Lahore, Part Deux

Simon writes:

In response to a pointed email from a fella known to me (and selected others) as Monty about our blog thinning out somewhat, here follows a long-winded account of our experiences of the past few days. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you the best tourist destination in the world: Lahore, Pakistan. Fact.

Although a depressingly large part of our popular "culture" endeavours to suggest that everybody should aspire to become famous (I'm thinking of vacuous travesties like Big Brother, Pop Idol etc), very few people are able to feel like a genuine celebrity, still less to feel truly important and justifiably valued by complete strangers. As a foreigner in Pakistan, things are different. The hospitality and kindness of the Pakistani people is truly humbling.

The other night we were taken to a music festival courtesy of the hostel we're staying at. The place was already packed out when we arrived - hundreds of people sitting cross-legged on mats in front of a huge platform occupied by VIPs garlanded with flowers. We were ushered to the front to hastily vacated sofas, given free mineral water, soft-drinks and food and treated to the most amazing evening of Pakistani culture.

There were fiery Imams giving sermons on how to be a good Muslim and then breaking into song, an extraordinary little child that sang Sufi tunes and worked the crowd like somebody ten times his age and the opportunity for us to crowd surf (we politely declined) to the sounds of a singer/rapper accompanied by a human beat box. The whole atmosphere was sweetened by rosewater sprayed over our heads at regular intervals. Later one of Pakistan's most celebrated Sufi bands showed up to wild applause, jostling crowds and TV cameras. Eat your heart our Simon Cowell.

The whole evening was hosted by this splendid individual:

With tears in his eyes he made a welcoming speech (later translated) for us about how, no matter where we came from and no matter what religion we were, we are all brothers and sisters, we all bleed red and we are all part of one humanity.

Apart from being genuinely touching, this speech made us feel slightly less tense about the random cross-eyed bloke with a machine gun who was guarding one of the VIPs very near to us and who seemed to see no issue with jostling and pushing the crowds with one arm while holding his loaded weapon in the other (well, this is Pakistan after all!). I do have a photo of him but damn it if this sodding machine won't upload it!

Almost every night we've been in Lahore there's been a cultural treat for us to enjoy (I'm aware that this phrase sounds proper sucky but I couldn't think of anything else). There have been concerts on the roof terrace in our hostel and a wild Sufi drumming night with sweat-drenched dancers working themselves into a trance. I have video evidence.

All the while, we've always felt welcome and never felt threatened. A wander round the old city was accompanied by phrases like "Hi foreigners, hi!", "We love your people!" and "You are our guests here." This last one came from a steward at the cricket ground who let us in for free to see the first day of the test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka yesterday. There we met "Uncle Cricket", Pakistan's most famous cricket fan who showed us his international photo album and (of course) gave us some of his food. I also had the opportunity to explain the rules of the game to an agreeable American guy from Idaho called Chad. Again, I have pictures but no way of uploading them (the ones I have managed to upload were done yesterday).

In short, people: go to Lahore! Do it!

There is but one caveat to all the legendariness (and no, I don't care that this is not a real word) that is Pakistan: the possibility of the surprisingly sudden onset of a virulent and downright explosive stomach complaint that turns one's body from a blushing grape of joy into a shriveled raisin of despair in just a few short hours. Alas, such an eventuality has come to pass. I'm convalescing...

Next up it's Quetta, Balochistan and Iran (we have the visa and the safety assurances).

More pictures: