Pakistan
Culture shock in Lahore
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Johan Kruseman
Updated on 10 September 2024
Updated on 10 September 2024
After two weeks of mountain villages and snowy basecamps, there couldn’t be a larger contrast than Lahore. A 14 million people metropole, an alarmingly high smog level (you could smell it and even though there were zero clouds the sun could hardly come through) and with one of the most chaotic traffic situations I had ever experienced.
That’s why in Lahore I have started to appreciate the concept of pavements. And traffic lights. By the sheer lack of them, I felt at times pretty vulnerable, as the road was equally shared by pedestrians, donkeys, horses, bicycles, motor bikes, tuktuks, cars and trucks, me as pedestrian being all at the bottom of this food chain. And directions also didn’t really matter where around 10% was ghost rider.
But what was surprisingly the same as in the mountains was the pure kindness of everybody, no matter how poor. Going for some street food as breakfast, I tried a few different things but when wanting to pay I got refused. The same occurred multiple times later: buying a water bottle but when handing over my money they again refused and at repeating my offer to pay they almost were offended. With my western mind this is something so hard to understand but at the same time so heart warming.
To finish my breakfast, I went for a small fruit stand and asked for a fruit shake. The electricity was down in town, so he started to run the generator. But poor boy, the drawstring broke, so no fruitshake this time. Quick enough however I found a second fruitshake stall. So i tried my luck there. He happily started to pour in milk and add icecubes, the two things a western stomach can’t handle so i asked him if he could create a shake without those elements. He thought a bit and then grabbed a handful of red berries which produced enough liquid to create a drinkable shake: yummie!
Then we have two bizar phenomena to go in my very last two days. Let’s start with this border ceremony at the Wagah border, the only open border between India and Pakistan. Even though India and Pakistan are not best friends, after having been created by splitting the British colony into a muslim state (Pakistan) and a place for Hindu’s (India), and are still in a state of debate about the Kashmir region, every day they both have this mutually well orchestrated, weird and in a way funny, but also highly nationalistic show . At that time the border gets closed and audiences pile up on both sides, clearly in a battle to have the largest and loudest audience and soldiers who can kick their feet the highest in the air.
The second event which closed this stonoushing trip for me was the Sufi night, a night celebrated every Thursday in a mosque. The small mosque was filled by men, smoking hash, a few dancing devotedly on the highly infectious sufi drum music, going on all night, making it the best final evening of this incredible country.
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Traveled route: Islamabad, Gilgit, Hunza Valley, Aliabad, Karimabad, Gulmit, Borith lake, Patundas glacier, Husseini bridge, Passu Cones, Sost, Chapursan Valley, Zuhdkhun, BabaGhundi shrine, Khunjerab Pass, Attabad Lake, Gulkin, Minapin, Rakaposhi Basecamp, Railkor bridge, Fairy Meadows, Nanga Parbat basecamp, Lahore, Walled City, Sunehri mosque, Wazir Khan mosque, Data Darbar, Lahore fort, Haveli restaurant, Badshahi mosque, Shalimar gardens, Wagah border
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