Passages

Sorry for lapse in posting. I've been on the Hindu Kush Weight-Loss Program, one of the simplest known to man or beast. Two steps:

• Eat stuff.

• Wait (preferably near toilet).

I know better, but I'd grabbed some dried apricots at the Kabul departure 'lounge,' and nibbled on them one day in Pakistan. We narrowed it down to the apricots because they're the only thing no one else would touch, being a tad, well, dirt-covered. My general approach is, if you can wipe the dirt off, it's fine. I'd forgotten that the rules vary east of Suez.

So, in hopes of dashing this off before dashing off, a summary of the past few days (forgive me again if my timeline is off - three countries, several time shifts and a bit of mental muddiness):

• We took a three-hour ride to a salt mine north of Lahore. One imagines the Tea Party would be pleased by the utter absence of gubmint regulation: you pays your money, takes a rickety tram down somewhere into the earth, past groups of un-hard-hatted, barefoot miners, and looks around. Pakistan being Pakistan, we were on the sixth level of a 14-level mine when the power went out. One hesitates to toss the word 'terror' around lightly, but feeling wretchedly gut-sick while walking around a salt mine in the, let's say, developing world when all suddenly goes black and silent -- save for one Pakistani-accented 'Oh shit' in the dark -- can bring rapidly to mind the Act of Contrition. In Latin. 

Lights came on in less than a minute, which minute we killed by obsessively popping the flashes on our cameras. There's a mosque down there, a snack bar, and several underground pools with natural bridges -- one of which I stood over, holding out my arms like Gandalf holding back a Balrog, to the utter confusion of the tour guide. There's a spot at which one is supposed to lick the salt wall for 'two years of prosperity,' but I chose to preserve what intestinal fortitude I had left and gave it a pass.

The ride home? Couldn't tell you - sick and asleep, fevered dreams. How fevered? I remember dreaming in French, a language I can speak only badly to waiters. Home and collapsed, awaiting our 3:25 a.m. flight to Qatar; Vajiha set me up with dry toast and 7-Up, and sent us all off with hugs and promises of mutual visits. 

• We discovered, somewhere along the way, that the intelligence wallahs went back to the first naan shop we'd visited and confiscated everyone's national ID cards while interrogating them about their dealings with the gora. I feel terrible, but I'd feel more guilty if we'd done anything wrong, but we TOOK FUCKING PHOTOS OF A BAKERY. 

• Which leads me to muse a bit on Pakistani intelligence-gathering, which has the feel of 'Brazil' - compulsive, omnipresent, but slightly silly and terribly inefficient. Official after official, at the airport and in Lahore Cantonment, wants to know who you are, what you're doing, what you have in your bag, and why you came to Pakistan (one immigration cop simply refused to believe I was visiting friends. 'Yes, yes, but what was your BUSINESS?' he kept asking. 'Monkey business,' I finally said, and he said, 'OK, OK.' An answer is good enough, apparently). There's a passport check at the airport 10 feet from the previous passport check, and two sets of people punching holes in the tags on your carry-on luggage, for no explicable reason. Friends in Pak say it has more to do with employing people than actual security, but it does lead to a breakdown in respect for authority. Or just annoyance.

• Qatar in a few hours -- late, because the plane left Lahore an hour late, leaving us about 30 minutes to clear immigration and dash to the connecting flight. Which itself was late because there were 11 passengers even more delayed than we.

• Finally Dubai. A four-hour nap in a low-rent hotel/apartment block, no internet, thank you, and then a two-hour bus to Abu Dhabi. It's been one of  Karen's longtime goals to go to Abu Dhabi simply because the name tickles her. Thus, a belated birthday dinner in the Jumeirah at Etihad Towers, overlooking a darkened Persian Gulf. Great buffet, one cocktail apiece -- approximately $270, give or take my bad currency-conversion abilities. Happy birthday, K.

• Back to Dubai and a half-hour to find a cab. The bus terminal is in what appears to be a Pakistani neighborhood ('appears' meaning the restos there are named after Karachi, Lahore and other Pakistani hotspots, and all the people in them were Pakistani). And look, anecdotes aren't evidence, but we watched a slew of taxis fly past a group of young Pakistani men trying to flag them down and pull up to us. I'm not calling bullshit, but I refused every cab that did that -- to our chagrin, because it took a long time to find a 'clean' car, and even then, he'd never heard of our crappy hotel. Thank God Emily remembered the Sheraton Four Points was around the corner, and we got there in time for another sprint to the tashnab (it's Dari; figure it out from context) and most of a night's sleep. Woken by a Filipino-Filipina domestic dispute in the street outside. Ah, Dubai.

• And thus we sit, rested if largely drained, in the most garish airport in the most garish emirate, sipping civilized coffee and waiting for a flight to Jordan. Inshallah, we can update tonight.