Pakistan - Quetta

Pakistan - Quetta (November 14th-17th)

When we arrived in Quetta, the US had just excecuted a Quetta native who had been convicted of killing two CIA agents. His family lived about a block from the compound where we were camping. The man at the campground advised us not to leave the compound as they were unsure of the reaction the excecution might trigger. They debated whether it would be worse now, or when they flew the body back. Consequently, we spent that day on the compound cleaning the truck and catching some sun and getting tan. The following day everything seemed calm and we left our campground to explore Quetta. We wandered the streets with its many markets which sell just about everything. Walking through the streets of Quetta was kind of intimidating. They don't see many tourists here - I never saw another westerner the whole time in Quetta. Here you tend to stick out. People would follow me in groups that got larger - beggers, people wanting to talk or just greet me like some freak, touching me. It was very crowded. People would inevitably ask where I'm from - America - they would make slashing motions across there neck with their hand and laugh.

I tried to find a store that sold shisha pipes. I kept asking - "shisha, shisha". Everyone though I wanted hashish. I drew a picture of the pipe and showed it around and they said no. I gave up. I had been trying to learn the local languages of all the countries I'd been to so far. A little Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi, but Pakistan has so many different languages it was difficult to know what to say to people. Urdu - a combination of Farsi, Arabic, and Hindi - is the official language of Pakistan, but there are also many tribal dialects and in this region it seems most people speak Pashtun. The task of attempting to learn all of these at this point was a little daunting and I think I reached my mental overload limit in for languages in Pakistan. - more pics