Overlanding with a Land Rover (2 of 3)

Drivers and Road Conditions
I am currently in Sydney, Australia having reached the end of a nine month trip by Land Rover, from the UK. We left on the 8th February, and arrived here in Sydney on the 10th November.

We visited 17 countries altogether, as follows: England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Australia.

Along the way, many people have asked us which country has the worst drivers! Popular favourites are India, Pakistan and Italy. In fact, only one of these is in the top three of our trip’s worst drivers.

The absolute worst were the Iranians, followed closely by the Indians, and then a little bit better were the Greek. Indians drivers are pretty damn bad, but Iranians are worse due to the simple fact that the roads are better so that they can drive faster.

Obviously on the long stretches of desert roads this is no problem – other traffic simply moves aside, but in the mountains between Shiraz and Sirjan overtaking on a blind bend is the norm. We soon got used to this – sometimes the oncoming driver would hoot so we could listen for that. Of course, when we overtook someone on a clear stretch of road that for some reason had solid white lines, we were stopped at the next town and fined 50,000 Riel (US$6.25). Not much, but very annoying when the locals do it all the time!

I think that the trick in India is to have the world’s loudest horn fitted to your vehicle. In the end we gave up on our factory fit item (fine for traffic in the UK) and bought a proper Indian horn – they make them LOUD over there. When driving the horn MUST be heard at least every 100m in town, but this can slip to 200m outside a built up area. Most drivers prefer to use it every 100m wherever they are.

In addition to mandatory regular testing, the horn must be used repeatedly when driving though crowds or overtaking. When overtaking trucks, which have no mirrors, the horn must be used all the way down the length of the truck until your vehicle is well past the drivers seat. Then, you can revert to the "once every 100m rule". If you are stuck in a crowd, which will almost certainly happen at some stage in India, the horn must be used continuously. This won’t achieve a great deal, since all the noise from bands, camels, people, etc will drown it out, but at least you will be trying!

When we flew from Chennai (Madras)to Kuala Lumpur we were amazed by the quietness of the city streets – no rickshaws, no horns, modern buses and trucks. After so long in India I asked the receptionist of our hostel where all the rickshaws were. When she said that she didn’t know what a rickshaw was, I explained.

I said it was a small, unpleasant and polluting 3-wheeled vehicle that fits through the world’s smallest gaps at the world’s highest speed. The drivers universally rip you off if you are a foreigner, and often don’t know where they are going. They are however, great fun! She simply replied that they take taxis everywhere. Who wants all this air-conditioned nice-car nonsense, I wondered?

The third worst drivers that we experienced were the Greeks. They expect all drivers of slower vehicles to use the hard shoulder if there is one. The theory if fine – it gives a third lane to your dual-carriageway. However, the theory falls apart if there is a broken down vehicle using the hard-shoulder for its proper use.

After a couple of times of driving at 100 km/h (slow in Greece) and coming round a corner to find a car sitting in the hard-shoulder, with some guy looking under the bonnet, we soon learnt to stay in the proper lanes. This meant we were holding up faster traffic. No problem, the other drivers simply undertake using the hard shoulder! Rather them then me.

At night, the stakes change. Pakistan tops the list, although I am sure India would be up there as well if we had done any driving at night.

When driving at night, regardless of how many spotlights you have on your own car, someone coming the other way will always have brighter lights. Or, if you’re a very lucky, no lights at all. You can play a "fun" game while you driving – count the headlights coming towards you and guess what you are looking at.

And so on. To add to the fun, the roads are seldom good for more than one or two kilometres at a time, and will change without warning from good tarmac to broken and rutted dirt.

The other thing is that the use of full-beam lights is very erratic – often an oncoming driver will see your light and go from low to high beam, rather than the other way round. Flashing your own lights has little or no effect.

Then, if you are really lucky, you will be driving on a stretch of road where every kilometer or so for 3 or 4 km there is a large barrier across the road. Sometimes cars stop, other times trucks, other times nobody at all. The barrier is liable to be up or down without warning, and the guys manning them carry automatic weapons (AK-47s normally).

