Photo Diary: Best of Karachi

Pani Puri in Pakistan

After eating some amazing home cooking in Karachi, I had the very rare opportunity to venture outside the home and eat some street food!

It was close to 10:00 pm, and the streets of Karachi were already dark. On the sides of the roads, men burned garbage that would leave thick sooty ash by morning.
Although the food cart was only a five minute walk from the house, it was decidedly unsafe to walk the  unlit path to the cart, especially at night, and especially for women.
So we drove three cars and fifteen people five minutes to the pani puri cart.

The cart was on the corner of the main street and a dark ally that was enclosed by three tall apartment buildings. When the owners of the cart saw us coming, the pushed several plastic tables together and scrounged around for enough chairs for our large party. We sat in the dark alley, protected by the buildings to three sides of us, and the pani puri cart separating us from the road. This was the only time I was ever in a public place at night in Karachi, and I was surrounded by friends.

We passed around paper plates and used our iphone flashlights to find utensils. We were all young, form 13 to 30. The streets were dark and dirty, but life was good. 

To take pictures of the food I had to use flash. Of course we ordered Pani Puri for everyone. Pani puri are hollow crackers  that are dipped into a spicy water. We ate with our hands, got dirty, and napkins were scarce. Oh well, that's what the dupatta is for!  Just kidding...no I'm not. 

Plain Panu Puri

Pani Puri with yogurt - my favorite, though it is messy

Chaat, another spicy dish with chickpeas and crackers

The chicken tikka roll - also delicious!

One of the highlights of the Pani Puri cart was the juice selection! My friend ordered orange juice (on the left). I thought that was too ordinary, but actually orange juice in Pakistan is totally different from American. First, it really is fresh squeezed, not the sugary stuff from concentrate that is sold in American grocery stores. Also, many juicers add a little salt to the orange juice, to enhance the citrus flavor. It was amazing!
I ordered the cheeku/chikoo shake (to the right), because I love the cheeku! It tasted like a chocolate milk shake.

Orange juice and Cheeku shake

Karachi Home Cooking

Food was one of the highlights of my trip to the Sindh province. Living with a family for five days, I knew I was going to have the privilege of sampling some delicious home cooking. For that reason, I didn't make a list of foods I wanted to try in Pakistan, I would just try whatever was given to me.

The family I stayed with in Karachi was Hindu, so their diet consisted of more vegetables than a typical Pakistani diet. Meat was something we really only ate for dinner, and it was always chicken. With all the delicious vegetables, most of which are not even available in the U.S., I didn't miss meat at all.

One element that surprised me of the overall Pakistani diet, was how much bread people consume. I had been under the assumption that India and Pakistan were rice cultures, but bread is the more common filler in most meals. We only ate rice once a day, and it was during dinner.

In the mornings we ate bread, called a rotti, which is similar to a thick tortilla. For the first two days my hosts gave me an non-spicy rotti, thinking that I would not like the spice. On the third day I tried someone else's rotti and love the spice (which was not too spicy for me at all), so every day after that I got a spicy rotti like everyone else.

For breakfast we ate the rotti accompanied by a papar, which is a crispy cracker.  I remembered having this food before at an Indian restaurant, so I called it "papadum" and that made everyone laugh. I have since learned that "papadum" is a Tamil word, not  Urdu, so that's why no one called it "papadum" in Karachi.

Papar/Papadum and spicy rotti

The other great thing about Pakistani food is the deserts. Overall, there were not a lot of sweets in our diet, but everyday after dinner a dessert was served. On one particular day, it was this Sheer Korma, which is a sweet milk with vermicelli noodles.

Sheer Korma, milk and noodles

While breakfast was usually rotti and papar, and lunch could be a number of vegetable dishes and rotti, dinners were more elaborate. One of my favorite meals was one that consisted of fried eggplant, fried spicy potatoes, which were wrapped in the rotti and dipped in a lentil soup.

Lentil soup, fried potatoes and eggplant, eaten with rotti

Tea is ubiquitous is Pakistan. I had a cup of hot, sweet, milky tea every day. It is most common to eat tea with some kind of sweet bread, like a biscuit or cookie, and to dip the bread into the tea. In other parts of the world I have often drank hot tea with milk, but it was totally different in Pakistan. The tea would come with a thick milk skin on the surface, and I later found out that this is because of how the tea is made. Instead of boiling the tea leaves in water, then adding cream and sugar, the tea is boiled in milk directly. This is the reason this tea is so rich and thick, and why it has that milk skin.

Pakistani tea

By far my favorite of Pakistan's fruit was called the cheeku or chikoo. It is a brown fruit that resembles a kiwi or potato from the outside, but inside it is the most deliciously sweet fruit I have ever eaten. The inside of the fruit is very soft, like a kiwi, and to me it tastes like chocolate.

Chikoo fruit

Typical examples of dinners with rice. A vegetable dish, lentil dish, chicken dish, and fried potatoes.

