Home » Pakistan » From Russia to India (part VI: From Gilgit to Lahore)

I have some physiological problem with staying in Muslim countries. I grew up in the North and I better tolerate cold than heat. I can survive hot weather also, but I have to remove as much clothes as possible to allow the normal process of perspiration to take care of heat exchange. In Muslim countries you cannot undress. Allah hates to see human flesh. All tour-books specially warn: "No short sleeve shirts, no shorts!"

From Russia to India (part VI: From Gilgit to Lahore)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 19:33:42

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LP warns about danger of heat strokes for bicyclists below Gilgit and in fact it was very hot there. So I decided to try to wear short sleeve shirt and shorts. Nothing terrible happened. I got about 30% less "Hello" than before, one man stared at my bare legs and made evil face and one old lady also showed her disgust. I even risked removing my shorts (it is really taboo), but I did it when I rested away from the highway.

Unlike Karimabad, Gilgit is not a nice place and also it is incredibly dirty. I got awful diarrhea there. Gilgit has history of sectarian fights. Sunny, Shiites and Islamists resolve their differences in the interpretation of Koran with guns. A day before my departure three people were killed. Usually it has terrible traffic. The morning I left, there was no other transportation except for military trucks with soldiers in combat uniforms and my bike.

The bus ride to Islamabad took 17 hours. There were no other foreigners on the bus. There were three veiled unknown age women, escorted by a man in the bus. Women are not allowed to be unescorted in public in Gilgit. As I said before, the different towns have different rules of behavior. We made two food/toilet and two pray stops, and I had a chance to observe Muslim men's behavior. They are very friendly to each other. While they were obviously not related, they behave like family. They are very well organized: all go to pray, all load/unload luggage, eat in large group and eat from each others plates with bare hands. They do not use spoons or forks. The more I observed them, the more I got the feeling that it reminds me something. Oh yes, it was the unity of Soviet people in the best years of USSR. Both knew that their ideology was best. Both wanted the others to accept it, for their own good. In this sense, the standard question "Are you Muslim" sounds like "Are you Komsomolets (Member of Young Communists League)"

Islam ideology as well as socialistic ideology ...