Journey to Pakistan

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-2579823/Police-attack-Pakistans-largest-city.html

If you haven’t already seen my previous post depicting my five day stay at Dubai make sure to go check it out by following the link below

https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/journey-to-the-third-world-and-dubai/

Anyways continuing the story from where I left off, in Dubai international airport, instead of taking Turkish airlines (which wasn’t the best) we took PIA (Pakistan international airline) straight to Karachi. It’s a one and a half hour flight from Dubai, UAE to Karachi, Pakistan.

PIA airlines: 

Well to start by now most of you could guess, we went on economy class, here’s how PIA’s economy class looks, the second picture is how each individual seat looks.

  

As most of you can see, for an economy class PIA seats were nice and large and unlike Turkish airlines’s crowded tight leg space, PIA’s leg space was pretty decent and I was glad my knees didn’t bump into the seats in front of us.

Besides PIA’s nice and comfortable seats, the service was very nice and the air hostesses were very friendly and one especially was standing by me and my sisters seat was talking to us up until we took off!

Even with such a short flight everybody was served dinner which actually was very delicious; Biryani (chicken rice) along with a slice of cake and afterwards everybody was served chi which is Pakistani black tea. In case you haven’t already checked out my recipe on how to make this traditional delicious pass time drink , follow the link: https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/home-brewed-chi-tea/

I just didn’t like that the bathrooms were very very dirty and looked as though someone had carved on the toilet seat; there was stuff on it a tissue couldn’t clean. I also did not like that there was no TV at all on the flight. Usually on international flights, airplanes have little TV’s behind every for entertainment but PIA lacked that. Luckily it was a short flight, besides why need a tv when we had comfortable seats and dinner going around?

PIA was awesome!

Back on topic:

We stayed at Pakistan for three weeks. One of the most interesting three weeks of my life. Unlike on my post on Dubai in which I described what attraction we went to each day, I will not be doing that here since that was a 5 day stay and this was 21 days. Also, Pakistan didn’t have much tourist attractions. I’ll just go into general descriptions with you all.

Just to let you know, one U.S. dollar was equal to 104 Pakistani rupees. So… we were pretty much wealthy there! Well for the most part, something in America that is 3 dollars would be like 300 dollars in Pakistan but most times we were able to get a large bag of chips just for 20 rupees! It was basically 20 cents for us!

Compared to let’s just say U.S.A, UAE, Germany, etc, Pakistan wasn’t much of a developed country; it’s considered a third world country. The only city in Pakistan that was actually modern or advanced or at least normal was Islamabad, which is Pakistan’s capital by the way. City’s such as Karachi (where we stayed), Lahore, Hyderabad, Peshawar, etc.

We stayed in Karachi at our cousin’s house by the way. Everytime I would wake up and freshen up I would go outside to see our beautiful neighborhood, but this was what I saw instead, be whole the streets of Karachi.

So much for beauty. A given street in Pakistan consisted of dirt everywhere on the ground, street vendors at every block, and a rickshaw occasionally driving around.

In case some of you didn’t know, in Pakistan taxi’s don’t exist, there are rickshaw’s everywhere instead to serve as transportation. A rickshaw was a three wheeled car used as taxi’s in primarily Asia; especially in India and Pakistan. Here’s how one looks.

http://thecityfix.com/blog/shining-light-on-indias-auto-rickshaw-sector/

When it came to sanitation, I could accurately say that Pakistan is one of the most least sanitary countries in the world. My own Chochee (Urdu word for aunt) would take any empty box or bag in the house or used tissues and throw them out of the window! If the garbage was too full or far away everyone would throw there trash outside there window causing outside to look like a trash bin.

I use to go to my neighbors house all day to escape the drama’s of my family and when I use to get done blowing my nose with a tissue they told me one thing. “صرف کھڑکی اسے باہر پھینک” (Just throw it out the window). It explained why everything outside was so dirty. 

