Pakistan

Karimabad – Travelling Again

Journey is about meeting and farewell. Now comes the time to say goodbye to Hunza. January 24, 2006 His name is Hassan Shah, a father of 4 sons and 1 daughter. Today, two of his sons are going to leave him to Manshera, which is around 18 hours away bus journey from Karimabad. Hussain Shah, one of the sons, is bringing his elder brother, Salman Shah, for medical check up. His brother has got a sudden mental attack 2 years ago, and regular check up is needed, as now Salman’s hairs are getting lesser and lesser. This might be a very, very common farewell of a short separate between father and sons. But when this happen to Karimabad, in a family which rarely separated each other, this can be very dramatic. Hussain has never been further than Rawalpindi, not to mention how he dreamed to go abroad. But as Northern Areas citizen, passport for them is not easy to get. Only China is the country that people from this area can go, easily, with border pass. Passport for Northern Areas could [read more]

January 24, 2006 // 2 Comments

Karimabad – Wedding

Prepared to bring the bride home Being delayed is not always bad. The road to Pindi has been blocked for more than a week now, and I am still in Karimabad. I have heard the rumours that Mr. Karim’s brother was going to marry. So 2 days ago I visited him. Mr Karim was busy, preparing for the feasts and everything. He offered me sharbat (the traditional food for 2 days before marriage, made from flour) but I felt he tried to send me home politely as he couldnt entertain me due to his business. From him, I learnt about the tradition of the wedding in Hunza. The ‘nikah’ will be held in bride’s side, in the nearest jamaat khana from the bride’s house. For this, the bride side invited 40 people from the groom side. These 40 people, mostly relatives, were carefully selected and counted. As we might know, the families in Pakistan are all big, that 40 is a very limited number. It seems that the culture is quite closed for outsiders, that I probably might not be [read more]

January 21, 2006 // 1 Comment

Karimabad – Another Night Talk

Tourism also brings cultural impact to far flung places January 17, 2005 At last the guys from the restaurant successfully moved the TV and VCD to my room. They played hide and seek with the old man, the owner, and it was indeed funny to see the games. The sound was mixed with other movie, Bunty and Babli, to distract the attention of the old man. And they successfully made the old man sleep earlier. One accident happened when they moved the TV, the man woke up. Haroun (not real name) told the old man that the Indonesian guy (me) need the TV and VCD to do his homework. Damn! The 2 CDs, both were painfully obtained, were all damaged. One of it, the funniest porn CD I have ever watched, from South India. The actresses were all old, grey haired, bathing in the river. Then came the raper, old, fat, black, ape-faced man. The open sex happened openly in the river side, but it was too ugly, and the Pakistani guys also thought so. Talking about the open sex, I mean sex in open field, Haroun [read more]

January 17, 2006 // 0 Comments

Karimabad – Trapped

A journey to no-men peaks January 16, 2006 Planned to leave Karimabad already, awaiting for the coming jeep from Sust which I can hitch for free, but the friend who is going to go together delayed his journey for unlimited time. Meanwhile the bus ticket from Karimabad to Rawalpindi arouse to 821 Rupees, too expensive for me. And another bad news, there was road block somewhere between Gilgit and Pindi, so all buses will not operating for these 2-3 days. What a luck. Again, I am trapped in Karimabad. Yesterday, to pass the time, I decided to join some local guys climbing up to the Eagle’s Nest. From here we can see the whole valley. I have been there two years ago, and it was a terrible walk in summer. Now in super cold winter, nobody is up there. All hotels and houses are empty, and the road was slippery of ice and glacier. Luckily I was not alone, so there was someone (Mr Karim) who held my hand along the way…. Totally deserted in winter The snow was thick up there, and [read more]

January 16, 2006 // 1 Comment

Karimabad – Porn Night Part 2

Women are rarely seen on the streets of Pakistan. But they are quite open in the movies January 14, 2006 Today I didnt know what was the plan, when I came back to the restaurant, it seems that the guys successfully invited some guests to the old owner, so the old man was busy in his room (just next to the TV) with the guests. The guys locked the owner room from outside, so that the old man cant go out. And then, as previously suggested, the show began. The title today is Horny School Girls. There were about 3 guys watching, and they were all too excited. Not to make the old man hearing, the VCD was played in mute setting. All of the doors of the restaurant were locked, the windows were closed, and they ignored all coming guests. It’s funny to see how these guys, at least 22 years old, still have to play hide and seek with their parents just to watch porn. When suddenly the old man wanted to open the door, the guys were turning off everything just less than a second, and ran [read more]

