Here we have some of our best and worst moments of our 28 days in Pakistan and the Karakorum Highway (to Kashgar China), we've also put together a gallery of our favourite photos which you can visit if you don't feel like ploughing through our other gazillion photos. The gallery is available here.
Our FAVOURITE Cities/Towns
According to Yann:
1- Karimabad (Hunza Valley)
2- Passu (Gojal Valley)
3- Gilgit
According to Emilie:
1- Karimabad
2- Lahore
3- Gilgit
Our FAVOURITE Activities
According to Yann:
1- Suf Night in Lahore
2- Shandur Polo Festival
3- Afternoon naps in Karimabad
4- Livestock market in Kashgar
According to Emilie:
1- Shandur Polo Festival
2- Sufi Night in Lahore
3- Livestock market in Kashgar
4- Visit to the Baltit Fort in Karimabad
Honourable Mention: Visiting with locals on Gilgit's main bazaar
WORST Experiences
According to Yann:
1- Wondering why the hell we were in Skardu
2- 20 hour bus ride from Rawalpindi to Gilgit
3- Late night hotel search in Rawalpindi
According to Emilie:
1- Wondering why the hell we were in Skardu
2- Late night hotel search in Rawalpindi
3- Being violently ill in Karimabad
Most DELICIOUS Foods
According to Yann:
1- Burutz berikutz: chapatis stuffed with mint, spring onions and Hunza cheese (burutz)
2- Chicken shawarmas in Lahore
3- Chicken kebabs and fresh naans out of the tandoor
According to Emilie:
1- Burutz berikutz, cheesy goodness!
2- Chap shuros (Hunza meat pies, or "Hunza pizzas")
3- Walnut cake from the "Cafe de Hunza"
Note: You might have noticed we enjoyed Hunza cuisine. Here is an EXCELLENT free cookbook with traditional Hunzan dishes, try some, you will not be disappointed!
BEST Scenery
According to Yann:
1- Karakorum and Pamir Ranges on the Karakorum Highway (Chinese Side)
2- Passu's jagged mountains
3- Karimabad snowcaps
According to Emilie:
1- Karakorum and Pamir Ranges on the Karakorum Highway (Chinese Side)
2- View of Baltit Fort and surrounding 7000m+ peaks
3- Passu
Honourable Mention: Around Shandur Pass
MOST Difficult things about Pakistan travel
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Hospitality: having to turn down so frequently friendly offers of free tea, food, beds to sleep in...
2- Big city pollution (Lahore! and Rawalpindi)
3- Making sure not to make a social blunder (especially for the ladies)
Things that SURPRISED us about Pakistan
According to Yann and Emilie:
- Incredible hospitality
- Almost complete absence of women in the streets and public places
- So many languages (a different one in every valley), less than 10% of Pakistanis have Urdu (the national language) as their mother tongue
- People in Hunza don't like shaggy Taliban-esque beards
- Only men dance in Pakistan (but that doesn't stop them from trying to get foreign women to dance)
- It's the second place I got a can of ginger ale in 9 months (at the Lahore "imports" grocery store, I love you Lahore "imports" grocery store)
- Red hair and freckles
For those interested in our expenses, we have updated our homepage with our financial information for Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway, it is available here
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Leaving Pakistan
After the detour to the polo festival, we had to race back north and ended up with only one night in the beautiful village of Passu about an hour past the Hunza Valley. The village is squeezed between two giant glaciers and surrounded by jagged mountains which have over the years contributed to its stagnant size. Passu is an Ismaili community and we arrived on the eve of the Aga Khan Golden Jubilee. Villagers were decorating their storefronts with the green and red flags of the Ismailis, kids roared around the village and the local town hall was bursting with activity. 
With our day in Passu we planned on doing a small trek, taking in other local villages and crossing over two death-defying suspension bridges (well, they SEEM death defying). The trek is aptly named the "two bridges walk" and was supposed to take about 5-6 hours. We set off with Derek, an American, and turned the two bridges walk into the one bridge walk, covering about 6km in 5 hours, what a team! The bridge that we did manage to find is really an incredible sight, it's long, it's falling apart, and it's used by locals to move between their village and the pastures across the river where they keep their animals. All three of us felt that we should make the trip across the bridge and back, I was the only one who was unable to do so. With my short limbs I could barely stretch my arms out wide enough to grip on to the two cables that would keep me standing, so I turned back after a few feet. Yann, Mr. Vertigo, didn't heed my warnings and took a really really long time to make the trip. The bridge is made up of old broken wood planks that are joined together unevenly by wire cables. It's impossible to do the walk without watching where you step, but then you are faced with the swirling, raging river below you, which basically makes you want to puke. 
By the time we got back to Passu we were tired, thirsty and sunburned. I had worn a t-shirt for the first time in months and both my arms were bright red. We still had to eat, get back to our guest house, pack our things and flag down a bus heading to Sost. It was late by the time we got out to the highway and we weren't certain we would be able to move on. Sost is the Pakistani border post and if we were to get into China the next day, we had to be there that night. We were told that there were no more minibuses running, and we ended up being picked up by a private vehicle, a large jeep with just enough room left in it for two people and their huge bags. The driver dropped us off at a hotel in Sost, of course free of charge, and extended an invitation to a sheep roast dinner. It turns out the jeep full of men were on a search for a sheep, they had been driving around from village to village looking for someone who had a sheep that wasn't up in the mountain pastures. The hotel manager finally promised to get them one, but when we went to bed it still hadn't arrived.
Before bed we had watched Golden Jubilee celebrations, torches being lit all around the village. Volunteers spend days trekking into the surrounding mountains, in a coordinated effort, hundreds of torches lit up the valley. There were even a few burning tires hurled down the mountainside, a hilarious eco-friendly activity.
The next morning, after a full check of our baggage by Pakistani officials, we boarded a government minibus and began our journey towards China and the Khunjerab Pass. With only seven passengers in the bus, the ride was pretty uneventful until we got to the Chinese security check. Each of us had our bags checked, REALLY checked. Even the hardboiled eggs and boiled potatoes from one guy's lunchbox were cracked open and smelled. The whole process was so slow it was just silly. One guard inspected everyone's bags, he seemed more curious than anything else. Meanwhile the other guards boarded our minibus, put in their music tapes and goofed off. When a Chinese truck driver arrived at the post with gifts of hard liquor they rejoiced, waving the bottles in the air. The truck passed through the gate without a security check, in the meantime our hard boiled eggs were still being sniffed.
When we crossed the border into China, the gravel road became a 'super highway'. It was actually quite pitiful how modern the Chinese road was compared to the Pakistani one. The trip from the Khunjerab Pass to Kashgar crosses through Tajik and Kyrgyz communities with close up views of both the Karakoram and Pamir mountain ranges. We were now in China, but this was definetely a different China from the one we had seen before. 
With our day in Passu we planned on doing a small trek, taking in other local villages and crossing over two death-defying suspension bridges (well, they SEEM death defying). The trek is aptly named the "two bridges walk" and was supposed to take about 5-6 hours. We set off with Derek, an American, and turned the two bridges walk into the one bridge walk, covering about 6km in 5 hours, what a team! The bridge that we did manage to find is really an incredible sight, it's long, it's falling apart, and it's used by locals to move between their village and the pastures across the river where they keep their animals. All three of us felt that we should make the trip across the bridge and back, I was the only one who was unable to do so. With my short limbs I could barely stretch my arms out wide enough to grip on to the two cables that would keep me standing, so I turned back after a few feet. Yann, Mr. Vertigo, didn't heed my warnings and took a really really long time to make the trip. The bridge is made up of old broken wood planks that are joined together unevenly by wire cables. It's impossible to do the walk without watching where you step, but then you are faced with the swirling, raging river below you, which basically makes you want to puke. By the time we got back to Passu we were tired, thirsty and sunburned. I had worn a t-shirt for the first time in months and both my arms were bright red. We still had to eat, get back to our guest house, pack our things and flag down a bus heading to Sost. It was late by the time we got out to the highway and we weren't certain we would be able to move on. Sost is the Pakistani border post and if we were to get into China the next day, we had to be there that night. We were told that there were no more minibuses running, and we ended up being picked up by a private vehicle, a large jeep with just enough room left in it for two people and their huge bags. The driver dropped us off at a hotel in Sost, of course free of charge, and extended an invitation to a sheep roast dinner. It turns out the jeep full of men were on a search for a sheep, they had been driving around from village to village looking for someone who had a sheep that wasn't up in the mountain pastures. The hotel manager finally promised to get them one, but when we went to bed it still hadn't arrived.Before bed we had watched Golden Jubilee celebrations, torches being lit all around the village. Volunteers spend days trekking into the surrounding mountains, in a coordinated effort, hundreds of torches lit up the valley. There were even a few burning tires hurled down the mountainside, a hilarious eco-friendly activity.
