Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Rawalpindi or Bust: Part II – There and Back Again


If you have read Part I, you know after I survived the travails of floods, highway robbery, and Xinjiang public transport I was more than ready to jump on the Karakorum Highway and get the hell out of the PRC, if only for a brief respite. Before I made it to the boarder I stopped at Lake Karakul for a night to sleep in a yurt and to race ponies, very badly I might add, and had a fine time in a makeshift third-world alpine retreat. It was fairly smooth traveling into Pakistan; the only hiccup was having to rouse red-faced Chinese border officials from their afternoon baijiu-induced siesta to stamp our papers so we could be on our way. It was accomplished with my best diplomacy.

I’ll never forget entering Pakistan; it was one of the friendliest greetings I’ve ever received from a man with a machinegun. After our jeep drove for about an hour through the no-man’s land separating the Chinese and Pakistani border crossings we were stopped at a checkpoint by a uniformed pudgy fellow lazily holding an assault rifle, he spoke immaculate English. He looked at the Kiwis’ and Limeys’ passports and heartily welcomed them to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with a big smile and a firm handshake. Then he came to the last passenger in the vehicle, a lone humble American. He looked at me, took my passport, thumbed through the pages thoughtfully and scanned my visa to enter Pakistan and frowned. Then he said, “No, no, no… I’m sorry my friend. But you cannot enter.” My eyes lit up, I did not have a return entry visa into China, there I was in the middle of the Khunjerab Pass and it seems I didn’t have papers to go forward or back. Fear must have galloped across my face, because the border guard began laughing mightily and tossed my passport back at me, then said “Just kidding my friend. Welcome to Pakistan!” I’m sure that joke never gets old.

After crossing the border and spending the night in a quaint guesthouse we made it a little further down the road to some town that’s name escapes me. We spent a few days there basking in the mountain grandeur. Sixteen years after the experience I don’t think I can do the scenery around Kasmir justice, but in truth, it is absolutely stunning. At about 4 miles above sea level at night the stars are so big it looks like you can reach up and touch them, and the moon glows so bright you can literally read by it. The mountains are like none I’ve ever seen before, they are far more imposing then their Himalayan neighbors; stone skyscrapers jutting straight from the earth and capped by jagged and menacing snowy peaks.

The fierceness of the land is in complete contrast to the hospitality and warmth of the people living there. I found the inhabitants of northern Pakistan to be unfailingly polite, soft spoken and quick to smile. Negotiating for gas money or a fare when hitchhiking or taking a taxi is a good example of how friendly the people are. It usually goes something like this:

The author (waving down a taxi): “Hi, I’d like to go to the market bazaar, how much?”
Driver (smiling and wobbling his head in contemplation): “You say my friend.”
The author: “OK, how about 100 rupees?”
Driver: “Oh no, no, no… I’m sorry. Try again.”
Author: “Ummmm, OK. How about 200 rupees?”
Driver (smiling): “I can not.”
The author (amused and frustrated): “300?”
Driver: Yes, my friend, get in!”


They’re no fools, they’ll get a decent price or their effort, but they are also charming enough to make you feel good about it. I find this to be in stark contrast to Chinese drivers, who might as well put a HAZMAT warning and a jolly roger on their vehicle door to fairly warn passengers about what to expect from them; as a rule they are stinking scoundrels.

Not only is the landscape amazing and the people friendly, but the food is pretty memorable too. Compared to Chinese food, Pakistani fare is very basic and nothing to brag about. I ate chicken jalfrezi whenever I could get it; in addition to that I ate mountains of chapatti and dal (flat bread and lentils). I remember two amazing things about eating in Pakistan; the first is the mangos. They are the sweetest most flavorful fruit I’ve ever enjoyed in my life; other fruit are literally and figuratively green with envy by their Epicurean perfection. The second thing is the tactile sensation of eating with your hands, dal and chappati are usually eaten communally out of a big bowl with the right hand (the left is used for various wipings and other dirty work). It’s hard to describe and should just be experienced, but for me there was something primal and innocent about eating on a daily basis with your hand and having the warm food drip down your fingers and forearm, it was a sensation so reminiscent of early childhood a flood of good feelings swelled inside me. I have not felt a similar joy from mealtimes since I wore a bib and pajamas with feet. What would Freud say?

