First Stop: Islamabad, Pakistan
March 20 & 21, 2006
My flight was scheduled for 8am Monday morning. There was a certain irony that my flight was scheduled early like that. Even though I was starting a one-month vacation I still had to get up at 5 am (my usual time for work) to get to the airport by six. Of course the weekend before I was to leave the weather was perfect, but I had no time for the sunshine; I was too busy with all my last-minute packing. At least there was a great view of Mt. Rainier as we flew out of Sea-Tac.
After nearly 40 hours of uneventful travel I arrived in Islamabad, the capitol of Pakistan. My flight arrived in the middle of the night (around 3am). Even though it was oh-dark-hundred in Pakistan my body was still on Seattle time, so it was late afternoon according to my circadian rhythm.
At that hour locating a hotel was a minor challenge. I had picked out a hotel from my Lonely Planet guidebook, but when my cab pulled up infrot of the Friends Hotel it was shuttered and I had my doubts if it was even still in business. My next choice, Hotel Ambassador, had a man working at the night desk, but he regretted to inform me they were full. My cabbie kept insisting that I stay at the hotel he pointed out intially, but the front of the building was covered in scaffolding and was clearly under contstruction. It looked pretty dodgy and I wanted nothing to do with it. However it was now 4am and I had no interest in being on the street in a city in Pakistan in the dark early hours of the morning.
The man at the desk wanted me to pay 2200 Pakistani rupees for a single (close to $40), but even if it wasn't under construction the hotel was not worth more than $10 a night. Could only haggle the guy down to 1200 rupees ($20), outrageous! I knew I was being robbed, but my options were limited and I was tired. At least the shower was hot, it was my only concillation. The toilet was a "squater" and there was no toilet paper (good thing I packed some).
Islamabad did not look like much at night and daylight did little to improve my opinion of it. It's a new city (founded 1960) and planned; as one Pakistani guy told me probably the only city in Asia that is laid out on a grid. It is too new to have any personality and the only thing in Islamabad of interest to tourists is a gigantic mosque built by the Saudis, but I didn't have time to see it.
Like most tourists my main interest in Islamabad was getting out of there. My first task was to change some travelers checks. Turns out there is only one place in the whole city travelers checks can be exchanged. The place was hard to find, the building had no signs, but I should have realized I had found the place by the number of armed guards around the building. Pakistan occationaly has a wild west feel by the number of armed guards infront of any buisiness with something worth stealing. The guards are usually armed with an assortment of rifles, pistol-grip pump shotguns, sub-machine guns, and assault rifles.
Travelers checks have turned out to be a major liability on this trip. In Pakistan there was only one place in Islamabad to exchange them, no place in Peshawar, and as I would discover in Kabul no bank would take them.
My flight was scheduled for 8am Monday morning. There was a certain irony that my flight was scheduled early like that. Even though I was starting a one-month vacation I still had to get up at 5 am (my usual time for work) to get to the airport by six. Of course the weekend before I was to leave the weather was perfect, but I had no time for the sunshine; I was too busy with all my last-minute packing. At least there was a great view of Mt. Rainier as we flew out of Sea-Tac.After nearly 40 hours of uneventful travel I arrived in Islamabad, the capitol of Pakistan. My flight arrived in the middle of the night (around 3am). Even though it was oh-dark-hundred in Pakistan my body was still on Seattle time, so it was late afternoon according to my circadian rhythm.
At that hour locating a hotel was a minor challenge. I had picked out a hotel from my Lonely Planet guidebook, but when my cab pulled up infrot of the Friends Hotel it was shuttered and I had my doubts if it was even still in business. My next choice, Hotel Ambassador, had a man working at the night desk, but he regretted to inform me they were full. My cabbie kept insisting that I stay at the hotel he pointed out intially, but the front of the building was covered in scaffolding and was clearly under contstruction. It looked pretty dodgy and I wanted nothing to do with it. However it was now 4am and I had no interest in being on the street in a city in Pakistan in the dark early hours of the morning.
The man at the desk wanted me to pay 2200 Pakistani rupees for a single (close to $40), but even if it wasn't under construction the hotel was not worth more than $10 a night. Could only haggle the guy down to 1200 rupees ($20), outrageous! I knew I was being robbed, but my options were limited and I was tired. At least the shower was hot, it was my only concillation. The toilet was a "squater" and there was no toilet paper (good thing I packed some).
Islamabad did not look like much at night and daylight did little to improve my opinion of it. It's a new city (founded 1960) and planned; as one Pakistani guy told me probably the only city in Asia that is laid out on a grid. It is too new to have any personality and the only thing in Islamabad of interest to tourists is a gigantic mosque built by the Saudis, but I didn't have time to see it.Like most tourists my main interest in Islamabad was getting out of there. My first task was to change some travelers checks. Turns out there is only one place in the whole city travelers checks can be exchanged. The place was hard to find, the building had no signs, but I should have realized I had found the place by the number of armed guards around the building. Pakistan occationaly has a wild west feel by the number of armed guards infront of any buisiness with something worth stealing. The guards are usually armed with an assortment of rifles, pistol-grip pump shotguns, sub-machine guns, and assault rifles.
Travelers checks have turned out to be a major liability on this trip. In Pakistan there was only one place in Islamabad to exchange them, no place in Peshawar, and as I would discover in Kabul no bank would take them.
posted by TravelWriterWannaBe at 11:02 AM
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