Overlanding the 'stans: what it's really like

Everyone warned us before we left. You will be robbed, they said. You will be shaken down at every checkpoint. What actually happened across the Stans was the exact opposite, so consistently that it stopped being a surprise and started being the story of the trip.

Our car was a liability. The same rear hydraulic pipe blew eight separate times, usually hundreds of kilometres from anywhere. We limped, we crawled, we broke down in deserts and on mountain roads, and we lost days of the trip to garages in eight different countries.

And every single time, people stopped. Not one or two. Cars would pull over unasked to ask if we needed help, hand over a phone, tow us, lend tools, or drive us to a mechanic in the middle of the night. When we offered money, it was usually refused. We were guests, and that settled it.

In one village, waiting for a part, a family sat us on their carpet and fed us breakfast and tea and would not take a coin. In another country, after strangers helped us fix the car at one in the morning, they phoned us for days afterwards to check the car was still running.

The fix, when it finally came, was pure roadside logic. Nobody had a Mercedes pipe. What one shop had was a truck pipe made for a Toyota, rated for higher pressure. Wrong brand, right job. It carried the car for thousands more kilometres.

Overlanding here is not dangerous. It is slow, hot, and it will break your car. Then it will introduce you to the most generous people you have met.

The car breaks. The people carry you.