What's Urdu for diarrhoea?

It was all F's fault. Tired of us harping on about the wonders of
Goa, she suggested that on our next sub-continental holiday we went to
Pakistan instead. So we did.

They say the holiday starts at the airport; ours certainly did. The PIA
jumbo jet was fully booked and every passenger was either going to
Lahore to visit relatives or was returning to Pakistan having visited
family in Greater Manchester. In either case, vast hordes had turned up
to see the travellers off; Terminal 2 of Manchester Airport looked more
like a convention of extras from "Gandhi" or "City Of Joy". Caucasian
holidaymakers, fresh from the pigment-free ski slopes of France or
Austria, looked bewildered as they came through passport control to
meet a sea of brown faces; the snack bar sold out of cheese rolls but
had hordes of unwanted ones containing unclean ham (does no one foresee
these things?).

If the holiday started at the airport, the adventure started in the
air. The stewards were beginning to serve the meal, but the man sitting
in front of Debbie had not yet raised his seat to the upright position.
Noticing this, another man sitting across the aisle told him, rather
curtly, to do so. Suddenly both men were out of their seats and
grappling with each other; these were not tanked-up lager louts on
their way to party in Ibiza but sober, middle-aged family men whose
children had started to cry with fright. If this had been a British
Airways flight they would probably have been dumped off the plane
during an emergency stop in, say, Kazakhstan, but on PIA they handle
things differently. The burliest of the stewards simply planted himself
between the two protagonists whilst other men came across and
restrained and entreated the pair of them; by the time the plane landed
in Lahore they were reconciled and, perhaps somewhat grudgingly, shook
hands, honour more-or-less intact.

Baggage reclaim was fascinating; there were suitcases, certainly. There
were also crates, lumpy parcels tied with string and black binliners
with their owners' names written on in Tippex. No one travels light to
Pakistan.

Out of the terminal and into a wave of hot sun; chaos swamped us as we
headed towards the taxi rank. Everybody wanted these rare white
tourists in the back of their cab:
"My taxi very clean, very safe!"
"I give you good rate!"
"My taxi very comfortable; please get in, sir!"
We had been travelling overnight and were rather jet-lagged; I still
cannot recall how we chose our conveyance; maybe the most enterprising
taxi driver simply threw our luggage in the back and we were forced to
follow. He wanted twelve English pounds for the journey to Gulberg, a
relatively middle-class suburb in the south of Lahore; we laughed and
bargained him down to 150 rupees, around two pounds and still more than
a local would have been prepared to pay. And we gave him a tip! But
only a madman would consider hiring and driving a car in Pakistan,
where gaudily-painted buses and trucks, bicycles, scooters and bullock
carts continually converge from all directions in undisciplined
hordes.

Guidebooks had warned us against staying in cheap hotels in the centre
of Lahore which are prone to theft and phoney drug busts, but on the
other hand we couldn't afford to stay in the business class hotels
which are a rip-off in any country but outrageously so in Asia. So we
compromised and chose a mid-range hotel; it turned out to be in the
middle of a range extending from slightly filthy to unbelievably
filthy; the bedding was clean(ish) but grey, broken window panes had
been "fixed" with newspapers and the en-suite bathroom came alive with
hordes of cockroaches after dark. As we took a short nap to counter the
jet lag, I wondered whether we had started the adventure holiday of a
lifetime or a horrid experience which would scar us forever. Read on
and find out ?