The next morning, after a full check of our baggage by Pakistani officials, we boarded a government minibus and began our journey towards China and the Khunjerab Pass. With only seven passengers in the bus, the ride was pretty uneventful until we got to the Chinese security check. Each of us had our bags checked, REALLY checked. Even the hardboiled eggs and boiled potatoes from one guy's lunchbox were cracked open and smelled. The whole process was so slow it was just silly. One guard inspected everyone's bags, he seemed more curious than anything else. Meanwhile the other guards boarded our minibus, put in their music tapes and goofed off. When a Chinese truck driver arrived at the post with gifts of hard liquor they rejoiced, waving the bottles in the air. The truck passed through the gate without a security check, in the meantime our hard boiled eggs were still being sniffed.
When we crossed the border into China, the gravel road became a 'super highway'. It was actually quite pitiful how modern the Chinese road was compared to the Pakistani one. The trip from the Khunjerab Pass to Kashgar crosses through Tajik and Kyrgyz communities with close up views of both the Karakoram and Pamir mountain ranges. We were now in China, but this was definetely a different China from the one we had seen before.
Polo and Partying, Pakistani Style
We joined up in Karimabad with a Dutch girl named Margo who had also decided to leave the comfort of the Hunza Valley for the polo festival at the Shandur Pass. The pass is right on the border between two of Pakistan's territories, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the west and the Northern Areas to the east. Every year thousands of people assemble there for four days of polo and partying.
We had one afternoon and evening in Gilgit to make our plans for the trip. The local bus had no seats left, so we had to find another form of transportation. Our first offer was from the guest house tour operator, who had conveniently NOT reserved us seats on the government bus, claiming that a jeep was the same cost. Funny, the jeep costs 1500 rupees per person if we can manage to fill it, and the bus costs 220 rupees per person!?!
While buying drinks at a small shop we were approached by Sana, a young, aspiring tour guide, looking to fill empty spaces in his jeep. By some miracle, Margo and Yann managed to get him to agree to sell us the spaces for 400 rupees each. After he agreed to the price he seemed to really regret it, and until he showed up to pick us up the next morning, we weren't certain if we actually had a ride to Shandur. As we suspected, the jeep "with much much room" turned into a five person jeep with eight people in it and enough food and supplies for ten. Sana had been hired by another tourist to drive up to the pass with food and supplies for a whopping 120$US while he rode there on his motorbike. By sticking us in the jeep he was just making a litle bit extra (I felt kind of cheap, but not cheap enough to pay him anything more, he had already ripped off one tourist and that was enough).
Margo and I rode in the front with the driver, because Sana "respects women". Yann was stuck in the back with the four others. Up until the last 50km the ride went smoothly, we spent 4-5 hours on the paved highway gaining altitude while following the Gilgit River.
Things then got more complicated, the road turned into loose rock and Sana decided it was meal time. By this time it was late in the afternoon, all the cooking gear was strapped and packed away in the jeep. Even though we were almost at Shandur, the plan was to cook chicken biryani from scratch. Our five jeep mates didn't understand our objections (we had no tent and no organised accomodation at the pass), but agreed to only make tea and bread (a process that still involved completely dismantling the carefully packed jeep). We breaked for at least an hour, were visited by most of the local boys interested in the strange arrivals, then we finished the trip with two more hours of travel to the top of the pass.
The pass is a spectacular sight, surrounded by mountains, covered in green grass, a "natural polo ground". We arrived the eve of the festival, but many tents had already sprung up all over the pass. It was getting dark, Sana had invited us for chicken biryani, but before dinner we had to find somewhere to sleep. While Yann and Margo sought out tents, I stayed back to help poor Sana. He had no idea how to set up his tent, he had forgotten a flash light, a sharp knife for food preparation and worst of all his masala biryani. Margo and Yann returned, we set up the tent and consoled frazzled Sana, telling him that his biryani would surely be good without the spices. 
Margo and Yann had selected a small tent inside a larger covered tent village. It was set up with a small shop, a generator providing some light and even a Chitrali musical group. After waiting over three hours for the chicken biryani, which was delicious, we walked back to our tent across the pass in the pitch black and quiet. Only one tent seemed to be generating any noise (or light), as we approached it we were overjoyed to find that it was ours. Crowds of men had gathered to listen to music and dance the night away. Helped by alcoholic 'Hunza water' and loads of hash, men volunteered themselves onto the dance floor and spun around, usually until they had crashed into the crowd. We watched in absolute awe as they partied to the beat of the Chitrali music. The lovely man next to me tried to teach me the subtle differences between Gilgiti, Pashto and Chitrali dancing. Meanwhile, Sana, a proud Gilgiti, complained the whole time that the Chitrali show wasn't as good as the Gilgiti non-existent one. The show finally collapsed when one of the heavily intoxicated musicians refused to play, feeling like the crowd wasn't throwing enough donations his way, Sana felt vindicated "this would never happen at the Gilgit show!". We were kind of grateful for the hissy-fit because we were exhausted, it was late, and there didn't seem to be an end in sight.
Margo, Yann and I squeezed into our two person tent, happy that we had rented sleeping bags, it was very cold. We awoke to the first official day of the festival, with two polo matches scheduled. After a breakfast of hot bread dunked in local honey we headed down to the polo field and joined the crowd of supporters. Watching the game start was exciting, with the players racing their horses down the field. The players ride beautifully and ruthlessly, the game here in Northern Pakistan is played with no referee. We cheered for every goal and everytime a player made contact with the ball. Half way through the game a horse made a sharp turn and his leg snapped, his rider was flung off and the poor horse shook with pain and fear. The game was stopped and the horse carried away in a small truck, we found out later that he would be euthanised. It was a wake up call to how dangerous the game actually was. In the afternoon game a horse crashed into the side barriers and threw his rider about 10 feet through the air into the crowd, this time the rider was carried away on a stretcher.
During most of the game a band plays music from the stands, and at halftime they head down to the field with dancers. Spectators throw themselves onto the field to join in on the dancing, even the soldiers showed off their moves. In between the two games people pack into tents for drinking, eating, music and dancing. The atmosphere is joyful and friendly and foreigners are given a tremendous welcome. 
At the halfway mark of the second game, winds started to pick up and clouds of dust rose up through the valley. When the rain began we raced back to our tent only to find its staff holding onto it desperately in an attempt to keep it from blowing away. As more of the tents inhabitants appeared, we all began to grab onto random tent poles and hold on with all our strength as the wind whipped through the tent. After about an hour, the wind died down and the tent was safe. The weather never really got better though, it rained for the rest of the day, soaking the walls of our tent and keeping the cultural shows from being held. We had a cold night, with little to no sleep. 
We were leaving just as the festival was getting exciting and more and more people were arriving, but we had experienced a full day of polo and we didn't really have the time to stay longer. We waited all morning for the bus coming from Chitral to show up, and finally accepted a ride in a small car from two men. The driver didn't speak any English and his friend spoke almost none, but they had driven over 40 hours up to the pass with no warm clothes, had frozen through the night and then decided they were going home, without even having seen a polo match. 
