Comments on: So you want to leave Pakistan?

By: Daud

Daud — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:22:32 +0000

Well I just feel that if I left I wouldn’t want to come back. Or maybe I will. Can’t say which would be worse.

By: Paul Currion

Paul Currion — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:58:12 +0000

You should have explained to him that your mountaineering equipment was specifically for the purpose of climbing mosques. With a yak. That would have confused him long enough for you to escape.

By: Garret

Garret — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:44:15 +0000

Hmmm. Although I have to agree with #1 (my buddy and I showed up without print-outs of our itinerary and had to wait in a little security shack outside the actual airport for a half-hour while they looked up our itineraries), I’d have to completely disagree with the rest–getting back into the US was way worse–I had all my bags (clearly full of mountaineering equipment) and all my photos on my camera searched by an extremist conservative who, despite working for customs at SFO, had never met a native-born US citizen who’d been to Pakistan and thus assumed I was a terrorist and everyone I’d met in Pakistan was a terrorist. To demonstrate his ignorance, he volunteered that he’d never heard of such an animal as a yak before, and asked accusingly if I’d been to a mosque after seeing a picture of me with some guy in the street (NOT in front of a mosque). Yes, I had, and if I’d gone to Europe I would’ve visited a freaking cathedral.

By: Omair

Omair — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:42:17 +0000

I’ve gone through this once. Had a laugh at the fact that it was harder to leave Karachi than it was to enter post 9-11 America.

By: Paul Currion

Paul Currion — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:36:15 +0000

What, not even for a holiday?

By: Daud

Daud — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:28:17 +0000

Good thing I don’t want to leave Pakistan.