It wasn’t all some kind of mountain paradise, the Kasmiri neighborhood is not Shangri-La, there were some inconveniences too. For example, on my birthday I think I got a nice dose of the crabs. I wish I could say it was from a romantic encounter, but in fact it was from nothing more than mere bed bugs at a hostel that will not get my business again. I write “I think” I got body lice because in fact it was never proven. A room full of us lay in our separate bunks, then one of us started scratching and swore his mattress was infested, and then another and another, until we all jumped out of bed and were scratching ourselves furiously swearing we were covered head to toe with the creepy crawlies. The next day we got ointment from a local drug store and spread it around from head to nether regions and felt better for it. None of us ever found the corpse of a single offending bed bug, and until this today I wonder if I suffered from a psychosomatic case of body lice.

As if infestation wasn’t enough, then there were the guns. Like most Americans I enjoy firearms, especially if I’ve been drinking. But there’s something altogether disconcerting about how commonplace they are in Pakistan. I’m not talking just about the Western badlands bordering Afghanistan where the Taliban and the remnants of al Qaeda have taken up residence, I mean every town and city in the country.

Here are three examples. On my way to Rawalpindi, my bus pulled over in a village for a rest stop, as soon I stepped off the bus I saw the sign for a gun store. Well of course I went and checked it out, it was very small but it had a good assortment of pistols, shotguns and Kalashnikov assault rifles. I walked in just in time to see a man buy an AK-47 and a few hundred rounds of ammunition. Cool, I do like to see people exercising their Second Amendment rights, no matter what country they are in. However, I was less pleased when I saw him get on my bus. In another incident I was relaxing on the roof of my hotel in Rawalpindi and catching some rays when I heard from the building next door the distinct sounds of a pistol with a silencer attached to it being fired and breaking glass. For all I knew it could have been a political assassination and as luck would have I would get caught up in it. I duck walked to the stairs and got the hell off the roof, later that day I mentioned it to the hotel proprietor and he assured me there was nothing to worry about. Apparently the owner of the townhouse next door was an army general and sometimes he took a little target practice in the backyard, but being a good neighbor he used a silencer so as not to disturb anyone too much. The last example was Pakistan’s Independence Day, celebrated every year on August 14. I thought I was enjoying fireworks, but then I saw the locals actually just like to fire their rifles in the air to celebrate life, liberty and the pursuit of firepower. This was especially worrying because I was watching this from a rooftop.

Since I’m taking inventory of all things distinctly Pakistani, and I’ve mentioned the people, the scenery, the food and the guns, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the hashish. Booze is hard to find in the Islamic Republic, however some excellent refined hemp products not so much. The hotel I stayed at in Rawalpindi put a sizeable chunk of powerful black hashish on your pillow every night like a mint. Drugs are illegal, and I can neither confirm nor deny the quality of the hash that was freely distributed in my hotel and readily available as I traveled in Pakistan. But everyone I knew who tried it really liked it, I’m sure it took the edge off being subjected to bed bugs and the ever-present automatic weapons, it probably also made the daily meal of dal and chapatti taste like a turkey dinner.

Once I arrived in Rawalpindi I thought I’d be there just long enough to pop over to the neighboring capital of Islamabad (the two cities are really one and the same disheveled megaplex) to visit the Chinese embassy and get my work visa so I could head back to Beijing and start my new career as a high school teacher. However, it didn’t work out so well. When I arrived at the embassy with all my paperwork conscientiously prepared by my minders at the school I was promptly informed that a week earlier a new regulation had been passed and I needed yet another piece of paper. When I left Beijing 30 days earlier I had all the necessary documents, however now I was one short. Despite all my protests and pleading, the embassy officials took no mercy on me and didn’t care that I had crossed diluvian Xinjiang, braved brigands and God-knows what else so that I could get my working papers and go back to Beijing and teach their nation’s children. They demanded I contact my school and get the necessary papers.