Our driver was calm and cautious which was not the case with his friend, who smoked hash and sang at the top of his lungs for most of the 10 hour ride. He also jokingly made Yann swear not to cut off his beard, because it made Allah happy, and we wouldn't want to make Allah unhappy would we? We had two flat tires and multiple tea breaks but we made it to Gilgit before dark, which was quite a feat. We seemed to have made our two carmates extremely happy, we had somehow justified their long journey to Shandur, they hadn't seen any polo, but they had spent an entire day with three foreigners, including two women if that's not worth 80 hours of driving on shitty roads, I don't know what it.
We had one afternoon and evening in Gilgit to make our plans for the trip. The local bus had no seats left, so we had to find another form of transportation. Our first offer was from the guest house tour operator, who had conveniently NOT reserved us seats on the government bus, claiming that a jeep was the same cost. Funny, the jeep costs 1500 rupees per person if we can manage to fill it, and the bus costs 220 rupees per person!?!
While buying drinks at a small shop we were approached by Sana, a young, aspiring tour guide, looking to fill empty spaces in his jeep. By some miracle, Margo and Yann managed to get him to agree to sell us the spaces for 400 rupees each. After he agreed to the price he seemed to really regret it, and until he showed up to pick us up the next morning, we weren't certain if we actually had a ride to Shandur. As we suspected, the jeep "with much much room" turned into a five person jeep with eight people in it and enough food and supplies for ten. Sana had been hired by another tourist to drive up to the pass with food and supplies for a whopping 120$US while he rode there on his motorbike. By sticking us in the jeep he was just making a litle bit extra (I felt kind of cheap, but not cheap enough to pay him anything more, he had already ripped off one tourist and that was enough).
Margo and I rode in the front with the driver, because Sana "respects women". Yann was stuck in the back with the four others. Up until the last 50km the ride went smoothly, we spent 4-5 hours on the paved highway gaining altitude while following the Gilgit River.Things then got more complicated, the road turned into loose rock and Sana decided it was meal time. By this time it was late in the afternoon, all the cooking gear was strapped and packed away in the jeep. Even though we were almost at Shandur, the plan was to cook chicken biryani from scratch. Our five jeep mates didn't understand our objections (we had no tent and no organised accomodation at the pass), but agreed to only make tea and bread (a process that still involved completely dismantling the carefully packed jeep). We breaked for at least an hour, were visited by most of the local boys interested in the strange arrivals, then we finished the trip with two more hours of travel to the top of the pass.
The pass is a spectacular sight, surrounded by mountains, covered in green grass, a "natural polo ground". We arrived the eve of the festival, but many tents had already sprung up all over the pass. It was getting dark, Sana had invited us for chicken biryani, but before dinner we had to find somewhere to sleep. While Yann and Margo sought out tents, I stayed back to help poor Sana. He had no idea how to set up his tent, he had forgotten a flash light, a sharp knife for food preparation and worst of all his masala biryani. Margo and Yann returned, we set up the tent and consoled frazzled Sana, telling him that his biryani would surely be good without the spices. Margo and Yann had selected a small tent inside a larger covered tent village. It was set up with a small shop, a generator providing some light and even a Chitrali musical group. After waiting over three hours for the chicken biryani, which was delicious, we walked back to our tent across the pass in the pitch black and quiet. Only one tent seemed to be generating any noise (or light), as we approached it we were overjoyed to find that it was ours. Crowds of men had gathered to listen to music and dance the night away. Helped by alcoholic 'Hunza water' and loads of hash, men volunteered themselves onto the dance floor and spun around, usually until they had crashed into the crowd. We watched in absolute awe as they partied to the beat of the Chitrali music. The lovely man next to me tried to teach me the subtle differences between Gilgiti, Pashto and Chitrali dancing. Meanwhile, Sana, a proud Gilgiti, complained the whole time that the Chitrali show wasn't as good as the Gilgiti non-existent one. The show finally collapsed when one of the heavily intoxicated musicians refused to play, feeling like the crowd wasn't throwing enough donations his way, Sana felt vindicated "this would never happen at the Gilgit show!". We were kind of grateful for the hissy-fit because we were exhausted, it was late, and there didn't seem to be an end in sight. Margo, Yann and I squeezed into our two person tent, happy that we had rented sleeping bags, it was very cold. We awoke to the first official day of the festival, with two polo matches scheduled. After a breakfast of hot bread dunked in local honey we headed down to the polo field and joined the crowd of supporters. Watching the game start was exciting, with the players racing their horses down the field. The players ride beautifully and ruthlessly, the game here in Northern Pakistan is played with no referee. We cheered for every goal and everytime a player made contact with the ball. Half way through the game a horse made a sharp turn and his leg snapped, his rider was flung off and the poor horse shook with pain and fear. The game was stopped and the horse carried away in a small truck, we found out later that he would be euthanised. It was a wake up call to how dangerous the game actually was. In the afternoon game a horse crashed into the side barriers and threw his rider about 10 feet through the air into the crowd, this time the rider was carried away on a stretcher.
During most of the game a band plays music from the stands, and at halftime they head down to the field with dancers. Spectators throw themselves onto the field to join in on the dancing, even the soldiers showed off their moves. In between the two games people pack into tents for drinking, eating, music and dancing. The atmosphere is joyful and friendly and foreigners are given a tremendous welcome. At the halfway mark of the second game, winds started to pick up and clouds of dust rose up through the valley. When the rain began we raced back to our tent only to find its staff holding onto it desperately in an attempt to keep it from blowing away. As more of the tents inhabitants appeared, we all began to grab onto random tent poles and hold on with all our strength as the wind whipped through the tent. After about an hour, the wind died down and the tent was safe. The weather never really got better though, it rained for the rest of the day, soaking the walls of our tent and keeping the cultural shows from being held. We had a cold night, with little to no sleep. We were leaving just as the festival was getting exciting and more and more people were arriving, but we had experienced a full day of polo and we didn't really have the time to stay longer. We waited all morning for the bus coming from Chitral to show up, and finally accepted a ride in a small car from two men. The driver didn't speak any English and his friend spoke almost none, but they had driven over 40 hours up to the pass with no warm clothes, had frozen through the night and then decided they were going home, without even having seen a polo match. Our driver was calm and cautious which was not the case with his friend, who smoked hash and sang at the top of his lungs for most of the 10 hour ride. He also jokingly made Yann swear not to cut off his beard, because it made Allah happy, and we wouldn't want to make Allah unhappy would we? We had two flat tires and multiple tea breaks but we made it to Gilgit before dark, which was quite a feat. We seemed to have made our two carmates extremely happy, we had somehow justified their long journey to Shandur, they hadn't seen any polo, but they had spent an entire day with three foreigners, including two women if that's not worth 80 hours of driving on shitty roads, I don't know what it.
Hunza Valley: Pakistan's Backpacker Paradise
I know its getting a little bit old, but after our side trip to Skardu I once again was struck with a bout of traveller's diarrhea. With a quick disolve immodium I made it through the three hour mini-van ride to the town of Karimabad, then I basically didn't move for the next three days (other than back and forth between my bed and the toilet). Did you know that the large intestine has a volume of up to 8L? Do you know how many trips to the bathroom it takes to evacuate 8L from your body? Alot. A whole shitload in fact. Do you know how NOT delicious the 'tangy orange' W.H.O. recommended formula rehydration salts taste? Very NOT delicious. I was supposed to be drinking 2-4L of the vile mixture every day but I could barely swallow a mouthful, not only is it NOT delicious it isn't TANGY either. It took our second-tier antibiotics to settle my stomach, I've probably built up a resistance to the milder ones.
