Have another very late trip report that could totally have been done while I was off work for months. It’s going to be very wordy to start with (I figured that some people might be interested since it’s a pretty obscure destination), so feel free to skip forwards.
This trip was very shortly after India (about 3 weeks after getting back), and I’ve got to say that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it so soon after being in the same part of the world and not massively enjoying it. Add that to the fact that I didn’t know a single person who’d ever been and the “dangerous” reputation the country has, and I was really just not in the mood to go.
Turns out I f**king loved the place.
Arrival in Karachi
Let’s face it, Pakistan isn’t in many people’s travel plans, and Karachi, despite being the biggest city, probably isn’t top of the list for anyone who does go. It’s the financial capital, but doesn’t have a great deal to bring tourists in. However, there were a load of +1s and I’m always interested to see the bigger cities anyway.
Getting there was a faff though. There are no direct flights to Pakistan at all from Hong Kong. If there were, it would probably take around 5 hours, but I ended up going Hong Kong – Singapore – Colombo – Karachi (taking about 16 hours in total). Looking back, I would’ve been better off flying into Islamabad (only one connection) and getting internal flights later, but it seemed to make sense to start in the south (Karachi) and finish further north than piss about shuttling back and forth.
Unconnected subplot: I left my Kindle in the seat pocket after landing at Colombo, and realised just seconds after getting into the terminal. Of course, it was too late to get it back, so there was some faff at a customer information desk where they said they’d get it to the gate of my next flight. It wasn’t there. To be continued…
Back to Karachi then. I was, very noticeably, the only westerner on the flight and in the airport, and I was expecting a bit of faff at the immigration desk, but it was very smooth. I already knew that a tourist getting a SIM card at the airport was unlikely (and true – the phone shop/booth couldn’t/wouldn’t sell me one), so I’d bought some international sim thing, which supposedly included Pakistan, before I left Hong Kong. Nope, didn’t work. Slight panic at this stage then.
Anyway, I got a taxi to the hotel. It wasn’t too late when I arrived, but I was knackered so just asked about getting a sim card somewhere (loads of phone shops around, but that wouldn’t work) and had a quiet evening in the hotel.
Karachi
The next morning it was a taxi to one of the service centres/shops of a mobile phone company, where they could give a foreigner a sim card. It was easy enough and very cheap, but clearly designed for people living and working there since the guy seemed very surprised that I only needed it for about 10 days. Anyway, panic over.
The plan was to head out to the newest park in the area that afternoon (didn’t happen – more later), and some +1s in the evening (places open from mid-afternoon to late at night), so I did a bit of touristy stuff for a couple of hours.
Area around the hotel:
Old library:
Mosque:
Museum:
I think this was, technically, private property, but the security saw me looking and invited me to go in (not inside the building, just the grounds).
This is the house of Quaid-e-Azam, the founder of Pakistan. There were no pictures allowed inside, but it was nicer outside anyway. I was the only person there and got my own little private tour from a staff member.
I’ll just mention now that any worries I had about Pakistan disappeared even from the airport. The people there were among the nicest, friendliest and most helpful that I’ve met anywhere. I very clearly stood out and got a lot of attention anywhere I was going, but none of it was negative and I never felt in the least bit on edge.
Everywhere I went, people were coming up to talk to me and were all genuinely lovely. The first couple of times, I had my guard up since in many countries that means rip-off/scam etc., but that wasn’t the case at all. For example, the security guard inviting me into the grounds of that building. I almost didn’t, and fully expected a hand to pop out for a tip as I left, but he was being genuinely nice. It was the same deal with the staff member at that house showing me around.
Ok, it got a bit tiresome having the same conversations multiple times a day (where are you from, why are you here, what do you think about it etc.), but people were just curious about me and keen to show off their country in a positive light. It made me feel quite sad in a way because they obviously know the unfair reputation Pakistan has, especially with regards to terrorism/religious extremism, and they were very keen to show that “most of us are very good people”.
Throughout the trip, there were lots of welcoming gestures. For example, at most mosques there are places to leave your shoes and pay (not much but still), but they wouldn’t take money off me since I was their “guest”. I even had a Careem (similar to Uber) driver cancel my trip (probably taking on a fee himself) as I was “his guest” and he didn’t want to charge me.
Anyway, I did some park stuff after that bit of looking around, but I’ll get that up in the next section since there’s a bit of explanation/preamble about how that worked and this is way too word-heavy as it is.
This trip was very shortly after India (about 3 weeks after getting back), and I’ve got to say that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it so soon after being in the same part of the world and not massively enjoying it. Add that to the fact that I didn’t know a single person who’d ever been and the “dangerous” reputation the country has, and I was really just not in the mood to go.
Turns out I f**king loved the place.
Arrival in Karachi
Let’s face it, Pakistan isn’t in many people’s travel plans, and Karachi, despite being the biggest city, probably isn’t top of the list for anyone who does go. It’s the financial capital, but doesn’t have a great deal to bring tourists in. However, there were a load of +1s and I’m always interested to see the bigger cities anyway.
Getting there was a faff though. There are no direct flights to Pakistan at all from Hong Kong. If there were, it would probably take around 5 hours, but I ended up going Hong Kong – Singapore – Colombo – Karachi (taking about 16 hours in total). Looking back, I would’ve been better off flying into Islamabad (only one connection) and getting internal flights later, but it seemed to make sense to start in the south (Karachi) and finish further north than piss about shuttling back and forth.
Unconnected subplot: I left my Kindle in the seat pocket after landing at Colombo, and realised just seconds after getting into the terminal. Of course, it was too late to get it back, so there was some faff at a customer information desk where they said they’d get it to the gate of my next flight. It wasn’t there. To be continued…
Back to Karachi then. I was, very noticeably, the only westerner on the flight and in the airport, and I was expecting a bit of faff at the immigration desk, but it was very smooth. I already knew that a tourist getting a SIM card at the airport was unlikely (and true – the phone shop/booth couldn’t/wouldn’t sell me one), so I’d bought some international sim thing, which supposedly included Pakistan, before I left Hong Kong. Nope, didn’t work. Slight panic at this stage then.
Anyway, I got a taxi to the hotel. It wasn’t too late when I arrived, but I was knackered so just asked about getting a sim card somewhere (loads of phone shops around, but that wouldn’t work) and had a quiet evening in the hotel.
Karachi
The next morning it was a taxi to one of the service centres/shops of a mobile phone company, where they could give a foreigner a sim card. It was easy enough and very cheap, but clearly designed for people living and working there since the guy seemed very surprised that I only needed it for about 10 days. Anyway, panic over.
The plan was to head out to the newest park in the area that afternoon (didn’t happen – more later), and some +1s in the evening (places open from mid-afternoon to late at night), so I did a bit of touristy stuff for a couple of hours.
Area around the hotel:
Old library:
Mosque:
Museum:
I think this was, technically, private property, but the security saw me looking and invited me to go in (not inside the building, just the grounds).
This is the house of Quaid-e-Azam, the founder of Pakistan. There were no pictures allowed inside, but it was nicer outside anyway. I was the only person there and got my own little private tour from a staff member.
I’ll just mention now that any worries I had about Pakistan disappeared even from the airport. The people there were among the nicest, friendliest and most helpful that I’ve met anywhere. I very clearly stood out and got a lot of attention anywhere I was going, but none of it was negative and I never felt in the least bit on edge.
Everywhere I went, people were coming up to talk to me and were all genuinely lovely. The first couple of times, I had my guard up since in many countries that means rip-off/scam etc., but that wasn’t the case at all. For example, the security guard inviting me into the grounds of that building. I almost didn’t, and fully expected a hand to pop out for a tip as I left, but he was being genuinely nice. It was the same deal with the staff member at that house showing me around.
Ok, it got a bit tiresome having the same conversations multiple times a day (where are you from, why are you here, what do you think about it etc.), but people were just curious about me and keen to show off their country in a positive light. It made me feel quite sad in a way because they obviously know the unfair reputation Pakistan has, especially with regards to terrorism/religious extremism, and they were very keen to show that “most of us are very good people”.
Throughout the trip, there were lots of welcoming gestures. For example, at most mosques there are places to leave your shoes and pay (not much but still), but they wouldn’t take money off me since I was their “guest”. I even had a Careem (similar to Uber) driver cancel my trip (probably taking on a fee himself) as I was “his guest” and he didn’t want to charge me.
Anyway, I did some park stuff after that bit of looking around, but I’ll get that up in the next section since there’s a bit of explanation/preamble about how that worked and this is way too word-heavy as it is.
