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Published: February 20th 2009
Pakistan almost came off our list of places to visit. Especially since it seemed that India might declare war on Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks. In the end, we did go but on a much shorter trip. And we were so happy we did.
We entered Pakistan rather uneventfully at that infamous border crossing near Amritsar and got a cab to downtown Lahore.
We stayed at this extremely friendly, social hostel in Lahore. The main downside was that nearly everyone there was sick, and since we were all sharing washrooms, it seemed rather inevitable that the bugs get around. And indeed, we both had a few bad days and a general malaise that lasted a couple of weeks.
The hostel was cramped and dark and crowded but had a decent rooftop common area where various residents and travellers would converge day and night to share stories, repair bicycles, make tea and take advantage of the wireless service.
After a couple of days we even started getting used to the scheduled blackouts that would happen between 7 and 8 pm and then 9 to 10 pm most evenings.
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Coming from India, we immediately noticed a
change in the urban not-so-wildlife. Cows were off the streets and back on the menus. Also a lot less stray dogs around, but suddenly prowling cats, a rare sight in India, were much more common. We wondered if cats don't do so well on the primarily vegetarian Indian diet.
Walking around town, it seemed that most locals we passed would do this sort of double-take when they realized we were foreigners and then say hello or wave or, at the very least, stare. Yes, people stared constantly in India as well, but in Pakistan stares were more startled and curious than creepy.
It could be that foreigners are a rare sight these days. Other than the people staying at our hostel, we sure didn’t see many other tourists, even at the main tourist sites.
The first real shock of Pakistan was that most locals on the street just wanted to connect with us and weren’t after our money. Really. Coming from India, we responded very cautiously at first. But eventually it became clear that a lot of people just wanted to welcome us to their country, shake hands and say, "Hello. What country are you from?" or
i like red bull
our high-energy jumping friend"Can I help you find something?"
People in general were thrilled to learn that we were Canadians, many reporting a cousin in Toronto or somewhere in the US. They were all too happy to point us in the right direction, or more commonly, physically walk us to the place we were looking for.
We even got a free rickshaw ride. No kidding! It was only a few blocks, we were happily walking, but the driver, who spoke virtually no English, would not take no for an answer. You could have knocked either one of us over with a feather. Rickshaw drivers are notoriously hard bargainers in India—they don't give up anything for nothing.
Much like cities in India, the streets and sites of Lahore are teeming with groups of young men hanging around alternately goofing around and playing with their mobile phones. Matt was cornered by one particularly gregarious young man who insisted Matt take his photo as he ran ten feet up a sloped wall, launched himself off and jumped to the ground (see photo). Can’t drink and can’t hang out with girls, gotta do something with all that youthful energy!
In both Indian and
typical Muslim cultures such as in Pakistan, the divide between men and women is well-defined. A woman having contact, even eye contact for the more strict families, with a male who is not immediate family or her husband could be grounds for serious consequences.
We had noticed in India that newspapers frequently reported "honour killings:" the killing of a woman suspected of behaviour bringing dishonour on her family and usually performed by one of her brothers. We have read that honour killings are common in many countries including Pakistan and the Middle East.
One can only imagine the impact such a system has on women working outside the home. In many cases, they just don’t.
The growing Indian middle class is bravely challenging these conventions. Many women are educated, working outside the home and even delaying marriage to do so. Pakistan, with a much smaller middle class, and a recent resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, appears much more traditional.
Much like India, women are a far less common site on the street and rarely seen walking around on their own. They are usually in the company of other females or as a part of family units.
peddler
lahore market In Lahore we only saw women completely covered up a la burqa or, more commonly, in the traditional, colourful
salwar kameez, a knee to ankle length tunic with slits up the sides over matching, baggy trousers and long scarf over the head or around the shoulders. The majority of women did cover their heads, however, this seemed a more symbolic gesture of modesty since only some women made a big effort to completely conceal their hair and necks.
The men as well were more often than not wearing the traditional male version of the
salwar kameez, an extra-long shirt worn over matching, baggy trousers. Matt and I each picked up a second-hand
kameez in Lahore to wear for our time in Pakistan.
Another change we noticed in Lahore was the number of surprisingly European-looking features. Larger statures, fairer skins and green eyes, an especially rare sight in India, were not uncommon. Some claim that these genetic tendencies are leftovers of Persian or Afghan influence; others that these are decendents of Alexander the Great's enormous army.
A common theme of our interactions with locals that stopped to chat with us was warnings of danger. After only moments of
street scene
lahore market conversation, people insisted on giving us their mobile numbers, ordering us to call them if we had any problems, pressing us to be careful. They talked of bandits and other trouble, especially near the Afghan border and the north.