Meanwhile, Yann was taking advantage of the beautiful weather, scenery and communal home-cooked dinners at the lovely Old Hunza Inn. Towering above the town is the beautifully restored 800 year old Baltit Fort, and towering above the fort are the huge 7000m+ Ultar, Diran and Rakaposhi snow capped mountains. Karimabad, like most of the Hunza Valley towns is Ismaili. Ismailiism is a breakaway Shia sect, whose current spiritual leader, the Aga Khan seems to have a more moderate take on Islam (the town is actually named after the current Aga Khan, Karim Hussayni). Women in the town are not usually veiled and are more colourfully dressed than their Shia and Sunni counterparts. For tourists, it makes for more open conversation and relaxed atmosphere. The town is a real traveller's hub. Yann was sporting his shaggy 4-month old beard and was getting frequent Taliban jokes from locals. Ismaili men don't wear too much facial hair, and if they do they keep it GROOMED. One man even told Yann that he really didn't like his beard. I got in the habit of calling him Yann Walker Lindh.
In my first journey out of our room we stumbled upon a TV crew filming a show about the region for Pakistan TV1. They were very happy to have us in the show and attempted to get us to dance with the locals. I felt a little bit embarassed that the crew seemed more interested in filming our reactions than filming the local dancers and musicians actually putting on the show. When I started feeling even better I was able to sample a slice of divine local walnut cake and climb up to the Baltit Fort. We resisted We enjoyed a guided tour with the price of our admission ticket and Pakistani tourists (Western dressed) took turns posing with Yann who was clad in his shalwar kameez and wool hat (more Taliban jokes exchanged to my delight). 
On my second day of recovery we walked down to the neighbouring village of Ganish. It is a small village with a few dozen families, but they are the proud recipients of a UNESCO heritage award for the restoration and preservation of their small wooden family owned mosques. Hundreds of years old, they are covered with intricate carvings and are still used for prayer by the families to whom they are passed down from generation to generation. At the entrance of the town there is a large water tank filled every summer. Summer holidays were in full swing and children were running in and out of the tank. But noticeably absent from the crowd of young swimmers were little girls, who don't seem to enjoy the same "fun priveleges" as their brothers. 
We could have stayed in Karimabad for weeks it was such a pleasant place. But there was just too much buzz about the upcoming Shandur Pass polo festival and we decided we couldn't miss out on it, even though it involved heading back to Gilgit and then continuing another 8-10 hours to the Shandur Pass. We enjoyed one last day of fine weather, scenery and food before beginning our journey to see our first ever polo match. 
Meanwhile, Yann was taking advantage of the beautiful weather, scenery and communal home-cooked dinners at the lovely Old Hunza Inn. Towering above the town is the beautifully restored 800 year old Baltit Fort, and towering above the fort are the huge 7000m+ Ultar, Diran and Rakaposhi snow capped mountains. Karimabad, like most of the Hunza Valley towns is Ismaili. Ismailiism is a breakaway Shia sect, whose current spiritual leader, the Aga Khan seems to have a more moderate take on Islam (the town is actually named after the current Aga Khan, Karim Hussayni). Women in the town are not usually veiled and are more colourfully dressed than their Shia and Sunni counterparts. For tourists, it makes for more open conversation and relaxed atmosphere. The town is a real traveller's hub. Yann was sporting his shaggy 4-month old beard and was getting frequent Taliban jokes from locals. Ismaili men don't wear too much facial hair, and if they do they keep it GROOMED. One man even told Yann that he really didn't like his beard. I got in the habit of calling him Yann Walker Lindh.
In my first journey out of our room we stumbled upon a TV crew filming a show about the region for Pakistan TV1. They were very happy to have us in the show and attempted to get us to dance with the locals. I felt a little bit embarassed that the crew seemed more interested in filming our reactions than filming the local dancers and musicians actually putting on the show. When I started feeling even better I was able to sample a slice of divine local walnut cake and climb up to the Baltit Fort. We resisted We enjoyed a guided tour with the price of our admission ticket and Pakistani tourists (Western dressed) took turns posing with Yann who was clad in his shalwar kameez and wool hat (more Taliban jokes exchanged to my delight). On my second day of recovery we walked down to the neighbouring village of Ganish. It is a small village with a few dozen families, but they are the proud recipients of a UNESCO heritage award for the restoration and preservation of their small wooden family owned mosques. Hundreds of years old, they are covered with intricate carvings and are still used for prayer by the families to whom they are passed down from generation to generation. At the entrance of the town there is a large water tank filled every summer. Summer holidays were in full swing and children were running in and out of the tank. But noticeably absent from the crowd of young swimmers were little girls, who don't seem to enjoy the same "fun priveleges" as their brothers. We could have stayed in Karimabad for weeks it was such a pleasant place. But there was just too much buzz about the upcoming Shandur Pass polo festival and we decided we couldn't miss out on it, even though it involved heading back to Gilgit and then continuing another 8-10 hours to the Shandur Pass. We enjoyed one last day of fine weather, scenery and food before beginning our journey to see our first ever polo match.
First Days in the Northern Areas of Pakistan
Gilgit is a multi-faith town, with Sunnis, Shiites and Ismailis co-existing relatively peacefully. As little as ten years, ago sectarian violence erupted in the town and consequently it now has a very heavy army presence. Gilgit has a harsh exterior (lots of men in Pashto hats with long dark beards and serious expressions) but a soft interior (friendly smiles and handshakes for "guests"). When we set out in the morning to explore the town we weren't even sure if it would be appropriate to photograph people. We began cautiously, but by the end of the morning people were popping out from every corner requesting a photo or offering us a cup of tea. 
It took a bit of adjusting when people offered us tea, we were used to our Indian reply of "how much?". People seemed a shocked by the suggestion that we would pay for tea after being invited! We visited a cobbler, whose shop walls were plastered in posters of scantily clad Indian filmstars , a kebab stand and a bread making shop. We sat in the bread shop after being invited by the baker sweating away, pulling naans out of a huge clay oven. He didn't speak any English and he and his three co-workers were all Afghanis. Their small assembly line was cracking out flatbreads at an furious pace and restaurant workers were coming and going, picking up fresh bread to go with their kebabs. We were surprised by two bottles of ice cold mountain dew delivered to us, a gift from the bakers. The two drinks probably set them back the equivalent of 15-20 bread sales. 
Walking back towards the hotel we had to start turning people's offers of tea down, there were just too many. We couln't leave the bazaar without picking up a few pashto hats though, little did we know that we chose the Chitrali hats instead of the Gilgiti ones (we remedied the situation a few days later). 
The main thing to do in Gilgit is people-watch, and once we had enough of that we took a mini bus towards Skardu, the base for K2 viewing treks. The ride was another painful one, 18 people in a van designed to fit 10. The road to Skardu is a narrow, rocky one, perilously winding alongside the raging Indus River, beautiful but scary. In usual Asian fashion our driver was driving way too fast.
We weren't doing a trek, way too expensive and way too tough, so we didn't actually really know why we had decided to go to Skardu. The town is conservative, isn't very pretty and we didn't exactly get a warm welcome either. There are even fewer women on the streets here than in Gilgit (we saw five in Gilgit, zero in Skardu, in the words of a fellow blogger the last time it rained in Skardu it rained men). We huddled in our hotel room wondering what to do next, we couldn't bear the thought of doing the return trip to Gilgit the next day.
What we ended up doing was taking an overpriced taxi to Satpara Lake about 10km from Skardu, there are only two hotels on the banks of the lake and we had a quiet, cool, peaceful setting for two nights (except that they are building a big ugly dam and they work on all night).
The eve of our departure it began to rain, and rained throughout the night. Our taxi back to Skardu had trouble getting us up a small hill that had slightly turned to mud overnight (I really wanted to suggest that I drive the car up the hill, but I didn't think that would go over too well, but he was pretty painfully incompetent). With only one rainfall, the main road between Skardu and Gilgit had also completely degenerated. After a few hours of driving we arrived at the sight of a giant mudslide, with a few mini buses deeply submerged and a few dozen others waiting around. Our minibus company had another one of its buses stranded on the other side of the mudslide, so all we had to do was empty our minibus and switch to the other one. This saved us alot of waiting, it didn't look like anyone was going anywhere for a long long time. 
