THIS IS A MAN'S WORLD...

Some days are just….different. After being quite pleased with my slow but steady progress against a dust storm and strong winds, I end up on an empty road with desert all around.
I stop a man and ask if this is the right road to DG Khan. After realising he has no idea himself I try to move on. But he`s grabbed the front of my bike and wont let me move, shouting angrily in Urdu at me . I stay calm, slowly moving back and keep smiling until I see a car I can flag down…he immediately shoots off when the car pulls up and off I go again…That was my first negative experience with anyone in Pakistan, having found nothing but warm hospitality and respect wherever I go…yet perhaps this was just my unlucky day as a few hours later I also have two guys pull up beside me on their motorbike and molest me whilst all the other men in the street have a good laugh. However, I got the impression it was less of a sexual thing and more of a punishment for breaking so many social taboos as a woman cycling alone. I just shouted `police`when they came back for more and shook my fists as best as I could without falling off my bike. They were completely arrogant and just drove off laughing…and I carried on. And almost I didn`t include this on the blog, feeling a little embaressed to be talking about this publicly. But I know it is precisely this fear or shame that perpetuates the culture of acceptance of these acts of sexual harrasment. I said I wanted to understand and experience how it is for a woman take this journey alone, and I learned that sometimes it really is still a mans world that frustrates, restricts and intimidates me. As a woman on a bicycle I am already transgressing social norms, woman do not ride bikes or motorbikes as it is considered too sexual. And as a woman alone I am also breaking the social conventions that woman should be protected and guarded by a man. But more than anything else, I found the rejection or disapproval of other women the hardest to accept. Women stared at me in fear or horror sometimes as I passed on my bike, others thought I was insane to be alone without a man whilst some just looked incredibly dissaproving that I wasn't married and was alone…more than any of the male cat calling, lude jeering or groping, getting the cold shoulder from another woman hurt the most.

But there are women against the grain, there are women who have blazed a firey trail through Pakistans history. And whilst on the road two women also pull over and insist on taking photos with me. They say I'm a brave woman and I`ve inspired them…I tell them I think any woman in Pakistan is brave just to exist in this mans world but I take these words to heart and hold onto them, letting them keep my head high at the next lude jeering session from more bike boys...

PAKISTAN: MULTAN

Blue tiled mosques, hot stone searing on bare feet. Inside-peaceful mausoleums where the stone is cool and calm, men and women lightly touch their foreheads to the grave, murmuring softly.

Sunlight filtered, paying its respects to the dead whilst fairy lights flash and pidgeons nestle in the high domed ceiling.

Despite enjoying the steeped history of this place I know it is time to move on when the hotel manager brings me into his office to show me little signs he`s made of my name…writing it over and over again and colouring it in carefully ...I leave early the next morning...

PAKISTAN: Lahore, Pattoki, Sahiwal, Chian Mannu...

Lahore is sleepy with Sunday as I cycle through the tree lined streets. Brown canal water is leaping with school boys splashing in and out. I spend a few days in this beautiful city, enjoying the old red bricks, street life and the peaceful escape of the library-lounging on the old school leather sofas under the high arched roof.
I spend some time familiarising myself with Sam. Only when another traveller bursts out laughing when I tell him I just changed my tires for the first time in my life do I realise what a task I've undertaken…I don't tell him it took me almost two hours.

But finally the day comes when I head out in the early morning sun.

The next few days cycling south to Multan find me the star guest at a Pakistani wedding, surrounded by excited young woman and old ladies with big belly laughs trying to make me marry their sons, cycling through dusty villages of mud houses, water buffaloes lazing in warm waters to my envy, endless motorway pollution, and being pursued by every man with a wheel. I've never been what I would call a traffic stopper, but it seems that is exactly what I am these days. A line of lorries pulls up ahead just to watch me go by, only to overtake slowly , leaning and staring out the windows before pulling up ahead again. One tired afternoon I decide to take advantage of this road side escort and grab hold of the next rickshaw that slows down to stare, getting a free ride the last few kilometres, although we nearly career off the road at one point when he`s too busy trying to get my phone number!

And in a small dusty town of 48 degrees heat, I find a gem of a man who lets overland cyclists stay and eat at his hotel for free in exchange for a postcard from another country. He was a local sports champion in the 1970`s and appreciates anyone who takes up a physical challenge. Why does it always seem to be those with less who give the most?

TRAFFIC

And just who have been my fellow companions on the road? From camels to black bears chained onto the back of a donkey led cart and distressed goats atop the bus roof, their ears flapping at full speed...I have shared this road with every beast and wheel imaginable.
Tuc-tucs bright with colourful paintings, inside which I can never get over the novelty of the amount of mirrored reflections blending my face with coloured decorations.



