and although I am usually a tight wad with my money, I realised this was a good time to spend some. So I waltzed down to the lobby expecting to have the concierge find me a suitable taxi for our city trip. But just then, I saw Mr Danesh and walked towards him. Danesh jumped up and said, “Good afternoon sahib. I hope you and Mrs Membrey had a good night at the hotel.” I asked Danesh if he was available to drive us around the city for an hour and he agreed. On asking the price he said $40 US dollars. Now this was quite expensive, but as I had plenty of cash and it was the UN’s money, I agreed and said we would be down within 10 minutes. Jude was very happy about having Mr Danesh again and soon we were on our way.
The drive was very interesting and Danesh told us about the history of the place and showed us significant features. But to me, the roads all seemed to look the same, with thick crowds, rubbish everywhere and signs I couldn’t read. But on we went. After a while Danesh asked if we’d like to go to the Karachi beach and as I had recently seen a show on the dismantling of huge ships on the beach not so far from Karachi, I got a little excited. However, the ship graveyards turned out to be several kilometres east of where we were and so we didn’t see them. The city beach was wide, broad and flat. It extended for several kilometres to the east and to the west and the sand was a dark black. I wondered if this was a natural colour or from oil pollution as there was a strange smell to it. The water also was a murky brown. Nobody was swimming, even though it was ghastly hot and few people were even on the huge beach. I thought of the comparison between here and Australian beaches where somebody will be swimming regardless of the season. Then, as we were about to move back to the car, I noticed a lone camel man and his animal walking along the beach, with a Pakistani woman and her kids on top as tourists. I thought this might be fun, though time was against us and we needed to get back to the hotel. I did not know then I would ride that exact camel the following year.
On our return to the hotel I realised it had been almost two hours since we left. I therefore asked Danesh how much I owed him and his curt response was, “$40 dollars as agreed sahib.” I was about to remind him we had been gone for nearly two hours but instead just put a $50 US dollar note in his hand and thanked him. He smiled and shook my hand, and we went back to our room, each of us satisfied.
The next morning we were up and at breakfast at 8am as our flight to Islamabad was scheduled for 11 am that morning. We had packed our bags and had the bell boys bring them down to the lobby as I paid the bill and looked for Mr Danesh. Sadly he wasn’t there and we were loaded into an old, dirty mini-van owned by the hotel. The driver was an unfriendly type of guy in contrast to Mr Danesh. Jude and I steeled ourselves for the maddening crowds again.
Once at the airport several trolley boys rushed to the van and tried to grab our bags, but our driver held them back and selected two to assist us. “No more than 15 Rupees each,” he said sternly to me, then got in the mini-van and drove off. We were on our own again. The two trolley boys, though, were very helpful and got us into the airport without incident and right up to the X-ray machines. I paid them both and without comment they left. Once through the machines we were sans trolleys, and so I grabbed a nearby, seemingly abandoned one. As we loaded it up, a Pakistani man in a suit came up to me and said this was in fact his trolley and he had just been waiting for his bags from the X-ray machine. I apologised and asked him if we could keep it pointing to Jude whose pregnant belly could not be missed. He was very nice about it, agreed and wished us both well. I admit I was a little surprised but very happy. Perhaps I was wrong about the Pakistanis, I thought, and this became an issue of contention in the following months.
ooOoo
Once past security, we checked in at the counter and headed to the lounge of Pakistan International Airlines. I later came to know that many expats and a large number of Pakistani joked about the airline’s acronym of PIA. Back in 1991 it was commonly known to stand for Personal Inconvenience Assured, Prepare In Advance, or Parachute Is Advised. Not long after, I was to find out why!
The PIA lounge was disappointing to say the least. It was old and had dirty carpets and its chairs were over-used and deeply worn. The snacks consisted of just a few fried pastries and some weird-looking sweet cakes. All that was available to drink was water, soft drinks or tea. Quite a comedown from our time with Qantas but, unbeknown to us then, the new airport was just being started and would be opened some three years later.
Luckily, it wasn’t long until we had to collect our hand luggage and march off to the aircraft, and march we did. There were no passenger walkways to the aircraft, nor any buses, and so we must have walked about 600 metres or more along the sweltering tarmac from the gate to the plane. As we approached, I noticed there was scaffolding raised to the outer engine of the left wing of this old Boeing 707. I could see two technicians working with their heads inside the engine cowling. This was something to behold as we were intending to fly on this very aircraft and yet these guys were obviously still working on the engine. I was intrigued and a little concerned. As I walked, I continued to watch them. Both seemed to have finished their work and were trying to close the engine cowling. As they pushed it down to shut, it rebounded open. So, they slammed it and again it slowly opened. I saw them slam this cowling at least four of five times. Then one of them bent down and actually kicked the cowling with a Karate type kick. This was intended to really force it to shut, but the cover just slowly, once again opened. I was flabbergasted and could not stop watching. I couldn’t believe aircraft technicians were kicking an engine cowling shut, just before I was about to board the same aircraft. Then, the other technician who was now burying his head inside his tool kit, stood up, and with a smirk on his face, spoke to the other man. I couldn’t hear what he said, but he then put his head once again inside the engine and slowly pulled out a very large shifter, or wrench. He then gently pushed down on the cowling and it shut and locked. The two had a giggle, wobbled their heads and climbed down the scaffolding. I nearly tripped on the first step of the aircraft stairs as my lower jaw banged to the ground!
Anyway, the plane soon took off after the ubiquitous Islamic prayers over the sound system and we were off on our way to Islamabad. It was only a three-hour flight but I couldn’t help being disappointed at the lack of video service, grog and Qantas-standard chocolate mousse.
ooOoo
Eventually the tyres again screeched as we landed in Islamabad, though they also bumped and bounced as we hit the tarmac. After exiting the aircraft, we entered the airport that was at least air-conditioned though just as crowded and as bad as Karachi. We eventually collected our bags and moved outside into the heat of the day. Luckily, two gentlemen, a driver and a UN officer met us and took care of us straight away. The gentleman was Mr Tarek Zubari who was a former army officer and who became a good friend of us both in the coming months. Tarek advised us that we would travel directly to the Holiday Inn hotel and he hoped we had had a nice time in his country so far. Of course we both lied and said we had.
It is interesting to note that all military and former military officers seem to have an esprit de corps regardless of their nationality, differing backgrounds or persona. I guess it’s a military conception, though it seems to always work and it certainly did with us and Tarek. He was a strong leader type of guy and at the Holiday Inn hotel he had our room upgraded, at no extra cost, and made us really feel welcomed. Before he left, he indicated that the next day was a free day for us and that we should just relax and avoid going outside the city as the Gulf War had just commenced in Iraq and things ‘could get a little uncomfortable’ in the streets. I noted this and promised we would remain in the hotel grounds. So with Tarek now gone, we made ourselves comfortable and I looked for the gym.
That evening, the Gulf War formally commenced and US aircraft entered into Iraqi airspace and bombed the daylights out of Baghdad. CNN was an upstart news service in those early days and the Gulf War was to bring them really into the main stream. We watched closely as the stealth fighter’s flight plans were explained on CNN, as were the bomb damage reports and other incidentals of the ongoing carnage. For the next week we were to spend every spare minute watching CNN, even though the news stories degenerated somewhat and soon we were
