In Pictures: Faces of Pakistan

"We travel," says travel writer Pico Iyer, "to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate."  Reading about a place is largely an academic exercise, employing only one of the five senses (sight), and employing it only to process words on a page.  Travel, on the other hand, employs one's entire being.  It makes space for context and people.  It peels back the layers of newsprint and invites us to breathe the air of a place.  It necessitates interaction. "Travel," Iyer continues, "is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology."

There are few countries that I would hesitate to visit, but in stepping across the border from India to Pakistan, I was not completely at ease.  More than usual, I looked at my surroundings observantly, even suspiciously. I had traveled enough elsewhere to know that neither impressions given by the media nor travel warnings issued by the State Department were means through which I wanted to base my travel decisions; some of the best places I'd ever been were in countries that conventional wisdom said I shouldn't go.  Yet I also knew that Pakistan was plagued with sectarian strife, that it was home to Taliban sympathizers and al-Qaeda members, and that Kentucky Fried Chicken seemed to get burned down with some frequency.

I crossed the border late in the afternoon and half an hour later a bus dropped me off in Lahore, Pakistan's cultural and artistic center.  Within three hours of being in the country I was invited to join a birthday celebration for a long-deceased Muslim saint.  Until midnight, I hung out in an alley of a densely populated neighborhood on the city's edge, listening to good music and watching Sufis dance.  By the time I returned to my hotel, I knew that while caution was still necessary, so was my need to make space for the abundance of goodwill I sensed I would be offered in the days ahead.

Fifteen days later, I would exit Pakistan into China via the Khunjerab Pass, which at 13,450 feet is the highest international border crossing in the world.  What follows are pictures of people I met between Lahore and the Chinese border.

Police officer outside the Lahore Museum

In 1674, the same year that Father Jacques Marquette set up a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illinois Indians (that mission evolved into the city now called Chicago), the Moghul rulers of India completed the construction of the Badshahi Mosque.  One of the most beautiful sights in today's Lahore -- and also one of the world's largest mosque, capable of holding more than 60,000 people -- I spent part of an afteroon cherishing the coolness of the marble floor and talking with a group of teenage boys, including the one in the photo above.

After two days in Lahore I left by bus for Islamabad.  Cruising smoothly at about sixty miles per hour on a road identical to an American interstate, I sometimes forgot where I was.  I saw a chauffeured Mercedes whiz by, a University of Southern California decal prominently displayed in the back window.  And further down the highway a policeman had pulled over a speeding BMW.  It displayed a Michigan Wolverines decal.

I visited Islamabad's largest mosque.  Everything in Islamabad is relatively young as the city did not even come into existence until the 1950s, when the decision was made to transfer Pakistan's capital from Karachi to a more geographically central location.  The Shah Faisal Mosque was completed in 1986, a gift of Saudi Arabia.

South of Islamabad is Rawalpindi, a much older city and the location of the region's main bus terminal, Pir Wadhai.

It was late September yet blistering hot as I left Pir Wadhai station for Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province.

On the way to Peshawar I stopped for the afternoon in Taxila.  Buddhism is believed to have spread to China from here, and Alexander the Great stopped in Taxila on his way to India.  This man was standing outside the ruins of a classical Greek temple, herding his cows.

We didn't talk much, but he kindly let me photograph him.

I continued on to Peshawar and then from there to the Khyber Pass.  The region is infamous for its anti-American feeling, but one of the first people I met along the highway was this man, wearing a sweatshirt with the famous Chevy slogan on it.

Leaving Peshawar a couple days later, several beggars, all of whom were either women or children (many of them Afghan refugees), moved from van to van at the bus station, asking for money.

Twelve hours later I was in Besham, a town on the southern end of the Karakoram Highway, which connects Islamabad with Kashgar, China.  Sikander Shah, 55 years old, was a passenger who had sat beside me through most of the day's journey, always looking after the welfare of my legs (the seats were cramped) and expressing concern for my warmth (since we were rapidly gainly elevation).  Like millions of other South Asians, he works 48 weeks a year in the richer Persain Gulf states (he drives bulldozers in Bahrain).  Now he was enroute to visit his family and happy to be on leave.  He invited me to spend the night in his home, but I had to continue on.

The Karakoram Highway is sometimes called the Eighth Wonder of the World.  Built over 20 years and completed in 1978, it is said that one construction worker died for every kilometer laid.  This photo was taken outside a bank in Gilgit, the principle town in Pakistan's far north.  The man invited me to take his photo as I was walking by.

And a friend was with him, who also allowed me to take a photo.

Hitchhiking out of Gilgit, 19-year-old Shah Khan picked me up in his Suzuki.  He was only going 20 minutes up the road but offered to take me the rest of the way to Karimabad, my final destination -- and an additional three hours up the highway.  I insisted that this was too kind.

But Shah Khan wasn't done with me yet.  Next he offered the keys to his Suzuki.  "I will not need it again until tomorrow," he said, quite sincerely.  When I said I couldn't take his car because I wouldn't be coming back this way, he insisted again that he drive me to Karimabad, which I refused one more time.  His face began to contort into worry as I insisted that he simply leave me here.  I will be okay, I told him in as many ways as I knew how.  "But you are my guest," he said again, his voice tightened with an emotion that seemed as pure and incredible as the rarified Himalayan air.

Shah Khan and I said goodbye and minutes later another car took me another half hour up the road, where I met these kids while I waited for a third car to stop.  Soon I would be in Karimabad.

The streets of Karimabad were full of friendly folks, both young and old.  This man was born around 1910.  During our conversation - he spoke some English - he concisely explained that his wife was dead: "She's finished!"

Hiking several hours beyond Karimabad, I met this college student as I passed by his home.  We ate dried apricots and watched MTV, then walked 90 minutes up the road to fetch his father's cow, which grazed atop the mountain during the day but needed to stay closer to home at night.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, the culture frowned on women talking to unknown men, which is one reason you haven't till now seen any pictures of women.  But along the Karakoram Highway it was a different culture.  Women were often happy to stop for a photo, and some even said hello.

This picture, like the previous one, was taken along the Hunza River, outside the small town of Passu.

And last -- and perhaps least, since I'm not really one of the "Faces of Pakistan" -- this is me on a hike outside Karimabad.  You will note that I look like a cross between a French artist and a mushroom.  Not really at all like a Pakistani.