Also Pakistan, like Iran, doesn't top the list of most popular holiday destinations. But I definitely fell in love with it, I will go back again for sure.
I’ve now been in Pakistan for a few days. It's very similar to the madness, dirt and chaos of India. So you don't have many dull moments while walking the streets. But I have the feeling you can trust the people more (I hope this feeling doesn't vanish), although we (me + Rob, a Dutch guy I'm travelling with) have already had a bad experience with a "donkeyhorse-taxidriver" (he tried to charge us double the price we had agreed).
When I crossed the border, I found out that the Pakistan mentality is very similar to the Indian mentality. The customs officer had his "office" outside. Sitting comfortably on a chair under the pleasantly warm sun he was more interested in a chat than what was in my luggage. A few Pakistanis entered his "office" trying to sell us bus tickets and to change money, of course for inflated rates. After a long journey (28 hours) with a lot of unnecessary stops, we reached the first town in Pakistan: Quetta. A lot of bearded men, many Chriet Titulaer/Kabouter Plop look-a-likes (beards around the face, so without moustaches). The (often-dyed red) beards and the clothes (brownish MC Hammer style pyjamas) made me sometimes feel as if I was walking on the set of Planet of the Apes.
Sometimes you see woman so covered up, you don't even see their eyes. This leaves a bit too much for the imagination and too little for the eyes if you ask me. Also, the people are doing Ramadan much more then in Iran. In Iran a lot of people didn't – and when you asked them why they were eating they would say that they had a stomach problem or something like that. And when they were travelling, they also ate (this is allowed by the way), but in Pakistan the people even do the fasting when they are travelling. (So everybody started to smoke and eat in the bus at the same time, after the sun had set).
In Quetta I was in search for bread. I finally found a bakery and was about to buy a bread, when I found out they where kneading the dough not with their hands, but with their bare feet!
After Quetta we had another gruesome bus journey (18 hours) to Multan - at some moments it was more like a rollercoaster ride - must have been very exciting for the people who were so unfortunate not to have a ticket for inside the bus, but who where sitting on the roof - they spent the whole night there in the cold! And me and Robert complained about our Asian people sized chairs!
The landscape was beautiful in the morning: Strange palm trees in different varieties, dotted along fields filled with cotton (or was it opium poppies?). Leftovers of the early morning mist floating in long strings above it, pipes of small stone factories puffing out fumes, people sitting next to their tents or houses here and there, and the sun, hanging low in the sky, looking like an orange.
From Multan we took the train to Islamabad, cutting through the landscape. The train gives you a good insight of the country: you can see the people working the fields, the children playing and waving or throwing things at the passing train. I also saw a shantytown, with a golf course behind it (it's a clich้, but a very powerful one). During one stop, I saw a guy in another train sticking his tongue out to me and making weird faces (this strengthened my belief that Pakistanis are crazy), and of course you see the garbage spread out over the country, although Islamabad is a remarkable clean city (for Pakistan standards anyway), probably because of all the embassies.
Let me also tell you about the Pakistani trucks and buses. They are amazing. If you think Indian trucks are well decorated, you haven't seen the Pakistani ones. All covered up in detailed paintings, mirrors, reflectors and shinning metal figures, they look like mobile temples. They are truly a treat to the eye. Too bad that most of the time, they rush by very fast.
Although the Pakistani are very welcoming, friendly people, things are not so relaxed everywhere; tribal rivalries and religious uprisings are still going on, some parts of the country you cannot visit without a permit and/or an armed guard, and you see a lot of policemen guarding hotels, shopping areas and other places of interest. We just found out that Quetta, the town we first visited, had been disturbed by a bomb explosion (probably planted by a Kabouter Plop look a like) the day we left (don't worry mom, I'm all right). Now we are in a much safer area, so I don't expect to get blown up - of course you can never be sure :-).
The hustle, heavy traffic, noise, claxons used at least 15 times a minute, getting lost in the too crowded streets with too curious people asking too much the same questions, the dirt, the amazed gazing of people who just stop doing what they do when you walk by and just stare at you like you're from another planet (this happened a lot in Quetta and Multan), beggars almost poking their mutilated body parts in your face. Things you have to get used to again, but not a culture shock - the real culture shock you get when you get home again, faced with all the stupid rules and regulations, people living in their own shell, not even daring to look in the other persons eye on the street or in the train, and when you start talking to them, they think you're mad. So, which society is advanced and normal and which is not?
