Made it back from Pakistan last week. Sorry I haven't posted about it yet, no excuse other than laziness and a holiday from blog land.
Well, what to say??? This was a great trip with almost every memory or experience being positive. The initial first couple of days in Karachi were a trip in themselves. Some local guy (who I nick named Mr Crazy) playing chicken with on coming traffic with me on the back of his motorcycle, eating a meal of cowbrains whilst being welcomed by some guy who was apparently number 2 in the Karachi mafia and then a day trip to a nature reserve, which turned out to be brown puddle full of Pakistani's floating in car innertubes. Trip really came into it's own when I went in to the countryside. Took a 6 hour bus trip through what looked like the wild west, to go visit my friend's home village. We'd bought a lamb off the street in Karachi, so we could set it free in the countryside, plus life gets a lot weirder in the sticks. Upon arriving I was informed that I was the first englishman to set foot in this village since the days of the British Empire. There was a lot of staring and curiosity on both sides, all of which was tinged with warmth and hospitality. Within the first half an hour of arriving, the village head sent two guys over to the house to take me over to his place. This initially freaked me out, what would have happened if I wasn't travelling with a Pakistani?
I asked this question and it became apparent that is the custom of this village that any stranger is invited over to the head honcho's house to be cooked a slap up meal and enquire if there's anything they want. Could you imagine that happening in Sidcup? So I met the boss who was like a sober stoned pakistani version of the Paul Whitehouse 'I was very drunk' character. It turns out this guy is the local magistrate, owns all the farmland, most of the businesses and still finds time to play hide and seek with the village kid's. One of the trip highlights has to be this guy calling up the local cops, just so I could inspect them. After that, had a steady flow of locals coming to the house as word spread, so they could see what the 'foreigner'looks like. Wasn't too sure what to expect as the media over here paints Pakistan as a very anti western place, but I must say that absolutely everybody I met was very friendly and welcoming. You've got to bear in mind that a lot of these people have never met a foriegn non muslim before, so their preconceptions of me could be quite negative. I actually had a couple of occasions where the people I was talking to said 'your a non muslim foreigner and i'm really glad I've met you because your a good man'. I found this very touching and had a lot of the'Islam, the intolerant/misogynistic religion' stereotypes blown away. On the whole had a brilliant trip and am very greatful to my friend for showing me a side of Pakistan which you won't read about in the news. Will have to take him over to my grans in Dublin, but i'd rather go back to that village, besides I've been told I've got an open door to the place now. Will put some pictures up later.