The last days in Lahore tick away, tomorrow we will cross the border, back to India it is!
So far no luck with getting more of the Urdu hiphop nor the live Sufi music. We could not find the Sufi place yesterday night and neither did anyone know where it was. We were so close, yet so far away. That’s the intangible city of Lahore for you. Tonight; last night, last chance.

The hiphop scene in Lahore is slowly growing since this year. We met Bobby D, Haider Z and Saber who form the STT crew together. Having lived their teenage years in the States and Canada, both Bobby D. and Saber returned back to Pakistan a few years ago for several reasons, but with their heads filled with Northern American hiphop coming from mostly gangsta styled influences.
A lyrical context from a place far away inserted into their current environment that is Lahore. Their rhymes in English aren’t crippled, but nothing out of the ordinary either if compared with any other rap battle tongue from Northern America. It might work here though, as Pakistan still has an open market for western hiphop. The sparse songs that we heard them rap in Urdu were by far better sounding in our ears. Perhaps because that is a flow of sound that our western ears have not heard before. Is a flow in a new tongue, or new style the definition of *freshness*? Maybe so.
Urdu lyrics about politics; the elections, the Bhutto assassination, the war on terror. Idea’s about using old Pakistan folk as the backdrop for their sound so that their Urdu raps can get and even heavier context. Idea’s, it’s all in their minds but not recorded yet. The English raps however, are recorded by the dozens as we saw and heard in the small studio of Saber, who envisioned that he would like to see his hiphop style merged with trance and club sounds. Experimental use of western influences into a new musical context? If the market here is open to it, it could become his own blueprint for the Lahore scene.
Haider Z, still 19 and relatively new to the crew, upheld a better flow in Urdu, perhaps by straying further away from the western flows. He showed us a newspaper article of a few months ago in which he was presented as a rapping talent. Also Saber could present newspaper clippings of his rising fame, so the signs are there in the media. Just the hiphop shows haven’t really arrived in Lahore yet and it keeps the development of the scene low-key for now. Bobby D, who is more on the producer side of things, has been trying to make hiphop breakthrough in Lahore for some years now, but so far still encounters a lot of blocks. “The public demand is here, but we lack the resources in Lahore and Pakistan”, he said. It was clear that there are no venue’s or organizations to back it up with. Still a long way to go for Lahore hiphop.
We hope it works out for either of them, especially if they will focus on the Urdu style instead of English as it will be of more cultural value, nationwide.

Lahore, as anywhere in Pakistan, suffers several power cuts per day. You get used to it. At least they have a generator in the library so they can rebuff the power up again after a minute or so. To give you an idea; during this post the power already went twice. Anywhere else with no private generator at hand, people just have to wait, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours. It fluctuates. Locals joke that power cuts come at prayer times, as a break for the plant workers.

Maarten finds these power shortages to be a typical occurrence in a dictatorship nation, as well as the fluctuating food prices (of wheat and flour currently) and the armed presence of police and soldiers at checkpoints or street corners. We think it does indicate that Musharraf struggles to control many assets in the nation, or worse, uses these assets for his own control on society. Which is also what many people think here. Pakistan as a country deserves better (which is also a political slogan), because all the opportunities and energy sources are here already. Just a proper control of them would be decent.

With the upcoming elections, things are still unsure and many do not believe it will go fairly -again-. There are 35 parties and they each use a certain symbol that indicates what their political position. Recognizable symbols, so that illiterate people know who they can vote for. The symbols break down to this:
The bicycle = the governmental people’s party, which is Musharraf’s party although you do not see him on posters and instead you see affiliated politicians on it.
The tiger/lion = the Nawaz Islamic league who basically are the conservatives (hah, the fat cats? irony bliss)
The arrow = Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the socialists and affiliated types. The arrow meaning that they’re out for a killing -in change of politics, not in blood-.
The football = errr unclear, -after asking we now know: independent candidates who have an unclear agenda. Just out for power or money rather than bringing real change in.
The clock -a new one- = yet another independent candidate, also with an unclear agenda.

The Bhutto party are still leading the polls by at least 40%.
If you ask people who will actually win the election, the answer you get is ‘the people’s party’, the governmental people’s party. The word *winning* has a sarcastic meaning here.

So………
After all these 3 months of gathering footage and sounds, we’ll take it easy in February and act more the traveling tourists and not blogging these long reports anymore that you might have gotten used to.
Time to wind down and recharge our energy a bit with our girls!
We might still do some small sessions in Rajasthan if possible….and perhaps in Gujarat as a little extra thing. All is open, we’ll see what we bump into and keep you posted

Finally we’ve uploaded a small variety of Pakistani sound of the past few weeks.
Downloadable and such from Maarten’s server.

Short radio ad, vivid talking and happy synthesizer sounds.

