😎 Likedeeler goes Indiana Jones 😎

Aerial View of Banbhore fort,
probably the site we went to, at least it looks dusty enough. 😉

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So I went to Goethe Institute with my new Pakistani friend to meet his students.
His class consisted only of men, the ladies were taught in a seperate class by a lady teacher.
His students were all middle to upper class. I think if you choose to study German as a foreign language in Pakistan, you usually have a certain educational and financial background. I did not ask about the study fees at Goethe Institute, I think it was not outrageously expensive, since Goethe Institute is about promoting German language and culture in other countries, so prohibitive fees would be counterproductive.

I had quite some interesting discussions with those students, one of them referring to the “Islamic Bomb“. Basically the students were outraged by the name, which blamed all of Islam for the actions and ambitions of some politicians. I agreed with them on that and then gave my lecture. 😉

After the retreat of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, its subsequent economic breakdown and inability to keep playing the arms race game, the USA had lost their favorite enemy and the military-industrial-complex needed a new one, so they came up with Islam. Little did I know at that time how terribly this new doctrine would play out later, after 9/11, with the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and the proxy war in Syria, and let´s not forget that also parts of Pakistan suffer from drone strikes nowadays. In hindsight it all looks like a brilliant game of chess, played by some evil mastermind.

Whatever people think about former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, him being best buddies with Putin and stuff, I am still thankful that he remained firm in his refusal to send German troops into Iraq in 2003. That took some guts with all the pressure by the USA and the German opposition, but he simply did not fall for those funny pictures Powell produced as evidence for Saddam´s WMD.

One of the students owned a travel agency in Karachi and was studying German in hopes of attracting more business from German tourists, so he was of course eager to learn something from me about German mentality and preferences.
In exchange for my information he would sometimes pick me up from YMCA, show me some sites in Karachi and quizz me if Germans would like that, if he could include it in a tour and so on. He was quite the shrewd businessman, always looking for opportunities. So I had my own private tour guide! Even in those days Karachi had already quite a reputation for being dangerous for foreigners, kidnap for ransom and stuff, so it was good to have a local protector.

And Sindh, the province surrounding Karachi had a reputation of utter lawlessness, the big zamindars(see, a Persian word) feuding against each other with their private armies, kidnappings, torture and killings of political opponents, it was so bad that the advice was to not travel in Sindh as a foreigner without a police escort. So it was pretty much Wild Wild West there and over the months I came to the conclusion that the same old adage coined for the Wild West of American Last Frontier times held true for Pakistan. “It´s a wonderful country for men and horses, but a terrible country for women and dogs.“

There are some interesting archaeological sites just outside of Karachi, but being in the Sindhian countryside, they were no-go-areas. But whenever did that stop me?

So one day my new travel agent friend invited me and his German teacher to join him on a tour to those sites.
He had a group of paying customers, some British expats with children and took the two of us along for free.

He picked us up at the Y with a minibus, then we picked up the expats and then we went to a police station to get our escort, some guys in a police car. When we reached the outskirts of Karachi we pulled into a police station which looked like the Alamo with high walls all around, our cars turning the dusty ground into desert storm. There we were joined by another police car, but this time the real thing, a Toyota pickup with a machine gun on top, I immediatley felt much safer 😎. So like in one of those movies, our little convoy travelling at high speed through the lawlessness of Sindh, I felt like being on some kind of mission, but alas, the mission was only to enable some well-paying expats to get out of Karachi to see some ruins.

I don´t remember which ruins, just that they were somehow famous and important, but I remember walking around there with our heavily armed guards moving around us, permanently establishing a mobile perimeter. It looked quite professional though probably more of a show for us tourists and was at least effective in convincing some local spectators to prefer to look on from a distance. Not that they appeared to be hostile, but appearances might deceive. And don´t you wish sometimes to have armed guards around you, ensuring that you can enjoy your ruins without being hassled by some souvenir vendors, not that those onlookers in Sindh appeared to be souvenir vendors, more like goatherders.

Because of the security situation in Sindh I had not planned to visit any places there apart from Karachi, but because I met the right people, I did it anyway. And, by the grace of God and the official car of ISIS, the Toyota pickup, nothing happened to me.

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Since this is supposed to become a series of serious travelling, check out the other parts too.

Part One: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-begins

Part Two: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-goes-karachi

Part Three: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-arrives

Part Four: https://steemit.com/travel/@likedeeler/likedeeler-rising





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