The funny thing was that although there were plenty of warnings, they all came from the most decent and friendly people, we were really having a hard time putting a finger on all the “danger.” Other backpackers said the same thing, everyone was so good to us.
Perhaps the locals are not as immune from negative, and we believe largely false propaganda as one would hope. Or we and every other traveler we met were just lucky...not likely. Pakistan is full of honest, good people that find themselves between a rock and a very hard place. It’s a real crime that western media is painting such a grim picture of a wonderful country.
For example, while we were still in India trying to figure out our next course of action (in the midst of the Mumbai attacks) there was an attack in northern Pakistan on a shipment of trucks destined for American use in Afghanistan near the Afghan
border. Western operations in Afghanistan are supplied largely by sea and then goods are shipped via land often through Pakistan.
The American government in its good natured capitalist ways hires local companies to facilitate the shipments (good business for everyone right?). The trick of it is that in order to get the supplies to Afghanistan, the drivers frequently have to pay “tolls” to the Taliban to use the roads through the passes. (source: Hindustan times, other newspapers, word on the street)
This is the cycle of American war business practices. And I’m not saying that because we have been reading Noam Chomsky lately. If you want to open your eyes to the reality and results of American foreign policy, arguably one of the biggest (most understandably) reasons for militancy in the world I would recommend his writings.
One of the reasons we had lingered as long as we had in McLeod Ganj was because of both security issues and the weather situation in Pakistan. We had wanted to go to Peshawar but due to increasing insurgent activities in the area we did not.
We also knew the weather along the Karakoram Highway in northern Pakistan, the
other place we would have liked to visit, would be turning. And indeed, other travellers reported that snow had already arrived before we got to Lahore. So it was a lucky but good choice.
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Not being nearly as touristy as India, we initially found Pakistan a bit more challenging to figure out. Having limited time in Pakistan before we were flying to Bahrain, we wanted to take an overnight train out of Lahore to a fair distance south. We checked the train company website which was virtually useless, and headed off to the train station to try to figure it out.
Once at the train station, we discovered a complete lack of signs in anything but Urdu. We managed to find a woman behind the counter that spoke enough English to help us. We booked tickets for one of the trains that would get us to where we wanted, but would find out later that it was not our best option.
On the night of our train ride, we were having difficulty figuring out which platform we were after. Fortunately, a fellow passenger who spoke some English helped us figure out the platform and explained
that the train was running an hour late.
The train compartment itself was very plain. Two vinyl-covered beds up, two vinyl-covered beds down in a small, metal-walled compartment. No frills, no curtains, no tables or water bottle holders and, we would find out later, no blankets and no pillows. Oh yes and a washroom resembling a filthy hole over the tracks.
Oh, we had been spoiled by the Indian train system!
Initially, we shared our compartment with the train engineer and the engineer’s assistant. This train was going all the way to Quetta and therefore had more than one crew aboard. We were able to chat with them in halting English for a while, but before long, they needed to report for work.
We settled in to try to get some sleep as it got colder and colder. At least twice I got up to root through my pack in an attempt to find more warm clothes to put on and still, it wasn’t enough. At one point in the middle of the night another passenger joined us. Smart fellow brought a blanket!
After only a few broken hours of sleep, the first light of
dawn began to reach us and I looked forward to warmth.
In the morning, the man who we'd shared our compartment with was joined by his brother who was staying with his family in another compartment. They spoke English pretty well and were naturally all curious about us.
Small talk ensued and we were informed by the brothers that there were other, much nicer trains that would have got us to our destination. Oh well, it would be our first and last train adventure in Pakistan.
We caught a costly lift in a pick up truck from the train station to the bus station several kilometres outside of town. Almost immediately we hopped on a big bus heading south.
The landscape in this part of Pakistan, northern Sindh province, is flat, rural and busy. Every scrap of land being used to grow crops, pasture animals, cut or bake bricks. Yes, you saw that right. Huge, rectangular, smoldering mounds of bricks. There were areas where bricks were being cut out of the clay-like ground and others where they were being baked to hardness.
The most startling sight was of locals nonchalantly wandering barefoot among and on
prayer
badshahi mosque lahore top of the smokey ashy mounds, poking a stick here or there to check how it was going. The irony is that these men would go to the trouble to roll up their trousers to protect them from the smoke and heat yet wander around in bare feet!
A couple of hours later we arrived at our stop on the outskirts of something resembling a town and informed that there was no bus going to our destination, Moenjodaro. A helpful bystander managed to convince a rickshaw driver to take us somewhere useful and we set off towards town.
