Islamabad

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Trip Start Apr 07, 2007 Previous
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Entry

  Islamabad, Pakistan
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

For photos go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/8835330@N07/ it is easier and faster for us to load.

Into Pakistan  
Apart from our night at the border our entrance into Pakistan has been easy (only took 4 hours, which is good). There were lots of forms to fill out, things to sign and lots of sitting around - this is also where we get to change money with shifty looking blokes carrying wads of cash. We are now on our way to our first Pakistani town called Dalibandin and have a police escort as we are still quite close to the Afghan border (AKA Bandit territory); it still a bit hazy but the dust storm seems to be settling. By the way, all food is now body temperature; having a drink is like drinking from your own bath and chocolate is well melted. Most of the food in our personal stash is now tinned tuna (known as fish here!), crisps and biscuits, and we carry about 10 litres of warm drinking water.
 
Pakistan  
What a culture shock we have had coming into Pakistan from Iran. We thought Iran would be difficult but Pakistan has been a whole new level. The police have decided that we require protection so we have had a police escort from the border continuously. This has been a nightmare as they would not let us stop on the side of the road (for our own protection) and we have had incredibly long drive days.... But more of that soon.
 
Our first impressions of Pakistan are as follows:
 
Long drive days
Incredible heat - in the 40's with no air conditioning on the truck
Open sewers - very smelly
People staring
Able to buy drugs without scripts
Incredible poverty
Friendly smiles with an uncomfortable undercurrent of hostility
Lots of noise - horns are constant
Smells - some good - a lot not
 
Our first night in Dalbandin was a real eye opener. We knew it would be a "crap hotel" as we had been warned in advance however nothing prepared us for it. We were sleeping on the roof which was actually ok and we would not have wanted to sleep in any of the rooms. The rooms where filthy (no we mean REALLY filthy) one room we were given for showering etc did not have beds and the floor was thick with dirt. The walls were really dirty and the bathroom would have needed about 5 bottles of bleach before it would have been considered dirty. There are some photos of the hotel - It looked like it had been bombed and deserted about 5 years ago and we were the first ones there. It is actually an operating hotel. There were cockroaches crawling over our feet when we used the squat toilets. Delightful!
 
Our Police guard for the night (a strange looking guy with red-dyed hair, eye-shadow and an AK 45 machine gun) arranged beer for the boys.
 
Our police escort continued to our first main stop, which was Quetta. We have to say the police escorts were highly organised. Although they didn't like us stopping much these guys were ok and the transition between patrols was almost seamless. One would pull over and the next was waiting for us - often, the truck wasn't even allowed to stop. In fact we almost felt like a baton in a really race.
 
The campsite in Quetta was actually in the garden of a hotel so we decided to get a room so we had our own facilities (ie upright toilet and shower). Quetta was a shock to us all. With very smelly open sewers that were about 3 feet across running along every road you had to watch where you stepped. They were at least a few feet deep and carried a lot of 'water'. Quetta is very close to the border and is a Taliban stronghold in Pakistan (allegedly there are a large number of Taliban leaders based there); whether this is true or not is hard to say but it appears that if they are accepted by the Pakistani security forces. There were certainly a number of Afghanis wandering around; a very tall, proud looking people and were quite distinct from the local Pakistanis. However it is hard to know if what we thought we saw was real or just our imaginations.
 
We spent 2 days in Quetta and enjoyed wandering around but were both facing a level of culture shock at the difference between Iran and Pakistan. The girls still needed to wear scarves as the population was still very Muslim - we had been hoping to get rid of the scarves but we all felt more comfortable with them on that not.
 
We met up with an interesting guy Paul who works for Lonely Planet and is currently updating the Pakistan book. He was able to give us some insight into Quetta and Pakistan in general which was really great. It was also really nice to have a real person to talk to again. He also enjoyed meeting us (or so he said) as it must get a bit lonely on the road when there are no other people to speak to. He was also going to be in Peshawar when we got there so we caught up with him again. Paul recommended a place for dinner that did roast lamb so a group of us went there for dinner and had one of the best meals we have had on the road - Thanks Paul!
 