Short radio ad

Here a clip of the Muharram procession that we witnessed in a village close to Lahore (of a few posts ago). The men first started chastising themselves with the sickle knives attached to shackles before they stopped and continued beating their chests while their backs and shoulders were dripping of blood. I recorded the shackles too, but here’s a shorter clip of the chest beating part where the men are singing on their own beat.

Muharram chest beating in village

I think this vocal female song is a Qawwali song and not a Ghazal. But I’m not entirely sure, awaiting the local second opinion. The main difference between these two musical forms is that Qawwali is devotional (holy) music and a Ghazal is a love poetry song.

Female Qawwali song (or Ghazal?)

Here a short piece of what seems like a Ghazal song. But it might be Qawwali in this case.

Male Ghazal song (or Qawwali?)

Some more full sound and choir-like, this time with kids singing along. Folk or holy music?

Holy folk with kids

Upbeat folk, with Sufi or Qawwali content? The second opinion is still out. The rhythm seems more inclined to move people physically than by words.

Upbeat Pakistani folk

On a Karachi radio station they sometimes played good stuff. Like worldly things from the Ethiopiques series of Alemu Aga and Mahmoud Ahmed. Even the galaxy warping jazz of Sun Ra and Kraftwerk’s ‘Die Menschmachine (The Man Machine)’ came along! On one night they were playing a whole album of Nusrat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s (and Punjab’s most famous singer). I already know these improvisational songs from back home and from the excellent Doaba Gypsies mix that Siebe Thissen once made (psssht, check out his mixes!). Here’s a Nusrat Ali Khan clip for you.

Nusrat Ali Khan improvisation

Pakistani highway poetry, as seen on the mountain interstate road between Mianwali and Rawalpindi.

From the transport hub of Muzzafargarh, we woke up at 6ish while the traffic had already been roaring past our room for the last hours or so. Non stop. It sometimes can be quite tricky to find the right bus and asking anyone possible is a bare necessity. Police men sitting around a fire at a roundabout -a very much seen sight on any nightly or early morning traffic point- were nice enough to help us, though they didn’t know exactly either which bus to take and guessing at 2 different directions. It was very chilly, a cold mist still hanging in the dark dawn air. The fire was a welcome warm friend and the elder officers gave us their chairs, which we first politely rejected but in Pakistan, you just can’t refuse such nice gestures. Finally action and we jumped into a bus towards the North of Punjab, parallel to the Indus flow. Going up against it’s natural down flow, so to speak.
The morning ride was nice; along dry lands, little forest patches and green low Punjabi fields, filled with sugarcane, corn or wheat. Most of it we were in half slumber as the trip would take over 5 hours. We got off in Mianwali, the biggest city for transport connection of the north western part and there we tried finding an internet cafe to do some blogging and uploading. Tough luck. Not for finding the internet cafe which we did eventually, but as for having an internet connection because internet was down allover town. Just like power cuts, there are also internet cuts. It’s life here as you have to accept it. Back to the mini-bus station, we got our ride to the town of Kalabagh, the point where the Indus river turns into the lower valleys from the mountains. Shaping the normal sized river flow into a gigantic wide river. It was the nicest ride so far we’ve had in Pakistan and we could see the distant mountain peaks and past the cultivated valleys.
We got off at the end of the bridge to Kalabagh town, a long bridge of at least 1 km, made out of wooden and stone panels. Those panels had a lot of wear on them and many had holes and cracks in them, giving you a clear view at the river far below with a feeling that the bridge was not solid at all. Let alone that any maintenance is being done. At least the main structure was of steel. Not that that helped the poor fella who last week fell into the river with his motorbike, through a gap or perhaps a broken panel and his body was only found 5 days afterwards, as we were told by Nazeem, a young pharmaceutical engineer standing at the bridge. The elderly bearded guard at the bridge told us not to film or take pictures. Like we already expected. Nazeem spoke more about the bridge and the town while carefully walking on the bridge so that we could get a better view on the river. I could take some photo’s of the river and the view, as long as the bridge itself would not show. Like this one.

Although he was just on his way out of Kalabagh, Nazeem voluntarily appointed himself our guide and took us into Kalabagh. Small dusty streets, goats walking everywhere. The humble sight of daily life of any small Pakistani town it seems. The houses were different than we saw elsewhere as they all had wooden upper parts. Some houses being hundreds of years old.

Kalabagh and its locals never see tourists, as it is off the beaten track and no mention of it in the lonely planet either, despite the serene and beautiful setting of this mountain village. Some locals eyed us with amazement, some with a flustered look of suspicion, others wanted to stop us and talk but with the pace of Nazeem it was hard to stop, except for me buying another Pasthun shepherd hat. Woolly wear for cultural integration . As the village was not big, we had quickly gone through it and we met several youths who wanted to take us to a mine. Sure! Everywhere pink and white crystal rocks were lying around in man hacked and dumped hills, colouring the place with a special glow. The teenagers told us it was a site for the mining of salt minerals. Salt. The whole place smelled like a damp sea in fresh mountain air.