The rickshaw was oriented such that passengers sit facing backwards. We immediately picked up a tail in the form of a young man speaking a surprising amount of English riding a motorbike behind our rickshaw welcoming us to Pakistan and asking us endless questions, "Where are you from? What are your names? Are you married? What do you do for a living?"
In the meantime, after a surprisingly long drive, we were still trying to convince our driver to take us to a bus and now the young man was on our cause, while insisting that he buy us
grand arches
badshahi mosque lahore a drink. After successfully navigating traffic gridlock twice in this donkey-cart, motorbike-full, potholed dirt road town, we miraculously arrived at some kind of minibus that was headed towards our destination.
We paid a paltry sum to a man who seemed in charge and hoisted our backpacks onto the roof. The motorbike kid handed us a can of Pepsi and another of Mountain Dew. After handshakes, thankyous and farewells, I turned to get into the bus. But no, no, no, we were destined to join our bags on the roof.
We made ourselves as comfortable as we could and waited until the roof was more or less full of passengers, all men besides me, and then hit the road. Lucky for us, the day was fair and wind warm but not too warm. It helped that the bus drove a maximum of maybe 40 kilometres per hour.
Well, I can only guess what kind of sight we presented, a couple of white folks riding along the backroads of Pakistan on top of this bus, we were certainly noticed! Many a local paused his tea-sipping or donkey-driving to watch in amazement as we lurched past. With nothing better to
do, Matt and I took to smiling, waving and taking photos.
By the time we reached our stop I think Matt had taken a photo of nearly every man sharing the roof. Everyone wanted his photo taken! Once again, we said our goodbyes and clambered down to the road.
We appeared to be at a Y junction in the middle of nowhere. Of course there were still people, children and dogs hanging around roadside shacks doing whatever it is they do--you never need to worry about being alone in this part of the world--but they seemed totally disinterested in us and simply carried on sipping tea and the like.
At this point, it must have been close to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we'd been on the move non-stop since our train pulled in at 9 or so in the morning, we'd only snacked on bits of food since lunch the day before, hadn't had a washroom break, certainly not a shower or wash, still feeling nauseous with uncertain bowels from whatever illness we had suffered in Lahore, I was hopped up on a rare can of Pepsi in my near-empty stomach and we were not at
all sure where this bus has just dropped us.
Moenjodaro could have been just up the road or another 50 kilometres away and there was a disturbing dearth of transportation options in sight. Where is one of those opportunistic rickshaw drivers when you really need one?
Scanning the Pakistan Lonely Planet for answers, we decided that it was entirely possible that Moenjodaro was just another 5 kilometres up the road. We asked a local to point us in the right direction and it all seemed to make sense.
We shouldered our packs and started down the road only to be caught up to by a rickshaw whose driver seemed interested in charging us an honest enough price (about $0.50) that we couldn't be bothered to bargain to take us to the site entrance. Wonders never cease! In this poor, poor country there is such abundance!
Fifteen minutes later we were checked into a guesthouse on the quiet grounds of Moenjodaro. After a merciful washroom stop, we headed out to have a look around the site. Of course, our progress is slow since every person who sees us wants to meet us, shake hands, welcome us to
Pakistan, ask us
the questions, offer their cell phone numbers, invite us for tea and feed us snacks. Thankfully, the site was almost deserted, so this doesn't take too long.
As for the Moenjodaro site itself, let's just say the inhabitants of this Indus Valley area have been into bricks for a long time. I think it would help to have a specific interest or expertise in archeology to really dig this pile of bricks complete with knee-high remnants of brick baths, brick monk's quarters, brick stores, brick houses and, the highlight, a giant brick Buddhist stupa built long after the original inhabitants had abandoned the area.
In fairness, the ancient Harappan Civilization, active from approximately 2600 to 1300 BC, appears to have been a pretty sophisticated crew for their time. If the remants of the baths, the underground drainage systems and houses are anything to go by, it would seem that the average Harappan had as many or more conviences as a typical modern-day rural Pakistani. So much for "progress."
After an hour or so of site-seeing we thought perhaps we would be moving on sooner than we had originally planned, like first thing in the
our tail
our curious young persistent friend morning. Although after the all-night, all-day effort to get here, we wondered what it would take to get out again...
Recommended reading: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. www.ikat.org
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zdenkaprincic
non-member comment
hello!!
thanx for the experience, after reading Holy Cow, didn't think it could get any better!!! our life at home seems very dull by comparison!! take care