Blogs from Pakistan, Asia - page 11

I actually saw the airing of Nat Geo, Don’t tell my mother: Delhi, the other day here in Pakistan and chuckled to myself. How fitting now, as I walk over the border from India into Pakistan, little brother in tow, mother intentionally uninformed. I would venture to say that given current geopolitics and furthermore the ongoing ex-Blackwater CIA-spy Raymond Davis case currently in Lahore, Pakistan is probably in the top 3 most dangerous countries for Americans to travel to. Well… surprise, Mom!Postcard is in the mail – get excited! … Lahore, the capital of the Pakistani state Punjab which holds more than half the country’s population, is also known as Pakistan’s cultural capital and as a city of poets. Sitting just 30km from the Wagah border and historically set along strategic trade routes between the subcontinent ... read more

The Road to Peshawar On my way to Peshawar, on the Pakistani side of the Afghanistan border, I was very fortunate to sit next to a very nice man who I ended up having some very interesting conversations with. He kept telling me that it is his duty to warn me about the dangers of Peshawar for Americans and Europeans- due to the US government's support of India in the Kashmir dispute and their backing of Israel. He explained to me that Lahore is very safe but in Peshawar people are much more conservative and take religion very seriously. "Militant groups exist and they lust for American bloodshed. If you insist on visiting Peshawar I will pray to Allah for your safety because I think you are a very nice person," he said with an intense ... read more

Korean Skills Come in Handy Riding in a shared car along the Himalaya Mountains of northern Pakistan I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined I would have the opportunity to put my Korean language skills to the test. Think again! After traveling for about eight hours that day our vehicle was haulted by security officers due to tunnel construction along the new roadway. We were then told that the tunnel was closed for the day as it was now past 4:30PM and they had to follow orders from the engineers working for Daewoo- a Korean construction company. As a result, we would have to go back to where we started from as we were in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. However, after much debate in Pashto one of the men ... 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

Day 27 Karachi to Hyderabad (Fri 30th July) So a few of us decided to get up early today to utilise the gym at the hotel. LJ, being a personal trainer, had extracted promises from us the night before to meet there at 0630. I blame the alcohol! We spent an interesting hour in the gym and all promptly decide that exercise was inherently evil and to be avoided at all costs in the future!! It was a refreshing start to the day though and we finally left our hotel in Karachi at 0830. Our first stop today was at the Makli Graveyard, which spans about 600 years and 8km, with some very important tombs in it. The place was amazing and I would have liked to have spent a bit longer there to have a ... read more