After Quetta we were due to head up the mountain road to Peshawar (following the Afghan border) however our police escort had other ideas. They decided we had to take the long route down into the Indus valley and up to Peshawar - this took us a long way further south and through basically desert so the temperatures got up into the 40's in the truck. Remember we have no air conditioning - only windows. So imagine sitting inside your fan forced over turned up nice and hot with the fan on full - ALL DAY! Then imagine a police force that does not want us to stop on the side of the road to buy water, go to the toilet or rinse out the buckets of people who have been sick on the truck as a result of dehydration, heat sickness and the heavy bouncing of the truck. Of course we did stop sometimes, without telling the police; you couldn't count to ten before seeing a screech of police brakes and the cops doing a u-turn to come back and move us on. We ended up with a routine of mass evacuation & separation so they couldn't gather us all up easily and move us on. Somehow, this pissed-off the Police a bit but as they changed escort every hour we were able to stop without them forming a way to prevent us. The first day was a solid 12 hours of constant driving and we were finally allowed to sleep beside a service station with a police guard (and an audience of 15 truckers who just sat and watched us until we got to sleep). It probably got down to 30 overnight and we lost more fluid overnight from sweating that we had during the day as we couldn't maintain water intake over night.
 
After an early start - 4am we were on the road at 6 and another day of intense heat, paranoid police, no stopping, and running out of water. A lot of the places we stopped didn't have enough and they would not let is stop in towns so it was starting to get concerning. We were ok, as we were drinking dehydration sachets, as well as water and whatever else we could get but there were a number of people who were very ill. At one stage as we drove through the Punjab we had the Punjabi Elite special police who are basically the terrorist police. The motto on there cars and on their T-shorts was "No Fear"! There were very insistent that we do not stop and although we were allowed about 20 minutes before being forced back onto the truck with guns pointed to tell us to keep moving. It is clear that they had a job to do and were concerned for our safety but as they drove along in front of us if we had to overtake they would drive onto the other side of the road, sirens blowing, push anything coming the other way off the road and let us pass - I am sure the locals were not very impressed at this. It was pretty hairy to watch as well. The plan was to bush camp before Peshawar and then arrive around lunch time the next day, however the police had different ideas and would not let us stop so drove us through till we reached the town. Steve and Kirsty drove for 18 hours that day and it was really tough on all of us. Even at night it is still hot so there was no respite at all even once the sun went down.
 
We had 3 nights in Peshawar and we enjoyed it more than others. Although we had to share a room with Keith and we had a squat toilet the hotel was ok. We also managed to link in with a local guide, Hussein, who took us on a tour of the city and took us to places we would never have located such as an old merchants house with amazing hand carved sandalwood doors and panels with an underground mosque. We also saw a 1912 fire station, from the time of British rule in Pakistan, with an early 1900's fire engine in the garage. Peshawar also has a seedy side to it as did Quetta and although there were not as many obvious Afghanie warlords there was a definite undercurrent of hostility. We found out after we left that there had been a suicide bomb go off the week before just near our hotel so there was definite unrest in the town.
 
From Peshawar we drove up to the Kyber Pass where we could over look the Afghan border with Pakistan. We only went to the lookout which was a bit disappointing but we could see into Afghanistan (from a safe distance). The only down point of the day was an incident that Jo had with one of the local police. We had stopped to have our photo taken with a view looking back to Peshawar and there were local police with big guns so people were having their photos taken with the guns etc. we then had a group shot and one of the local cops stood next to Jo with his hand on her shoulder. He held on very tightly and used a lot of strength - almost as though he was trying to push her down. Once the group photo was taken he stuck with Jo and maintained his hand on her shoulder and indicated he wanted a photo taken of the 2 of them. Jo couldn't shake him off so said to Kenny to take the photo to get rid of him. At that point he put his arm around Jo's shoulder dropped his hand down further and tried to grope her left breast. She grabbed his hand up and we both shouted at him - see the photo below. He was not happy at getting caught and indicated to Kenny to take the photo, which he did, just to remove from the situation. Jo then pushed forward and went to Kenny and got out of this guys way. When we turned around he had disappeared.
 
We later made a complaint to the tour guys who said they would take it further once we had left Peshawar. It wasn't so much the grope - that wasn't pleasant - it was more the force and strength he used that was scary and made us realise that if someone wanted to hurt you, especially a trained military person (with a big gun), you haven't got much hope of getting out of it - even with self defense training. Luckily it didn't ruin the day but did make us more wary of the authorities here in Pakistan. In general we haven't been impressed with the police and authorities here, we have seem them kick and slap children, treat disabled people poorly and generally seem to abuse their position of power. We may be seeing a blinkered perspective but it is hard to know - we can only go on what we have seen.
 
We had truck duty whilst in Peshawar and had to clean the truck after our 18 hour day in about 40 degree heat - we all sweated about a bottles worth of liquid out - it was hot work especially as people had been quite sick on the trick the day before so it wasn't a pleasant job to say the least. One nice point was that Alex and Tom had asked us to throw out their mangoes, which were on the seat as they thought they may have gone off. We checked them and they looked ok so Jo gave them to an old man who lived in the building site next to where the truck was parked. He is about 70 and lives on a bed in the ground floor of a building being constructed - this is a usual site in Pakistan as a lot of people do not have homes. The people on the site provide him with food and there is running water on the site and he has shelter so has a better location than most. He was really pleased when Jo gave him the mangoes and the security guard who was also on site was also impressed with us. We have made friends for life!
 