Down in the mine, hot and humid. And dark. Mobile phones as guiding lights or proper torches, anything with some light out of it would help not to step into muddy waterholes. It wasn’t a good idea to walk into the mine with our backpacks on, heavy as they were and we soon were gasping for air, perhaps a bit claustrophobed by the feeling of being a mine so unexpected. We saw mineworkers hacking at rocks, load them into tractor carts. Maarten filming their underground activity while they all posed for him, acting their everyday labour down below. After half an hour of walking about into little caves, seeing white salty stalactites,hearing bats squeek from dark corners and tasting the salty flavour with every breath taken, we stepped back into the open air again. Some fresh air, yay! As the sun was setting already, we quickly needed to get a bus back to Mianwali before there wouldn’t be any more buses from Kalabagh’s remote location. Like said, it’s off the beaten track, even for locals.

Most people in Kalabagh where more fair haired than elsewhere, the colour of their skin revealing their Pashtun roots. Like in most villages in this mountain region and the neighbouring state of North-West Frontier Province (better known as the tribal NWFP area). At this point we were actually just around 70 km’s away from the Afghanistan border. The much troubled border, that is.
And we were very close to Kohat (25 km’s more north) and South Waziristan (70 km’s south-west), without knowing what was happening there.

On the Kohat tunnel situation, here’s an article from a few days ago, here a summarized one the outcome, today (though the printed version was way more informative). Basicly, a handfull of local Pakistani tribal militants -or Taliban militants as they have been coined for the sake of the war on terrorism- had stolen 4 trucks filled with ammunition from the military! One must wonder how. That however, the army isn’t eager to disclose. The local militants blocked the Kohat tunnel, which is being built through Japanese -financial- help, and threatened to bomb it. A few days of fighting; dozens of militants killed, some soldiers dead and the retrieval of the 4 ammunition trucks. Whether empty or not, who knows. News flash just in, the militants have blown up the Kohat rail road. Surely not the end of fighting in this part of the mountains.

You would think that as we were so close to Kohat, we could have felt the danger, but we experienced nothing out of the ordinary. Not in the villages nor on the roads, even at the small checkpoints around Kalabagh and Mianwali there was no tension to be noticed. The only thing was perhaps that army caravan of trucks we saw the night before in Muzaffargarh, heading up north. Perhaps 4 of those trucks got stolen some 24-48 hours later? It’s a game of guesses.

On SWA (or South Waziristan in non-Pakistani media terms), at the Afghani border. here and here a piece about what has happened or is still happening. And a more in depth article. The CIA now wants to enter Pakistan and resolve it themselves, but Musharraf won’t let them in according to this article. Will that be the end of it? Unfortunately it never will. The fighting, the mingling of the US or anything attached to the little wars in this region. Afghanistan apparently isn’t big enough to wage war in.

We wonder, has above news reached you in the west? We just never know for sure what is known back home as the articles here seems much more informative and go deeper than the short articles in western papers. The papers here are full of it, pages filled with any fight, anywhere in the north and north-western part of the country. The fight against terror, as an ongoing national dialogue without end, without the far-removed feeling that folks elsewhere in the western hemisphere experience.

Last week, while Musharraf was in Brussels giving speeches to the west about the (un)controlled situation in Pakistan, an army committee of ex-service men concluded that Musharraf has to resign. Musharraf simply rebutted that each of these ex-service men (who all have served under him) were no good officers and that he kicked them out all by himself. Bold statement to make about your own men, especially if you don’t want to bring unrest in the army. The show goes on.

And all this talk here is not even about the problems of the upcoming elections! No wonder the ordinary decent Pakistani feels that their government has deserted them and do not trust the help from the US anymore either. Still, life on the streets of any town or city goes on as if normal and to the tourist it doesn’t feel much more different either, except for the sight of many armed guards on every corner, government building or roadblock. We still feel warmed and welcomed by the Pakistani’s so our views have only been opened by their sincerity.

Back to our trip, which seem just a tiny experience compared to the above notions.

In Mianwali we took a mini bus to Rawalpindi (or Pindi as Pakistani’s call it). For once, not an old, crowded or bumpy mini bus but a one that had good space and was new. Our driver, who said he was from Peshawar, drove the van in a fine speed and we overtook truck after truck, mini bus after mini bus. It was a pity that it was pitch dark, as we drove on the mountain roads and could not see the views of the valleys below us. We stopped at a police roadblocks where we think our driver had to pay them some share of his profit to them. Or pay our way past them. Either way, each way of looking at it means the same. At other police roadblocks at toll booths of the motorway, we had to open the door so that a police officer holding a big video camera could film each passenger for security and ID reasons. You might guess why with the above situations in the northern regions.