Also, there is so much drama that goes on there! Family members are always stabbing each others back and there was no such thing as a secret because if you told your cousin a secret he would go tell your aunt who would go tell your you dads side of the family and soon the whole khandon knew. By the way, Khandon is a Urdu and Memon word for entire family including everyone on your dads side, moms side, grandparents side and so on.

Pakistan was also full of street vendors in every block!

And surprisingly every meal or food you buy off of street vendors taste 50 times better than any meal here in the U.S.A.

A street vendor

One major problem of going staying in Pakistan was for our entire three week stay, we got the rugs. Otherwise known as diarrhea. This was because of the food and water there.

The thing about America is that it gets us used to eating processed and chemically infused food so our stomachs are adjusted to that. In Pakistan everything is natural and ate soon after being picked out of the ground without having pesticide or other stuff injected into it.

Currently the country faces a lack of freshwater so unlike in the U.S. where you can just drink water straight from the sink, in Pakistan water from the sink was not clean an dirt particles would come into tact if drank. That’s why everybody in Pakistan got there water from filling large pans with water from the sink to which they would later leave the large pan of sink water over a stove on high heat or under a fire. This Pan would be kept under heat for about 30 minutes into boiling. Once done being boiled, people would convert the water from the pan into a bottle which they would keep in the fridge to thaw out.

Within the next couple of hours, everybody drank that water. Although this technique was used everywhere in Pakistan, my family and I (except our cousins who’s house we stayed in) would not dare to drink that water. So we had to purchase bottle of Nestle and Aquafina water bottle because if we dared to drink the boiled water solution, we would all be running to the bathroom.

Especially things got worse after we all accidentally drank a cup of regular Pakistani water  at a guests house. The next we were all in bed if not running to the bathroom.

Although I was very very excited to come back home from Pakistan, because I didn’t like the trip at all, there were some things I liked about it.

1. Most people in Pakistan had tons of money to spend in a given day and weren’t too limited because unlike in America where we pay mortgage and tons of taxes, in Pakistan once you buy a house or land, you don’t have to pay mortgage or gas bill every month, you just pay water and electricity.
2. There was so much freedom. Kids in Pakistan were able to run outside there neighbor hoods  everyday without a care and nothing would happen. You could even yell out things in public no matter how wild but no one would stop you. Also, there were kids there at age 9 that were driving motorcycles!
3. The food tasted so much better and fresh. An average banana for example in Pakistan is very miniature and no bigger than the average hand compared to here where banana’s and fruits are enlarged by fertilizers and other toxins.

Although my family really misses Pakistan and wants to go back, to be honest I didn’t like it that much. The life style was dirty and there was no sense of privacy. The people there by the way would get so excited when they heard my siblings and I spoke in English, they looked at us as though we were saints. Of course that also meant we had to help every kid we met on there homework since Pakistani schools were beginning to teach English so we got to help in a lot of the work.

Although Pakistan faced poverty and many environmental problems, I really liked that these problems didn’t let the people there stop from always having fun and being lively.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention but my sister and I got to have a pet goat and sheep check it out.

 

Yup they were pretty adorable but by the end of our three weeks we decided to donate our sheep and goat to the house maid who surely deserved them for her hard work. A house maid in Pakistani was referred to as a “Massi” in Urdu (ma-see). Everybody had one. You could be one of the poorest people in the neighborhood but you would still have a Massi who came into your house every morning to clean everything up.

Also, Pakistan kept things very classic. Laundry was done by hand and every flat and house had windows with clothing lines hanging outside; everybody dried there clothes out by hanging them up with clips outside. I did like that Pakistan kept things simple but sometimes a drying machine could get the work done faster.

Let’s not even get started on buying clothing from shops! Clothing shops were usually very very crowded with women each with tons of money to spend. The thing that really made me feel bad for the cloth seller was that he could never be able to sell his exotic clothes at a normal price.