Lahore gradually began to improve in our minds; whilst the streets were
polluted with the diesel detritus from thousands of badly tuned
engines, there were attractive houses and pleasant parks unmarred by
graffiti, vandalism or drunks. This is a city where people pray; pious
young Muslim men could be seen knelt on prayer mats in the shade of
trees whilst our hotel staff, who were Christian, asked us to pray with
them in our room before we left. We ate well in Lahore; we went to a
great relaxing open-air kebab garden and watched a hoopoe pecking for
leftovers, then a spotless white-tiled fast food joint where trendy
young Pakistani mums took their offspring (and far superior to those
multinational burger churners we all know and hate), and finally one of
the best Chinese restaurants in Pakistan. This place encompassed a
fountain and a well-filled car park, and bespoke posh. The doorman
greeted us courteously and asked whether we wanted to eat Chinese or
"continental". Silly question; of course we wanted to eat Chinese food
in a Chinese restaurant! We were shown to the "Chinese" part of the
restaurant and placed an order; we were already thinking in rupees and,
at a cost of around three pounds per main course, it certainly wasn't
cheap by local standards. The waiter began to ask some very strange
questions, for instance whether we were expecting company and, if not,
perhaps we had ordered too much food. No, we assured him, we were fine.
However, when the food appeared the quantities were horrifyingly huge
and we found out in due course that the "Chinese or continental"
question referred to the style of eating, not the style of food!
"Chinese" dishes were to be placed in the centre of the table and made
to suffice three people on a help-yourself basis, whilst "continental"
means you each have your own portion. We had blithely sauntered in to a
poor country and celebrated by ordering a meal for six people between
the two of us. Well, at least we ate all the meat!

Our next stop was Gujranwala. Although this is hardly a village, I know
of no tourists who have ever been there. Come to think of it, I have
met few Pakistanis who have ever been there unless it is their
hometown. It was the hometown of F's parents-in-law (Auntie and Uncle
to us) and was therefore a must-visit, although it merited around a
mere dozen dismissive words hidden amongst the dense verbiage of the
guidebook. The major attraction appeared to be a huge hole in the
middle of a main thoroughfare which was filled with oily, gloopy water
all year round. Mosquitoes loved it, and paid us a late evening visit
to show their appreciation. The house was of traditional Pakistani
design, built around an open courtyard and flat-roofed. Children
attending Qu'ran classes trooped across the courtyard whilst we were
trying to wash the Lahore dirt out of our hair at a tap in the corner.
We retired to the roof for some privacy; all around us were
gaily-coloured kites bouncing on the breeze. The kite-flyers glimpsed
us and soon there were faces waving to us from every rooftop; when we
returned downstairs local children had gathered to look at the "ghore",
strange pasty-faced beings from the television and newspaper now
manifested in their very presence. One little girl screamed in terror
at our appearance until we found a lollipop for her.

We visited a couple from Cheshire who had gone to Gujranwala to teach
English and do medical work; the husband took me on a walk to the
bazaar to purchase chicken tikka, which we did at a takeaway shop. I
gazed at what I took to be a beaded light-switch pull until I realised
that the "beads" were in fact flies swarming proboscis-to-rump on every
inch of the pull; the ceiling fan was similarly coated with a living
black edging just a few feet from our food, around which buzzed smaller
numbers of more energetic flies.

"Don't worry, the hot coals will kill all the bacteria," assured the
voice of experience.
But I didn't tell my wife about the flies until we had safely (or
unsafely) eaten all the food.

I must mention the driver of the bus from Lahore who, in the absence of
a bus station in Gujranwala, ascertained where we were headed for and
drove off-route to as near to our destination as the bus would go and
telephoned Uncle to come and collect us. He also brought us some water
from an unknown source, which possibly contributed to unwanted internal
developments, but you simply cannot refuse such profuse
hospitality.

Our next stop was Islamabad; Uncle took us to the bus station and
ensured that we got on the right bus (the one with the huge crack down
the windscreen); he had also escorted us to meet the family from
Cheshire the previous day, clinging to the outside of the tuc-tuc as it
lurched through the rough streets. All the way there and back, twice.
The journey to Islamabad was long but uneventful, except for when a
single lady boarded the bus at some remote point - the only time this
happened in our journeys as women normally travel with an escort - and
the existing busload of passengers exchanged seats so that she could
have a single seat to herself. On this occasion we were merely passing
through Islamabad on our way to the hill station of Murree, but we
found that the Murree bus left from a different bus station to the
Gujranwala bus. This could have been a problem, but every Pakistani in
the immediate vicinity who could speak English came across to render
aid; a taxi was found and the fare between the two bus stations was
negotiated; such little (and not-so-little) acts of kindness and
courtesy awaited us everywhere in Pakistan.