It took a bit of adjusting when people offered us tea, we were used to our Indian reply of "how much?". People seemed a shocked by the suggestion that we would pay for tea after being invited! We visited a cobbler, whose shop walls were plastered in posters of scantily clad Indian filmstars , a kebab stand and a bread making shop. We sat in the bread shop after being invited by the baker sweating away, pulling naans out of a huge clay oven. He didn't speak any English and he and his three co-workers were all Afghanis. Their small assembly line was cracking out flatbreads at an furious pace and restaurant workers were coming and going, picking up fresh bread to go with their kebabs. We were surprised by two bottles of ice cold mountain dew delivered to us, a gift from the bakers. The two drinks probably set them back the equivalent of 15-20 bread sales. Walking back towards the hotel we had to start turning people's offers of tea down, there were just too many. We couln't leave the bazaar without picking up a few pashto hats though, little did we know that we chose the Chitrali hats instead of the Gilgiti ones (we remedied the situation a few days later). The main thing to do in Gilgit is people-watch, and once we had enough of that we took a mini bus towards Skardu, the base for K2 viewing treks. The ride was another painful one, 18 people in a van designed to fit 10. The road to Skardu is a narrow, rocky one, perilously winding alongside the raging Indus River, beautiful but scary. In usual Asian fashion our driver was driving way too fast. We weren't doing a trek, way too expensive and way too tough, so we didn't actually really know why we had decided to go to Skardu. The town is conservative, isn't very pretty and we didn't exactly get a warm welcome either. There are even fewer women on the streets here than in Gilgit (we saw five in Gilgit, zero in Skardu, in the words of a fellow blogger the last time it rained in Skardu it rained men). We huddled in our hotel room wondering what to do next, we couldn't bear the thought of doing the return trip to Gilgit the next day.
What we ended up doing was taking an overpriced taxi to Satpara Lake about 10km from Skardu, there are only two hotels on the banks of the lake and we had a quiet, cool, peaceful setting for two nights (except that they are building a big ugly dam and they work on all night).
The eve of our departure it began to rain, and rained throughout the night. Our taxi back to Skardu had trouble getting us up a small hill that had slightly turned to mud overnight (I really wanted to suggest that I drive the car up the hill, but I didn't think that would go over too well, but he was pretty painfully incompetent). With only one rainfall, the main road between Skardu and Gilgit had also completely degenerated. After a few hours of driving we arrived at the sight of a giant mudslide, with a few mini buses deeply submerged and a few dozen others waiting around. Our minibus company had another one of its buses stranded on the other side of the mudslide, so all we had to do was empty our minibus and switch to the other one. This saved us alot of waiting, it didn't look like anyone was going anywhere for a long long time.
Big Mosques and a Really Long Bus Ride
Before leaving Lahore we felt that we had to visit the beautiful Badshahi mosque in the Old City. We raced there and spent an hour walking around the grounds. Right when we entered we were greeted by an absolutely adorable old man who offered/forced his guide services. He was so cute that we let him lead us around, as these things usually do, it turned out badly, with him demanding a huge payment for his 20 minute tour. We gave him what we felt was a fair price but left feeling frustrated, especially when the shoe minders also tried to charge us too much. 
In the early afternoon we boarded a bus to Rawalpindi, this is Islamabad's twin city, the uglier one that no one has really heard of. Islamabad is a planned city, a huge grid, more of a quiet diplomatic enclave, with green lawns, wide streets and districts with names like F-6. Rawalpindi, or Pindi as its locally referred to is the real thing, noisy polluting rickshaws (not as bad as Lahore), kebab vendors, crowded streets...
We arrived in Pindi after dark and started looking for a hotel. The first one on our list refused to take us, claiming there were no rooms, even though we could see every single room key hanging on the wall behind the counter. We were sent down the street to another hotel from our guidebook. The manager spoke good English and we began checking in. This usually involves filling out a form with personal information such as passport and visa number. The manager/used car salesman inspected our passports and began telling us that our visas weren't valid for the area we wanted to visit, which was of course total bullshit. Then he told us that Pakistani hotel rules dictate that he had to hold our passports for the night, also total bullshit. When he refused to let us keep our passports we had to walk away, even though it was late and we didn't really know where else to find a cheap hotel.
It took us a taxi ride to two different neighbourhoods and an inspection of 4 different hotels before we settled on a cheap room somewhere. The staff didn't really speak English but they were friendly and helpful. They communicated to us that "lots of tourist, Guh-man, Aus-lalia stay here". Our guess is that the raised prices at the guidebook-listed hotel next door forced alot of budget travellers to check out the rooms at the grungy Al-Hayat like we did. We got a window-less room and the power failed frequently throughout the night, causing us to wake up covered in sweat without the fan blowing on us. It seemed like the other hotel patrons had completely given up on getting any sleep while the power was off and they assembled in the lounge next to our room and discussed loudly until about 4a.m. I got up a few times to have cold showers in an attempt to cool down. The "shower" consisted of a small tap about a 2 feet from the ground. "Showering" consisted of me crouched in a ball attempting not to touch my skin against the absolutely filthy wall or floor. At night the monster cockroaches joined me in the bathroom for my bathing, appearing in the squat-toilet on the floor. Adding to the room's decor was a single dirty sandal, left in the middle of the floor.
We woke up/we're still awake early in the morning and we hired a taxi to visit Islamabad. We wanted to visit the Shah Faisal mosque, the largest mosque in the world (area wise), built with donations from the Saudi Arabian King Faisal in the 1970's. Actually, before going we didn't know it was a modern structure so we were pretty surprised to see the geometric oddity. After circling around it for a while it grew on us, it's supposed to be modelled after a nomadic desert tent and is quite spectacular.
In the evening we headed to the bus station to catch the 'VIP' air-conditioned government coach to Gilgit, a 20 hour journey north. As most of our bus rides have been, this one was also pure pain. Here are some of the reasons why:
-Three hour Hindi movie starring Salman Khan playing at full blast until midnight (I actually watched the whole thing, ok I admit it, this was a GOOD part of the bus trip)
-Punjabi music playing for the rest of the night
-Drivers taking hair-pin turns so fast that it would rip you from your pathetically fragile sleep
-Drivers periodically deciding that they would turn off the air-conditioning, until it was so hot that someone complained
-People in front of us completely inclining their seats the ENTIRE 20 hour trip, even though two of the passengers were small children that weren't even using the seat
-Air-conditioning with only one setting; too cold at night and not cold enough during the day
-Finishing off the trip with army passport registrations a few kilometers away from each other, in a final attempt to make me completely lose your mind
Needless to say, when we arrived in Gilgit we were pretty exhausted. Yann has trouble staying too long in one place without doing anything, but we vowed to take one day of recovery in the town after two nearly sleepless nights in a row.
In the early afternoon we boarded a bus to Rawalpindi, this is Islamabad's twin city, the uglier one that no one has really heard of. Islamabad is a planned city, a huge grid, more of a quiet diplomatic enclave, with green lawns, wide streets and districts with names like F-6. Rawalpindi, or Pindi as its locally referred to is the real thing, noisy polluting rickshaws (not as bad as Lahore), kebab vendors, crowded streets... We arrived in Pindi after dark and started looking for a hotel. The first one on our list refused to take us, claiming there were no rooms, even though we could see every single room key hanging on the wall behind the counter. We were sent down the street to another hotel from our guidebook. The manager spoke good English and we began checking in. This usually involves filling out a form with personal information such as passport and visa number. The manager/used car salesman inspected our passports and began telling us that our visas weren't valid for the area we wanted to visit, which was of course total bullshit. Then he told us that Pakistani hotel rules dictate that he had to hold our passports for the night, also total bullshit. When he refused to let us keep our passports we had to walk away, even though it was late and we didn't really know where else to find a cheap hotel.
