Pakistan: Not a great first date

Worst of all, my demanding itinerary left no time whatsoever to develop a deeper connection to any particular place visited. Pakistan is celebrated for its hospitality, the internet being flooded with stories of Western travellers getting invited to local homes, handed gifts by strangers and force-fed delicious local food. Sadly, throughout the trip, the ever-present thoughts at the back of my mind were ‘I am late, we are behind schedule, we need to get a move-on’ and I never experienced this. I ended up declining many a generous offer of tea, meal and conversation from wonderful Pakistanis for the simple lack of time, something I know I will always bitterly regret. So rushed and busy were we at all times that my guide, a Hunza native, did not even get a chance to see his family despite us driving within a few kilometres of his house.

In case the message is not coming through, I do not recommend such a madly rushed itinerary to anyone. I blame no-one but myself for insisting to rush through the entirety of Pakistan rather than narrow my focus down to one or two regions. In retrospect, I could have flown directly to Northern Pakistan and skipped everything before Lahore, freeing up four entire days to spread around the rest of the programme. I could also have spent the entire two weeks – or more – in the mountains, leaving time for hikes and slower enjoyment. As Pakistan’s beauty, my options there would have been endless.

HOTELS IN PAKISTAN DRAINED MY WILL TO LIVE

Having spent a significant amount of money on trips to several challenging destinations the year before, I was keen to keep the costs of my Pakistan adventure down and so opted for no-frills 2- and 3-star hotels. I deliberately kept my expectations low, but the reality turned out to be far, far worse than my darkest dreams.

As an aside, I actually prefer simple guesthouses free of unnecessary clutter or appliances I will never use. With notable exceptions, I rarely use the hotel for much more than some sleep and a wash. My simple requirements of a hotel whilst travelling are cleanliness and safety – not unreasonable demands by any means.

While I did not experience any safety issues in Pakistan, the cleanliness situation in most hotels where I stayed exceeded my worst fears. The absence of the basic hygiene standards and the lack of understanding of what tourists – particularly foreign ones – might look for in a hotel were, quite simply, astonishing. A quick dash across my room at the Panorama Hotel in Chilas left my bare feet a solid shade of black, while the bedlinen, clearly not changed after the previous lodger, had human hairs and crumbs all over it. Almost ready to vomit, I eventually cornered a solitary cleaner and, after some delay, a manager who ordered the sheets changed without protest – obviously not an unusual request given the same was done for the room two doors down shortly after.

Strangely enough, it was the hotels that looked best from the outside that usually turned out the worst. You could almost be sure that an establishment with a nice location / garden / view / layout had ‘hidden secrets’, with rooms turning out a squalid and dirty affair. Even in the supposedly nice Best Western Hotel in Lahore, the towel rack in the bathroom had rotted through and came off the wall on me when I tried hanging my towel. And, despite its pompous name, the Peshawar Grand Hotel had its rooms open to an indoor car park and lacking windows to the outside.

Further, the Hunza View Hotel in Karimabad boasted a killer view from its roof terrace, but my tiny room – despite reportedly being the best on the floor – offered a filthy fitted carpet and a sheet smaller than the mattress, leaving it simply lying on top of the bed. My two precious consecutive nights in a single place – on what was meant to be downtime in-between long road runs – were spent trying to stay in exactly the same position to avoid having my skin come into contact with – you guessed it – more food leftovers and human hairs available aplenty between the sheet and the mattress. I only noticed the full horror of the situation when I took the sheet off before leaving.

Mentally exhausted by this persistent aversion to basic hygiene, I was close to losing it on too, too many nights in Pakistan. Given the above, the fact that several hotels had only intermittent electricity and WiFi or lacked hot water is not even something I am going to dwell on. I was just grateful when I could end yet another draining day of driving with a hot shower and charge my phone and camera batteries.

But it wasn’t all grim. Surprisingly, I found the modest motels run by the government-owned Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) the most comfortable and the cleanest options. Rooms were kept simple but tidy and not without perks even nicer hotels sometimes lacked: the PTDC motel in Saidu Sharif had a lovely garden and lawn that the rooms opened to, while the one in Sost had a fantastic rooftop view. And they uniformly made the best tea of the trip! I would most certainly stick to PTDC motels when planning my next low-budget trip through Pakistan.

LOCALS’ ATTENTION WAS OVERWHELMING

Compared to its much more popular neighbours in the region, Pakistan receives relatively few Western visitors. It has been reported that around 1.75 million tourists visit Pakistan every year, but this figure includes a significant number of Pakistani diaspora visiting home from the United Kingdom and the United States as well as Chinese businessmen and workers visiting Pakistan in connection with the many Chinese-led infrastructure projects in the country.

For this reason, Caucasian-looking travellers are still viewed as a rarity in Pakistan and, as such, attract significant attention. Many Pakistanis I met in the streets, museums and markets looked genuinely happy to encounter my husband and myself – particularly myself, a foreign woman – and I felt nothing short of a celebrity being constantly asked for selfies and photos. I even had a photo taken with a newlywed couple, dressed to their nines for their ceremony, in front of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore as part of their formal wedding portfolio. It really felt like royalty treatment.

