) at a crossroads. Not a literal one: that would be easy, I have today bought some maps, and a cursory glance at them could easily rectify that dilly of a pickle. No, this is a metaphorical crossroads, and as such is that little bit harder to sort out.

The situation in Pakistan looks to be less than perfect. There appears to be some unrest in certain areas. Upon my arrival in India, Will and I decided that perhaps the best option would be to fly from Delhi to Dubai, take a ferry to south Iran before cycling up the length of the country into Turkey. It would be a shame since it would mean not completing a section of the journey by road, but we decided our safety came first (which of course it does).

So why the crossroads?

From talking to other travelers (or, more accurately, from emailing other travelers) both in Pakistan and Iran, it would seem that the overland trip through Pakistan is not quite a lost cause. Everyone agrees that to do the trip by bicycle would be unwise, but trains are another story. It should be possible to get a train from Lahore to Quetta, and another one from there onto Zanhidan in Iran. Once there, we could quickfoot it out of Baluchistan (area that straddles the two countries) on the back of a bus, before continuing the journey correctly on two wheels.

With this in mind, we made our way to the friendly Irish embassy in Delhi, where we (to our surprise) managed to get letters of recommendation to enter Pakistan and Iran with very little hassle.

So, this is now where we stand. There is the possibility that tomorrow morning at the Pakistan embassy, we shall be granted Visas to enter their country. Once this happens, we have the decision to either go ahead with an overland trip, or turn tails and fly to Dubai. I guess crossroads is the wrong analogy, it's more a T-junction!

In the meantime, both to acclimatise myself to my bicycle and to make up some of those lost miles in Pakistan, I shall be doing a small loop of India. More on this to follow; I can't reveal all my secrets at once.