It took us a taxi ride to two different neighbourhoods and an inspection of 4 different hotels before we settled on a cheap room somewhere. The staff didn't really speak English but they were friendly and helpful. They communicated to us that "lots of tourist, Guh-man, Aus-lalia stay here". Our guess is that the raised prices at the guidebook-listed hotel next door forced alot of budget travellers to check out the rooms at the grungy Al-Hayat like we did. We got a window-less room and the power failed frequently throughout the night, causing us to wake up covered in sweat without the fan blowing on us. It seemed like the other hotel patrons had completely given up on getting any sleep while the power was off and they assembled in the lounge next to our room and discussed loudly until about 4a.m. I got up a few times to have cold showers in an attempt to cool down. The "shower" consisted of a small tap about a 2 feet from the ground. "Showering" consisted of me crouched in a ball attempting not to touch my skin against the absolutely filthy wall or floor. At night the monster cockroaches joined me in the bathroom for my bathing, appearing in the squat-toilet on the floor. Adding to the room's decor was a single dirty sandal, left in the middle of the floor.
We woke up/we're still awake early in the morning and we hired a taxi to visit Islamabad. We wanted to visit the Shah Faisal mosque, the largest mosque in the world (area wise), built with donations from the Saudi Arabian King Faisal in the 1970's. Actually, before going we didn't know it was a modern structure so we were pretty surprised to see the geometric oddity. After circling around it for a while it grew on us, it's supposed to be modelled after a nomadic desert tent and is quite spectacular.
In the evening we headed to the bus station to catch the 'VIP' air-conditioned government coach to Gilgit, a 20 hour journey north. As most of our bus rides have been, this one was also pure pain. Here are some of the reasons why:-Three hour Hindi movie starring Salman Khan playing at full blast until midnight (I actually watched the whole thing, ok I admit it, this was a GOOD part of the bus trip)
-Punjabi music playing for the rest of the night
-Drivers taking hair-pin turns so fast that it would rip you from your pathetically fragile sleep
-Drivers periodically deciding that they would turn off the air-conditioning, until it was so hot that someone complained
-People in front of us completely inclining their seats the ENTIRE 20 hour trip, even though two of the passengers were small children that weren't even using the seat
-Air-conditioning with only one setting; too cold at night and not cold enough during the day
-Finishing off the trip with army passport registrations a few kilometers away from each other, in a final attempt to make me completely lose your mind
Needless to say, when we arrived in Gilgit we were pretty exhausted. Yann has trouble staying too long in one place without doing anything, but we vowed to take one day of recovery in the town after two nearly sleepless nights in a row.
It's Thursday Sufi Night in Lahore
Lahore is a huge, busy, modern city and when we were there it was also really hot. We decided we would stay only two nights, so we packed our days in an attempt to experience the most of the city. Our first stop was the Lahore Museum, which I only wanted to visit because of its "fasting Buddha" statue. It didn't disappoint, it sure was a skinny Buddha. I also enjoyed the moustached Buddha sculptures, up until Pakistan he was usually fat and baby-faced. There was a substantial police presence (armed) on the streets as some opposition party marches were planned around the city, we didn't see much action but were stuck in the re-routed traffic. 
Back at our hostel we met up with Daniel, who we had crossed the border with. It was his second trip to Lahore and he had promised to take us to the second-hand market where we could pick up some Pakistani dress. Most men are clad in the traditional shalwar kameez, a long shirt and trousers of the same colour (usually a neutral off-white, beige or light blue). Women wear a similar outfit but usually more colourful and ornate with a matching shawl to cover both the head and chest. The second-hand market is an amazing place, with recycled goods everywhere, of course I didn't know this until AFTER I bought the men's underwear for pyjamas. For his outfit, Yann had every possible shade of off-white to choose from and settled with a beige. The women's clothing selection seemed to have an 80's feel to it and I had trouble finding something that wasn't hideous, I chose a long plain pyjama/tent that was hideous but at least wasn't a fashion faux-pas. 
We got back to the hotel, changed into our new outfits and hung around swapping information and recommendations with other travellers. The "Regale Internet Inn" was another welcome change from India (and most of South East Asia). Mostly dorm beds, not very luxurious but a completely hassle-free environment. Internet on an honour system, complimentary filtered water, free use of huge refrigerator and kitchen. Adding to its popularity are the Thursday "Sufi Nights" that include an afternoon of qiwwali (Islamic devotional singing, which we missed due to our shopping) and a night of Sufi (Islamic mysticism) dancing and drumming. A guide from the hotel accompanies all the tourists, including many women who normally wouldn't be found at these male dominated venues, free of charge.
We didn't leave for the Sufi venue until well after dark, a row of rickshaws awaited us outside the hotel, pre-arranged for the tourists. We loaded in and drove off to the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal in the outskirts of town. We raced a donkey cart loaded with locals on the last stretch of the trip and arrived to a place overflowing with activity. People line the small dark alley selling drinks and snacks to the local men pouring in and out of the shrine. Rickshaws arrive by the dozen. Our guide quickly hurried us up the long flight of stairs to the upper outdoor quadrangle where the expert Sufi drummers play every week. The tourists are given a prime spot, with all women shoved to one side. But a prime spot in this ridiculously crowded place still involves a certain degree of pain and sweating.
There are people everywhere, and when I say people what I really mean is men. Just when you think its impossible to cram anyone else onto the floor another crowd of people comes up the stairs, push their way through the crowd, exchange a few words and manage to sit themselves on top of people until the crowd gives and they find themselves a seat. The locals exercised a lot of restraint when it came to the tourists, never being too harsh with us as we were jostled around, but a poor Canadian-Pakistani (first time in Pakistan) was mistakenly thrown into the main seating area and was shown no mercy, he was seated right in front of me but by the end of the night I couldn't even see him.
When we arrived the "warm-up band" was on, two men with absolutely beautiful voices devotional chanting while collecting donations. As they sang, vendors made the perilous journey back and forth through the crowd selling juice or snacks. Others spray rose-water from backpacks/tanks rigged with a hose, or cool us down with large bamboo fans, for these services they get small donations. My donation to rose water man got me a large blast to the face, thank you. As with all warm-up bands, the crowd was getting impatient and finally the two famous drumming brothers appeared and began beating away for the happy crowd. Actually it was a very happy crowd, the smell of hash permeating the outdoor theatre and the haze of smoke getting increasingly thick. It was being puffed away at an alarming speed with five joints lit and smoked at once (by one person at a time). One of the two brothers was born deaf and his father apparently taught him how to keep a beat by drumming on his back. With years of experience he keeps synchronised with his brother by feeling vibrations through his abdomen.
Members of the crowd began their week's journey towards enlightenment by spinning their heads vigourously in beat with the drums. The drumming went on for a long time and we were so sweaty that our hands and feet had wrinkled up like we had come just come out of a bathtub. By now it was close to midnight and I was getting grumpy because Yann didn't want to leave when two other girls that I was sitting with got up to leave. But for once, Yann made the right decision, what I didn't know was that the headlining act hadn't even come out yet. The drumming stopped and the "bouncers" frenetically cleared a large area around the two drummers (squeezing people into an even smaller space). The drumming quickly started up again and the dancers entered the shrine.
The dancing began to the cheering and chanting of the crowd. First some general arm waving and stomping around to the beat of the drums. Then full out head shaking, body spinning action. Most of the dancers were quite young and spun around with absolute determination and physical superiority. The oldest of the group was gigantic, stood in one spot the entire time (well over an hour) but shook his head back an forth at a concussion-inducing speed without ever taking a break. The longer and faster a dancer would spin, the rowdier the crowd would get. We were hot, we were sweaty, we were squished, we were exhausted, but we were mesmerized.
We left when the girl next to me couldn't stand the discomfort of our seats anymore, I was happy I wasn't the first to indicate my desire to leave, I was torn between the amazing spectacle before us and the unbelievable pain in my back and the pile of my own sweat that I was soaking in. We got back to the hotel past 2 a.m.