However, this very quickly got tiresome as requests for photos and selfies kept streaming in, resulting in massive commotion wherever we went. Posing for one smartphone normally resulted in 20 more requests, with locals nearly resorting to fights to get that prized shot of a nervous-looking white woman desperately trying to keep her cool. Many local men followed the predictable approach of asking my husband, Alan, for a selfie first, only to shed the façade immediately as they carefully cropped him out, leaving only me and themselves in the frame. And some men creepily chose to lie in wait around corners and behind obstacles, smartphone at the ready for when that gori would emerge in all her Western glory. I lost the count of how many times I lost my temper – it isn’t for nothing that ‘have you never seen a girl?’ is one of the very few Urdu phrases I mastered to perfection.

Trying not to let the negativity get to me, I soon developed a tactic of walking away as soon as the usual song of Alan being asked for a photo rang in my ears. Alan, bless him, usually agreed to yet another photo, counting down to the inevitable follow-up of ‘and what about Madam’ – because, of course, it is no-one else but my husband that grants or denies random strangers the right to have a photo taken with his wife – before they reluctantly relented to make do with him alone and departed disappointed. Let’s face it, in most cases, it was really a photo with me that they were after.

There were plenty of positive exceptions to the rule. Most people were genuinely happy to meet the two slightly daft foreigners who came to Pakistan and showered us with questions about our journey. It is not considered rude in Pakistan to snap photos with foreigners, who are still seen as a novelty. I had no problems having photos taken with families or other women – or handsome police and army officers, of which we met many in Pakistan – as long as I could take my portraits in return and as long as the situation didn’t get out of control.

Generally, I tried my best to keep a trooper’s attitude as I was on holiday in a foreign country with different customs and wanted to keep an open mind. However, I ended up feeling absolutely exhausted by constantly having to be alert to my surroundings and dodge unsolicited photos by creepy-looking youths. Without wishing to spread negativity, I do not appreciate my image being recorded surreptitiously by strangers. I don’t even want to imagine where this footage might end up.

SWAT WAS A DESTINATION TOO MANY

Swat District in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province is renowned for its natural beauty. Sitting at an average elevation of around 1,000 meters – much below that of the neighbouring Gilgit-Baltistan – Swat boasts landscapes that extreme altitudes do not allow. Even at the peak of the summer, the district remains green and lush, providing a much-needed respite from the heat of the cities and attracting thousands of domestic tourists. As a result, Swat’s main urban hubs are filled to the brim with hotels and restaurants primarily catering to Pakistani tourists.

Sounds great, right? All would be well if the true beauty of Swat wasn’t in its forests and hiking trails. Unfortunately, my insane itinerary left barely a day for a quick walk around the centre of Saidu Sharif, Swat’s main urban settlement, and a drive down the valley to Bahrain, another local tourist destination on the Swat River. Especially against the backdrop of the bustling Lahore and Karachi, I found the built-up stretch of the riverside we drove along, past modern (though not necessarily new) buildings, largely uninteresting. I loved the Swat Museum in Saidu Sharif and its fascinating Buddhist and pre-Buddhist exhibits, but the rest of the area that I had the time to see barely felt like it deserved the detour. I could have easily dedicated more time to the far more interesting Lahore or even Peshawar instead.

It didn’t help that I felt extremely uncomfortable walking around Saidu Sharif and Bahrain, much more so than anywhere else in Pakistan. Most women there wear burka outside, and, despite being fully clad in the local salwar kameez (dupatta included), I stood out like a sore thumb and attracted overwhelming attention. Being outside in Swat felt even more intense and far less friendly than in the rest of the country, with the possible exception of the similarly conservative – but much more interesting culturally – Peshawar.

Saidu Sharif also hit the unfortunate statistic of becoming the only place in Pakistan where I got groped, when a young man passing me in the street unexpectedly allowed his hand to rest on my backside. Outraged, I chased him down the street and punched him in the shoulder, an action that visibly amazed the local passers-by who were quick to surround and interrogate the culprit. I did not participate in what sounded like a heated exchange, but was somewhat relieved to hear that the witnesses were on my side and scolded the groper to the point of tears. I hope that the humiliation of being very publicly hit by a woman, too, will deter the perpetrator from making the same mistake again.

Not helped by the locals’ fixated stares and wandering hands, I found the area underwhelming at best and, being near the end of my trip, these adverse impressions of Swat contributed to my lagging motivation to continue enjoying travelling. I realise that I have missed all the picturesque parts that Swat is famous for and certainly wouldn’t talk anyone out of visiting.

