Blogs from Punjab, Pakistan, Asia

At one point in my life I found myself consumed in a deep love affair. It was that sort of story we have all heard before. Love at first sight. Fell hard and fell fast. Was in way over my head before I even knew what hit me. It was that sort of intense relationship that effected my everything. My emotions, my love and my loyalty were so strong for this relationship they dictated my free time, my mood, who I talked to and even, if you can believe this, what I wore. I was in so deep and wanted nothing but the life I had in that moment. I thought this love was all I ever needed and my loyalty knew no bounds. It was just as you’d expect when someone is this much in ... read more

I was fairly deep into trip planning when it dawned on me it could be an issue that I was a female planning to travel through Pakistan alone. Embarrassed this had not crossed my mind earlier, I hesitantly did a little research knowing in the back of my mind I really didn’t care what the bloggers or travel forecasters had to say because I was going on this trip. Tickets were purchased. My itinerary was etched out. And my dreams of finally seeing Pakistan were soaring. What could I really read that would change my mind? There were articles about women traveling alone in Pakistan, there were blogs by women who traveled alone and there were interviews with women who repeatedly travel to Pakistan alone. The labels that kept popping up about women traveling alone in ... read more

Lahore Days 1, 2 Perth to Lahore via Bangkok. Cost- AUD $652 Uneventful flights, 18 hours door to door. Note to Thai Airways- when did you get rid of your air vents? We could possibly have deflected the trillion airborne virus the guy sitting next to us for 4 hours coughing and spraying was creating. Arrival proceedings in Lahore were surprisingly efficient. Separate queue for females- bonus! Very, very short queue. Straightforward, a couple of questions and stamp, stamp of my 30 day visa (arrrgggghh- still annoyed about that!! -see trip description for details). Luggage carousel was orderly too- after last year's arrival into Dushanbe I was expecting much of the same mess but this was really efficient. Finally, at 02:00 we're in the steamy air of Lahore, 02:40 arrive at a barbed wire compound- the ... read more

It's currently ten thirty at night here, or so says a battered old clock that I picked up from the floor and tried to re-hang on the wall to it's base or whatever the underside of a clock is called, on a balcony overlooking Mall Road (or some other road) currently experiencing a traffic jam with almost all the drivers honking their horns and the occasional "Jazbaati Kocha" blaring a cassette of "Hits from the Himalayas" from his van filled with people like sardines in a tin. Okay, enough mood setting. So, at 4 A.M. this morning (29 June 2017), I woke up in Islamabad and after a quick breakfast of a slice of bread slapped with Jam at my grandparents' residence, we embarked on our expedition. At 6 A.M. we were at the Islamabad - ... read more

It's the faces that say it all. Bewilderment at what happened through an unstoppable force of nature measured by some cynicism that we who pass by in our 4X4 Lexus off-roader will actually do something to help. They are probably right. Altho' my current client has distributed tents and other commodities it remains to be seen whether the Government of Pakistan and the international aid agencies will do more than do the minimum. Pakistan is so mistrusted that the international community has dragged its feet more than usual. These people have lost everything to a flood of Biblical proportions and it is almost beyond imagination what it must have been like to watch the water slowly rise. This wasn't a dramatic, disaster-movie destruction, but a slow, inexorable, creeping up of water that destroyed fields and crops ... read more