Back to Pakistan: A Traveler’s Tale
By Kelly Sobczak
Shopkeeper in Gilgit
On September 10, I flew into Pakistan, where the plan was to spend two months as part of my trip around the world.
On September 11, I watched in horror as terrorists ambushed America.
On September 12, my frazzled mother phoned from the Pittsburgh, begging me to leave Pakistan.
After Afghanistan, pro-Taliban Pakistan was probably the worst country for a lone American female to be in during the uncertain days that followed. I duly hightailed it to the U.S. Embassy, where I was to register my presence and seek advice. Surprisingly, the embassy was not yet recommending immediate departure from Pakistan; rather, they were simply advising communication and caution. Much to my mother’s dismay, I decided to remain in Pakistan, though most worried Westerners were already fleeing this soon-to-be-chaotic country.
With each passing day it became more and more clear that Pakistan was going to play a pivotal role in America’s war on terrorism. And so on September 20, I reluctantly traveled overland from Pakistan to neighboring Iran, which did not please my family any more than my staying in Pakistan.
During my five weeks in Iran, the already tense situation in Pakistan erupted with violent street demonstrations where extremist religious leaders, angry at their government’s decision to join the U.S. alliance, were calling on a jihad against Americans. A seasoned American journalist who had spent half of his career traipsing through some of the world’s hot spots reported that never before had he experienced such intense hatred for the United States. Embassies were closing one after another, including my own.
Yet, I still wanted to quickly cross through Pakistan on my way from Iran to India, my next destination. Call me suicidal. Call me crazy. Call me a terrible daughter.
Before pulling out of Pakistan in September, the name and phone number of an American employee at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had been passed on to me, just in case. I didn’t expect anyone to pick up the phone when I telephoned from Tehran that October afternoon for I assumed that the embassy already been evacuated. But no, an official and his wife had chosen to stay on in the capital city of Islamabad.
Hearing my idea to rapidly run through Pakistan, he hesitantly replied that the official line from Uncle Sam was for all Americans to put off travel in Pakistan at this time; however, in his off-the-record opinion, I probably wouldn’t have any problems as long as I kept a low profile and came through on a quiet day.
On October 27, I re-crossed the ramshackle Iranian-Pakistani border, much to the bewilderment of the amused Pakistani border officials who chuckled upon hearing that I am American. Surely I am a journalist or an aide worker, they insisted, for tourists, especially Yanks, had long since stopped passing through. When they finally accepted the fact that I was a tourist, the chief officer bent over and whispered in my ear, “Better tell everyone that you are Russian,” as he stamped my passport and waved me back into this controversial country.
My heart skipped a beat when I stepped onto the rickety bus that was going to carry me the 13 hours from the border through Baluchistan, one of Pakistan’s roughest regions, to the city of Quetta, a hotbed of pro-Taliban protests. I was the only female on a bus full of Osama bin Laden lookalikes.
As I hesitantly settled into my seat, the mass of burly men just sat and silently stared at me. For the first time during my eight months on the road, I felt fear.
Looking to occupy myself, I set about organizing the chaotic contents of my daypack. A few photos from home are always with me, and so I sat there, holding a picture of me with my family and wondering how I had gotten myself from Pittsburgh to this bus in Baluchistan.
With a light tap on my shoulder the two men behind me eagerly reached out for my photos. Using my hands and the few words in Urdu that I had picked up during my previous visit, I showed them the pictures and explained that I was from France, which I figured was a safer bet than saying I was from the United States. Within an instant, photos of my family were being passed from seat to seat.
Spying my camera, the two men, who turned out to be from Afghanistan, gestured that they wanted their picture taken. And so for the next 10 minutes, photos were snapped of me, of them and of each other as the bus broke out in smiles and laughter and my camera was handed around.
Arriving in Lahore, I realized that I was returning to a drastically different Pakistan than the one I had left a month previously. In Lahore, where I was planning on crossing immediately into neighboring India, pictures of Osama bin Laden with the World Trade Center blowing up in the background decorated colorful rickshaws. Pro-Osama posters, T-shirts and postcards were being hawked on city sidewalks, though few were buying them, and armed security forces were camped out on virtually every corner.
Much to my astonishment I wasn’t the only tourist at the Regale Internet Inn in Lahore, where I bunked down in a dorm for $2 a night. A Canadian and four Europeans all reported experiencing no problems during their travels since that fateful September 11. And so I stayed on in Pakistan.
Quickly I discovered that most Western tourists who had remained in Pakistan were an eccentric group of characters, either hippies or just plain oddballs. The little party at the Regale Internet Inn probably didn’t have any problems with local Pakistanis because they barely budged from the hotel’s rooftop, where they would languidly pass away the day smoking hashish from dawn till dusk.
Besides the hippies, there were the oddballs. Such as the Swiss man, whom I had dubbed The Camel Man. Nine years ago he purchased a camel while in Mongolia and since then he has been traveling throughout Asia and the Indian Subcontinent in an army truck with the poor beast riding in the back. Recent recruits to the so-called Camel Caravan were a 19-year-old British bloke who dropped out of college, and an older Sri Lankan man. Their plan is to buy a female camel so that the two can mate, and they will then live in Turkey as nomads, giving camel rides on the beach in order to make money.
Fortunately, I was able to hook up with three other normal Western tourists. (I have taken the liberty of including myself in the “normal” category, rather than the “oddball” category.)
There was Elaine, a Brit with whom I traveled across the country in a typical Pakistani bus full of color, men and music to the western city of Peshawar, just miles from the legendary Khyber Pass that links Pakistan with war-torn Afghanistan.
Read Part 2
