My colleague had a chance of sharing his experience of his biking tour to Thar. He is a professional biker and regularly makes tours with his group of friends known as “Trailblazers of Pakistan” touring specific areas of Pakistan on their motor bikes. So I am sharing the story as narrated by him as follows:
“Up till now they have covered half of Baluchistan province and most of the area in Sindh. The area left unexplored by them was the area of Badin, Sajawal, Kot Islam, Mithi and Nagarparker.
The leader of the group is a senior biker named Hammad Mustafa. This tour was his plan and was supposed to begin on 14th August 2017 but unfortunately, most of the participants were busy so it was postponed to 18th August.
In the beginning, most of the people agreed for the tour but in the end, only few of us were on road. The final participants included Irfan (My colleague and the narrator), Raees, Malik Zeeshan “Shaani” who has made Pakistan tour on bike previously, Ather and of course, Mr. Hammad. The meetup point was Anwar Baloch Restaurant. I (Irfan), Shaani, Ather and Raees gathered at the airport as we refueled our bikes and then waited for Hammad Bhai at meetup point.
Along with Hammad Bhai, came his colleague named Shah Nawaz who joined our group specifically for this tour. He being from Sindh was our main guide for the trip.
All of us departed and our first stop was at Sajwal but as the road near Thatta is under construction, Ather’s bike had a flat tire unfortunately and most of our time was consumed in fixing his bike. However, later on we covered up the delay driving a bit faster.
We reached our first stop in Sajawal. After having rest for a while, we left for Badin, had breakfast there and refueled our bikes. Next stop was Mithi, which is mainstream city of Tharparkar District. After travelling for about 100 KM towards Mithi from Badin, we got our bikes refueled again and had refreshments.
On the way, we were joined by a friend of Shah Nawaz, named Badal from Kot Islam who travelled with us throuhout rest of the trip of Nagarparker.
We saw many beautiful sceneries along the way in the pictures seen on this blogpost. After departing from Kot Islam towards Nagarparker, our plan was to have lunch in Nagarparker but Badal insisted to look for “Marvi’s well” first because on our way back towards Karachi, it would be night time and we would miss the historical site. We went there first, took few snaps, heard the folklore of Marvi from the local townspeople, drank from the well and then departed for Nagarparker.
It was almost 2:30 p.m at that time on 19th August. Restaurants and hotels there are owned by both Hindus and Muslims. I asked Badal to ask one of the hotel owners as the locals there spoke Sindhi only. The owner of the hotel we stayed in was a Muslim, we stayed there and had lunch. Everything was good and fresh. We visited the dam and saw the border with India there. Badal told us that if we reach Kot Islam by sunset, we will have a chance of spending night in a small village of Thar, where we could experience actual lifestyle and culture of Thar people. Since we always prefer to get acquainted with the locals and their culture where ever we go so it was a golden opportunity. So we left the following evening and discovered few new places and departed for Thar. We reached there by 8 P.M. On our way to Thar, we rode our biked through sand so thick that would suck you two to three feet in it. The local town’s people in Thar showed as a great hospitality that even we won’t be able to do so in Karachi. They have great water shortage and rely totally on rain water. There, once again Ather’s bike had a problem as it was altered but still we manager to continue. We had our dinner in Thar and we were served with chicken with vegetables and Lassi (Butter Milk).
In fact, they were so hospitable that they kept themselves awake in case we ask for anything we need. We really enjoyed their hospitality. In the morning as soon as we woke up, we were served with tea and biscuits. Then we went to tour Thar where we also got sight of peacocks there.
At that time, the Thar Desert had gone green due to recent rains. While wandering around, we also found a well where the water was being pulled out with the help of camels. We requested the locals to show us how they do it. Even though the process takes a long time, they decide to pull out some water just to show us. They prepared the camel to pull out the water and we really got fascinated while watching the process. The water level in the well is really low and it certainly requires great effort.
As we got back, we were again served with breakfast; this time a traditional one comprising of sugar, butter of both cow’s and goat’s milk and bread.
They told us a shortcut which will take us directly to Mithi by travelling about 10-20 KM. We reached Mithri as we entered from Kot Islam and we sure were relieved by this short distance in the desert which helped us a lot. After refueling in Mithri, we decided to travel further 40 KM to see Naukot Fort, which is considered a gateway of Tharparkar desert.
We also discovered that and took pictures and then left for Badin with was about 100 KM. After nearly covering half of the distance, Raees’s bike had a flat tire as there were many small pits long the way. After getting rid of the flat tire, we went further. Even though we had decided to have lunch in Badin, we changed the plan and decided to have lunch at Sajawal as we didn’t want to break the momentum we had just formed. So we travelled further 80 KM towards Sajawal and reached there at 5 in the evening and had the meal.
Then after travelling further, we finally reached back home on Sunday evening so that we can get back to work.”
Seek & Eat 