Taftan to Islamabad under military escort 2023

It’s common knowledge that overlanders are assigned military escort while entering Pakistan through Taftan-Mirjaveh border. However there are 1000 stories about how it actually looks like, how long it is in power, and how tough it is to travel 70km/h with several armed guys who basically stare at you from the back of their pickup. Read about our experiences and remember – it may appear totally different to you when you step into the shoes of escortee.

Well it’s not so bad in fact, just time consuming. You can easily make friends with a bunch of Pakistani soldiers, shoot quite nice gun-including selfies and yes, you can stop the ride if something interesting pops up on your way. So keep calm and head East with these guys as fast as you can!

The escort started as soon as we cleared the passport issues and reached the gate of Pakistan. Straight from the border offices we were taken to Taftan Levies Station and parked our motorbikes behind its walls.

We were supposed to spend the night in Levies guestroom. Very basically equipped with a dusty carpet, totally demolished sofa, and an old empty wardrobe of fame with stickers of other adventurous travellers. There was a  bathroom attached that hadn’t been probably cleaned from the moment it was brought to existence.

Not a fancy place to stay, but no other choice provided. We spent some time preparing dinner, sharing tea with soldiers and getting ready for the next adventures.

There is a washy note on the wall of Taftan Levies explaining the rules of the house. Info included in it leaked out to the travellers community and although it shouldn’t be treated to seriously (as all actions here are people- not procedure-based) you may consider adapting to that.

Good advice is to show up at the levies station the day before their “move day”.  No matter how early you pass through Taftan border you will not make it to be escorted the same day. Escorts leave 8.30-9.00 am and you should be ready to go at that time with all your luggage safely packed on your motorcycle.

As for 2023 there were 2 main routes for escort:

• Up to Islamabad – for those planning to go further north to the mountains (1546 km)
• Up to Multan – for those heading South of Pakistan, or India (1260 km)

Both ways start in Taftan, and continue along with levies changing every several dozen km.

Our plan was to learn the mountainous regions and enjoy the beauty of the valleys stretched widely in districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan. So the longer route was supposed to take us 5-7 days depending on the availability and pace of escorting cars.

Eager to see the new country we woke up early, prepared some breakfast from whatever we brought with us from Iran and made ourselves ready to go. The landscape did not change much from what we’ve had before in Balochistan. But now we were following white Landcruiser with two soldiers equipped with AK47 staring at us from the bench in the back. Felt quite awkward indeed!

First levies change took place in Nok Kundi. Here we were brought to military headquarters. The long building with outside terrace used to serve as after flood help distribution point half a year ago.  Car that led us here vanished suddenly and we were asked to wait until the new one would come.

Via a beautiful desert and rocky mountains landscape we continued up to Dalbandin Police station. Here was our second accommodation point, even more interesting than the previous one.

A typical Police station in Balochistan consist of a walled yard with rooms around and a high metal gate. All well-guarded by barbed wire plus bunch of generously armed policemen. In Dalbandin they also have small custody with arrested staring to whatever goes on in the yard for long hours. Twice daily you could see them running in circles on small barred area in front of prison cells.

The office of the Head of the Police station was offered to us as our temporary shelter. Didn’t differ much from the first place, just maybe the washroom was little bit cleaner and the room was equipped with a proper desk and lots of chairs.

Having experience of sleeping in dust we pulled out our tarp and mattresses for the night. We were run out of water, but we were not allowed to go out of the post. Instead the boss sent someone with our list to do the shopping. He told us also exciting news – our escort should end in Quetta and from there we’d be free to travel by ourselves. Given that plus Police wifi we booked a nice bright hotel room in Quetta for the next day.

Second day of escort was just a series of changing levies, policemen plus signing the records in checkpoints. When we were lucky the car was riding with adaptable speed, but sometimes we had to follow 60km/h leader smelling his puffing fumes. Some checkpoints didn’t have a car to send with us, so they sent the motorcycle twice smaller than any of ours ,with gun equipped, but with a helmetless hero on it.

