We left Iran after 29 days and entered Pakistan at the only international border crossing, close to the triple border point of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Arriving in Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s near-lawless region of Sistan va Baluchestan, where drug smugglers and separatist Balochis are causing trouble to the government in Tehran, at 5 am, we headed straight to the bus terminal, where we waited for the sunrise and then soon found a minibus going to the border. It was a bit more then an hour’s drive, during which time we went through multiple police and military checkpoints in this volatile region.
Exiting Iran was smooth enough, once the uniformed officers noticed that we don’t exactly fit into the rest of the crowd and ushered us through the line. We got seated into the waiting area and for some reason it took them a long time to stamp our passports.
The young officer handling them looked genuinely confused and didn’t know what to do. He was checking what I guess where all sorts of records and registers, but he hesitated before giving us the exit stamp. Looking around for a senior officer in charge, but not finding him, he finally asked us: “Which country?” “Slovenia, it says on the passports,” we replied.
Once you get to the Pakistani territory the tarmac road ends and dusty gravel begins. The difference between the two country’s checkpoints could hardly be more profound. The first passport control was done by a soldier while we walked through the border gate. The second was in a small, poorly lit and ascetic hut, where we received our entry stamps and got photographed.
Following was another control in a small room of a separate building, which could pose as the main office for the officer in-charge, I guess. The fourth control was the most surreal. A friendly officer seated us on plastic chairs under the hot December sun, next to his sandbag fortification, where we had to transcribe our passport and visa details into a paper notebook.
After that we got taken to Taftan’s police station. Another shock awaited us there. The roof of the building was full of old and damaged cars. Once inside the courtyard, there was a group of about 20 men on our right side, staying still and quiet like they were being on a leash, and whipped if they disobeyed. In front of us were cells of a local prison. Hands and heads were hanging through the bars, curiously observing the rare species of a Western traveller.
Another passport control was on the hands for us, at the end of which we were told we would be accompanied by an armed guard on our bus to Quetta. We followed the member of the paramilitary Baluchistan Levies police force, who didn’t really instill much safety comfort, but who nonetheless had a shotgun over his shoulder, to his humble, rudiment one-room dwelling that he shared with another man.
After a small but tasty meal the four of us shared from a common pan, sitting cross-legged on the floor, we were driven to the “center” of town. Waiting for our bus to depart, we were as much of an attraction to the local population, as everything we were looking at was to us. Taftan has a feel like it doesn’t belong to this world, existing detached from everything else in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.
The uncomfortable 14-hour ride to the regional capital Quetta, on sticky PVC-covered seats, took us through the desert rocky landscape of Baluchistan. Vasja said it best when he described the road conditions on our way: “There aren’t holes in the road, there’s some road between the holes.”
Baluchistan being a volatile region with a low-level insurgency by the local armed groups, we went through multiple checkpoints along the way. At least five times Vasja and me had to leave the bus at these checkpoints to write again our personal and itinerary details into paper notebooks, confirming with our signature that we were last reported there safely.
P.S. More photos from that day, as well as many others, can be found in our gallery.
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