Enter Rawalpindi, taking a mini cab to the Sadr Bazaar area where most (cheap) hotels are. The driver not knowing the way in the most visited part of his own city. He was a sweet man, so no grudges to him, but if you’re both tired, cold and coming down with a nasty cold and just want to find a hotel at 2am, your patience doesn’t see the fun of it. Our room was like a rooftop fridge as it was the only room available, a room that probably was never used even hence its freezing quality, brrrr. The next day we somehow lost each other in the hotel by miscommunication and perhaps a feverish head and did our own things till we met up again. A handy thing that Maarten bought a Pakistani sim card in his phone at the border. In the early evening we took yet another mini bus from Pindi to Taxila.

Taxila was especially on our minds because of the many archeological sights of Buddhist stupa’s and monasteries of the Buddhist Gandhara era. The civilisation sites date back from 500 BC up to 500 AD, until the White Huns came along and ravaged the region, destroying the sites and killing locals and monks alike. Here’s a nice write-up on Taxila for the history-loving.
Locked gate at the youth hostel. After waking up the young maintenance guy, we settled in the deserted and empty hostel. It again was freezing cold, so was the room. We consoled ourselves by watching Capote on a pirated DVD (courtesy of the Lahore pirate shops that offer 5 movies on 1 dvd at no cost). Next morning, time to get some warm chai and eat something, but as most shops were closed due to the tourist off-season and the cold, it took us a while. We rented a motorbike as all the archeological sites were scattered over the Taxila district in a perimeter of 7 kilometers and to see all, self-mobility was the way to go. We first went to the excavagted site of Sirkap, which was a town filled with Jain, Bactrian Greek and Buddhist temples. Already 2000 years ago, several religions in this valley literally co-existed as neighbours and in peace with each other. We walked into the old house fundations, the wide street avenues, on the temple steps and on the old defense wall.
Soon enough we attracted the attention of locals who offered us little heads of old statues and coins. All of it coming from the farmer fields next to the site, in their words. The statue heads looked dubious and more like being slashed from temple stone carvings or taken out of protected sites. We bought a few ancient coins though, as those are easy to find in the fields instead of by thievery. The coins were said to from different era’s, the Bactrian Greek era, the Pathian or Hindu era. Maybe the ones we bought are fake because the price was quite low (15 euro for 3 Bactrian coins in my case, 2 picturing Alexander the Great), but at the same time a good price for those local men. Perhaps they’re not false. Not that we care really, because we more bought them for their beauty and carvings as oppossed to their so-called antique value. Fake souvenirs are fun. I better hope they’re fake or not worth much.

After that we drove to a hilltop Bactrian Greek temple and then to the Jaulian site, which was a big Buddhist monastery with attached stupa with many carvings. Most of them now safely housed in the Taxila museum. We saw another monastery which name escapes me right now -must check the Taxila map, left it in hotel-, which was situated on a high hilltop. Also a few nice Buddhist carvings here while most of them were in the museum. Finally we went to Dharmajika, the biggest Buddhist site of all around Taxila and it was like a true town with streets and roads. All built around a big centralized stupa, there were many structures and a big monastery and we spend a good time just at the peak of sunset walking around and losing ourselves in the environment. We had seen what we wanted, it was getting dark and we wanted to get back to Pindi as not to spend another night in a fridge as room. Before that, Wwe played a bit of football with local students of our age. On a makeshift football field, jumpers for goalposts (Ron Manager, if you know what I mean ), and it was on one of the ancient sites! Archeological ditches lay everywhere and we ran next to these, sometimes a ball being kicked in one of them. Ofcourse, playing footie when having a cold in our bad shape, it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but we enjoyed our miskicks

Bus back to Pindi after a lot of roadside waiting. We’re getting used to it. Back to a different hotel and room, which was less like a fridge, oh some warmth! To some extent. There we wasted another lazy night of watching a movie. So far in 3 months, we’ve only watched a few movies on the laptop, we do try to discipline our luxury.
We saw Good Night & Good Luck, which must be said, is a great movie. It made us reflect on it with the current thought how the Pakistan press has a lot of freedom of expression here in politics, perhaps even more than the press in the States.

Next day Pindi, time spent in internet cafe (previous post eh) and some browsing in secondhand book shops. In the computer shop area there are many good book shops that sell books at dump prices. Escpecially social, futuristic and political books. Maarten can already recommend Thierry Meyssan’s The Big Lie, which is about the facts of 9/11. It’s not about conspiracy theories but it just underlines the hard known facts that seem to have been forgotten by everyone, the media and politicians alike.
Factoid from the book that we had forgotten about and now seemed oh so paradoxal and coincidental to us: On the 11th of september, Osama Bin Laden was actually in Pakistan getting treatment and diagnose on his kidney’s in a hospital. Where? Rawalpindi.

