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I was fortunate to have spent a year or so in Pakistan helping launch Easypaisa - one of the biggest mobile banking deployments globally at the time. I was tol

I was fortunate to have spent a year or so in Pakistan helping launch Easypaisa - one of the biggest mobile banking deployments globally at the time. I was told I was lucky to survive my first day without getting shot - I hung out on Karachi beach with the locals on National day which apparently made me a huge target for theft or kidnapping. While I was in Islamabad the Taliban took over the military headquarters, the city was bombed a few times, and I spent one day in Karachi moving between safe houses as rival gangs took to shooting each other in the streets. My wife is half Indian - we had to hide her identity when she visited (we went with "Persian"). The country was one of amazing contrasts. Kindness and terror, beauty (natural) and ugliness (man made). I say "fortunate" because of the (a) new perspectives gained while being there; (b) having the pleasure of working with some of the brightest and hard-working people I have ever worked with; (c) being part of a project that has helped empower tens of millions of people. The most beautiful place I ever went in over 40 countries I have visited was the foothills of K2 mountains, and watching a Polo match at the birth place of Polo in Baltistan (despite my Indian wife and I being surrounded by 15000 men chanting "Death to India" while war raged on in the SWAT valley a few hundred km's away). A last footnote. Pakistan has been in the middle of so many proxy wars and have such a crazy history that most people I met have woven together the fabric of truth and fantasy to create some of the most amazing conspiracy theories you could ever imagine.

selimthegrim 11y ago
Depends which beach? While there is genuine danger, they might have been playing that up for you with respect to that particular location....I will point out that in 2000, they had a lower murder rate than Chicago, thanks to the excellent work of the CPLC. I'm shocked you had to hide her identity in Karachi - usually there and Punjab are welcoming of visiting Indians, esp. if they're your wife
- Paddywack 11y ago
  I forget which beach. I am glad that it is relatively safe now. My first visit was 2006. On my return visits in 2008/9 I was accompanied by security who were probably over-protective as well. As far as my wife is concerned, we travelled a lot throughout Pakistan - perhaps we were too cautious - although we did come up against a lot of anti-Indian sentiment. We found attitudes vary a lot from place to place about a lot of things, and this is no different. I remember a well educated guy I knew telling me that he stopped going to the Wagga border post near Lahore for fear that he would throw a rock at the Indian border guards in the heat of the moment...

selimthegrim 11y ago

Depends which beach? While there is genuine danger, they might have been playing that up for you with respect to that particular location....I will point out that in 2000, they had a lower murder rate than Chicago, thanks to the excellent work of the CPLC. I'm shocked you had to hide her identity in Karachi - usually there and Punjab are welcoming of visiting Indians, esp. if they're your wife

Paddywack 11y ago
I forget which beach. I am glad that it is relatively safe now. My first visit was 2006. On my return visits in 2008/9 I was accompanied by security who were probably over-protective as well. As far as my wife is concerned, we travelled a lot throughout Pakistan - perhaps we were too cautious - although we did come up against a lot of anti-Indian sentiment. We found attitudes vary a lot from place to place about a lot of things, and this is no different. I remember a well educated guy I knew telling me that he stopped going to the Wagga border post near Lahore for fear that he would throw a rock at the Indian border guards in the heat of the moment...