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. 

Dress code at Dubai mall

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

Lawson Chopsticks and a Quarter Life Crisis

Alright, it's time to finally get real. Time for things to get a little personal. Here is what is happening to me now.

Not long ago,  I unexpectedly received a hand-written letter in the mail. Not knowing who it may be from, I opened it and began reading.

"It is Friday, August 5th, 2011. Yesterday I decided to write myself a letter describing my present circumstances, and this letter will be mailed to me exactly two years later."

Ah-ha! A letter to myself. In the span of two years I had totally forgotten about it. At that time I was taking a class in which one assignment was to write a letter to ourselves, and the instructor was to mail it to us two years later, like a small time-capsule.

The letter then went on to describe a very mundane moment that changed the direction of my life. I remember it clearly to this day. In 2011, I was perfectly content living in Portland, working my "9-5 job", and "traveling the world during two vacation weeks a year" as I mention in my bio. But all that changed after a friend's visit to Japan. Something in my brain snapped, and I woke up from my dreamy Portland life and decided it was time to challenge myself. Observe:

"Had I written this letter two months ago I would have told you that all I wanted to do was buy a house, marry the love of my life, settle down, and work at my job forever. But all that changed a few weeks ago, when a friend of mine returned from a visit to Japan, bringing with her the only gift I had requested: a copy of Fudge magazine. She handed it to me in a grocery bag, and when I opened it, a pair of chopsticks from the Lawson convenience store fell out. At that very moment, when I saw that pair of chopsticks, I was reminded of Japan,  as though I had completely forgotten it. Suddenly only one thought was very clear to me:
I must be in Asia. At any cost, at any expense. I must be in Asia."

The chopsticks Stupid, huh? 

Stupid, huh?
A pair of chopsticks triggering a quarter-life crisis.
But it's true.
Sometimes things are triggered by the most unexpected events.
I consider it a sign.

Anyway, in that letter I went on to record the mess of things that were triggered by this epiphany. I had become obsessed with acquiring new knowledge, watching documentaries, reading academic journals, with such ferocity one would think I was studying for the Foreign Service exam.  I even alluded to the quarter life crisis in my discussion of North Korea.

Since that time I have been trying to work out how I can make my dream a reality. Where should I live? I have always loved Japan, but with a partner from Taiwan, and a renewed interest in Southeast Asia, the world is full of possibilities

Point 1:
I know I don't just want to work in the U.S. and travel to Asia two weeks out of the year. That  will never be enough for me.

Point 2:
I also know that I do not want to be a professional tourist.
I wanted a deeper experience.
I wanted to affect my surroundings and be affected by them.

I wanted travel to be the means of achieving something greater, not the goal in and of itself.

So to do this I need to acquire new skill sets (i.e. language, intercultural communication, leadership, etc).

And let's be realistic,  I need to find a way to pay for this. I have been saving money ever since I began working full-time in 2007, but I can't live off my savings forever, and I don't have the desire to go without working for an extended period of time. I ultimately need to find a job in Asia, or a job in the U.S. that would allow me to work remotely.

So begins the quarter life crisis, the soul-searching, the job-hunt, and all else that comes when you challenge yourself and change the life you've always known.

Now, I am about to embark on a new chapter of my life. More on that next time....

Karachi Calling

Colorful, Chaotic Karachi

I thought I had a language of my own. I thought I had lived long enough to acquire the necessary words to describe the world, to absorb it, to interpret it. I thought I had command of a language enough to know its meaning. 

Then I came to Pakistan and I realized that I lacked all ability to describe this place. 

I would need to spend a lifetime learning another language just to talk about the way wind combs through the pleats of a powder white burqa when it is worn by a woman on the back of a motorcycle. Watching those white folds dance around the speeding tires of the bike, I am unsure of how to put all these images together in one scene: the white burqa, the motorcycle, the sunlit streets of downtown Karachi, crowded and dirty. Like the past, present, and future lost their places in that linear space we created for them, and now they  encircle each together in one clashing scene.

Embellished minibuses skirt past us, like floating jewelry boxes. When our car nears them the kaleidoscope of color becomes clearer and the fine details of the painted buses emerge, each one more and more elaborate. One rickshaw stops near the car long enough for me to catch a  glimpse of the spray painted silhouette of a woman holding a machine gun.

A mule pulls a man on a wheel cart bearing fruits. Beside him the mini bus carries groups of men or women, but never a mixture of both. The owner of an impeccable Prius looks out at the city through tinted windows. In between the cars, men of every age fill in the empty spaces with tiny motorcycles. A family of six sits on folding chairs in the back of a truck like a mobile picnic. A white van with the word 'ambulance' hand painted on the side meanders through traffic, no faster than the rest of us. Another pick-up truck serves as a policy car. An officer stands upright in the back of the truck, leaning against the car, he holds a riffle with both hands, and points it to oncoming traffic.

 - Excerpt form my Travel Diary: March 25, 2013 4:00 pm, Karachi, Pakistan

What to do I buy in Dubai?

Well, not much.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I exercised a bit of restraint on this trip. Dubai is really a tax-free shopping paradise. From the air-conditioned super malls like Dubai Mall or Mall of the Emirates, to the bazaars of Karama, there are  things to buy at all prices.
In my case, I was heading to Pakistan that next week, so in anticipation of that trip, I saved all my excess cash and stuck to a super tight budget.