Last time I mailed I was somewhere in Pakistan. I had a superb time there; went up the Karakoram highway, which connects Pakistan with China. It's always hard to describe landscapes, but I will try it anyway: greyish, light-brown and green valleys filled with terraces with huge leafless poplars looking like toothpicks surrounded by peaks which reach 8000 metres. Apart from "the Veluwe" in Holland, I didn't see such a beautiful, rough and impressive landscape before. Some people living here are of European descent, their skin more white than mine.
I also met a young boy called Sadam Hoessein. It was also here that we met "Conjo" (or Lulu - you could give him any name you wanted), a Spaniard ("I'm from Spain, but also not, I'm from the same place as you brother") raw-foodist who liked running up the mountain naked and who has a, to say the least, remarkable laugh: very loud and stopping just as abruptly as it started.
On the way back to Islamabad, we had, at least we think, a terrorist on the bus. He was a big European-looking man in a camouflaged army jacket wearing "LTS" glasses (the ones Ivor always wore before he became "fashionably aware") in a diagonal position. The strange thing is that he wore a different turban than anyone else in this region and that, despite his young age, he was leading all the prayers during the prayer-stops (we had 2 very shortly after each other). I had never seen anybody leading prayers. Since I never trust a religious leader, especially when he is wearing combat fatique, we can clearly state that he was a Chechnyan rebel recruiting people in Pakistan. Well we will never know. It was strange anyway and I wonder what he thought of me when I said to a fellow passenger that I don't believe in God - he turned his head and looked at me, the unbelieving kafir.
Lahore was the last stop in Pakistan: it was here that I witnessed the sufinight. Imagine yourself going to a church or graveyard, with your friends and many bottles of beer, and starting a party there. Only here, the beer is replaced by hashish (I even saw a guy with a carved out apple with about 15 joints sticking out of it) and the church is not a church but a Sufishrine (graveyard of Sufi's; Sufism is the mystical sect of Islam, they are the Pakistani equivalent of the Indian sadhu’s: holy man who smoke a lot).
There is music and singing, and in the last part of the evening, a space is created (by a stoned policeman waving his riotgun) where the sufi's start dancing: turning around for hours without getting dizzy (they hold their hands up and focus on that) or shaking their heads so fast you see 2 faces and you’re afraid their necks will crack. This all is accompanied by frantic drumming. The head drummer (a big guy in a long black dress) sometimes also spins around while still hitting his drum, which is floating through the air, and making space by scaring the crowd who are sitting in the first row (me included) with his drumstick and his big drum. Women are allowed to see all this, but they are put safely in a cage.
Before we went to the sufinight, our hotel-owner invited us for dinner. We thought this would be a quickie, but it appeared to be an evening organised by a welfare organisation. So first, we had to listen to speeches for 2 hours (in Urdu of course). Every time a person was invited on stage, the guy from the P.A. system put up all levels to play very loud techno music to suddenly break it off again (a bit like the laughing of Conjo). I thought this was very strange for a country where there are no bars or nightclubs, only sufinights.
After all these Urdu speeches, there were suddenly some words in English: a minister first did a propaganda speech about the Pakistan politics - that they had so many women in the government and that Pakistan had the name of being a country full of terrorists but that this is not true - and then finally he said that there were some foreign guests (us) on their way to Karachi (we were all going to India, but he didn't want to say this) and asked if one of them would like to say something. I looked at the guy next to me and saw that he was determined not to go on stage and I knew I was the one to do the job. So I went up onto the stage and said that I had been in Pakistan for 3 weeks and I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and friendliness of the people and that I hadn't seen a single terrorist (I lied).
After my very short speech, we really had it: too long without food and the sufinight about to start. So we sneaked behind the curtains where food was waiting for us and like animals who hadn't be fed for a week we indulged on the food. Unfortunately one of the organisers, who previously had been very welcoming and friendly, found us stuffing the food inside and started to get very angry at the hotel-owner (I don't understand Urdu, but this was very clear) who just went on eating like nothing happened. It was a classic scene. After the last person had finally spoken, the crowd, driven by an enormous appetite, almost tore down the curtains when they rushed towards the food.
Three weeks in Pakistan was surely not enough; I could stay for months in the north. I was, having travelled in India, surprised by the honesty and hospitality of the people. I hope this doesn't change in the future. Maybe it has to do with the religion. I don't know what the reason is for this difference. Of course, the fact that tourism is not as developed as in India has something to do with it.
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