Ladies in any shop throughout Pakistan would take hours in one shop before buying any dress or gown because they would bargain! the definition of buying clothing shop in Pakistan is bargain! Here’s a dialogue in a given shop in Pakistan (translated into english)

Lady (Bargainer)– How much is this nice looking suit

Salesman– 2000 rupees mam

Lady: It’s not even that nice looking, I’ll at least give you 100

Salesman: 100! are you out of your mind this cloth is from Thailand and America and made from finest quality, I’ll give you a deal of 1700 Rupees

Lady: شرم کرو (shame on you) I have children at home, I can’t spend that money, 300 rupees!

                            3 hours later

Salesman: Fine you win have it for 900!

Lady: Shukriyah Saab (Bless you sir) 

The everyday life of a salesman in Pakistan

Last and final part, Everybody in Pakistan had a motorcycle! if you go out on a road in Pakistan, you’ll see that out of 30 vehicles, 17 are motorbikes, 8 are Rickshaws, 2 are buses, and 3 are cars.

Most families didn’t even bother to keep a car no matter how big there family was or how many kids they had, they would all squeeze into one motorcycle and be on there way out. Look at this actual family in Pakistan on the road!

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/16875/people-who-drive-motorcycles-are-not-sub-human/

Summary: 

I would go on writing about my stay in Pakistan, there is never enough to write about this country! So much things happen here that I actually feel like I limited myself in writing this post but for the sake of not wanting to let my readers fall asleep, this should do.

Although I was the only excited one in Karachi airport to be leaving, There’s ironically something about me that misses Pakistan even though I didn’t properly adjust to life there or like it. But I did admire there was tons of freedom amongst the citizens there.

No but seriously somebody has to stop everybody from throwing there trash on the streets. Having to kick aside empty cans and all sorts of trash from feet while walking on the side walk really was the highlight of my day.

As most of you could tell by now, I’m not much of a nationalist but I still have a bit of respect for my nation.

Overall my trip mainly consisted of numerous motorcycle rides a day, teaching my kind and generous neighbors English, and waking up at 5:00 pm everyday and going to bed at 7:00 am. Some of the place my family and I went to include visiting the Arabian sea (sea view), trying out all sorts of delicious street foods, and Quaid-azam mazar (the founder of Pakistan’s burial site, his name was Quaid-azam).

I am glad though that I got to meet up with some family members and family friends.

  some people are just too cute

That pretty much sums up most my trip to Pakistan.

If you want to go a place with a diversity of foods and a very very different lifestyle than what your use to, Pakistan should be your next destination!

I have mixed feelings about going back but if my family will go then of course I have must go as well regardless of how many flaws there are in Pakistan, it’s my home country and I should be willing to go anytime 🙂

Just to set the record straight, I know most of you dear readers are not like this but unfortunately racism against Pakistanis and Muslims in general has been increasing greatly. Not to blame you guys for it obviously, I bet most of you are great people who wouldn’t be so ignorant 🙂 But still it’s urgent for us to spread the word that:

              Not all Pakistani’s and Muslims are terrorists! 

Especially since the Californian terrorist attacks recently it seems Pakistani’s are now mostly targeted. Spread the word and stop the hate; we’re all humans at the end of the day regardless of race, religion, or gender.

Just because you are a Muslim you are not a terrorist. I am a Pakistani Muslim and I am proud.

No one deserves to be discriminated against because of there beliefs regardless of any religion followed.

Anyways, thanks again so much for reading, this Sunday I will be posting my first recipe post since I have came back. I will be making a post teaching how to make Baked Ziti with the recipe included with tons of pictures along with each step.

I feel like this has become into a traveling blog more than a cooking one! Recipes coming soon along with normal posts following this one strictly on cooking tips and tricks; enough of the travel talk 🙂

– Chef/Author, Zubair M . 

P.S. make sure not to miss any of these awesome past posts!

 

https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/fudge-brownies/

https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/thai-cooking-class-as-sur-la-table/

https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/kitchen-aid-stand-mixers-are-they-really-worth-it/

 

 

Journey to Dubai

That’s right I am back! Well, to be honest I was back three weeks ago but I needed some rest, coming back from Asia was a very long trip.

