Itinerary and Map


(Scroll down for the photos)

Keywords:
EGYPT: Abu Simbel, Pyramids, Alexandria Library, Burning Bush, Aga Khan, Alexander, Ramses, Red Sea, Scuba Diving, Open Water Certification, Mount Sinai, Hurghada, Giza, Abydos, Dendara, Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Thebes, Memphis
JORDAN: Dead Sea Scrolls, Jerash, Dead Sea, Petra, Crusader castles, mosaic
INDIA: Khajuraho, Kamasutra, Banaras, Varanasi, Allahabad, Taj Mahal, Haridwar, Ayodhya
PAKISTAN: Taxila, Indus Valley Civilization, Moenjodaro, Harappa, Khyber Pass, Bolan Pass, Afghanistan, Nankana Sahib, Panja Sahib, Guru Nanak Dev, hari Singh nalwa, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Jamrud Fort

Many of my friends ask why I visited Pakistan, especially since these are tough times there, what with the imposition of the emergency (that's since been lifted). The answer is quite simple: The land that's now Pakistan is in my DNA. Both my parents were born and raised there, until the partition of India in 1947. My mother was born and raised in Gujranwala, and my father was born in Dera Ghazi Khan and raised in Lahore. Interest in the respective photos is really limited to me and my family, so those photos are in separate albums. In the past, I tried unsuccessfully to get a Pakistan visa, but was denied. It took an American passport (that I got last year) for me to get an unrestricted visa to Pakistan. The few Indians that do get the chance to visit Pakistan get city-specific visas and are required to register with the police periodically. The Indians reciprocate these measures.

Everywhere I went, I scanned the newspapers and internet (where possible) to gauge the security situation. Bomb blasts, rocket attacks, kidnappings seemed to constantly be in the news. I was often startled to learn how fortunate I was to avoid these by a matter of a day or a few hours. Two days after I visited DG Khan, I learned that two travelers to that city were killed while resisting a dacoity on their minibus. In Quetta, the air was exceedingly tense. The evening I reached in Quetta, I learned that a hand grenade had been lobbed into a Punjabi-owned sweet shop in the main square of downtown Quetta. There was at least one fatality, and some people had been injured. There is hostility between the Balochs (locals - Quetta is the capital city of Balochistan) and Punjabis - this was worrisome for me as I look like (and indeed am, though from across the border in India) a Punjabi. Here is the link to this news article. My accent is decidedly Punjabi, which would be very obvious to anyone who decided to talk to me (and locals often did - the first question being - "where are you from" to which usually my answer was "Lahore"). Moreover, my hotel manager told of three men from Shikarpur, Punjab that stayed at the hotel a few days before me. Their money and car was looted at gunpoint. They would have been killed but used their wits by not agreeing to going with their looters. If they had done so, they would not have returned alive, is what he told me. A few days later, there was a powerful bomb blast in Quetta army cantonment that killed at least 8 and injured 22.

In Peshawar, there were rocket attacks targeted at a girls' school and an air force base a few days before I visited. The Pakistan army was (and still is as I write this in late Dec 2007) fighting a full-scale war against the Taliban in Swat valley, a few score Km away from Peshawar. There were numerous other news articles of violence that I can't find online and paste here.


PHOTOS (In reverse chronological order)

WARNING: Be advised that some of the photos in the Egypt and India albums contain temple art of a sexually explicit nature. You must be 18 years of age to view these albums