With all this we took a group decision not to drive anywhere at night if we could help it. Unfortunately we had to on one or two occasions, and although we avoided being shot at (as happened to some other travellers we heard about), we did have a couple of near misses with unlit trucks and bullock carts.

The road conditions varied considerably in all of the countries we visited. Through Europe the roads were excellent, often better than those at home. However, from Turkey eastwards they did get steadily worse, apart from Iran where the roads were very good.

The road from the Iran/Pakistan border to Quetta was terrible – very slow in places and covered with drifting sand. At that time we were travelling in convoy with an elderly Bedford bus, on its way from London to Nepal. At one point the bus hit a sand dune at too high a speed, causing the front windscreen to pop out. Not what you need in the middle of a sandstorm.

We also had problems in the North of Pakistan – we travelled up the Karakorum Highway and found that with so many trucks driving between Pakistan and China, and the all too frequent rock falls, the road was very poor. Luckily we were only on it for a short time.

The funny thing about Pakistan was the Islamabad to Lahore motorway. After five days of ploughing through ox-carts, bicycles, tuk-tuks, people, camels, etc suddenly a 6 lane motorway appeared. This has been built against strong opposition from the people, who argue that the money would have been much better spent on the country. However, it has been built, 6 lanes all the way, even through the mountains. The problem is that only foreigners and rich locals can afford to use it, because the tolls are so high for the average person.

It is so new that the Pakistani government pays men to walk up and down all day sweeping the tarmac, keeping it nice. There is little danger to these people because there is virtually no traffic. There are also special motorway police who spend most of their time reading on the hard shoulder. They were trained in Britain, but somehow I feel their work-experience must have been rather more exciting than their day-to-day work.

Overall it cuts the journey time between Islamabad and Lahore down to 4 or 5 hours, as opposed to 2 or 3 days by normal roads. At each motorway there is a large sign, banning camels, livestock, other animals, pedestrians etc from the motorway.

In general, the roads in India were better than Pakistan, but still not brilliant. Most of the time a few pot-holes and uneven surfaces were the norm, but nothing too bad. Nepal was similar to India, and in places better where the aid projects had assisted with road-building.

Malaysia and Thailand were both very good, especially Malaysia. We didn’t encounter any bad roads in either country, and in Malaysia the North – South Expressway saved us a lot of time when we just wanted to transit the country. This runs from the Thai border to Singapore, about 800km altogether, which could be done in a day if necessary. In parts it is 6 lanes although usually only 4, and we were not held up by excessive traffic at any time. Tolls are paid every so often, but do not cost a huge amount.

North of the Thai border, the road continues to Bangkok with just 2 lanes but with some 4 lane stretches – all along the route there is construction going ahead to make the whole route 4 lanes. If this happens then it would be a big boon for the transport industry, because you could then drive from Bangkok to Singapore very, very quickly. I think it will be a few years yet, though.

The worst roads of the trip were in Laos. This includes the off-road driving we did in Australia! In Laos were frequently had to slow to less than 10km/h because there were so many potholes. This was extremely slow going! The problem gets worse the further North you go, but even around the capital, Vientiene, road conditions are not good.

The problem in Laos is that at one point the roads were properly surfaced, but the continuous use by overloaded trucks and buses has reduced the tarmac to a series of potholes. Then, heavy rain often brings mud and rocks slides onto the road, making it worse. While these slides are generally cleared up quite quickly, the road just gets worse.

In Australia however, the outback roads have never been surfaced, only graded. Also they have much lower traffic levels and there is no chance of mud or rock slides. So, generally they are in quite good condition. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, like the Gunbarrel Highway which is in dreadful condition. We decided not to drive it after hearing so many bad reports.

Overall, the worst roads were in Laos and Southern Pakistan, the best in Europe and Malaysia. The best drivers were in Europe, and the worst in Iran and India. I hope I don’t offend anyone with these observations – they are only my experience and I’m sure others will feel differently!

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