Sometimes Meyssan seems to point into a secret right wing society theory, but you still keep enough space to make up your own mind with the facts, as it should be. What does absolute truth mean if you firstly do not know the main facts?

I got Future Shock, by futurist writer Alvin Toffler, written in 1970. Not to be confused with Science Fiction literature, it is a futuristic read about a new illness that supposedly would cripple humanity in the next 50 years. We’re more than halfway now and ofcourse it has not come true on a grand scale but it already offers interesting viewpoints on the effects of change in general and on society. 450 pages still to go.

From Rawalpindi we got a late mini bus (always those mini buses, but they are so much faster than the average coach bus!) to Lahore.
We’re back now in our same comfortable backpackers heaven. A warm enough room and good solid bed, a little kitchen to cook or boil whatever you want. Almost all of the Polish, French and American travellers have left and we have the 10 bed dorm room all to ourselves now, yay. There are still a few of the old group left, those who are not on a backpacking holiday but who are doing work or research here.

More on Lahore hiphop crews in a next post. Yup, we’re not joking. Bandana’s and gangsta style rap battles in Urdu and over old Pakistani folk. It’s happening here and we hope to experience more of it. Hopefully we can also catch the Sufi musician with the help our hotel manager, which we missed the last time….
Almost nearing the end of our Punjab project trip…3 more days to go, so to speak.

Some pics…most already uploaded dayzzzz ago (see right hand blah blah)

Seb with Pashtun local at Kalabagh, One eye missing and clutching a lump of opium in his hand.

Taxila bus stop

election poster, does he like football that much?

flying a kite

other view from Sirkap

Taxila views

Jaundial Buddhist site, don’t worry, heads are at museum


local Pashtun kids

We’re in Rawalpindi since midnight -yup, the place where Bhutto….-, after a lot of travelling by bus since Sunday, making a near mathematical 270 degree tour around the Punjab state of Pakistan. Just 90 degrees to go to make the full 360 circle back at Lahore. Mathematics on wheels, our backpacks on roofs, floors and in trunks. Calculation style travelling does take a lot out of your energy and we are both still recovering from our accumulated colds. Sniffs and coughs alike in the cold northern mountains of Punjab.

On Sunday we took a bus down to Sahiwal, the village neaby the archeological Harappa site. Little did we know that we could have stayed on the same bus towards Multan and gotten off at Harappa to see the museum and excavated grounds in one afternoon. Instead we wasted a day and got out at Sahiwal and took a long walk to find a hotel while crowds of youngsters were following us. All settled and well tired, we rested for a while in the room, zapping the Pakistani channels on the tv. Bizarre ads, movies and news broadcasts flashed by. We catched a voting awareness ad for the Pakistani Youth on the Pakistani music channel and it was very well put together with modern styled phrasing with a clever courtesy of choice message in it. Far better than any western election ad I’ve ever seen directed at young adults. Also there was a political discussion going on between a interviewer and a former minister that went very deep, with the interviewer asking totally direct and cheeky insinuating questions that would make many politicians of our own countries choke. Apparently this is the way that political interviews in Pakistan are carried out, right in front of the viewer without any of that clean, pre-discussed format which western tv is plagued with. It was about darkening of funds and spionage practises that the minister was accused of and he had to swallow a lot of humble pie through the fair and verocious stance that the interviewer used to unlock him. Never a dull moment in televised political debates and discussions then.

During dinner we met the same nice fella -forgot his name- whom I had spoken to earlier outside the hotel and he told us that he was a painter. He invited us for chai in a shop full of old men who gazed at our looks and afterwards we went to his place and he showed us a mural that he had painted, with Urdu symbols on it. A painted billboard on stone, so to speak. He asked us many things about our country and was explaining us things about Islam, since he was a dedicated follower. It soon proved what kind of painter and follower he was, as on the many by him painted banners I saw Urdu texts with rifle guns painted next to it. “Do you know what a Mujaheddin is?” he openly asked us while awaiting our response with keen interest. “We kinda do”, we answered, not really knowing what he wanted to hear. “I am a Muhajideen” he said and explained that his cause was the Kashmir cause and that he had been on the front at the Pakistan – Indian border, though it was unclear whether he joined in combat or not. “When Muslim brothers are in trouble, then I should help them”, with these words he refered to the state of Kashmir being a Muslim state according to his beliefs.
The whole thing with the Kashmir struggle is that most people living there are indeed Muslims and the partition should have secured Pakistan with all the Muslim states but not Kashmir. Since then fights have been on and off, either between the armies of Pakistan, India, China and Russia. Not to forget the self-employing army of Mujahideen who still fight there as rebels posted in the mountains.
Back to our man. He lived in quite a big room though it looked a bit in shambles so we asked him how much he paid for rent. “No rent, for free”. So our man turned out to be a squatter Mujaheddin, living with a few other friends in the bare building. Them having a more direct political aim within their country than the establishment fighting squatters in the west might lend themselves too.