Lahore, what a cool city!
Back at our hostel we met up with Daniel, who we had crossed the border with. It was his second trip to Lahore and he had promised to take us to the second-hand market where we could pick up some Pakistani dress. Most men are clad in the traditional shalwar kameez, a long shirt and trousers of the same colour (usually a neutral off-white, beige or light blue). Women wear a similar outfit but usually more colourful and ornate with a matching shawl to cover both the head and chest. The second-hand market is an amazing place, with recycled goods everywhere, of course I didn't know this until AFTER I bought the men's underwear for pyjamas. For his outfit, Yann had every possible shade of off-white to choose from and settled with a beige. The women's clothing selection seemed to have an 80's feel to it and I had trouble finding something that wasn't hideous, I chose a long plain pyjama/tent that was hideous but at least wasn't a fashion faux-pas. We got back to the hotel, changed into our new outfits and hung around swapping information and recommendations with other travellers. The "Regale Internet Inn" was another welcome change from India (and most of South East Asia). Mostly dorm beds, not very luxurious but a completely hassle-free environment. Internet on an honour system, complimentary filtered water, free use of huge refrigerator and kitchen. Adding to its popularity are the Thursday "Sufi Nights" that include an afternoon of qiwwali (Islamic devotional singing, which we missed due to our shopping) and a night of Sufi (Islamic mysticism) dancing and drumming. A guide from the hotel accompanies all the tourists, including many women who normally wouldn't be found at these male dominated venues, free of charge. We didn't leave for the Sufi venue until well after dark, a row of rickshaws awaited us outside the hotel, pre-arranged for the tourists. We loaded in and drove off to the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal in the outskirts of town. We raced a donkey cart loaded with locals on the last stretch of the trip and arrived to a place overflowing with activity. People line the small dark alley selling drinks and snacks to the local men pouring in and out of the shrine. Rickshaws arrive by the dozen. Our guide quickly hurried us up the long flight of stairs to the upper outdoor quadrangle where the expert Sufi drummers play every week. The tourists are given a prime spot, with all women shoved to one side. But a prime spot in this ridiculously crowded place still involves a certain degree of pain and sweating.
There are people everywhere, and when I say people what I really mean is men. Just when you think its impossible to cram anyone else onto the floor another crowd of people comes up the stairs, push their way through the crowd, exchange a few words and manage to sit themselves on top of people until the crowd gives and they find themselves a seat. The locals exercised a lot of restraint when it came to the tourists, never being too harsh with us as we were jostled around, but a poor Canadian-Pakistani (first time in Pakistan) was mistakenly thrown into the main seating area and was shown no mercy, he was seated right in front of me but by the end of the night I couldn't even see him.
When we arrived the "warm-up band" was on, two men with absolutely beautiful voices devotional chanting while collecting donations. As they sang, vendors made the perilous journey back and forth through the crowd selling juice or snacks. Others spray rose-water from backpacks/tanks rigged with a hose, or cool us down with large bamboo fans, for these services they get small donations. My donation to rose water man got me a large blast to the face, thank you. As with all warm-up bands, the crowd was getting impatient and finally the two famous drumming brothers appeared and began beating away for the happy crowd. Actually it was a very happy crowd, the smell of hash permeating the outdoor theatre and the haze of smoke getting increasingly thick. It was being puffed away at an alarming speed with five joints lit and smoked at once (by one person at a time). One of the two brothers was born deaf and his father apparently taught him how to keep a beat by drumming on his back. With years of experience he keeps synchronised with his brother by feeling vibrations through his abdomen.
Members of the crowd began their week's journey towards enlightenment by spinning their heads vigourously in beat with the drums. The drumming went on for a long time and we were so sweaty that our hands and feet had wrinkled up like we had come just come out of a bathtub. By now it was close to midnight and I was getting grumpy because Yann didn't want to leave when two other girls that I was sitting with got up to leave. But for once, Yann made the right decision, what I didn't know was that the headlining act hadn't even come out yet. The drumming stopped and the "bouncers" frenetically cleared a large area around the two drummers (squeezing people into an even smaller space). The drumming quickly started up again and the dancers entered the shrine.
The dancing began to the cheering and chanting of the crowd. First some general arm waving and stomping around to the beat of the drums. Then full out head shaking, body spinning action. Most of the dancers were quite young and spun around with absolute determination and physical superiority. The oldest of the group was gigantic, stood in one spot the entire time (well over an hour) but shook his head back an forth at a concussion-inducing speed without ever taking a break. The longer and faster a dancer would spin, the rowdier the crowd would get. We were hot, we were sweaty, we were squished, we were exhausted, but we were mesmerized.
We left when the girl next to me couldn't stand the discomfort of our seats anymore, I was happy I wasn't the first to indicate my desire to leave, I was torn between the amazing spectacle before us and the unbelievable pain in my back and the pile of my own sweat that I was soaking in. We got back to the hotel past 2 a.m. Lahore, what a cool city!
From Sikh Serenity to Pakistani Pomp
There is only one legal international border crossing between Pakistan and India and it sits in the Punjab province of each country (at partition Punjab was split in two). Its an easy trip from Delhi on a speedy day train or a slow night train at less than half the price (we took the night train). The train brings you as far as the holy city of Amritsar and we arrived there early in the day.
We spent all morning taking in the city and its calm, welcoming atmosphere. We knew we were suprised when we asked a rickshaw driver the cost of a ride to the Golden Temple and he directed us to the free shuttle bus. Being home to the Sikh's foremost pilgrimage sight, the Golden Temple, Amritsar is set up for accomodating loads of visitors. There are free shuttle buses connecting the main transport hubs to the Golden Temple. At the temple itself there are free dormitories and free meal. The temple's community kitchen serves hot meals to hundreds every day, with charity enshrined into Sikhism by the motto "Service to humanity is service to God". Noticeably absent from the temple grounds is the usual crowd of begging destitute children and elderly. The grounds, including the huge pool with bathers surrounding the temple (that is actually golden) hum with activity but seem to retain a certain calmness and serenity. After our visit we took advantage of the free beds and slept for a few hours before begining the journey to Pakistan.
The bus ride to the Indian border town of Attari took a little over an hour, and we split a rickshaw drive to customs with the only other tourist crossing into Pakistan. We filled out lots of forms and passed through lots of different buildings before finally entering no-man's land. Here porters shuttle bags back and forth, Indian and Pakistani porters each wearing distinct uniforms to make sure each remain on the correct side of the border. Entering the Pakistani side we had to fill out more forms and then we headed to the bag checking area. The guards brought Yann into a room where he had to answer lots of questions mostly pertaining to the amount of money he made. I got to wait outside with our bags and another guard who also chatted me up in a friendly manner and a crazy old man who got me a glass of water. When Yann exited the room the bag checking guard asked to see all his money, when he saw the American money he offered an exchange to Pakistani rupees, which we didn't need as our American money is just an emergency reserve. He insisted, whispering that he wouldn't open our bags if we just changed 20$ with him. Yann was friendly but persistently refused to change money. The guard smiled, didn't check our bags and let us go.
We then had a long wait until the the border closure at sunset, and we tried to decide whether or not we should stay for the big show or move onwards to Lahore. We weren't especially keen on travelling at night into the big city (we usually avoid night travel) but when three other tourists crossed the border the six of us decided to stick around for the ceremony. At about 5:30 busloads of Pakistanis began arriving at the border stadium, so we joined the crowds to get good seats. This wasn't necessary because foreigners are ushered to the "VIP section" right at the front, men on one side, women and children on the other.