Under such circumstances we barely did 50 km per hour average, and we were run out of energy quickly.  Just when we started to chitchat about the whimsicality of the situation we got to suburbs of Quetta.

The traffic here… yeah that was something to watch, observe and survive. First of all Pakistan is left side driving country. But you embrace it easily as long as you are away from the towns and cities. As soon as more vehicles appear on the road you realize that left side traffic is only the suggestion given to drivers but not the obligatory rule. Similar to these road signs, traffic lights and other useful achievements of vehicle movement organization – are just hints here.  Add to that the impression that everybody is in utmost hurry, and there is no free passage that would not become occupied after just seconds. Given that it seemed wise to concentrate all the efforts on staying close to the leading vehicle. The soldiers at the back stood up from the benches and helped to direct the vehicles to sides making sure we manage to pass the crossroads.

At this moment we felt gratitude to these guys, cause they provided really smooth introduction to Pakistani city traffic. Riding Quetta – a hectic city for the first time would be so much more difficult if we had to navigate it by ourselves. Eventually, after a few changes of escorting vehicles – ranging from proper Police Hilluxes to tiny 2 wheel Hondas and an hour of traffic adventures we got to the hotel. To our surprise it was not our chosen ritzy one. Instead we were brought to hostel- standard one with smallish rooms and old stinking furniture. They told us that we have to stay in one of 3 approved hotels in Quetta – and this one was chosen for us as best meeting our needs. OMG – did we really look like hobos?

Both of us were not easily complying with anything that is contrary to our choice. Add to that disappointment caused by this place completely missing our expectations and frustration of not getting what we already had taken for granted.

So we started insisting on taking us to our chosen place. The escort policemen did not speak proper English, so they put us on call with their supervisor. Our fussing around brought no effect at all, just only we were taken to the police station to be repeatedly explained in person that all these settings are for safety reasons. They even checked the other hotels for us but the other two approved were full for that night. All in vain. Ultimately we gave up after 3 hours and let them take us back to the place of their choice. All our plans for hedonistic evening hot shower and cuddling in king size bed failed pitifully.

Contrary to what we’ve been promised just an evening before, we were not free in Quetta.
The next day we were supposed to organize NOC document (Non Objection Certificate) that was obligatory for further travel to Islamabad. But not that we could move around through the city by ourselves. The hotel reception called the escort for us and we were taken to the main police station again in the police car.
Preparing NOC took the officers some 2 quarters. There was also one more document prepared at this time that they called “wireless orders” and it seemed to us that somehow the information about us going further towards Islamabad has been spread to all checkpoints on the way.

After dealing with these formalities we were escorted back to hotel. We packed our stuff on motorcycles while the friendly policemen waited for us. As we were run out of rupees that we exchanged yet in Iran we asked them to find the money exchange or ATM for us. They led us to it as well as to Ufone office where we bought local simcards.
We felt that having them with us saved a lot of time that we usually spent hassling to find the right places to deal with our issues – thank you guys!

So equipped with money, simcards and freshly bought groceries we said goodbye to our motorbike escort and hello to new Corolla one.
For the last 24 hours we tried to learn where exactly our escort would be finished. Some policeman said “in Quetta”, the other claimed that in the “city of Zhob”, but he was not very sure of it, so it seemed wise to believe in the words of well-informed hotel receptionist who appointed some place on the way – somewhat 200 km further.
To our surprise after few levies changes we were left in the middle of the road – alone. That’s it! We felt happy to regain freedom and rode freely another 100 km.

Craving to see life of the village and hungry enough to stop for some street food we didn’t bypass Muslim Bagh but went straight into it. Random police car found us while we were ordering chicken BBQ. Good for us as this village hadn’t seen foreigners for years probably, and the circle of onlookers was literally doubling every minute making us feel somewhat endangered. Policemen dispersed the crowd, but also announced they would escort us from the city and beyond – to the borders of their district. All right we agreed, thinking (stupidly) that they just wanted to take us away from the people’s curiosity.

But that was not what happened – the next cars passed us like a baton in a relay race. As the cars held reasonable speed and the changes of escort proceeded smoothly we just followed with a pinch of resignation.  We could have moved faster by ourselves, but you don’t mess up with the police or army in these countries unless you really have no other choice.

