4th july 2004, Update #2 straight from Islamabad!

After our first day in Islamabad we were longing for more of this wonderful culture, so yesterday we took a taxi to the main market/shopping area, the Raj Bazar in the old city of Rawalpindi (Islamabad is the modern city that was only build a few decades ago, Rawalpindi is the original city).

Woah! What an enormous amount of people, noise, pollution, beautiful clothing and smelly meat! The bazar is divided into separate sections, which is really useful if you are looking for something in particular and want to pay a good price.
We first entered the electronics bazar and even found some Panasonic batteries for my new camcorder, they did not even sell those in Amsterdam! Unfortunately the prices were similar to those in the western world...

We crossed the street to get to the other parts and spent many hours in narrow alleys, hidden shopping streets, open meat markets, fruitstalls and more.
Marian was wearing her Pakistani dress we bought in the Islamabad market the day before and wanted a matching scarf. While we were checking out some shop in the women section (were they sell mostly womens clothing, open for all), a nice lady approached us and asked in perfectly good english if we could find what we were looking for. This was the first woman who had said anything to us while being in Pakistan, so she surprised us.
But the surprised us even more by talking swiftly to the shop keeper and telling us that she had asked him to take the beautiful white scarf we found, bring us to another place where it would be dyed to match Marian's dress.
And lo and behold, after following the man through more narrow alleys we were told to sit down, take a pick out of many dozens colours on a chart and they cooked the paint right onto the scarf. Mangled, it, dried it in front of a fan and it was ready to wear! Great stuff and that for about $3, including the huge scarf itself.

We also found ourselves a great meal in one of the dark houses next to the market, got rice, some dal (lentils), some meat and okra as well as 2 softdrinks for 60 rupees in total. That's about $1!
The people were visibly surprised and amused in a good way to have us white guys eating there as this obviously did not happen much.

We were wondering why so many people looked at us until we realized that we had not seen one single westerner all day amoung these tens of thousands of people doing their stuff on the streets and markets.
What's more, we walked side by side most of the time. Not holding hands of course, but it was a strange sight for most people nevertheless. It's interesting to notice that there are many men on the street and many women as well. Some of hem covered from head to toe, but most were wearing just a headscarf or had their heads uncovered. Some were shy, many were looking at us curiously. But not once did we see another couple strollin the streets.

We got back but noticed our rupees had all been spent on the market and there were no money exchangers close, but Bilal saved us by treating us to another nice dinner with loads of spicy barbequed chicken and mutton.
Marian's stomach had been upset and it was no getting better, so we went to sleep quickly.

During the night, about 0500, the rest of the group arrived from South Africa with a long stopover in Dubai. We both put on our Pakistani dress and surprised Ulrike, Linda, Robert and Cecilia at breakfast and saw Fran, Anthony and Andre soon after, all looking quite drowsy. Only Ian had a big headache and stayed in bed, so we only saw his face in the evening.

We also met our Liaison officer, Captain Larik from Lahore, who seems to be a very nice person, which is important for expeditions like ours. He is appointed by the government, so you never know who you are going to get with you on the trek and climb.
We had supplied him with all his gear as is compulsory, but his pants did not fit and as we did not got his shoe size we gave him money to buy his own shoes.

We all went to the Rawalpindi Raj Bazar now to change some money and buy some last minute supplies like loads of nuts and dried fruits. It was great to have other people draw attention now, so I could take more pictures and shoot some video. If I can find a way to plug all my devices to this crappy PC, I will try to upload some ;-)

Just had some more great food, now we have to start repacking our repacked gear to sort it all out into 25kg drums and bags, ready to go to the Karakoram highway!
But first we will have to report to the ministry tomorrow to get our approval for our climbing permit, so stay tuned....

All the best from sunny Islambad.
Harry