A Journey through the time

Chapter Three - The Journey Begins

So, it was late June of 1964 when my Bachelor of Arts exams finished and a few days later we headed to the Lahore Railway Station to start our journey, initially to Quetta and then on to Iran, Turkey etc. We had planned to travel by train up to Zahedan (first city in Iran) and hitchhike from there. Bilal's entire family came to bid him good bye. They were hoping that he will find a job in Europe and stay there. I was however determined to return in a couple of months to peruse further studies. Imtiaz came to see me off and to wish me well. I had passed on to him, addresses of Pakistan Embassies in Tehran & Ankara and asked him to write to me and I promised to write to him and let him know how our journey was progressing. Between Bilal and me we had a total sum of ten British pounds and seventeen U.S. Dollars. In our youthful innocence, we were fully confident that we will get to Stuttgart with that much money without any problem.

The train journey was fascinating, we traveled in third class, the cheapest fare that was available and we were able to get enough space to sleep at night. One essential item to our backpacks was a blanket each, which we had tied with a rope outside the backpack. The blankets came in very handy on the train and later on park benches in Europe where we occasionally slept. The train journey lasted about eighteen hours; we used our money sparingly occasionally buying food from vendors at some of the intervening train stops. 

The train started as the famous Khyber Mail and in Sukkur it split into two, one part was attached to Bolan Mail arriving from Karachi, which continued on as Bolan Mail to Quetta. A part of the incoming Bolan Mail from Quetta was attached to Khyber Mail and it continued as such to Karachi and the other to Khyber Mail headed to Peshawar. In the pre-partition era, Khyber Mail used to ply between Peshawar and Calcutta, a journey of over two thousand miles. It was also known as the Calcutta Mail. But after partition and creation of Pakistan, Khyber Mail's direction changed from Peshawar to Karachi via Lahore, a journey of one thousand miles.

Once in Quetta we found a cheap hotel as we had to stay there for three days to obtain Iranian visas and then board the once a week train to Zahedan, Iran. Quetta, the Capital of Baluchistan province was then a relatively small town. The old city was raised to the ground by a massive earthquake in 1935, so it had been completely rebuilt by the British so it appeared well laid out and built to absorb earthquakes.

Quetta was bustling with European tourists who had arrived via Iran; it was also a smugglers paradise as the Iranian border cities were so cut off from the rest of the country that they depended on their food and water supply from Quetta. We met three young Pakistani men in their early twenties. Bilal and I were impressed by their military-style uniforms with 'On World Tour' badges sewn on to the lapels. The professed a great deal of knowledge about the journey. They said that after Europe, their final destination was Nigeria, where they would teach in schools. Their leader Arif seemed to know the city quite well and their advice was that if we wanted to double our money, we should invest in second hand American military uniforms, tea leaves and cigarettes as these things sold for twice the price in Zahedan. So, off we went to the landa bazaar (second-hand clothing bazaar) and bought several pairs of used American military uniforms, surprisingly ranks were still attached to many of these uniforms. Then we were off to the market, where we bought bags of tea leaves and several cartons of cigarettes. Interestingly, between India, Pakistan and Iran, Pakistan is the only country that allows import of second-hand clothing, as a result there is a healthy smuggling trade to Iran and India as demand for cheap and warm second-hand clothing is high in those countries. Arif tried to convince us that we should join their group and pool our resources and accept his leadership. Bilal and I didn't like the idea too much, so we decided to stay independent. In such matters, I was pleased to note that Bilal was street smart and much wiser than his years.

I wrote to my brother Imtiaz from Quetta to let him know that we had arrived safe and sound and asked him to let the family know that I was fine and there was no need to worry. I also promised to write again from Tehran.