KARACHI: Four Turks on their motorcycles are touring Pakistan these days while appreciating everything about this country they had heard so much about and wanted to visit for so long.

“This visit was very much overdue since we have toured almost all of Asia by now,” says Tankut Guzel, who entered Pakistan via the Taftan border with friend Ahmet Bati on their heavy 1,100 CC Honda Africa Twin motorbikes last week.

“Pakistan has also been on our minds since the devastating earthquake in February. First responders and social workers from here were in Turkiye to extend all kinds of help the very next day. We feel so much gratitude and love for you and your country, we just had to come,” Tankut added.

Tankut’s better half Seden Guzel and her sister Serpil Kalayci are also here. They, meanwhile, flew into Karachi. But once here they were given two brand new motorcycles, Honda 125, to borrow in order to be able to join the men on their tour of Pakistan.

Four Turkish citizens are set to travel all the way to Chitral on their motorbikes to attend Kalash Festival

The four riders belong to the Turkish Motorcycling Feder­ation. They also teach riding in Turkey. Apart from that between them they are engineers, MBAs, economists. Tankut has an MBA besides being a mechanical engineer, his wife Seden is an economist, her sister Serpil is a chemical engineer and Ahmet is an electrical and industrial engineer.

The four visitors are guests of Razi Nayyar, founder of the Motor Club of Pakistan. A huge vintage cars and heavy motorbikes enthusiast, Nayyar had also organised a tour of Turkiye and Iran back in December with other club members from Dec 17, 2015 to Jan 24, 2016.

“Altogether we had covered some 27 cities in our classic cars in Pakistan, Iran and Turkiye then,” Nayyar told Dawn. “Our aim was to portray the country’s safe and positive image beyond the borders of Pakistan contrary to the belief around the world that Pakistan was no longer a safe country for tourism,” he added.

“So this is in fact also a return tour after your paying us a visit. That’s why we are calling it the Pakistan- Turkiye Friendship Ride,” said Tankut, who also shared their itinerary with Dawn.

From Karachi, the four riders intend to head to Chitral where they were looking forward to attending the Kalash Festival.

“We will travel from Hindukush to Karakorum, riding through the Shandur Pass, Gilgit, the Hunza Valley, the Khunjerab Pass, the main cities of Pakistan such as Islam­abad, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Multan, etc.,” Tankut shared.

“Like we are starting from Karachi, we will also be concluding the Friendship Ride in Karachi in about a month, around the first week of June,” Tankut explained. “The ladies will fly back to Turkiye while we ride back to Ankara via Balochistan, the Taftan border to enter Iran through the same Silk Route we came from,” he said.

His friend Ahmet said that before coming here they did a lot of homework. “We read up on Pakistan, and liked what we read,” he smiled. “But still we were taken a little by surprise here when we were not allowed to take the Motorway. We were informed that motorcycles are not allowed on the motorway so we had to take the National Highway where we felt a bit unsafe,” he said.

The Motor Club of Pakistan wrote to the authorities regarding the matter and are still awaiting positive response.

The two ladies are also daughters of motorbikers and off-road rally drivers. Riding is in their blood but they are glad to have taken a flight to Pakistan to join the men. “We have travelled all over the world on motorcycles and so many times we have seen so many things that we wanted to buy and take back home with us which we could not do because you can’t carry much with you on motorcycles,” laughed Seden,

“This time we will take home whatever we shop from here in our luggage,” she added.

They had already visited several markets of Karachi such as Gulf Shopping Mall in Clifton and Zainab Market in Saddar and were inquiring this scribe about the shopping centres on Tariq Road. They were already wearing some very pretty kurtis that they had bought from the Gulf Shopping Mall. Serpil, the younger of the sisters, also had her hands decorated with henna designs. “Nayyar’s daughter Rania Razi did this. Isn’t it pretty,” asked Serpil happily.

The four were also all praise for Pakistani food, their favourite being barbecue chicken paratha rolls. “We also love seekh kebab, shawarma, chicken karahi, prawn karahi, chicken tikka, Bihari boti, biryani, qeema matar, lentils and sweet and sour soup. We are trying a new dish every day here. Your food is amazing,” said the sisters almost in unison.

“We are taking pictures and making videos of everything that we like here and we intend to share it with others back home,” said Serpil.

She also added about how a well-known truck artist here, Ms Anjum Rana, painted truck art on their motorcycle cargo boxes. “The motorcycles we borrowed from here we will return of course but the cargo boxes are coming home with us,” she smiled.

Tankut cut in: “You know, in Turkiye we had heard the slogan ‘Jeevay Pakistan’. Now after coming here we are beginning to understand its true meaning, and we have not yet even embarked on the tour of the entire country as yet.”

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023