Tomor­row I’ll be get­ting up around 8, pack my things and walk the 300m to the bus sta­tion, where I’ll look for a bus to take me to Wagha, the only bor­der cross­ing between India and Pakistan. In the last couple weeks I’ve met many people who thought going that way isn’t really a smart idea con­sid­er­ing the recent devel­op­ments in the area. The Kalash val­ley, an area up north has been taken over by the Taliban, the risk of abduc­tion in Balochistan is unusu­ally high, viol­ence is rampant in Kara­chi, Osama bin Laden is sup­posedly turn­ing into a pops­icle some­where in a cave high up the moun­tains in Chitral and the Pakistani gov­ern­ment never really had, like ever, con­trol over the tri­bal areas close to Afghanistan.

All very good and valid reas­ons, why one shouldn’t travel to Pakistan just now. So maybe I’m not smart (a lot of people keep telling me that…). I’ve even had someone sug­gest that I’m only doing this so I can say I’ve been there. So I’m not only not smart, I’m a bit of a show-off as well. All of which I can really live with. After all, I know that I will be just as safe in Pakistan now as I was the last few years trav­el­ling the world. Obvi­ously there is a risk, but I think this can be man­aged, just as the risk of cross­ing the road here in India can be man­aged. It all comes down to me. The way I behave as a trav­el­ler and vis­itor in a for­eign country.

I’ve done my research. I know the areas in Pakistan to avoid. Some I will have to travel through on my way to Iran, like West Balochistan, but even this is man­age­able. I will travel on local busses as much as pos­sible, I’ll try (prob­ably not too hard) to avoid pop­u­lar tour­ist joints and I will wear long pants. You might laugh, but in coun­tries like Pakistan and Iran it’s not very respect­ful to wear shorts for any­thing but the beach and it pays off respect­ing the people and cul­ture of your host country.

And let’s not for­get that Pakistan is not at war, des­pite the so called War on Ter­ror. Without a doubt, Pakistan is right in the middle of that war, but I refuse to believe that a whole coun­try can only con­sist of extrem­ists. Rather, I believe that the Pakistani people will offer me the hos­pit­al­ity that the whole of the Middle East was once known for (and prob­ably still should be; I’ll let you know). On all my travels, I have always felt wel­come and I don’t see why Pakistan should be any different.

I haven’t been to Pakistan before, but I’m as excited about going there like I was on that first day of that first trip 9 years or so ago. Per­son­ally, I think almost any coun­try can be trav­elled in, no mat­ter what the cir­cum­stances (let’s exclude a full blown war here, shall we?). Many people have vis­ited Pakistan before me and many more will go after I have been there and I don’t think we’ll be in any kind of danger. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be going.

So… What’s your take on the mat­ter? Is Pakistan a travel coun­try or should it be avoided?