BUT IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT I AM NEVER GOING BACK

In short, I was not prepared for how challenging travel in Pakistan ultimately turned out to be. I set myself a packed, challenging itinerary without realising that Pakistan needed time to be appreciated fully. I missed out on local hospitality because I was always running against an unachievable schedule. I failed to connect with any particular place in Pakistan because my mission was to tick off as many sights as possible, not to focus on people. The many photogenic faces I photographed on my way became anonymous, unburdened by any details of their lives. I simply didn’t have the time to invest in getting to know them better.

But none of this means that I am never going back. Pakistan is where I met some of the kindest, undeniably genuine people on my travels. Pakistan is where, in a short time, I witnessed a great variety of landscapes and terrain – from the dry lowlands of Sindh to the lush hills of the Swat Valley, from the mesmerising peaks of Gilgit-Baltistan to the bustling cities of Punjab, they were all unforgettable. Pakistan is where relatively few tourists still visit, making it a far more special experience for curious travellers than many other, mainstream destinations.

In short, I cannot wait to have my second date with Pakistan – one of the most vibrant, picturesque and memorable places I have ever visited.

But, next time, I will plan it very, very differently.

A FEW PRACTICAL THOUGHTS ON TRAVEL IN PAKISTAN

ENTERING PAKISTAN

The most convenient way to reach Pakistan from London in April 2019 would have been on Emirates via Dubai or on Etihad via Abu Dhabi (around US$ 600 return), but, true to myself, I again used British Airways between London and Dubai. I flew from Dubai to Karachi on the low-cost FlyDubai (US$ 130) and departed from Islamabad on Emirates (US$ 220) – not the most efficient or cheapest route but great if, like me, you collect BA tier points. I could have also used BA’s OneWorld partner Qatar Airways via Doha, but opted for a short stopover in Dubai on the way back to wash off all the road grit in a nice hotel before returning to London.

It is already much easier and quicker to reach Pakistan from London: starting in June 2019, there are three weekly BA flights between London and Islamabad (US$ 680 return). Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) also fly several times a week London-Islamabad, London-Karachi and London-Lahore, but, given their largely negative reviews citing outdated aircraft and poor customer service, PIA would hardly be my first choice of an airline.

I was ‘lucky’ enough to have to apply for my Pakistan visa in the old way, through an agency called Gerry’s Visa Services. In full honesty, the application form was the most painful I have ever had to fill in. It took me two hours to write down my full itinerary in Pakistan, the various details of my past trips (apparently all trips in the past two years were required – I listed all trips for which there were stamps in my very full British passport, an ordeal in itself), detailed information on my past and present employers, my parents’ and husband’s personal details, travel agency details and much more – with impossibly small fields provided.

I arrived at Gerry’s in Stratford armed with a massive stack of documents, still managed to forget one vital piece of paper, ran to the nearest internet café to print it off and made it back just in time for my ticket to be called. So used were Gerry’s to people not submitting correct documents that a person was assigned to checking just that. Failing the checklist test, all but one applicant before me were swiftly turned away, but, luckily, my dogged preparation paid off and I was accepted at the first attempt. I received my visa just two days after applying – a major relief after hearing stories of applicants getting rejected or held in limbo.

Things are a lot easier and cheaper now, with the e-visa introduced mere days after my nerve-wrecking experience with Gerry’s. Citizens of 175 countries can now apply for a Pakistan visa electronically, with the reported turnaround time of between 48 hours and a couple of weeks. Impressively, citizens of 50 countries are eligible for a visa on arrival, which works similarly to the US ESTA. The process isn’t entirely smooth yet – there seems be a difference in understanding of what documents are required across different countries of application, and an embassy visit for an interview still remains a possibility – but this is already a massive step forward. Notably, a Letter of Invitation (LOI) from a registered travel agency, a mandatory part of submission previously, seems to have been relaxed to include hotel bookings and personal invitations from well-wishing Pakistanis. A single-entry tourist visa for a British citizen now costs US$ 60, a major drop from the exorbitant GBP 134 (US$ 165) I had to pay for mine.

PLANNING YOUR TRIP IN PAKISTAN

Unfortunately, Jamal normally leaves other provinces to other guides, not nearly as strong as himself (which, given how amazing he is, is hardly surprising). We quickly found our guide in Lahore and Islamabad, Gulham, a poor match for our style of travelling and another guide, Ibrahim, joined us for the journey to the mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan. Ibrahim was far better suited to our character and our destination: an experienced mountaineer, he has accompanied mountaineering missions in several countries and even risked his life to descend into a crevasse to rescue an Australian tourist.

We paid US$ 120 per person per night, which included an English-speaking guide, all ground transfers including a driver, 2- and 3-star accommodation, permits, breakfast, several other meals and entrance fees to numerous sites included in the tour on the basis of two people travelling. Upgrading to 4- and 5-star hotels would have increased the price significantly to US$ 190 per person per night, but, who knows, could have eliminated some of my frustration with midrange hotels’ approach to hygiene described above. Overall, Travel & Culture Services provided a good service for a very reasonable price, and I would definitely travel with Jamal again.

OTHER TRAVELLERS’ ACCOUNTS