Touristy Murree would have been beautiful in May, but in March was cold
and wet and surreal. A squat-towered church built in the English style
dominated the main road, and the whole scene was strangely reminiscent
of Easter in Haworth or Horton-In-Ribblesdale. A British Pakistani
couple we had met on the bus recommended us the hotel in which they
were staying and negotiated us a deal; the husband was a restaurateur
from Aberdeen and to hear his gritty Aberdonian-Pakistani accent was
bizarre. The hotel deal didn't include food or, as it turned out,
heating, and we spent two days dodging the rain or sitting shivering in
bed watching cricket on satellite TV. At one point the Spice Girls came
bounding across the screen, half-dressed and promising the winner of a
competition the chance to accompany them to the Spice Islands; no big
deal in the UK but here in conservative Islamic Pakistan it seemed much
more shocking; already we were acclimatising to the culture. We visited
the church on Good Friday and spent hours in the caretaker's lodge
sitting in front of a huge fire, drinking sweet tea and watching the
steam rise from our wet clothes. On the third morning the clouds lifted
and we caught a glimpse of snow-covered K2 in the distance, but it was
time to head back down to Islamabad.

By this time we weren't feeling too well; Rawal bowel, the Pakistani
version of Delhi belly, was getting to us so we splashed out on a taxi
back down to Islamabad rather than trust our insides to the cramped and
rickety bus which brought us up. The taxi driver asked where we were
going to stay; upon discovering that we had no accommodation booked, he
assured us that he knew a very nice place to stay. We sighed; taxi
drivers the world over claim to know of "nice places" for whatever
bodily function one wishes to exercise (in our case, sleeping and
getting warm) and make extra tips by depositing gullible tourists at
establishments which feature in no one else's recommendations. We
assured him that we would give the "nice place" a thorough inspection
and that if it turned out to be a grimy spare room in his cousin's
hovel (we didn't use those actual words, of course) or in any way
failed to match up to the recommended hotels in the guidebook we would
look elsewhere. But the "nice place" did in fact look rather nice,
situated near to a road junction dominated by an imposing fountain in
the commercial heart of Islamabad. The proprietor showed us to a room;
our weary feet sank into the deep carpet. We tried the bed; it was well
sprung and the sheets were crisp, blindingly-white and clinically
clean. I walked into the bathroom and turned on the bath tap; clouds of
lovely steam billowed forth. Through the window, which had neither
cracks nor holes filled with paper, we could see a secluded garden
containing sun loungers and interesting birds. The room cost thirty
pounds per night, a bargain in western terms but three times what we
had paid elsewhere in Pakistan. But the hotel took major credit cards;
this would do nicely. We stayed three nights.

Islamabad proved to be a revelation; Pakistan had showed uncommon good
sense in building a new capital in the foothills away from the rival
claims of Karachi or Lahore. Here there were wide boulevards with
free-flowing traffic which actually obeyed traffic signals, thus the
pollution wasn't noticeable and there were no huge holes in the roads.
There was a breathtakingly beautiful mosque, but on Easter Sunday
morning we were in the more functional but modern, airy church
receiving holy communion alongside English-speaking Pakistanis and
black Christians who were, I assume, largely diplomats from African
countries and their families.

Next day we took the train back to Gujranwala; our time in Pakistan was
drawing to a close and the F's family, having received presents from
their relatives in Manchester delivered by us, were going to
reciprocate and laden us like donkeys for the return to Britain. We
shared a compartment with a devout Muslim family travelling to a
wedding in Karachi along with two Pakistani ladies travelling on
business, and we had to once again play musical chairs to ensure that
no one sat next to a non-relative of the opposite sex. Nearly all the
women we saw in Pakistan were wearing shalwar qamiz, as indeed they
would in Britain, headscarves (duputta) being an optional extra at
least in the middle class and affluent city areas if not elsewhere. But
the mother of this family was one of the few we saw clad head-to-foot
in a black burqah; it was hard to include her in conversation as the
burqah denied any semblance of body language and she seemed disinclined
to speak. But sometime during the journey she gave a deep throaty
chuckle in response to something one of us said; clearly she understood
English! All my experience of this intriguing woman with whom we shared
a train compartment for several hours has been condensed into a single
moment during which total modesty met briefly with undeniable allure of
a kind which left the Spice Girls standing. And I never even saw her
face.