Next morning we took a mini bus to the Harappa site. Late morning traffic, donkey and ox carts filled the roads and we passed many chai shops, some showing nothing but static on their tv’s. From the mini buses you really get to see the most of Pakistani life as you bump ride through little villages and the smaller roads than unveil households and affairs of locals.

Harappa is one of the oldest civilization sites of the Indus Valley stretch that goes back over 3000 years BC and therefore matching the prime times of the Mesopotamia, Nile and Chinese civilizations. The Moenjodaro site is actually older and bigger, but as that was still a hefty 500 km’s more west, we could not make it there timewise.
The site has a small museum which has many old artefacts of pottery, tools and jewelry. Also a lot of nice small statues of men and women that were very much sensual and erotic in a way that made us wonder how the Pakistani tourists take this in. The site of Harappa is perhaps not as overwhelming as any other famous site would be, but we very much enjoyed walking around on the old grouds and seeing the stone structures and forms of the ancient town. We encountered local kids sliding off a limestone hill with the use of plastic bottles or sheets. Ofcourse we also had to try it, so we did too It made the kids laugh and they started doing more sliding tricks in front of Maarten camera. Most of the kids were poor and lived in a nearby tent camp and Maarten went with them to see their homes while I sat down with a shepherd and his two kids who were collecting firewood. The shepherd inspected every content of my bag and asked which I could give, which was none of it. After his inspection, my pocketknife was missing but I’m sure that he will make much better use of it than I did (which was hardly any use). Thievery can be fair.

We wanted to take a bus to Bahawalpur, but instead we got a lift in a police jeep from some kind highway patrol officers. We had to put our bags in the back and pushed their Chinese made machineguns aside. Kinda bizarre, moving guns away by hand to make space for your own stuff as if it’s normal. Seeing arms everywhere in Pakistan is not a strange thing and you do get used to it. All the officers chatted to us in quite good English and they fed us with pakora and sweet stuff. Pakistani hospitality even reaches into the authorities. They took us to their newly built station, about which I joked to them that it got built with American terrorism money given to Musharraf, which they didn’t like too much. It was a joke after all, with an underlying ironic truth or not. Who really knows, neither me nor they. There was a volleybal court in front of the station and we played with the officers, smashing balls to the other side and acting like a bunch of sportive folks in highway patrol uniforms. Volleybal is a much loved and respected sport in the Pakistani army and police, perhaps for teambuilding? We drank chai in their garden, ate all their cookies. Only having to pay back the hospitality by writing in their register book in which many positive message were written by foreigners and nationals. Also they had gotten any kind of help from them and repaid it with a kind scribble. So I scribbled a text filled with lush poetry and high praise. Just as I expected they would like. We joked about them writing a note to our mothers about our good behaviour but they took it serious and wrote a big page full of equally praising words in our book. Wow. After that they even dropped us off at the next town, Chichawali, from where our bus to Bahawalpur via Multan would leave. Not before the patrol officers also paid for 2 sandwiches and perhaps our bus tickets too. Can’t even remember anymore other than them being utterly generous and helpfull to us.

On the grim and dark outskirts of Multan, we had a quick curry dinner at a chilly truckstop cafe (or *tuckstop* as the Pakistani’s like to miscall it), filled with scrawny stray cats looking for chicken bones to gnaw on. Time to get to Bahawalpur.
We got there late but luckily found a decent hotel soon enough. Out into the dark street, everything was closed except for many street vendors selling food and a few shops. In one sweet shop, just like in India where you can find any kind of moisty and sugary pastries, we again got some free stuff to eat while the owner and locals talked and joked with us. Being a foreigner in a non tourist place is always more fun than on the beaten track.
Bahawalpur lies on the edge of the Choli desert that borders with the Indian Thar desert where we had been over a month ago. Cholistan is the original name of this Pakistani desert region and is one that shares a lot with Rajasthan’s nomadic culture. In this region and actually in the whole southern half of Pakistani Punjab up to the middle, the people in this part have a distinct language, called Saraiki, which is a Sindh language. Music shops are filled with a variety of Saraiki folk cassettes. Kinda like how in western India you can find Rajasthani folk cassettes everywhere.

