Shaker Tour 2007

When you are surrounded with people who are truly in love with their city its hard not to fall in love with it yourself.  I just got back from
Lahore and had the most unbelievable time there.  The people of
Lahore (Lahoris) were born with a sense of pride for their land.  They are fun, blunt, and all hopeless romantics hahah (Ali, oh Ali).  I stayed with Omar Shafi’s family and they were unbelievable.  If it were not for them, my stay in
Lahore would not have been worth mentioning.  I want to personally thank all of them again for everything they did for me. 

So I get off the airport and Shafi and his cousin pick me up and take me straight to the Wagha Border.  The Wagha Border is an army station that is right on the Indian/Pakistan border.  They have made it into a tourist attraction where army personnel from both sides compete with each other by stomping on the ground and showing off their machismo.  While it’s happening you can’t help but have a sense of pride for being Pakistani.  The Indian army is comprised of a bunch of scrawny men while the Pakistani army is filled with huge monsters.   The Indians still put on a good show so I commend them for that.  Shafi and I did not sit in the VIP section thanks to Ahmed (Shafis cousin) so we waited till the end to go to the gate of the border.  Even then a soldier told us to go away, but right when he turned around Shafi and I ran right through and got to the gate.  Across on the other side were the Indian tourist and we were screaming at each other, it was lots of fun ( I think I took out my middle finger again).  The army scolded us and told us to screw off; it was totally worth it though.  While I was yelling at a bunch of Indians,  Ali (Shafis cousin) was taking a video and managed to get an interview with some German tourists.  He asked them “so how did you like it” and one of them said “you guys are funny” and kept laughing.  Ali then asked does this happen in
Germany and he goes “No way, we are all united!!!!” What an ass,  I wanted to draw a Hitler mustache on his face but I was busy taking pictures with soldiers.  Below are the pics of Wagha.

That night Shafi and Ali took me around Lahore and I saw some really nice hotels and restaurants.  They then took me to the infamous Food Street and I had some great food there. After that, we found out it was Ali’s Bday and his cousins and his friends all met up at this park for a solid chill session.  A couple of his friends brought guitars and they played both Urdu and English tunes.  I wish I had my camera at that time because it was unbelievable.

The next day was as good as the first.  We planned to get out at 8 am and see all the historical sites.  Thanks to Ahmed we managed to leave at 12pm hahaha.  I saw everything.  We first went to Lahore Fort where they had such sophisticated building that it puts modern day
Pakistan to shame.  Its sad to know that the Moghuls in the1600s were more refined than modern day Pakistanis.  Anyways, the Fort was unbelievable and we learned that the Moghul emperors were a bunch of sex hungry hopeless romantics (each of them had 5000 mistresses).  The only true leader in my opinion was Aurangzeb.  After the Fort we went to Badshah mosque and I was awe struck by its simplicity and beauty.  The acoustics within the mosque were designed so if I were to stand on one side of the mosque I would be able to hear someone talking to me from the other side of the mosque through the walls. Very cool.  After that we went through the narrow streets of old
Lahore and visited another mosque named Wazir ul Khan.  Below are the pics of the old sites.

That night we went to the most famous restaurant in all of
Pakistan: Coocos Den.  Coocos Den used to be a brothel that was converted into a restaurant by the son of a prostitute that worked there.  He is now a famous professor and artist.   His paintings show the human and emotional side of women working in brothels and he has brought awareness to the public of the atrocities that happen to prostitutes in Lahore.  While we were eating at Coocos, Amy, a girl we know from Edmonton, popped out of nowhere.  What are the chances of that????  It was fate again. 

My last day there we got a tour of LUMS: a very famous university in
Pakistan.  I first want to thank Oraina for showing us around.  She went out of her way to give us a great tour of the campus and if you ever come to Edmonton we will be glad to show you the great campus of U of A hahaha.  Anyways, I am glad we all went to check out the campus because we all fell in love with one of the girls there. It might have made my trip.  This girl was the definition of smooth.  She came up to us out of nowhere and goes “anyone have a lighter (sexy voice).”  I say sorry we don’t, but one of my friends pulls out a Zippo and gives it to her.  What she didn’t know was that the Zippo hardly worked  (it takes 100 attempts for it to work).  I am not lying to you, but the girl took that lighter from his hand flicked it open like a pro and lit the lighter in her first attempt.   We were speechless.  Ali said “marry me,” but she just smiled and just walked away.  Now I know what love at first site means.  After the LUMS tour we were famished so we went to KFC. Since Ahmed is the number one customer in Pakistan he actually got us a discount at KFC,  I have never seen that happen at a fast food joint.   RESPEKT Ahmed.   So that was the Lahore trip, it was unbelievable.  And again,  thank you Omar Shafi.

Chow

I got pooed on.  I got pooed on by a bird in a tree.  I wish I knew about this when it happened because I had this gooey like substance on my hand and I rubbed it all over my hand (cause it looked like cream). 

After looking at the poo mess on my shoulders I realized it was not cream at all.  I’m in Pakistan and these types of things happen here.  Apparently its good luck to be pooed on so I shouldn’t complain.  

On my first day here my family celebrated because I came back as a Hajji (someone who just performed the pilgrimage).  For some reason they celebrated by putting flowers around my neck and spreading purple glitter all over my head.  It was funny at first but the glitter refuses to come off and I have bits and pieces of purple all over my head.

I went to a concert my second day here and it was lots of fun.  The main bands name was 7 on the 3rd.  The crowd was really fun and it was a gig organized by a bunch of university students. For some reason the female vocalist looked really constipated.  I have pics of the concert below. 

But the reason I am really excited to write this blog is because I met the most interesting guy the other day (wow that sounds very homosexual).   My cousin and I decided to sit and talk to the night guard that works in the showroom below my aunt’s house.  This guy was telling us the craziest stories about his life on the Afghan border.  The people that live in the Pakistan-Afghan border are Pathans.  They all look like Caucasians and are known to be one of the toughest people in the world (they beat the Russians).   Anyways he was telling us about when he was young the men of the house would go out and shoot down Russian planes.  I had recently read about the war and asked him if they used Stingers supplied by the Americans.  You should have seen his face when I mentioned the world Stinger, he had the biggest smile on his face.  He kept repeating “Stingers zaberdast (Stingers are great).”  For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Stingers are man portable, shoulder fired, guided missiles used to combat low altitude aircrafts.  They were one of the turning points of the war and he said they still have enough to shoot down American planes hahahah. However, his best story was how his uncle’s unit captured a Russian convoy carrying cigarettes and replaced the tobacco with hashish to drug the Russian Army.   Apparently it worked and they raided the camp fighting “charsee Rusees (drugged Russians).”  I wanted to take a picture with him but I couldn’t find him today.   If I see him, I’ll make sure to get one.       

I have met a bunch of my old friends that moved to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia.  My next blog will be about them and more.  

Cheers.