Let me summarize the situation for you. It’s August 1996, I’m in Rawalpindi and expected to call a high school in Beijing during the summer to find someone who knew who I was and understood what papers I needed and fax them to me. Also, I had four working days a week to accomplish this herculean task, because Friday in the Islamic Republic is a holiday. Basically, I was fucked. It took me roughly one month of explaining, cajoling, screaming, and pleading before everyone involved were found, made to understand the situation, and actually took action. I thought the floods were bad enough, but Chinese bureaucracy turned out to be a far more daunting and unnatural disaster.

I spent a month in Rawalpindi loafing; it was fantastic. I read a lot; I finished the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in about four days. I also read the story of Led Zepplin The Hammer of the Gods. I don’t know why, but I always remember the books I read while traveling. I also went to the movies a few times a week. The best thing I saw was Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness, to this day it remains one of my favorites, not only for its own merits but also because of the circumstances in which I saw it.

Two things stand out in my mind about going to the movies in Pakistan; the first is that it seems only men were allowed in the movie theater. I don’t know if there were theaters or show times only for women, or if sharia prohibited women from going to the theater, but every time I went it was me and a couple hundred men who acted like sex-starved teenagers. Whenever a beautiful woman came on screen a bevy of catcalls and whistles followed with hormone-charged glee. I was embarrassed for them, these were grown men. The other distinct memories I have are of two interesting people I met at the theater. The first was an Iranian who told me the US Army trained him to fly helicopters in the 70s and he later flew missions for the CIA after the fall of the Shah. He invited me to go back to his tent in a refugee camp on the outskirts of town; I politely declined, that seemed like pushing my luck. The other incredible character was a cross between the Artful Dodger and an urban version Mowgli from The Jungle Book. This prince of the street urchins couldn’t have been more than 14 years old, he was dressed in ragged cut off shorts with no shirt or shoes and filthy dreadlocks down passed his shoulders. The amusing little brat chain smoked while he kicked my ass in Street Fighter II a dozen games in a row, ragging me in Urdu the whole time. I remember having the distinct impression that judging by how the other beggar children differed to him I was in the presence of their gang leader and he wasn’t someone to be taken lightly; there was something noble about him.

Once I got my paperwork it was time to head back home to Beijing. I was already a week late for my job so I was in a damn hurry. I very well might have set a world record for traveling between Rawalpindi to Beijing overland on public transportation, I made it in roughly five days. I only slept one night in a hotel and that was because I got to the border late and I had to wait for it to open in the morning, the remaining nights were spent on a couple of buses and the train.

While on a bus somewhere in the vicinity of Kashmir I had a thought-provoking encounter with a fellow passenger. The bus was fairly empty and a young Pakistani man sitting across from me struck up a conversation. He asked me where I was going, I explained I had a job waiting for me in Beijing, we discussed China for a while and then I inquired about his destination and plans. He told me he was a ’freedom fighter’ and was coming off the line, so to speak, from Kashmir. Well, it’s not everyday you meet someone who’s job description is ‘freedom fighter’ or ‘jihadi’. This was five years before 9/11, before al Qaeda was a household name in American and before there was a ‘War on Terror’. We didn’t discuss his political or religious beliefs, but he was a likable enough chap, seemingly honest and friendly. In short, I was a little wary but enjoyed his company nonetheless. He didn’t leave me with the impression that to him I represented ‘the Great Satan’, I probably didn’t. Kashmir, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, etc. all have a lot less to do with each other than many TV-watching or newspaper-reading Americans will ever understand. At that point in time he was probably indifferent to America and to me as an American. I wonder what he thinks now.

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