Rice, lentils with spinach, chicken, and friend potatoes. 

egetable dish, lentil dish, chicken dish, and fried potatoes

This sweet cracker is a special dessert for the Holi festival which happened to fall on the 27th of March this year. The Holi festival is famous because colorful powders are used on the face and body. At home, we did not go crazy like some of the street parties I've seen. We just used an orange power and put a little on each other's faces.

Holi cracker

A typical lunch is usually bread and a vegetable dish. Here is rotti with a pea and potato soup.

Every lunch and dinner we ate a "salad", which is not like the American salad with lettuce and dressing. I have come to understand that salad is really just raw vegetables. Mostly, we ate carrots, which extremely red and were unlike any carrots I have ever seen. They were delicious and I miss them. We also ate sliced cucumber, which tastes like regular cucumber.

Raw carrots and cucumber

One interesting meal was a chicken biryani. We were on our way to Hyderabad, which is a two hour drive from Karachi, and none of us had eaten lunch. One family member gave us a pot of biryani and we ate it with our hands in the car. I used the lid of the container to make a plate.

Chicken biryani

Every night at the house, before we went to bed, we drank a milk with green syrup. I watched one of the girls make this drink. It is a combination of cold milk and a green or red syrup like the kind we use for snow cones. This makes the milk s green color and very sweet. It looks weird but it takes good. 

Milk and green syrup

Writing about Pakistan in Portland

I arrived in Pakistan with only one suitcase and a notebook. I purposely left my laptop, and the majority of my stuff in Dubai. Basically, I didn't want to have to carry my old and clunky computer across four cities, four plane rides, and a bus. All the while worrying about it being lost, stolen, or damaged. I also didn't anticipate that I would be on facebook and email all that often (though both sites worked fine in Pakistan - only Youtube is banned).

I haven't kept a hand-writted travel diary since I spent a few months in Japan and I wasn't sure how much or how little I would use the notebook. I imagined that I would have time to write everyday, and that the journal would serve as a narrative of my trip and a chronicle of my thoughts and feelings each day. 

Yeah right.

Now that I am back in the states, and in the comfort of a Peet's Coffee in Portland, I am able to relive my experiences in Pakistan while I am transcribing them. As I type, the dried petals of cherry blossom trees rain down on my computer, so much that I have to wipe off the keyboard every few minutes. No wonder I'm the only one sitting outside. 

                * * * * * 

"The domestic departures terminal of the Islamabad airport is one of those things best left outside the realm of one’s lived experience. A better thing to hear about over coffee, as a small detail in a friend’s travel monologue, rather than to know it personally. I know it. This sweaty, smelly airport. I  thought the capital city would boast a more impressive, or at least decent, airport. The lack of any air-conditioning, fans or proper ventilation makes the sweat run down my back like a river.  I take breaks from writing to fan myself with this notepad from time to time. The terminal reeks of cigarette smoke, although there are 'no smoking' signs everywhere. As I look around to try to identify the smoking culprit, I realize that the stench of smoke, like the airport, is probably over forty years old. It has been absorbed, permanently, into the fake plants and plastic chairs. At this terminal, the gates are not marked, because there is only one gate. When it is time for the plane to board, men walk around the terminal, which is no larger than a gymnasium, and call out the flight number.

The power goes out again, and the whole airport is pitch black for a few second before the generator kicks in. This is the first time I have seen a power outage at an airport in Pakistan. It happens several times  a day in most homes in Punjab and the capital, even malls and restaurants are not immune to the power outages, but this is the first time I have seen it at the airport. 

At this precise moment, in this smokey heat and darkness, it is difficult for me to find the words to describe this place and its wonderful people .  Perhaps I will find the words when I am transcribing this at a café in Portland. This moment begins a series of long goodbyes leading up to a most anticipated welcome. It is already night in Islamabad, and tomorrow I will be in Dubai. One day from tomorrow, I will be in Portland."

- Excerpt from my Travel Diary, April 5th, 2013 6:35 pm, Islamabad, Pakistan

                                       * * * * * 

Now I am back in my city. The goodbyes and the welcomes have already passed and my prophecy came to be. Finally at a cafe under the falling flowers, I am am to describe my journey. 

Dubai: Know Before You Go

In the spirit of chronicling  my adventures in Dubai, I thought I would share some of my most important tips and advice for future travelers. 

1. You need a car.

Transportation in Dubai is probably the most annoying thing about the city. Let's look at our options:

-Walking: Yeah right. In 140 degree heat?  You learn pretty quickly after arriving that nothing is walking distance in Dubai, except for  two stores in the same mall, and even then it may be a thirty minutes walk if they are on opposite sides of the mall. This is a big city, and it is spread out with not a lot in between.

- Bicycling: Also impracticable. No bike routes, and people drive crazy, so good luck not getting hit by a car. Also, the heat and sand storms make this a particularly unattractive option.