If I would describe my trip to Dubai and Pakistan I would describe it in three words, WOW, DISGUSTING, and INTERESTING.

To start before I begin this very very very long post. Did I mention it’s long? I just want to start off saying I will be back in routine and will upload a recipe post within the next week but as for personnel experience post, I will not be making those in a while. As you all know, most of my personnel experience post, well all, are based on sur la table cooking classes I take but I recently found out chef instructor Amber Lancaster, The one who I always talk about and rave about, she no longer works there so I just lost the whole Sur la table mood so I will just have to wait till summer to take more classes since my parents now want me to take the summer courses. Till then, God knows when I will be taking more classes.

Also I want to thank all you again for keeping my blog alive while I was gone; I noticed I was still receiving views.

Back on topic, we went on Turkish airlines from here to Istanbul on December 14th, right about 3 hours after making my apple bread pudding post which I waved goodbye to all you dear readers in my post before I left to begin my journey.

The flight from here to Istanbul was 11 hours…

Here’s how turkish airlines economy class looked.

  

Turkish airlines:

We went on Turkish airlines overall 4 times so I pretty much got an idea of how the airline was. I’ll try to make this short… try.

The seats weren’t the most comfortable and although someone can’t expect to have too much leg space on an aircraft, Turkish airlines was just way too crowded and even for a 14 year old like me, my knees bumped up against the seat in front of me. Too tight. Plus the service wasn’t the best either, waiting thirty minutes for just one air stewardess to just come to pick up my empty food tray while I dinged the button a couple of times was not worth it.

What I did like though was that 10 minutes after take off, turkish airlines gave every passenger turkish delight, which is a delicious little chewy turkish treat which would help open our ears after take off, here’s how a turkish delight looks.

http://www.saabtala.com/turkish-delight-for-reals/

For an economy class it had many flaws but I at least liked that it was luxurious in a way since it gave economy class people hot towels and amenity kits with ear plugs and socks! That kind of stuff is usually only for first class. I also give them points for offering fancy meals such as roasted salmon which is a delicacy that most airlines barely give anymore to people except the first classers. Plus all meals served on flight were certified halal so Muslims, such as myself, could even enjoy the food.

At least the bathrooms on board were clean.

Back on topic: 

After arriving at Istanbul airport, we stayed at the airport for a couple of hours and later boarded another Turkish airlines flight to Dubai, it was a 6 hour flight.

Finally after 6 hours we arrived at Dubai international airport,caught a taxi to number one hotel tower suites, which was the name of the place we stayed.

Overall Dubai was tons of fun and I understand why it’s always raved about for being an established country. To be honest it was basically a Muslim version of Chicago. There were large buildings and urbanization took it’s toll but the difference from Chicago, besides it location, was that in every restaurant and eatery halal foods were catered to serve the needs of the city and country’s Islamic life style. Check out these self taken pictures.

                                                          

We also went on a van to venture through the desert in a desert safari activity. It was great and all but nobody said it was going to be cheap…. man does Dubai charge a lot. Oh ya by the way one U.S. dollar is worth three United Arab Emirates dirham.

        

Oh ya we also went Camel riding through the desert. Note: on the second image, the girl sitting on the front seat of the camel is my sister and the guy behind her with a bitter face was me…. Tons of fun, if the camels went faster…

.

During our 5 day stay at Dubai we also got to visit the Persian Gulf, which was the ocean where the UAE was located beside.

                                                                         

That city in the background by the way was Abu Dhabi which was about three hours away from Dubai but well worth the car ride. Check out some of these pictures we took in Abu Dhabi!

 

As most of you could tell by now from seeing the photos, Abu Dhabi was more located near the ocean while Dubai was rested near a desert. Still, both were equally amazing and full of tourist attractions. Talking about tourist attractions, Abu Dhabi was home to The Grand Mosque which is a very large and government funded mosque made in Abu Dhabi with tons of visitors and a very nice lay out.