Back in Gujranwala unseasonal rain had turned the streets into a nasty
quagmire, and the square outside the railway station where the tongas -
horse-drawn buggies - lined up was calf-deep in mud. But by now we were
unfazed by these little obstacles; we simply handed over a piece of
paper with Uncle's address written in Urdu and waited for the tonga
drivers to find someone with sufficient literacy to decipher it. Debbie
had arranged to have some shalwar qamiz made, but Auntie showed little
zeal in going down to the bazaar with her, and as the time to catch the
bus back to Lahore drew nearer we wondered whether they had forgotten.
Not so; soon there came a knock at the door, and a tailor arrived to
take Debbie's measurements. This arrangement was to spare her modesty,
as Gujranwala residents had a habit of staring fixedly at her as we
passed down the street, and the sight of my wife perched in the seat of
a tonga had already caused a couple of minor traffic accidents.

And so to Lahore airport; if getting into Pakistan was fraught, then
getting out was a bit like asking the Dark Lord nicely to let you out
of Mordor. Or maybe it was just inefficiency; we were always being
asked for things we hadn't got - forms which had been taken from us at
immigration two weeks before, extra spare copies of our passport
details, baggage labels which had run out at the check-in desk? fear
not ye racist scumbags, those dreadful illegal immigrants won't be
boarding easily in Lahore; if anything we got reasonable treatment
because we were white tourists, but travelling Pakistanis were really
messed about, for instance when the customs officer unwrapped a large
box of sweets, obviously destined as a gift for someone in Britain, and
ate one in front of everyone, ostensibly to ensure it didn't contain
smuggled drugs. Concealed weapons were also a major concern even then
and, in the absence of state-of-the-art detection technology, a
thorough groping was deemed necessary, though fortunately it was me who
received the groping and not my wife!

Eventually we boarded the plane; farewell to Pakistan! Er ? not quite;
there was a problem with the luggage count which required the aircraft
hold to be emptied and passengers to troop back down the steps to
re-identify their suitcases. Two hours down. A further problem arose in
Karachi; two passengers had arrived with first-class tickets and the
plane had no first-class configuration, so an alternative suitable
plane was being flown from Islamabad. Meanwhile, we were held in the
transit area in Karachi with vats of curry and widescreen cricket to
keep us occupied. Five hours down.
Eventually PIA managed to return us to Manchester and we set off home
in a taxi. The taxi driver kept to the speed limit and maintained lane
discipline as his vehicle cruised along the smooth tarmac of the M56,
and we didn't need to grab hold of the door handles to prevent them
flying open on corners as we did in Islamabad ? of course, this time it
did cost us going on for twelve pounds, but we didn't argue or barter,
for the price was displayed for all to see on the meter. How
quaint!

So would we recommend a visit to Pakistan? Most
definitely (but allow for the non-availability of beer and swimming
pools, plus the lack of freedom to wander around half-dressed). And are
we going back soon? Most definitely not, courtesy of that wicked madman
Bin Laden who seemed to think that Allah approves of the casual murder
of hundreds of people who were simply trying to earn a living. Plus
that evil adventurer Bush who seems to think that in return he can
embark on oil-stealing crusades, bomb Muslim civilians, endanger
Christian minorities, torture "terrorist suspects" and somehow earn the
gratitude of a world which his own country has raped and exploited. Not
to mention glorious comrade Blair who seems to simply not think at all
but just goes with the transatlantic flow. Regretfully our presence in
Pakistan at this time (early 2004) might jeopardise the safety of both
Christian and Muslim friends, so for now it's back to the gentle people
of Goa yet again, a cool pool in the hot sun, a bottle of Kingfisher
with our evening curry and strolling the baking red-earth streets of
Baga and Calangute in shorts and T-shirts. But we'll be back to
Pakistan one day. Inshallah.