Is It Safe in Pakistan?

All the time i was there, i get this feeling that the western media had done much to make people believe that Pakistan is a dangerous place to visit.

Before i left, i had informed Habib Hassan that i was going to Pakistan with my mother. Indeed he looked worried and advised me to take care and stay away from crowded areas.

When i booked the flight tickets to Islamabad, i was more excited than cautious. In all honesty, there were some reasons holding me back from making the trip. Yet, the issue of safety wasn't one of them.

I googled up is it safe to travel to pakistan and found a page "Pakistan Travel Advice" by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While reading through it, suddenly the disturbing images of the Islamabad Marriot Hotel bombing of September 2008 surfaced to mind. And for the first time, i did feel affected.

I read through the travel advice given:

"There is a high threat from terrorism and sectarian violence throughout Pakistan. Attacks could be indiscriminate including at places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers.

Following the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan on 2 May, you should be aware of a possible increase in threat throughout the country. This may include an increased threat against westerners. We already advise against travel to much of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which includes Abbottabad and Charsadda, where a blast on 13 May 2011 killed at least 80 people. British nationals in Pakistan should be particularly vigilant at this time, including in all major cities of Pakistan. You should keep a low profile, avoid large gatherings and crowds, and limit movements on Friday afternoon. In Karachi, you should avoid the area around the US Consulate buildings in Saddar Town."

It didn't help that around this time i received a call from one of my aunts who had family in Mansehra and visited them there occasionally. Although happy for me, she gave me some stern advice:

"Chachi pesan, jangan berbual orang putih sana banyak sangat. Kalau naik public transport, baik diam aje. Jangan cakap apa-apa."

She told me not to speak English unnecessarily and if i was to take the public transport it was better for me to remain silent than risk drawing attention to myself. She added how it wasn't safe for young travellers like myself. Her nephew, while there, had his bus stopped along the highway by members of the Taliban. She added that the Taliban were concerned with young men of Pakistani descent returning to Pakistan, presumably because they were too western. At the same time, she told me to be wary of army personnel who frequently stopped buses and cars for checks. It seems the Pakistani army was concerned with young men of Pakistani descent returning to Pakistan, presumably to join the Taliban!

It didn't help that our flight on Thai Airways was arriving in Islamabad at 2210hrs, and that the journey to Mansehra by road will take at least another three hours. I emailed my aunt who was going to fetch us, asking her, "will it be safe to travel back to Mansehra the same night?" while all the time imagining a roadblock in the middle of a deserted highway with turban-wearing men carrying Kalashnikovs pulling me out of the vehicle and shoving me to the ground.

By the time our plane landed in Islamabad, i had honestly forgotten all of it.

We moved through the immigration and the customs without a single hitch. A cousin of mine who went to Pakistan by himself but landed in Karachi had described how he was left at the mercy of immigration officers there. They asked him for the address of his relatives - which he had carelessly forgotten to bring with him. They then proceeded to ask him to call his uncle who was waiting for him - despite his protests that he did not have a local cell line. Finally, sensing his desperation, they showed him to another officer and "advised" him (my cousin) to give a "tip" to the said officer.

All of this did not happen on my arrival, all through my departure.

Within half an hour, we were out of the Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

There is no stench nor sudden heat that greets you as you pass through the exit pushing your luggage trolley, on the contrary to what some friends may tell you about visiting Third World countries. What you see is an overwhelming image of hundreds of people, who at one glance all look the same, wearing the same shade of cream-coloured shalwar kameez. What i heard was my name being called, in the way that i already miss, "Abbas!" The "a" was fully aspirated and rounded, the "b" purely bilabial and "a" in the second syllable prolonged and "s" intonated with a higher pitch.

I knew to look to my left and i recognised my Aunty Noor immediately with her pink dupatta and my Uncle Zain in his blue shirt and bushy moustache. And what i felt at that moment cannot exactly be described in words.

After the initial hugs and greetings we went to the black Toyota they had rented for the occasion. I sat at the front throughout the journey. We first stopped at a gas station near Rawalpindi for a toilet break. I haven't use all the toilets in Pakistan to make an informed judgement on the state of cleanliness of toilets in Pakistan. But from first impressions, there really was nothing to complain about. It was clean.

Throughout the journey, the car was alive with chatter and laughter. There were numerous stops along the way, usually upon entering each town. Indeed some of them were uniformed officers, i wasn't sure if it was the traffic police or the army at those road blocks, slowing down cars and at times and occasionally flashing the torch through. Other times there were the toll booths that stopped us. But one thing i'm sure, there weren't bearded men wearing turbans brandishing Kalashnikovs to be seen anywhere. The journey to Mansehra took about three hours through the towns of Rawalpindi, Taxila, Hasan Abdal on the Grand Trunk Road and then Haripur, Havelian and finally Abbottabad on the Karakoram Highway (KKH).

Driving and roads seem such a feature of my trip to Pakistan as i would immediately learn. Right from the first night when my uncles Zain and Farooq took turns driving us from Islamabad, i got the sense that Pakistanis are the most skillful drivers in the world.

"Formerly Pakistanis did not drive fast, only dangerously. With the advent of improved roads, drivers now take additional risks by still driving dangerously, but also faster." 

- Discovery Channel Insight Guides: Pakistan

I recall what Amee (Ameera Begum Aslam) told me (my cousin) Nawaz had said to her the one time she gave him a lift home - "You drive like a [real] Pakistani." I thought if only he was there to witness it himself.

Pakistanis drive with the recklessness of a monster-truck driver and yet with the finesse of a cyclist. It speaks volumes when the first road sign a traveller spots is one that reads, "Avoid over-speeding." Imagine that - avoid over-speeding!

Most roads or 'highways' including the famed Karakoram Highway (KKH) are single carriageways with no divider to separate opposing traffic flows. That means it's a single lane to drive on and if you're stuck behind a slower moving truck (slow of course is just a matter of relativity), then you're going to overtake the driver in front. The overtaking of a vehicle is done from the right facing oncoming traffic and with the driver hitting the honks in order to wake the whole of Pakistan up!

The hilly slopes of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa can be tricky to negotiate. Accidents can occur if one is not careful.

Indeed, this goes back to the very question i had been asked again and again, "Is it safe in Pakistan?"

More than once when over-taking, the Peugeot or the Mehran Uncle Farooq was driving seemed to be in for a head-on collision with the oncoming car, only for him to accelerate and successfully cut back into his lane a mere two metres (i exaggerate not!) before the oncoming car crashed into him. And there were other times when you'd think the road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass by one another, a third car approaches and finds a way to squeeze through!

My mother had a significantly higher blood pressure while we were there. She attributed it to the tension she felt sitting in the car watching Uncle Farooq behind the wheel negotiating the bends along the moutain slopes, where really, a split-second break in concentration could send the whole car plunging hundreds or even thousands of feet down to certain death.

So is it safe in Pakistan? Well, if your uncle is driving and he's Pakistani, then yes, it is indeed safe in Pakistan..

Uncle Farooq has made the 30 hour drive from Karachi to Mansehra more than once. He's ever please to drive us around.