As people file in to their seats, a few rabble rousers entered the stadium dressed in green and white outfits carrying huge Pakistani flags. Loud roars emerged from the men's side of the stadium while the women clapped furiously. I was sandwiched amongst a crowd of happy children that were cheering their hearts out and I couldn't resist yelling along with them. The only cheer that that I understood was the popular "Pakistan Zindabad" (long live Pakistan). I refrained from shouting when the cheers mentioned Allah, (my guess at the translation, something along the lines of: Who's the best? Allah!), while Yann refrained from all chanting (party pooper, thats right!). The atmosphere in the crowd was awesome with the two rabble rousers taunting the equally loud Indian crowd on the other side of the gate, waving their Pakistani flags like they hadn't been doing it every day for years, or for one, judging by his age, probably since partition. 
When the soldiers arrived on the scene the crowd went crazy, with a respectable looking man next to Yann shouting at the top of his lungs "there go the Tigers, roooaaaaaaaarrrrr!". The guards chosen for the ceremony are probably the ten largest men in Pakistan, and are made even larger by their huge boots and foot high accordion-like helmets. They are dressed in black with red trim and are seriously the toughest looking guys I've ever seen. The don't march, they fly, covering unbelivable distance with their monster strides. And when the crowd isn't cheering, the only sound in the place is the stomping of their gigantic boots. After some preliminary marching they brought out the big guns, the hugest meanest looking soldier of them all. He criss-crossed the pavement, stomping and kicking his leg all the way up to his nose as he stomped (and we have evidence to prove it!). 
The ceremony ends with the soldiers lining up at the border, opening the gates and shaking hands with the Indian soldiers on the other side. Each team of soldiers then pulls down their respective flags in a complicated routine. Quite frankly, the Indian Army didn't seem to have recruited for size or intimidation factor, the Pakistanis tower over the khaki-clad Indians. The stadium on the Indian side was definetely more full than the Pakistani one, but what the Pakistanis lack in numbers they make up in passion. The children next to me beamed with excitement and pride and when I asked them if it was their first time at the ceremony they exclaimed :"No! of course not!". 
Getting to Lahore was easier than we thought, we just followed the crowds into the public buses waiting nearby. I was quickly shooed away, and was feeling a little bit confused until I realised that each bus is divided into two compartments (separated by a metal wall), one for ladies and one for men. So I left Yann and boarded the separate door at the front to join the other women. I was berated by friendly smiles, handshakes and offers of seating. One woman bought me an ice cream at a stop on the way to Lahore, and two teenage girls requested that I become their sister. They called through the grill to their father in the back of the bus. He handed them a camera and shouted instructions at them as they attempted to take my photo. It had been a long time since I had felt so welcomed and comfortable.
After transfering buses we arrived at a popular hostel in Lahore, dropped our bags and made it to the grocery store just before closing time. I got a loaf of bread, peanut butter and a ginger ale meanwhile Yann was outside at the busy chicken shawarma stand. We ate, then collapsed in bed after a long, amazing day.
We spent all morning taking in the city and its calm, welcoming atmosphere. We knew we were suprised when we asked a rickshaw driver the cost of a ride to the Golden Temple and he directed us to the free shuttle bus. Being home to the Sikh's foremost pilgrimage sight, the Golden Temple, Amritsar is set up for accomodating loads of visitors. There are free shuttle buses connecting the main transport hubs to the Golden Temple. At the temple itself there are free dormitories and free meal. The temple's community kitchen serves hot meals to hundreds every day, with charity enshrined into Sikhism by the motto "Service to humanity is service to God". Noticeably absent from the temple grounds is the usual crowd of begging destitute children and elderly. The grounds, including the huge pool with bathers surrounding the temple (that is actually golden) hum with activity but seem to retain a certain calmness and serenity. After our visit we took advantage of the free beds and slept for a few hours before begining the journey to Pakistan.
The bus ride to the Indian border town of Attari took a little over an hour, and we split a rickshaw drive to customs with the only other tourist crossing into Pakistan. We filled out lots of forms and passed through lots of different buildings before finally entering no-man's land. Here porters shuttle bags back and forth, Indian and Pakistani porters each wearing distinct uniforms to make sure each remain on the correct side of the border. Entering the Pakistani side we had to fill out more forms and then we headed to the bag checking area. The guards brought Yann into a room where he had to answer lots of questions mostly pertaining to the amount of money he made. I got to wait outside with our bags and another guard who also chatted me up in a friendly manner and a crazy old man who got me a glass of water. When Yann exited the room the bag checking guard asked to see all his money, when he saw the American money he offered an exchange to Pakistani rupees, which we didn't need as our American money is just an emergency reserve. He insisted, whispering that he wouldn't open our bags if we just changed 20$ with him. Yann was friendly but persistently refused to change money. The guard smiled, didn't check our bags and let us go.We then had a long wait until the the border closure at sunset, and we tried to decide whether or not we should stay for the big show or move onwards to Lahore. We weren't especially keen on travelling at night into the big city (we usually avoid night travel) but when three other tourists crossed the border the six of us decided to stick around for the ceremony. At about 5:30 busloads of Pakistanis began arriving at the border stadium, so we joined the crowds to get good seats. This wasn't necessary because foreigners are ushered to the "VIP section" right at the front, men on one side, women and children on the other.
As people file in to their seats, a few rabble rousers entered the stadium dressed in green and white outfits carrying huge Pakistani flags. Loud roars emerged from the men's side of the stadium while the women clapped furiously. I was sandwiched amongst a crowd of happy children that were cheering their hearts out and I couldn't resist yelling along with them. The only cheer that that I understood was the popular "Pakistan Zindabad" (long live Pakistan). I refrained from shouting when the cheers mentioned Allah, (my guess at the translation, something along the lines of: Who's the best? Allah!), while Yann refrained from all chanting (party pooper, thats right!). The atmosphere in the crowd was awesome with the two rabble rousers taunting the equally loud Indian crowd on the other side of the gate, waving their Pakistani flags like they hadn't been doing it every day for years, or for one, judging by his age, probably since partition. When the soldiers arrived on the scene the crowd went crazy, with a respectable looking man next to Yann shouting at the top of his lungs "there go the Tigers, roooaaaaaaaarrrrr!". The guards chosen for the ceremony are probably the ten largest men in Pakistan, and are made even larger by their huge boots and foot high accordion-like helmets. They are dressed in black with red trim and are seriously the toughest looking guys I've ever seen. The don't march, they fly, covering unbelivable distance with their monster strides. And when the crowd isn't cheering, the only sound in the place is the stomping of their gigantic boots. After some preliminary marching they brought out the big guns, the hugest meanest looking soldier of them all. He criss-crossed the pavement, stomping and kicking his leg all the way up to his nose as he stomped (and we have evidence to prove it!). The ceremony ends with the soldiers lining up at the border, opening the gates and shaking hands with the Indian soldiers on the other side. Each team of soldiers then pulls down their respective flags in a complicated routine. Quite frankly, the Indian Army didn't seem to have recruited for size or intimidation factor, the Pakistanis tower over the khaki-clad Indians. The stadium on the Indian side was definetely more full than the Pakistani one, but what the Pakistanis lack in numbers they make up in passion. The children next to me beamed with excitement and pride and when I asked them if it was their first time at the ceremony they exclaimed :"No! of course not!". Getting to Lahore was easier than we thought, we just followed the crowds into the public buses waiting nearby. I was quickly shooed away, and was feeling a little bit confused until I realised that each bus is divided into two compartments (separated by a metal wall), one for ladies and one for men. So I left Yann and boarded the separate door at the front to join the other women. I was berated by friendly smiles, handshakes and offers of seating. One woman bought me an ice cream at a stop on the way to Lahore, and two teenage girls requested that I become their sister. They called through the grill to their father in the back of the bus. He handed them a camera and shouted instructions at them as they attempted to take my photo. It had been a long time since I had felt so welcomed and comfortable. After transfering buses we arrived at a popular hostel in Lahore, dropped our bags and made it to the grocery store just before closing time. I got a loaf of bread, peanut butter and a ginger ale meanwhile Yann was outside at the busy chicken shawarma stand. We ate, then collapsed in bed after a long, amazing day.
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