Donkeys bright with orange henna, moving slow with heavy loads. Donkeys beaten under wooden sticks, donkeys bedecked with clown like flowers yet their treatment is nothing to smile about...


Men on colourful, flower bedecked bikes, trailing me trying to get my phone number whilst the moped boys cruise alongside staring. Boys with large battery attachments proudly wheel their loud radio bikes down the road.

And the busses....those unbelievable works of art on wheels. Sometimes it is impossible to see what lies beneath this colourful explosion hurtling towards me at full speed. Metal flowers, birds, women and all manner of conceviable decor turn the road into an amusement arcade.

This is how they look.....

and this is how they sound....!

PAKISTAN PESHAWAR

Tea.
Peshawar is all about tea.

Grotty hovels of tea-shops filled with bearded men sweating in the city's heat.
The smooth faces of young boys carrying tea trays through the clogged roads.


Rope charpoi beds to sit on inside instead of seats.
And the tea...green and fresh and surprisingly delicate for this mans world of noise, posturing and pollution.


The old trading route to Afghanistan, Peshawar evokes images of bazaars bustling with men in desert dress, tea-trays carried through narrow winding alleys by small boys whilst bearded men give the city its flavour of dangerous excitement as they negotiate trading deals in shaded corners. Today the city is the heart of the troubled North-West Frontier Provinces and the historical home of the Pashtun tribe who span the borders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Outside the cities limits, large settlements of Afghani refugees are signs of the modern troubles in the otherwise timeless atmosphere of the city.






I wonder through small market streets in the shadow of historical buildings-tall and slanted, wooden and carved, black from the grease smoke of the downstairs kebab shops.


An evening's stroll down the busy street warm in the night air, is full of men and meat, meat and men. Always a little intimidating to find yourself the only woman on the streets, I find my camera works magic in these moments providing a neutral way of communicating with people. 'Madam, madam, come, come, photo, photo!'. Soon everyone is smiling and posing for my camera...in exchange for a quick lesson on frying lamb, making chappati, glueing shoes or grinding ice for sweet summer drinks...whatever their profession, my camera acts as an instant VIP pass into their daily lives.

Down through jewellery lane I amble, blinded by the myriad of reflective glass and fairy lights creating the illusion of endless gold.

Down these alleys of glittering gold it is here I find the cities women...gliding past in full Burqua, unsettingly faceless. Yet it is still possible to trace the ghost of a smile under that protective barrier, a smile and the whisper of a giggle at the sight of a foreign women in their midst. And I too am well covered under hijab, veil...and sometimes when the staring is a little too much...I too can understand the attraction of the anonymity of the burqua, the silent unnoticed glide through the male spheres of the streets.


Colourful towers of local sweets try to seduce me whilst streams of school children dive hungrily into the sugered shops.

And in the silence of the old mosque, I find respite from the heat and noise. In shaded corners of subtle light, I sit and watch men at prayer. Despite the always rather garish floral patterns of mosques, the walls emit a sense of peace and stillness that I miss from not having my own rhythm and community of reflection.



And just what is this face of Islam I have encountered in Pakistan so far? Is it the face of hostile, anti-foreigner terrorism that the media would have us believe? No. Despite the hijabs, the burquas and the despairing sexual injustices, I have also come to know and love the face of Islam that still holds women in higher value than I found in Indian society. I have felt the openness of arms greeting the foreigner in their midst and I have felt the warmth of genuine smiles of welcome. In Islam, and especially amongst the native Pashtun tribes of Peshawar, hospitality is a highly valued tradition where guests are given everything the host can provide..and, sometimes, even when they can't provide. I have had meals, journeys, gifts for free on the basis of being an honoured 'meynmer', guest, that shrink me in shame when I think of the treatment of some foreigners and refugees on my native lands of the 'civilised' West.

And I have felt the genuine sadness in the eyes of those who always eventually ask me.....what do you think of Pakistani's? Do people really think we are terrorists? Perhaps one of my most poignant memories from these hospitable lands was when a women shyly asked me if Western people really hated Muslims...

I cannot deny the security threats in Pakistan. I can only ask you to remember the huge divide between people and politics. I can only ask you remember the kindness I have met and the unbelievably hospitality I have encountered. I can only ask you remember this the next time you see a lost looking face of someone from a different land....because I am also that lost looking foreigner and they are also someone's beloved daughter or friend.

I can only ask....