Finally on leaving Peshawar we managed to lose our police escort as we headed up the Karakorum highway to Karimbad. The Karakoram highway is amazing with sheer cliffs on a narrow road plunging down to the Indus river below. We had 3 long days of driving to get to Karimbad with one bushcamp (yes the police found us again and decided after deliberation we could stay there but they wanted to leave us with 3 guards overnight who talked and yelled at each other all night) and as we were parked near the road we also had headlights, air horns and a general cacophony of noise all night!
 
Karimbad is a little oasis of green in a valley of some of the highest mountains in the world at the top end of the Himalayas. Unfortunately neither of us have been that well - dodgy tummies so we basically stopped whilst here. We were all booked into hotels and we had a room to ourselves so it has been a nice little respite before we head back to Islamabad and Lahore, which are mid 40's at the moment. It is high 20's here but as we are at 2500 metres the air is thinner so we are all getting sunburned. A large number of the group have picked up a vomiting bug as well as the dodgy tummy so most people are laying low whilst we are here and having a good rest. The next 3 days are going to be a return down the mountain and it will probably take longer as we will have to stop more often for the sick people to deal with their issues as we drive - sounds like a real giggle!
 
Islamabad  
It's 44 degrees in Islamabad and will be 47 when we get there tomorrow. Apparently over 100 people have dies in Northern India and Pakistan in the pas week in the heat and in China, where we will be in about 4 weeks there are major floods - bush camping could be interesting.
 
We decided that after 3 days of bushcamping and having both having had dodgy tummies for nearly 2 weeks we would book into a fancy hotel. We had decided on the Serena which is part of a chain owned by the Aga Khan as some of the group had stayed in one of their hotels in Quetta and the price was good. When we got to the hotel we found they were looking for $US500 per room per night which is just slightly outside our price range. Also they were fully booked for the night so even if we wanted to we could not have stayed. They recommended a guest house for £60 per night which was more in our range for a splurge so after a fairly confusing taxi ride (they got completely lost in a grid pattern city which is clearly signposted!) we arrived at a lovely little boutique hotel which we suspect is run by guys who used to work at the Serena, towels and coat hangers from the Serena. It does feel a bit like staying with young guys who know what they have to do but don't quite get it right. However they have wifi and air conditioning, hot water, lovely upright toilets and comfy beds so we are like pigs in mud. (Actually that was yesterday morning when we were camping in a river bed!) We are staying here with Stuart and Alex and Tom so it has been great to get to know them a bit better as well.
 
Not sure how much we will see of Islamabad (don't really care!) as we have BBC World news, CNN and a cool room. We may go for a walk but not too far in 44 degree heat.
 
Thoughts on Pakistan  
Having now been in Pakistan for over 2 weeks it is easier to get a clearer picture on our thoughts of the place.
 
There is incredibly poverty here. There is also a real mix of interest in us as foreigners. People who are linked to tourism (ie some shopkeepers, tour guides, hoteliers etc) are happy to see us and help us. However once we are away from areas that generally see Western tourists there is a real mix of reactions. As we drive through towns we get a lot of people looking at us in wonderment (what the heck is this big orange truck?) Some people think we are police and others have no idea. Some people smile and wave but others look quite hostile and not at all happy that we are there. The areas we have been in are isolated northern towns and based on the dress styles of the locals look quite strongly Muslim so we can understand that they may not be happy to see us.
 
Unfortunately the hostility and negativity we see is more prominent so we are very wary. The girls are always wearing scarves when we go out and trying to get the guys to do most of the talking and negotiating - you can imagine that it is not always easy for Jo to step back! Generally, there are still no women on the streets so the girls are stared at as if they're aliens.
 
The countryside in the north is incredible. The Karakoram highway is some of the most breathtaking countryside we have ever seen. Where the Himalayas meet the Hindu Kush and the Karakorum's is an amazing place. The north is desert and barren and dusty. So the country is incredibly diverse which makes it hard to generalise but we are looking forward to moving on now and heading to India. Although it will be very hot there are some amazing places to explore which will be incredible.
 
Next..
Onto Lahore, where there's a heatwave and a forecast of 47 centigrade, great driving all day, in a truck with no air conditioning!!
 
 
For photos go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/8835330@N07/ it is easier and faster for us to load

Love Jo and Kenny

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