We didn’t stay long in Bahawalpur and the next morning we took a mini bus to the small town of Uch Sharif. The town is famous for its old mosques and shrines. Also legend has it that Alexander the Great spent a day there though that can be nothing but mythical talk. At least it is sure that Muhammad Bin Qasim took the city in 710 AD and turned it into an Islamic centre for pilgrims and students in Asia. His conquest could be seem as the beginning of Islam in this region and most of Pakistan, which has remained so in the country to present day.
Uch, dusty and filled with goats and caged chickens. Men with longer and thicker beards and females dressed more in burqa’s than on other cities. The natural adaptation for a holy town. We walked through the narrow streets, stepping aside for many donkey and man pulled street carts. Soon a little schoolboy offered to take us around. Not that we asked or needed it, but he didn’t stress us like most so we let him be and he took us on a nice route through the maze of the bazaar. At a little shop of a retired army officer we sat down by his request and had some chai. He was from Chitral (the rural mountain area where the Kalasha tribes still live) and sold plastic toys in his shop. Like imitation Miffy stuff and so on. Imitation is the standard for any brand of anything. After leaving our bags there, the boy took us to the old site where was saw the mosque, shrines, tombs and graveyards. All in aquarian blue and indigo, the mozaique art was amazing and still intact. The mosque and tombs were quite damaged, halfed, by the hand of ancient floodings and earthquakes but still were beautiful in their crumbled state.

The afternoon was coming to an end and we quickly wanted to get to Panjnad Head before sunset, where the 5 big rivers of Punjab merg together into one river. We didn’t see the Indus as that river only gets merged more south of the state at Mithankot. We got off at the beginning of the bridge, a long one of nearly one km. It’s not allowed in Pakistan to take any pictures when standing on bridges, whether you just want to photograph the water or something else other than the bridge itself. Just a defensive and security rule as ordered by Pakistani law. But we did, photographing and filming, a few 100 metres down on the bridge on a dam ridge. The guards didn’t seem to mind either. Many farm trucks and tractors were passing by on the bridge, with sugarcane reeds stacked 5 metres high while kids were running after them. Pulling sugarcanes loose by the plenty, the slow pace of the wagons allowing them to take their beloved sweet sticks. Kids walked with bundles of them, chewing the juice out of the raw cane flesh. Soon enough I got my own sugarcane too, pulling the strong bamboo strips off with my teeth. Mhhhh, sugarcane juice. Back at the beginning of the bridge we visited the many fish-only shops. Fresh river fish from the Punjab rivers. Mostly trouts and other fishes that we hadn’t seen before. In my pescatarian hunger, as I do like to eat fish now and then, I ordered some trout. The way they make it here is slicing them up in flat slices, but batter and massala herbs on them and throw them in the frying pan. A more exotic way of how it’s made in the UK. And way more tasty too. We even got the fish for free as a gift, another sweet gesture of hospitality that we encounter here day by day. At least we gave the owner and his kids some chocolate cookies in return for it.

As it was dark by then but still early in the evening, we opted to take a ride to Muzzafargarh instead of big size Multan, as Muzzafargarh was further on the route that we wanted to take the next day. We got pushed and helped into yet another bus, bouncy ride again though we slumbered into small naps. Quite a day full, travelling in bumpy buses, walking with backpacks and taking in new experiences with all our senses. Muzzafargarh was not even in the lonely planet guide, which is why we liked to spend a night there and experience the unwritten. The city seemed more like a transportation hub for long haul trucks going up north, or going down south. Endless caravans of brightly red and wooden colored Pakistan trucks, painted allover with symbols, animals and whatnot decorative signs. Also a long convoy of army trucks went by, filled with soldiers and equipment. We weren’t sure whether they were going up north to the Afghani (Khyber) border (as local tribesmen were blocking roads on the Khyber route in rage of fluctuating food prices, a result of the upcoming elections and unstable government now). Or to Kashmir. or perhaps came from either destination. In Muzzafargarh, all we wanted was a good enough sleep as we would wake early at 6am to cath a bus up north. The trucks drove all night on the main road, where our hotel was. The flimsy door and thin windows allowing us all the road rumble.

Next part of the northern trip into rural places in a few days, when we’re back in Lahore. We’re leaving (Rawalpindi today, hope there’s enough buses to Lahore.

Oh yeah, new pics uploaded! You can already sneak peek our further trip to Mianwali, Kalabagh, the Indus river and Taxila. (click on above link ey!)

here some:
Bhutto billboard at Sahiwal

Harappa site

Kids sliding off the limestone hill

the friendly highway patrol post

albino local in snack shop, Bahawalpur

Uch Sharif





tailor shop with election posters

tame bird (woodpecker we think), I held it too

Panjnad head, river at sunset

side canal

Internet.
Indeed we haven’t left for the Sufi festival at Pak Patan.
Actually because some of the foreigners who went there returned back from it, giving reports of it being a mud pit (due to the bad weather) and not a festival as such. They also told that the music was mostly Qawwali and nearly no Sufi dancing, while most of the music was limited to the community only and not to any visitor nor foreigner.