To our surprise the escort stopped us in Qila Saifullah town and said we would stay there overnight in a government guesthouse, because it would be dark very soon.  To that we simply could not agree, not only because it did not make any sense regarding the distance left to Zhob, but also we knew it would be another dirty and dusty place we did’t want to spend the night in. We refused crossing the gate of the guesthouse and stayed in public space for further discussions. Inevitably people started to gather around us trying to understand what’s going on. It was 4 p.m. and 150 km to Zhob – the city in which we hoped to find decent hotel room. We could easily make that if not the police stopping us “for our safety” with every possible lie they could come out with. “The road is closed due to accident”, “Supervising officers did not give the permission”, bla, bla…

We fought for 2 hours in front of government guesthouse, then in front of police station – until it got dark. Didn’t dare to run away, as we truly felt we had no idea of what we were dealing with. Long story short we agreed with the head of the police station that we would start escorted riding the next day at 6 a.m.  Poor guy assured us he would come here by himself at 5 a.m. to make sure we are ok and the escort starts on time.  Of course he did not mean it. But we were serious and determined to finish the custody as soon as possible and get back to our normal life.

So exactly 6 am we showed up at the gate ready to go. There was no one here except deep sleeping guard whom we mercilessly woke up. This one could not speak English however he understood what we wanted to do. He tried to call the police station to solve the problem, but his mobile did not work and our simcard was not active yet.  Despite his desperate protests we managed to move our motorbikes outside the gate. From here we went to the police station. Here again we had to wake up everyone and make them start the day early as promised.

We felt so tired of travel conditions, fed up with police lies and resentful enough to start riding on our terms. When we were reaching the checkpoint and the car was not there waiting for us – we simply started riding further by ourselves saying to officers we didn’t have time to wait. When they assigned us a car or motorbike riding far below bearable speed we were just overcoming it and riding with our own pace, up to the next checkpoint.

All good but Islamabad was too far away and we planned to stay for night in (again) posh hotel in Dhera Ismail Khan. We reached the city alone, but to our surprise every hotel we approached claimed it was fully booked. Eventually we learnt they didn’t want to let foreigners in as the police do not allow that (again safety reasons).

We were not very keen to stay in another government guesthouse or police guestroom. Dreamt about hot shower and clean bed after 4 days of riding dusty roads in puffs of fumes and spending nights in … ekhmmm modest places. So we just went back to the hotel we liked the most and asked them politely to check us in. When they refused again – we gave up and told them to call the police to come and take us from there.

While we were waiting some other Pakistani hotel guests came and just because of their will to help started negotiating with hotel managers. Than the police came and somehow with loads of special permissions we were allowed to check in for 1 night. By talking to the policemen we’ve learnt also that from 2 available roads to Islamabad only one is allowed for motorbikes. Two-wheelers are not allowed on motorways, so for us only the longer way was possible to take. Given that we started our escorted journey again early in the morning.

The road around Dera Ismail Khan was quite busy. It was the last Sunday before Ramadan and there was lots of festive events on the way. We stopped to watch tent pegging for a while and crossed crowded area of local amusement park – again being grateful for having the escort clearing the way through heavy traffic.
Unfortunately our soldiers messed up the way and we got stuck behind their car on some road under construction – unpaved and full of dust. Moving speed fell down to 30 km/h. After about half an hour riding like that, we knew already it was not the right track. So we overtook the car, moved forward with reasonable speed and stopped once we reached the paved lanes. To our relief our escort did not show up and we decided to continue alone with Garmin navigation. That’s how we found ourselves at the entrance to motorway.

Being informed again we cannot enter it, we were let in as an exception and favour for “dear valuable guests in Pakistan”. Well good for us. We couldn’t remember when was the last time that we had been so delighted to ride the highway. Even with every motorway patrol stopping us to check how come we are riding here the last 150 km to Islamabad was pure joy!

Arrived in the evening to the nice&clean guesthouse in the suburbs of Islamabad we felt that’s the moment when our Pakistani adventure begins.