Tony Wheeler: Memories of Pakistan

Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2007, 7:46 PM by Lonely Planet

We may not remember the broad sweep of events, but some childhood memories can be crystal clear many, many years later. I'm continually surprised how many sharply etched memories I have of Karachi in Pakistan, because I was only 5-1/2 years old when I left.



So those memories of a huge whale carcass being dragged into Keamari harbour, the scary jellyfish stranded on the sands of Clifton Beach, the buzzard that used to peer down from atop a flagpole outside the house where my family had an apartment on Bath Island Road, the camel carts, the man who did sleight of hand tricks outside my father's office at the airport, they're all the memories of a small child.

It was not until many years later that I returned to Pakistan, travelling along the Asia Overland Route, the 'hippy trail' of the '70s which took me through Afghanistan, over the Khyber Pass and down on to the plains of the subcontinent to continue in to India and up to Nepal.

More years passed before I finally got back to Karachi, clutching a photo of the house where we'd lived so many years earlier. In the family photo album I'd even found a snapshot of a small me standing beside the cook's even smaller daughter, after my mother had managed to insert our Morris Minor between her and a rabid dog and told me to open the door and get the kid inside.



I was back in Pakistan again last year, in the sensitive Kashmir border area inspecting an aid group's work after the disastrous 2005 earthquake. There was one connecting theme to all these visits and indeed to the experience of many other Pakistan visitors I've talked to over the years. We've all enjoyed travelling in the country and found the Pakistanis we've encountered friendly, outgoing and helpful. Not quite the image we get in the news, is it?

Labels: Asia and Pacific, Been there done that

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