January 14, 2006 // 5 Comments

Karimabad – Porn Night

January 13, 2006 Porn night in Pakistan? Yes, the idea was started due to the sudden heavy snow here in Karimabad. Some young guys in my restaurant decided to rent a porn VCD and played in the middle of the night. It’s just a usual thing in Indonesia to watch porn movie together, (read: nonton bokep rame-rame), but it’s become a very special thing here, in a traditional village in mountainous area of Pakistan. That is why I was interested to observe what going to happen. Due to obvious reasons, all names included here are not the real names. Umer, brought his favorite VCD which he got from Aliabad, after more than 100 minutes of journey go and back. He was so excited what we were going to watch tonight. “A guy with two girls, big cock, one girl sucking one girl kissing…” and you could see a slight of horny feeling from his eyes. Yeah, we couldnt wait for the exciting tonight. Everything was prepared, a secret room, a plan to move the TV and VCD player [read more]

January 13, 2006 // 2 Comments

Karimabad – Pakistan Will Open

Pakistani movies are actually quite …, well, “sexy” January 11, 2006 Talking about films with the locals is always interesting, because I believe that films are also part of the culture. The satelitte dish in my hotel restaurant is broken, so for a temporary moment we have to say good bye to Raj and Rani (lit. means king and queen, a typical of Indian movies where the hero is named Raj and heroine Rani and they both will be married) from the TV series of Vuh Rahnewali Mehlon Ki. But quiet life is unimaginable in this house, that the guys then rented a VCD player to fill up the emptiness due to the absence of the TV programs. They only had one very old (of 1960’s) VCD of an Indian woman singing all the way with super high voice. The movie itself is black and white, and soon they got bored. They asked whether I had some interesting VCDs. I brought mostly DVDs with me, but yes, I have some VCDs. First I played Inul. This Indonesian diva with her famous pumping [read more]

January 11, 2006 // 3 Comments

Karimabad – Indian Connection

Indian influence is obvious here India is just a bordering country, but the history of hostility between India and Pakistan makes the relation between the two countries interesting. As we all probably know, the language of both countries, Urdu and Hindi, are 90% similar. Urdu has more Persian and Arabic originated words, and Hindi from Sanskrit. But both languages are mutually intelligble. Though, the scripts are different. The influence of India is very huge in Pakistan, this is unquestioned. Everybody can sing the gigle of Aashiq Banaya, the new popular Bollywood movie, even though that this new film may not reach the villages of Pakistan. “Mujh se Saati Karogi? (Will you Marry Me?)”, Salman Khan’s newest movie, is a famous sentence anywhere here in Pakistan. And it became a laughter when we use this sentence to tease the others. The people in Karimabad, far away from anywhere, stuck their satellite dish to Indian channels. And guess what, a very plain TV drama, [read more]

January 9, 2006 // 3 Comments

Hunza – From Sust to Karimabad

The icy road of Hunza Today decided to go back to Karimabad. During the stay in the Upper Hunza area, there is a very big problem: electricity. Due to failure of generator in Khyber, a village next to Pasu, the villages in Upper Hunza has to wait for its turn for electricity. One in 4 days the electricity comes to a village. I missed both in Sust and Chapursan. So that my memory cards are full, my batteries are finished, my harddisk couldnt start, completely I cant take any more photos. The main reason to leave is that actually I missed the food and hot in Karimabad. Before starting, my Sust friend and I had breakfast together in Sust. Practising my Urdu, I was joking with them that I was very poor, but I could earn money when I didnt have enough, by sleeping with Pakistani men for 150 Rs (1 US$=60Rs). It was merely a joke. But apparently it was an offer for the restaurant owner. When my friends left for work, I was still having my breakfast. And the restaurant owner came, whispering [read more]

January 7, 2006 // 3 Comments

Chapursan – The Land without Sunshine

The difficult journey to the land without sunshine January 4-7, 2006 Have you heard about the land without sunshine? It was a cloudy morning when someone in Sust bazaar – just one step more to China – told me. “You should go to Chapursan, over there, there is no sunshine for 2.5 months!” Chapursan is up north from Sust, going parallel with the Afghan border. And for harsh winter like this, nobody goes there due to the low temperature, harsh wind, and of course no sunshine. The last part of the challenges really made me decided to depart. There are several cars departing from Sust bazaar. There is no exact departure time, all departures are depended on passengers. Noor Khan – a Chapursan native who have been living in Karachi since student time, and Aziz – a teacher, Noor’s relative, also have been living in Karachi, are my fellow passengers. They told me many things about the culture of Wakhan Tajik – the native of the valley, about the [read more]

