Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 05:20:41 -0700 From: jennifer aitken Subject: the wild wild west hello all, back on line again after an action packed couple of weeks. Yep i am certainly missing work .... ha ha ha we've now adjusted to being in pakistan, no longer suspicious of why people are being nice to us all the time! probably left ourselves wide open to being ripped off ... nah, not in pakistan. actually we are so used to friendliness that we were deeply affronted when some railway clerk was rude to us! that's been the only one ... i'm pretty much used to the headscarf, though do like to whinge about it on a daily basis. it does stop scalp sunburn though. i'm getting used to being the only women in most restaurants we visit, and often having to sit in the family section,w hich may be screened off from the rest of the place. in buses i often have to sit in front, with or without ants, but at least this ensures that i get a seat ,a nd usually a good one! some buses have physically separate ladies compartments, which can be quite a lot of fun, lots of snacks and chatting. and there is no hassling from pakistani guys, which is great. however i have noticed that one of the main functions of internet cafes seems to be access to porn, great for those concepts of what western women are like, eh we can't get enough of pakistani food, yeah i know i go on about that a lot, but it's truly excellent. a vegetarian's nightmare tho! got quite addicted to buttermilk flavoured with pistachios and rosewater, kheer (creamy rice/milk pudding), the great chicken dishes and rice, which is never 'plain' but comes delicately spiced with raisins and even caramalised carrots (strangely delicious) , the most amazing naan breads, and vast quantities of sweet, spiced green tea. yeah i'm not really hanging out for the good old kiwi roast just yet anyway i think i last babbled from lahore. from there we visited a peaceful rural village called Taxila. When Alexander the GReat passed through, a lot of his soldiers settled here, eventually converted to buddhism, and created these excellent buddhas with grecian features, wearing togas. quite cool. Here our Afghanistani rickshaw driver showed us some lovely shotgun wounds from when he ventured back there a few years ago ... we then moved on to rawalpindi , a friendly bazaar town, where we were approached by the police .... to have a cup of tea with them; and the sister city , islamabad, which is the capital of pakistan, very orderly,and has that mosque you've seen us standing in front of. I enjoyed all your comments by the way, apparently ants looks like jesus (x2), the mujahadeen , a muslim holy man and an average pakistani guy!! Went on a big shopping binge here, closely followed by a visit to the post office to have our packages stitched up in cloth and sealed with red wax before sendign home! We then headed north, into the remote Northern Regions, which are more like central asia than pakistan proper. Until the Karakoram highway was opened in 1982, running thru this area and into china, there was only one hairy pass you could use. A lot of the roads are still only suitable for jeeps. We did what the locals do and jumped on board the 'cargo jeeps' - cheapo shared transport. The best one was a 'ute' with 22 people, their luggage, and the ubiquitous chicken, all somehow squeezed in. Pretty exciting. The mountain ranges up here are just spectacular (and i thought new zealand had big mountains). The land is very barren, with these huge near vertical mountains towering above, and every so often an even higher snowy one. Incredible. Lots of glaciers, and surprisingly lush river valleys. There were several mountains of 7000 - 8000m. The road's surprisingly good, tho not for the fainthearted, and lots of people cycle over to china. Originally we planned to go into china and loop around cental asia, but ran out of time to do it justice. One month in Pakistan is not even close to enough either. Needless to say we did lots of walks and short hikes up here, finally starting to feel fit again! Men here wear cool woollen caps, and women wear embroidered pillboxes under their veils. Possibly the only profound truth i've discovered while travelling is that mountain folk wear cool clothing. People live in tiny stone huts, and goatherding is a common occupation, though with road access, things are now changing a bit. While we were up here there was a 'silk route' cultural festival going on, with representatives from central asia, china, iran, jordan, afghanistan, as well as pakistan. It was awesome. Best of all was the dancing (men only), including some sword dances. We also got to see lots of cool handicrafts and you guessed it, sample lots of food, fromt he different countries. We then moved on to Peshawar, in the wild Northwestern Frontier Province. It's a tribal area with essentially autonomous rule. The Pashtun tribal are apparently very fierce and famous not only for their hospitality , but also for 'blood feuds' (an eye for an eye) which go on for generations. Not that we saw any of that. It's also famous for heroin (not that we saw any of that either) , guns ,smuggling, and proximity to Afghanistan (read - Taliban) Anyway to us it was an interesting and vibrant bazaar town, some awesome markets It is a very religiously conservative area, maybe 80% of women wear a 'burqa' which is like a head to toe cotton sheet, with just a grid in it to see through. Quite creepy, you can't see the person at all . Our only taste of excitement/danger was on our trip to the Khyber Pass (links Pak with Afghanistan, seen a lot of conquerors in its time incl Alex the Great and Genghis Khan, it's very stragically placed). Because of the potential danger you have to take an armed tribal guard with you! With a Kalashnikov! On the way to the pass we (with our guard) were able to drive through the gun and hashish markets which are off limits to foreigners. Couldn't stop of course! Also the incredibly blatant 'smuggler's bazaar'. Apparently ont he main roads it's army rule, but side roads are tribal rule so anything goes. We saw lots of people sneaking around (quite blatantly actually) with bundles of stuff. Even women with suspiciously bulky burqas! The tribal family compounds are essentially mud walled forts, with watchtowers and gunslits. A slight feeling of being watched ... Our guard pointed out to us the biggest fort, apparently US$50 million worth, by the biggest drug lord, who used to be a policeman but found dr4ug smuggling more lucrative. The pass itself is also pretty cool, with forts on every hilltop! AT the top we were able to look over into afghanistan. Of course we couldn't actually get very close to the border, not being friendly with the taliban. Anyway, we're now waiting on our next train, 36 hours worth, to a place called quetta in another pretty wild tribal area (southern this time) called baluchistan. A few days here then it's off to iran. Peshawar seemed like a good place to buy my iran gear, so i'm now the proud owner of a long black shapeless 'raincoat' to wear over my salwar kameez, and a tightfitting black headscarf (with pretty black lace trim) It's no joke, you get 72 lashes if you don't dress properly ... I've heard that there;'s no email at all in iran, so will be in touch somewhere between 2 and 6 weeks when we hit turkey (all depends how well we can grease at the iranian visa offices) Anyway, this tome should probably keep you all going (or asleep ) until then I had better scoot, queue of people here, lucky i am a speedy typist Catch y6ou all later love jen and ants _______