Khyber Dreams Chapter 18: Peshawar
The city of Peshawar has been much in the news of late due to its being a hotbed of terrorist activity. Of course it would be. Just my luck, because Peshawar, next to the Khyber Pass, was my very favorite place in all of Pakistan. If I ever got the opportunity to go to that part of the world again, I would love to visit Peshawar. But I never will because going there now, for an American woman would be taking my life in my hands.
One of the salient reasons I loved it is that for the first time in the months we were in Pakistan, we saw green grass. I can’t remember writing about the landscape in earlier posts, but most of Pakistan is brown, brown, brown. Dry, dry, dry. Dusty. Barren. Desolate. Except for the cities, which are crowded, noisy and the smell of diesel fuel permeates everything. As one who craves mountains, trees and grass, most of Pakistan depressed my spirit.
Peshawar lifted it. I can’t say with any honesty that I loved any other part of Pakistan, but I loved Peshawar.
We took a train from Rawalpindi to Peshawar, and the further we traveled, the better I felt. (Probably that was partly due to to being farther and farther from the fish I ate in Rawalpindi, too.)
When we arrived at the train station, Abid looked around for some sort of transportation to his sister Taj’s house. We had few choices: a motorized rickshaw or a horse-drawn tonga. In researching this entry, I found a delightfully-detailed description of all aspects of rickshaws. Here is an article about tongas. Unfortunately it doesn’t include a photo, but it does feature links to many articles of interest about the frontier towns of western Pakistan.
We chose a tonga for our transportation. This video gives you an idea of what our ride looked like from our perspective–before it came to a sudden stop, and all of us tumbled forward. Abid landed on top of the back end of the horse. Neither he nor the horse were happy about it, and the driver wasn’t too pleased either, although the nice old man tried his best to help us up and back into the tonga.
As miserable as I was in other parts of Pakistan, I reveled in my time in Peshawar. I still wasn’t feeling top-notch, but
Taj and her husband
the change in both weather and scenery did me a world of good. I loved Abid’s sister Taj and her family, as well. (Not that there was any member of Abid’s family who didn’t go over-and-above to make sure our visit was perfect.)
Peshawar has a flavor not existent in any other Pakistani city we visited. You learn very quickly that this is a frontier, an outpost. From what I hear on the news, things have not changed significantly in the 40+ years since I was there.
As we set out to explore the city, Abid warned me.
“See those men with the turbans?”
I nodded.
“Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t acknowledge them in any way.”
“Why?”
“They are Pathans, and they are tribal people from the hills. They don’t trust anyone, they all carry guns, and they don’t hesitate to shoot.” Since that time I’ve heard the same admonition echoed over and over. Articles about Afghanistan and the Northwest provinces will often mention the ferocity of the Pathans (also called Pashtuns).
Peshawar was the first place I saw a “walking tent,” too. It goes right along with the frontier flavor of the Northwest Territories. Put Pakistan back into the dark ages (much as Afghanistan is), and you have the status of women. Whereas in the more modern cities such as Karachi and Lahore, you’d see a few women wearing burqa, but you’d also see faces exposed. In Peshawar many of the women, particularly those accompanying Pathan men, bared absolutely nothing. They wore a burqa made of a heavy tent material (or so it appeared) with a net over the eyes so they could see out. (Scroll down about halfway in the burqa link, and you’ll see the type of garb so common in the Northwest Territories.) Can you imagine wearing such a thing in a region where daytime temps routinely reach 100 degrees in the summer?
I can’t say I wanted to remain anywhere else in Pakistan, but I would have given anything to be able to stay in the Peshawar area. It was also the starting point for the greatest adventure of my Pakistani journey.
Another faux wedding picture, with Safia, me, Taj and Taj's daughter
This was really interesting… not that the others weren’t but this kind of hit something in me. From some of our past life experiences seminars and such, I’ve always thought I would have been a great frontier woman. Traveling to spots like Peshawar would really be my thing. Maybe that’s why I enjoy traveling so much and would have loved Africa. Be that as it may, please post more on this fascinating part of the world.
I second Pat’s comments. Each episode of “Khyber Dreams” is more exciting and fascinating than the one preceding it. Either I’m more forgetful than I realize or I’ve simply never heard most of these adventures before. Can’t wait for the next one.