The final part of my journey is coming to a close. Today’s ride takes me to an industrial estate, located about ~100KM from Karachi, my final destination.

It was an early start once again; I wanted to take advantage of the cool weather in the morning and to reach Nooriabad by lunchtime. I was meeting the cousin of a friend there, who worked in a tyre factory that is a JV between a Chinese company, and Servis Corp from Pakistan. I thought it would be interesting to see a Chinese built factory up close, and to observe the dynamics of the JV.

I was at the bike by 7:30AM, and was ready to go. Only one problem; the people at the gate would not let me out! Why? It turns out the hotel manager had arranged a police escort for me, on my way to Hyderabad.

Early morning in Sukkur

While it was a kind gesture, this was probably one of the worse things I could imagine; I had woken up early to make distance while it was cool, and this would have been wasted if I spent the day following behind a police car (not to mention waiting for an hour for them to likely arrive). Plus, I don’t think there was actually much danger (it was described to me as mostly petty crime, that would occur after dark when travelling alone. The roads already had a decent amount of traffic by this hour).

After some pleading, the manager conceded and called off the escort. First victory for the day!

Then I was on the road. It was quite pleasant early in the morning, with some humidity and temperatures of ~24 degrees. The temperatures did start to rise relatively quickly however, and by 10AM it was ~28 degrees, and 34 degrees by noon. Traffic was less congested today, although there were a few stretches of roadwork where both sides shared a single two lane road.

Today’s route in blue

Flooded plains by the road

I had the same inclination today, to only stop if there was a good reason to…and so ended up on the road for most of the day. There were many things to take photos of, but they typically tended to be moving (overcrowded busses, scooters with 5-6 people on them, etc), and so I learned a new technique to take photos while I am riding.

Overcrowded pt1

I’d use my left hand, to release my phone from the mount, open the camera app via the button, and simply point and shoot (also with buttons, so no need to navigate the touch screen thankfully). This was fine because I could still shift gears with the quick shifter, and only really would need my left hand when pulling the clutch in (e.g. I need to suddenly slow down to near zero).

Overcrowded pt2

Camel!

Overcrowded pt3

Overcrowded pt4

not roadworthy…

I reached the Nooriabad interchange at ~1PM, where my friend’s cousin was waiting for me with his colleague and an armed escort from the company. The factory was a short drive from the intersection, and I needed to hand over my phone and camera equipment to security for the stay.

exec quarters

The factory reminded me of other Chinese construction assets which I’d seen along the way; such as concrete/road related factories built near highways they were constructing, in that they had a flagship “head office” building, with high ceilings and a waiting area for guests. The factory itself was in an adjoining building, with dormitories in a separate area, and logistics in the far corner.

SLM Factory

Lunch was Chinese at the “executive dormitory”, which was for senior Pakistani engineers and Chinese engineers. The Chinese had their own level and cafeteria, with just 15 of them left (a total of 25 had once been there I believe). Funnily enough they found a cook that was Christian so they could handle non-halal ingredients typical in Chinese cuisine.

There I met the guy that seemed to be in charge of the factory; he had a buzzcut, was about 170ish cm tall, and had quite a jovial attitude. He said I should stay for the evening and join them for dinner. How could I refuse!

The Pakistani government takes security for Chinese nationals quite seriously - so it was good in a sense that I do not have a Chinese passport. For the Chinese, typically they need to be registered at each police station, can only travel with armed escort, are not allowed onto motorways after dark(!), and a whole host of other requirements. I believe these measures were implemented following a terrorist attack impacting some Chinese workers in 2024. This company had an armoured vehicle for transporting Chinese workers, and it was clear that due to the inconvenience, they seemed to remain at the compound most of the time (although there are holidays every 3 months sending them back for 2 weeks at a time). There were commandoes on site for additional security, seconded from the government/army.

armoured transport

The factory produces ~1.5 million truck tyres a year (>4000 tyres a day), running 3 shifts for continuous operation. All components were continuous; even logistics (about one truck would leave every hour on average carrying ~200 tyres). It was quite impressive; there was a lot of automation, and production specs could be tracked to the individual tyre, which was marked uniquely. There were about 1400 workers on site, to do some of the manual components (some feeding of materials, and moving items from machine to machine at the factory), but the cost component /error potential seems quite low so it seems like the approach is quite scalable. I did not see the same level of discipline I would expect from Chinese factories in China, and the factory manager conceded that there were some things that were difficult to teach, so they were a bit more lax. (There also seems to be a language barrier; the Chinese staff are not too good at English, which is the common language of communication).

feedstock

temperature controls

final tyres

tyres about to get pressed into their final form

a pakistani truck sporting the factory’s tyres

the factory had thier own transformer

wind near the factory (pakistan’s wind corridor)

Dinner was with my friends cousin, his roommate, and the 9 Chinese staff on site. They had smuggled in some Baijiu in disguise as a chemical cleaner, so there was quite a lot of drinking. There was also no escape! Each person got a 100ml carafe, from which they filled their shots. Since everyone drinks at the same time, the expectation is that everyone’s carafe would be empty at the same time…unless they were under-filling their shots (like I was). And so as a countermeasure, the final shot would be drinking the remainder of the carafe(!), so there would be no slowing down relative to the group.

“chemical cleaner”

the infamous carafe

We had 250ml of baijiu each, which was quite enough for me, before we retired for the evening.

Tomorrow; Karachi!

Some stats:

• 389 KMs travelled
• 30g coffee consumed
• 29.8L fuel added
• 4 unique interactions

Part 2 route progress

Complete route to date