- Metro: Dubai actually has a nice and reasonably priced train system, but it won't take you everywhere, and it is not the fastest way of navigating the city.

- Taxis: Probably the most popular method of transportation, second to a private vehicle. Taxis are reasonably priced, but it can be hard to catch one. If you are in an unpopulated part of town, taxis may be few and far between, but if you are in a busy spot like a mall, you may have to wait in an insanely long line for a cab. 

The line for a taxi at Dubai Mall

2. If you are a woman, or closely resemble a woman, you will be hit on relentlessly.

Dubai definitely gets a place on the wall of shame for poor behavior on the part of its male population. Regardless of your looks, age, or how conservatively you are dressed, you will be hollered at from car window,s propositioned for sex on street corners, and even proposed marriage in line at McDonalds. Every day, at least once an hour. 

Men here seem to lack all forms of respect and decorum when it comes to speaking to females.  I am used to seeing this behavior of men in larger cities around the world, but only if a woman is young, attractive, and scantily clad. In Dubai, if she is a woman, she is fair game. 

The things I have heard coming out of men's mouths in Dubai is stuff you would expect to hear in prison, but don't worry, for the most part, this cooing and hollering is harmless - annoying - but harmless. It is very unlikely that any of these men are potential criminals, so there is no need to worry about becoming the victim of anythings besides a trashy comment. 

At best, you will be hollered at from car windows, that is, if you are actually on the street for  more than 5 minutes (most people don't venture outside in this country, see point 1). At worst, you could find yourself in the center of an international feud, like I did on my first night in Dubai. Basically, I was at a multinational gathering at the home of a British national in Dubai, and a very inebriated Emirati man began hitting on me. Coming to my rescue was an Iranian, who told the man I was married (I'm not married - technically, but close enough), and it's a big sin to hit on a married woman in this culture. The Emirati man and Iranian man began to fight in Arabic, over whether or not I was available to be hit on, because on one hand I am married, but on the other hand, I couldn't be married, because "what kind of married woman would travel alone." You think I had any say in this conversation? Not a word....

3. Want to brush up on your Arabic? Don't bother. 

This is not the place to practice Arabic, or to even begin learning it. 90% of Dubai's residents are foreign, and most are not from the Gulf region. Because practically none of the locals work regular jobs, it is unlikely that you will ever have to interact with an Arabic speaker. When I was in Dubai, the languages I really felt I needed were Urdu (for the Pakistani cab drivers), and Tagalog (for the Filipino waiters).

4. You will not mingle with locals. 

This is true, unless you have foreign friends who have local friends and they provide the introduction. Otherwise, you will quickly learn that the only Emiraties you are likely to meet are the immigration officers at the airport. Most Emiraties don't work regular jobs like, well, most of us do. You will not see them serving food, driving cars, counting cash at the bank, or  practicing medicine (I have seen the paramedics there - no Emiraties).  You will however, see them shopping and lounging around Starbucks....all day. 

5. Ladies, cover up. 

It's the law! That's right, even if you are foreign, you are expected to comply with local laws. This does not mean that you need to practice hijab or wear an Abaya (it's not Saudi Arabia, after all) but you should respect the local culture and dress modestly. 

In my time there, I did see foreign (ehem, British) women wearing mini dresses and shorts in the malls, and I felt embarrassed for them. In a club, however, anything goes. 

The Dubai mall dress code.

6. Drink lots of water - but not tap water. 

Being in such a hot climate will dehydrate you. At first, you may feel that you are just hungrier than normal, however, it's not hunger, it's thirst, and you need to treat it seriously. 

Carry a bottle of water with you everywhere, and never drink the tap water.

7. Don't photograph the women. 

I'm not sure where this rule is written down, if anywhere, but almost as soon as you arrive in Dubai someone will kindly tell you not to photograph  women in abayas. If you are from a region of the world where abayas are very rare, you may be very, very tempted to photograph a scene in Sephora where every woman's face is covered.

Don't do it. 

Unless you can do it like me, sneakily...

Beachwear in Dubai

8. Beware sand storms. 

On my last night in Dubai, I had the honor horror of experiencing one of the grossest and most annoying natural  phenomena in the world: sand storms. Five minutes outside and you'll be practically buried. With  my face, mouth, and eyes covered, I stepped outside the taxi and by the time I reached the door in twenty feet, there was sand in my mouth, eyes, under my clothes...ok that's as much as I'm going to say. Gross. 

When there is a sand storm the city is paralyzed. No body steps outside and business ceases to a halt. Glad there are not too many of those.

That's not cloudy, that's sandy!

Another Last Thursday

The Last Thursday street fair is kind of a big deal in Portland, except that I haven't been in three years...since my last Last Thursday post....embarrassing. Now that I am leaving this city, I have to go every chance I get. 

Top, shorts, and Leggings: American Apparel

Bag: Chanel