Welcome to the Subcontinent

I've been procrastinating... those of you who know me will no doubt find this an absolutely shocking admission, but it's true! I've been putting off updating my blog for the simple reason that too much has happened and I don't know if I have the ability to do it all written justice.

I've decided to simplify things for this posting with a chronology outlining what I did on different days. This is the only way I can kick my brain into action and provide some insight as to what Pakistan has been like for the past eight days.

Thursday, 25th of September

Arrived in Quetta as outlined in previous posting. Quetta is the capital of the province of Baluchistan, a fairly unruly province of Pakistan whose cultural borders extend into Southern Afghanistan (it's only a hop, skip and jump to Kandahar) and Eastern Iran. Balochistan is generally considered ungovernable due to its sparse population, extreme conditions and diverse peoples. So it's kind of wild-west out here!

Look at the photos below and you'll see what I mean. There's a fair few turbans bobbing around and it's the kind of place where you might expect to bump into Osama Bin Laden around any corner. (We tried to find him, but apparantly he's not on facebook, so we couldn't).

Friday, 26th of September

In the hostel in Quetta, I bumped into four Brits whom I had met in Esfahan and again in Yadz in Iran. Alby & Alex left the UK in a converted landrover (Stumpy - a machine for pushing planes around airports) and somewhere en route, they were joined by Anna Rose and Tom.

We decided that we were going to get down and dirty with the local fashions so we marched off to buy ourselves chalwar & kameez, which is a loose, long shirt and even looser pants that they wear here. We went to the smartest tailor in town and spent 1000 rupees (a tenner) on some groovy clothes.

We also walked around Quetta for quite a bit and got our first taste of the subcontinental curiosity. Foreigners obviously don't pass through here so often and when we walked down the street, pretty much everyone on the street stops what they're doing and looks at you. This can be quite disconcerting when the streets are packed with people. Especially when you have a women in your group (you hardly see any women on the street here, it's almost only men), things can get pretty heavy. You can't really afford to stop... as soon as you do, people start to gather around you and within a minute you'll be absolutely surrounded by people staring. It's not that intrusive, only very few people would actually harangue you in any way but having that many people surrounding you and staring is a little bit weird.

Saturday, 27th of September

Having made the nightmare crossing from Iran, we had fallen on our feet with a nice hostel in Quetta and were quite happy to spend a few nights there, before continuing north towards Lahore.

Ramazan was coming close to its end and people were preparing for Eid, the Islamic equivalent of Christmas, which goes on for four or five days after Ramazan. Unfortunately this meant that everyone was going home for Eid and the trains to Lahore were all booked out. Luckily, the Brits decided to save me and invited me to come along with them. They were planning a three-day drive to Lahore, over the lesser worn mountain route due east.

We also bumped into the Bufards, a French family who had been travelling around the world in their camping van for the past year. They had three daughters of 16, 14 and 10 and a dog... the picture perfect family, although slightly bizarre bumping into them in Balochistan. We went for a meal with them before heading off the next morning. (They were going to come convoy with us, but the French embassy suggested that our itinerary mightn't be suitable for younger girls... some advice that turned out to be very good indeed).

Sunday, 28th of September

We got up at cockcrow and started driving towards the Balochi village of Loreili. It was a six hour drive, but the roads were dirt roads so we couldn't open the back door for fear of being covered in dust and it was very warm in the truck. The terrain was mountainous and plateau. It was high, but at least it was dry (something we would appreciate when we got to the lower-lying Punjab).

When we arrived into Loreili that afternoon, we went to the police station to register ourselves. After shaking hands with everyone in the police station, we were brought to the Captain, who wasn't quite as friendly. He demanded to know what we were doing there and asked to see our permit (something we didn't have). He got quite aggressive and insisted that we shouldn't be there. Luckily, Alby had a got a letter from the Pakistani authorities in Quetta saying that we were tourists passing through. When he read this, his demeanour changed immediately and he became ueber friendly. He even offered to let us stay in the barracks and gave us an armed escort.

So once we had bedded down in the barracks we decided to go for a walk around the village. We tried to persuade the armed escort that we didn't need them but they insisted on coming with us. In retrospect, I'm happy they came, as the sheer volume of people who started surrounding us would have been a lot more daunting without the knowledge of an AK47 watching over us.

We cooked egg fried rice in the barracks that night, and one of the eggs we broke into it had a baby chick in it, so we were all a bit grossed out. Despite that and the onslaught of a trizillion mosquitos, we slept quite well.

Monday, 29th of September

Knowing that it would be a long journey to Multan, our next port of call, we got started at 7am. Again, we shook hands with everyone in the barracks before we left. (I'm not too happy about all this handshaking malarky as rumour has it, that the Pakistani's... ehh... clean themselves... after the toilet like... with their... ehh... hands... ). Anyway, accompanied by our armed escort, we set off for Multan.

The drive took about twelve hours and we decended from the high Balochi plateaux down through some incredible mountain scenery into the irrigated plains of Punjab and the Indus valley. Historically, the Indus river was seen as the western frontier of the Indian Subcontinent.

Decending into Punjab, we also got our first taste of the humidity for which this region is known. We arrived in Multan that night, checked into the cockroach infested shithole that passed for a hotel, showered and washed and went for some dinner. Then we each tried our best to sleep in rooms that would pass as saunas in Ireland.

Tuesday, 30th of September

The next morning we got on the road early and drove the six hours to Lahore. Multan is on the backbone of Pakistan, with the Indus plains acting as a conduit all the way from Karachi in the South, so luckily the road was good.

Although we did have a minor incidedent whereby we nearly creamed a tuc-tuc (autorickshaw). We were speeding along the motorway at about 55 mph when a tuc-tuc wtih about twenty people in it (a common sight) coming towards us decided to do a U-Turn in front of us. Alby swerved to miss it but it swerved in the same direction, so he swerved the other way and we sped past it clipping the rear corner. It nearly fell over but somehow didn't and just rocked from one side to the other... I'll never forget the faces of the women who were sitting in the back of it as they saw us coming... I'm pretty sure that they thought they were gonners.

After our near death experience, we arrived in Lahore that evening and checked into the Regale Internet Inn, where Malek, the head honcho here, had organised a Qawwali Music concert that evening. So we got ourselves some beers from the local five-star hotel and settled down for the night.

Right, that's all for now... I have much more to report on but I have no more time... I'll try to update with the rest in the next day or two... See photos and map below...

Ur man in Pakistan... Conor




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