What really made me happy visiting this Mosque was that I saw some Americans and other foreigners, who were definitely not Muslim, were taking photo’s inside and outside of the Mosque to capture it’s beauty. Considering the rise of Islam-phobia in the West today, it really gave me a good feeling seeing people of different religion checking out a major Mosque such as this world known one.

                                                              

 

Oh ya and how could I forget my solo shot.

How could I forget about cuisine? Here’s a picture of a random but very delicious dessert we bought from a bakery at Dubai.

I apologize but I don’t know the name of this treat or else I would have been sure of inserting a link to a recipe for it.

Besides it eye catching sites and places to go, the United Arab Emirates also had many gold shops. In every neighborhood you go you would be sure to see a gold shop. Of course my parents and sister wanted to buy some but the UAE can be very pricey at times so we had to watch our wallet.

Here’s a picture of an average gold shop in Dubai.

Pretty nice if you ask me

So our trip started with us obvious resting the first day we got to our hotel room, but our first official day included exploring the city of Dubai, the second day we went to the ‘desert safari’, the third day we got to visit Abu Dhabi, the Persian Gulf, and the Grand Mosque,  the fourth day was just trying some Arabic foods and delicacy and checking out some day to day shops such as the Gold shops.

Unfortunately came our last day so we decided to go to the well praised ‘Mall of Dubai’. We wanted to go to the top of Burj Khalifa which currently holds the world record for being the tallest building in the world but the people in charge were charging 145 dirhams for one person to go to the highest floor of the building. Considering we were 6 people overall no way! 145 dirham’s was about $48 U.S. dollars making it unworthy. These are just some pictures we took from an outside view.

That pointy looking building by the way is Burj Khalifa, it was so tall we couldn’t even fit it completely into the first picture!

Anyways, rather than spending so much on going up some building, we went to the Mall of Dubai. Since this mall has always been praised and declared amazing and all sorts of stuff, we thought there must have been something amazing about this mall that people on Yelp are always talking about.

It wasn’t that good.

Don’t get me wrong the mall looked amazing from the inside and was actually built very well with chandeliers hanging from the walls and the decorative Christmas lights and decorations  really made the mall look alive. But the thing about it that didn’t really make it seem so eye catching or appealing to us was that every shop or stand made in the mall was every American brand.

We were expecting some nice clothing shops with Arab clothing and a new or different kind of clothing; Something a bit more Arabic cultured. But what we found there was every store we could find in a given mall in our everyday lives in Chicago. Shops such as Kohls, Banana Republic, Carson’s, Macy, Estee lauder , etc.

For a guy this kind of stuff did not appeal to me at all. Heck I don’t even go shopping in general with my parents; leave that to my mom and sister. But even my dad, brother, and grandpa and I were expecting something a bit different and cultural. Everything you could have bought from this ‘Well renown’ mall of Dubai could have been bought from any street or mall in the U.S.A. The only difference was that everything in the Mall of Dubai was much more expensive since it was all imported goods.

Although we didn’t like it, we did see why it was very busy and famous amongst the people of the UAE, it served for the purpose of giving everyday citizens in Dubai and the entire country to come on by and buy clothes and goods that they could not get since obviously not everyone there could one day go to America, they were given a chance at buying and checking out what America offered through the Mall of Dubai. Though I doubt not much people there could visit the U.S.A the country was really wealthy!

Summary:

To conclude the best 5 days of my life, that was pretty much everything we did. We visited the two most major cities in the UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) got to visit one of the most major Mosques in the Muslim world, got to experience what it’s like being in the desert (after riding with the Camels we got to stay at a camp site made in the Desert where we stayed till around midnight and got served an Arabian dinner), and Lastly, got to see the Mall of Dubai.

Although I didn’t like the mall I’m glad we got to see so if anyone asked about it we had the right to answer, “yes we went to the mall of Dubai”.