My first purchase was a Starbucks UAE mug. My partner's sister is obsessed with collecting and trading Starbucks mugs, which got me onto the idea that I ought to start a small collection of mugs to represent the places I have been. Surprisingly, not many Starbucks actually sold these mugs. At the gorgeous Starbucks in Jumeirah, I found this mug from the Emirates, but it was impossible to find the Dubai mug. Impossible.

At the Dubai Airport in Terminal 1, they sell Sharjah and Abu Dhabi mugs, but I didn't even go to those Emirates, so I felt kind of silly coming home with those mugs.

One of my few and favorite purchases was a recommendation from my Dubai expat friend: scented oil. When she first moved to Dubai, she sat next to a woman on the train who smelled amazing, and the woman told her that she bought all her oil from this shop in the Diera City Center. 

So, in search of this practical souvenir, I made that little trip to Diera, and mixed my own special scent from their selection of oils. My original scent is actually a combination of two of the store's own  creations.  This oil is very potent, so I only use a few drops on my wrists and neck. This hugh bottle, of my own original scent, only costs about $40 USD. 
A deal! 

Lastly, I usually don't like to buy touristy items, but after visiting Pakistan and seeing tiny Burj Khalifas and Burj al Arabs in everyone's living room,  I decided that our bookshelf at home needed a miniature Burj, I picked up this figurine at the Airport just before boarding a plane home. 
Now the Burj Khalifa has a home on our "philosophy" book shelf in our living room in Portland. 

Photo Diary: Best of Dubai

What I ate in Dubai

More like, what didn't I eat in Dubai. 

I knew this city would have a bit of everything, being one of the most international places on earth. 

My list of food spots mostly consisted of Starbucks, McDonalds, and one afternoon tea experience, but here is the recap for my Dubai eats:

1. Food I wished I had, but didn't:  Champagne Brunch  

Brunches, as I learned, are one of the staples of Dubai. Many places offer the sumptuous   feasts that make the Las Vegas buffets look sparse. Dubai also has something I haven't seen in Vegas: alcohol buffets. Reminiscent of the nomihodai "all-you-can-drink" hours in Japan, these alcohol buffets keep the booze coming till you are passed out of the floor and then some. 

2. Food I had, but wished I didn't:  one too many milks from Al Sham's

Speaking of too much of a good thing, my first day in Dubai I took a walk across the sandy pavement to a little market know as Al Sham's, and in my excitement and jet-laggedness, I purchased no fewer than 12 bottles of various kinds of milk. Rose milk, cardamon milk, mango milk, strawberry milk, etc. 

While this was mostly cool, let me be the first to say, not every flavor tastes good as a milk, and certainly not after the 12th bottle. 

3. What should have been on the list: Brunch Buffet

While I was here, I had the privilege of eating at two brunches, which are really just buffets.  In Dubai, brunch is a bit later than in the states, lasting from noon to 4:00 or 5:00 in some places. But really, you can find buffets at any time of the day and night. My favorite memory involved my friend and I searching for a Thai buffet at 10:00 pm on a Thursday night. 

After three metro stops, scanning through one edition of TimeOut Dubai magazine, and running into a surprising cool Israeli DJ, we managed to find a Thai buffet in Wafi mall. 

It was amazing.

4. Biggest surprise: Iranian and Lebanese food

I have never been a huge fan of hummus and kebobs at restaurants. Maybe this is because as a Greek, I grew up eating these food every day at home, so going to a Middle Eastern or Mediterranean restaurant was akin to eating inferior versions of my dad's cooking. So, you might imagine my surprise when I went to Dubai, and had some of the most delicious kebobs and shawarma I have ever tasted.

5. Most delicious meal: Chicken kebobs on my first night in Dubai

When I arrived in Dubai at 7:00 pm, my friend and host graciously bought the Marhaba service for me, which whisked me through the airport and in 15 minutes from the time I stepped off the plane, I was in her car, sitting in Dubai traffic. By the time I got home and unpacked, it was around 9:00 pm. I was exhausted, and definitely not hungry, but my host suggested we order some food for delivery. 

In Dubai, you can have anything delivered to your home, no minimums, no restrictions, no delivery fees. You can call up Al Sham's and have one bottle of cardamom milk delivered to your door at 10:00 pm if you wish. Dry cleaning, toilet paper, if it can be bought and carried, it can be delivered to your door, free of charge. 

So on this night, my friend ordered some chicken kebobs, with mushrooms, pita, french fries, garlic sauce, hummus, and fresh vegetables. 

This simple meal was my best memory in Dubai, not only because the food was good, but because it was such a Dubai experience. 

Dubai is often characterized as an amalgamation of cultures. So there I was,  a Greek-American,  who had just gotten off a plane from Seattle, standing in the kitchen of my Brazilian-Nigerien-American friend, who just moved to Dubai and didn't have a dining room table or eating utensils. So we ate our Lebanese food from paper plates with plastic forks, while standing up in the kitchen. Two foreigners in a foreign land. 

And one of those mundane moments in life, suddenly became meaningful. 

Other foods I ate during my time in Dubai:

plate from Thai buffet

Italian food

traditional Arabian food 

English breakfast at the airport

Dubai Instagram Diary