January 7, 2006 // 1 Comment

Karimabad – The Land of Heaven

Haider Inn 75Rs Hunza in winter This is my second time coming to Hunza valley. The first time was in summer 2003. I arrived here 2 years ago, and amazed by the development projects carried out throughout the valley. The colour of winter is sad, yellow and grey. But the sadness colour doesnt make the mountains and valley mute, it’s still singing, beautifully. As I remember from my last visit, due to failure of the generator in the valley, I didnt have electricity at all during my 3 day stay here. But now it’s different. The electricity, even though that is still unreliable, works for most of the time. 2 days with electricity and 1 day off. Not bad. And it even has an internet cafe with affordable price. 40 Rs/hour, which is not bad considering the terrain of the area. The Internet cafe is run by KADO, with a partnership with an NGO from Western country. The connection was run by a sattelite, as the Internet administrator told me yesterday, and it cost 2000$/mo for this. The [read more]

December 23, 2005 // 2 Comments

Rawalpindi – Cantontment?

I never expected that it’s very difficult to find a place to stay in this city Imperial Hotel, Muree Road, Rawalpindi 400Rs/double bed room After the 5 hour bus journey from Lahore to Islamabad, and long taxi drive to Saddar Bazaar in Rawalpindi, I was really resent by the hotel owner who refused me to stay in his hotel. Saddar Bazaar is the place for the budget hotels in Rawalpindi, where 2 years ago I used to stay. Today, they refused to accept me as their guest, as there is a stamp ‘Visa not Valid for Cannt Area’ on my visa page. I didnt realize what the meaning of the small stamp on my visa before today. The feeling of being refused in a hotel was very bad. I can imagine the same feeling of people being refused to enter a certain country despite of possessing the valid visa. And I felt disappointed, badly treated, being looked as second class man, etc. Cantontment is military area, which sometimes also include residential and bazaar area, as in this example [read more]

December 17, 2005 // 0 Comments

Going North

Going up north to the mountains. But it seems they love China so much… As my sickness require me to take a total rest for about 2 weeks or so, I decided to move out of Lahore to go up north in the mountainous area of Himalaya. The journey will start today to Rawalpindi, staying there from some days, before taking the long bus journey to the Northern Areas. Meanwhile, Internet will not always available, so that I wouldnt be able to update my blog often nor replying email for quite a time. I hope that my absence will not make you worrying I will be allright for sure. But I am trying to get a new mobile phone number and I will announce the number to anybody who is interested. I love Lahore very much, but I havent seen much of it. Surely I will come back here again as soon as possible, as well as travelling around Pakistan. But yet, I also need a rest anyway…. Salaam [read more]

December 17, 2005 // 1 Comment

Lahore – Sufism

Regale Internet Inn 150 Rs Berputar… berputar… berputar… Bagi kita, sufisme mungkin sudah tidak asing lagi. Kisah-kisah tentang Syeikh Siti Jenar sudah sering kita dengar berkali-kali. Dan penggabungan antara mistisme dengan religiusme Islam sudah bukan merupakan hal baru lagi di Indonesia, di mana Islam berbaur kental dengan hembusan nafas kehidupan Pra-Islam (Hinduisme, Buddhisme, dan animisme). Lagu adalah bagian dari spiritualisme kaum Sufi Menari demi sang Kekasih tercinta Di Pakistan pun sufisme merupakan bagian dari kehidupan Islamnya. Setiap hari Kamis siang, pemusik-pemusik sufi berkumpul di Masjid untuk memainkan musik-musik yang membius hati. Tak kurang dari 40 grup musik dari penjuru-penjuru desa datang ke sini, dan setiap grup menampilkan pertunjukan dari 5 hingga 7 menit. Alunan akordion dan gambus seakan merupakan ekstasi bagi sebagian penonton, yang tak hentinya menggelengkan kepala dengan cepat mengikuti alunan musik, bahkan ada pula yang [read more]

December 15, 2005 // 1 Comment

Lahore – Welcome to Pakistan

Regale Internet Inn 150 Rs/dorm Indian border guard across the Pakistan borderline. Being sick for so many days has given me the chance to read lots of books recently. Just read Salman Rushdie’s “Shame” about the ridiculous stories of Pakistan history, from uprising and downing of its political leaders, from the ridiculous political manouvers, and also the stories about the founding of the “Land of Pure” and it failures. The other good book I got is VS Naipaul’s “Among the Believers”. This book is about Islam in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I have read the Indonesian part, and felt that the critics was quite well-said, even some parts I dont quite agree. The Pakistan part is quite interesting, how these Indian Muslims created this “Land of Pure” and how they tried to be the most purified Muslim on earth. But the struggle is full of failures, and Pakistan was a country of experiments. And today, I successfully [read more]

December 13, 2005 // 0 Comments

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