As for the lifestyle in the UAE, the country was over all very very wealthy. Not just the city of Dubai, but everywhere we went it seemed the wealth of this great nation extended. Goes to show you how far and successful yee old petroleum and oil mining business helped a country when it came to economy and finance.

The country was very very urbanized and developed and people there seemed to live in luxury as we got to see a lot of BMW’s and other fancy cars all over the streets.

The scenery everywhere we went was very beautiful and Palm tree’s lined the side of Roads with certain area’s of the city remaining a sandy ground to remind everyone how this civilization arose from on top of a desert.

Oh ya did I forget to introduce you guys to the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and the Emir (king/ruler) of Dubai?

Yup, his face was mounted on an everyday grocery store such a the one above. At first I found it weird and more of a sense of showing off his power and authority but later on it seemed normal.

Nationalism ran wild in Dubai  as most building had the national flag of the UAE handing off of every flagpole. Streets most likely many times had flagpoles made near them to suspend the nations flag. People were proud of their country! It’s actually a very good thing to feel proud of your nation. I wish I could say the same thing of where my ethnic background lies but once you guys get to read of my time at Pakistan, you’ll understand where I am coming from.

Also, in case most of you wondered. Sheikh Mohammad (The king guy) was not like a dictator! It might seem like it because of his picture mounted in most places but the country was actually full of freedom and opportunities so even I had some respect for him after doing a bit ore research. He even donates tons of money to humanitarian causes so… this ain’t no dictatorship or power struggle it’s just some sort of federal Monarchy.

There is one thing I have to admit. Although I really did end up liking Dubai, I feel as though everything would have probably been much more fascinating to see if I was coming from a third world and undeveloped country such as Pakistan, India, Poland, Mexico, etc, Dubai would have been much more fascinating hence why it is praised around the world but if your coming from the U.S.A, or Germany or any first world country that’s pretty much urbanized, Dubai won’t seem like much of a big deal.

I am glad though that I came out with a souvenir. I bought myself a Keffiyeh which is basically a headpiece for Arab men. I might not be Arab but those things look pretty darn nice so why not buy a set? Here’s how it is supposed to look on someone when worn. Next to the picture of the random guy wearing one is the packed up one I bought.

   

So there you have it; the entire summary of my trip to Dubai. For those who haven’t seen Dubai yet I highly recommend you go see it once in your life, it’s a very prosperous city. But at least most of you can go re-look at all my pictures above if you want to see Dubai because I did take so many pictures so… we all including you readers went to Dubai 🙂

Would I want to go again? Yes

Was it worth all the praises people claim of it? No

Fun? Yes

Will I take Turkish airlines to Dubai again? Most certainly not. I wanted to go on Emirates which went from O’hare international airport in Chicago on a straight flight to Dubai. But Emirates being one of the worlds most leading airline, it is very expensive. So instead had to go from Chicago to Istanbul and Istanbul to Dubai.

That night after coming back from the mall and wishing our hotel suite goodbye, my family and I left for the Dubai international airport where we boarded PIA (Pakistan International Airline) instead of Turkish Airlines and we went on a hour flight straight to Karachi, Pakistan where we stayed with our cousins for the next three weeks until we came back home.

The most interesting three weeks of my life.

I was intending of putting all the drama, experiences, and all sorts of crap that happened to me while in Pakistan but this post has already became so long that I think Most of you would have been asleep by now if this post got any longer.

Plus there is just so so much to write about Pakistan since it’s  such a interesting country, you can say.  At this point much of you could tell their isnt much nationalism coming from me about my country but trust me I might not like Pakistan much but I was glad to be in a country where there was no racism against my people and although it may be a crazy country, something about me misses it for some reason.

To be continued. Thanks for reading and make sure to look out for my next post featuring details on my trip to Pakistan. I know most of you probably are thinking “why should we care about his trips”. I kind of figured that and completely respect your decision. I will be back to posting cooking related posts and culinary tips and recipes very soon. Just want to let all my dear readers see the wonders of other country’s an where I been so long.

– Chef/Author Zubair M.