Today was the day we belated had planned to go, just to catch one day and see what would happen trying to get into places. Mr. Malik, the part-time hotel owner (and a documentary maker at the same time) told us this morning that the music had ended at Pak Patan. So much for our effort. ah well, 1 extra night then. It being 2 holy days (today and tomorrow) for the end of Muharram.

Mr Malik had arranged a trip to a village 35 km’s away with some old history for everyone who wanted to come along, so we hopped along with this instead. Out of the bus into the village, we attracted the usual attention of the locals. We had expected to walk around in the town and see some nature or farm fields, but it soon became clear that there was a procession about to happen, again for the end of Muharram. Which could only mean one thing: all knives and sickles out by the chain. At the place of procession, we were led through all the security lines. Men armed with any type of rifle or shotgun were posted along every alley and searching people. (more about this precaution later). They didn’t really search us, through the guidance of Mr Malik and his cousin, who are figures of high regard within the local community. All of us could wander around, shooting photographs and looking at the evocative storytelling by a young imam. He was telling the story of Muharram Hussain, how he was slaughtered in Iraq 500 years ago that inspired the celebration of Muharram and its chastising practicion.

Before it all would start, we all were called back by Mr Malik and his companions who took us into a nearby building where we got a delicious meal of peppered rice, roti and chickpea’s. There we got talking about Pakistani politics, especially because one of our pack was a French journalist who writes for Le Point up to the elections and residing in our hotel. It was said that the village we were in, was a Shi’ite community. In Pakistan, Sunni’s and Shi’ites live together, though in a ration of 80% Sunni and 12% Shi’ite. I asked Mr Malik about predictions for the upcoming elections. Bhutto’s party already had 35% of the votes in the first election, since her death the polls indicate a 45% share. Definitely a landslide win in a multiple party election.

During dinner, Mr Malik’s younger cousin showed us the scars on his back from his previous 6 chastising Muharrams. And he again would do it in 30 minutes or so. After the food we went out to the procession place again. The young imam was still preaching, more evocative and shouting than before and many men and women were weeping. Suddenly the crowd split from the middle and in came men running in black kurta. The ceremonial kurta. And with them the sickle knives on chains. They started chastising themselves right away and we all grabbed out camera’s or in my case, my mobile recorder, to register all this self inflicted bloodshed. The sound of rustling chains and sickles cutting into their flesh was direct in your face. Looking at this scene, it looked like a bewildered feast of punishment. As the cuts on their back became bigger, the gaze of the men became more hazy, as if in trance. Which they were. There are nearly no words to describe this scene as you are witnessing it.
One of our 2 Polish photographer friends even got some blood spats on him.
It went on with singing from the Imam and by the chastisers themselves. Impressive sound. Chest beatings, sickles, chains and strong vocals. Photo’s to come very soon whenever we can, by courtesy of our Polish friends Majik and Andre.

On the Peshawar explosion.
Another bomb blast last thursday. Did that even make the news back in the West?
*Only 12 people dead*, someone in our hotel said on a slightly ironic note. Every Thursday there seems to be a bomb attack somewhere in a big city.
When I heard about it, I was eating my aloo palak (potato spinach curry) in a cornershop canteen where the TV was showing images of an explosion. Rubble, people lying around, crying people walking throughout the scene. The Pakistani locals were sitting around, eating their dish or sipping their chai without a hint of desparation. Rather a glare of silent acceptance and confident concentration. It’s no a special-of-the-day here for them anymore, so why frown? It actually happened during the Muharram procession. Explosions during holy ceremonies apparently are part of the extremist game. Or perhaps an internal attack. Sunni’s versus Sji’ites?
Next morning the Lahore newspaper said that Lahore police would increase their roadblocks and forces on the street. That was noticed straight away and there still is a lot of police on the street. Besides that, all is quiet and peaceful here.
Lahore already had his blast 2 weeks ago. Safe, you reckon?

On Bhutto.
So the CIA says that Al Qaeda/Taliban is behind it. Such smart folks, oh.
That the extremists have it difficult under the Musharraf rule is a given fact, but what if Bhutto would have ruled? Would Bhutto have gotten all the backing of the army and especially all the generals during her reign with Musharraf bitter of losing control? That leaves a lot of food for thought and reckoning that extremists might cut into themselves. The word on the Lahore street is that either Musharraf is behind it and some even dare say that Bhutto’s husband was in the conspiracy, to get control of the party. Absurd? well…. Or what about the other opponent parties? So many factors to calculate into this. Perhaps all of the above have had a part in it. Who knows. Conspiracy theories are what they are for no reason. Forever blurred by opinions that divide people.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow we do leave Lahore to the south. We’d like to stop at Harappa, an ancient Indus valley civilization site dating 3000 BC. And also Multan and Uch Sharif are on our itinerary.

Soon pics of Muharram today. They speak their image out loud.