Pakistan

Having been four days touring Pakistan. Lahore, Islamabad and now Karachi.

Impression: much better than expected. I believe media has exaggerated the problems and issues as they normally did: bad news is good news.

I was thinking that dress code would be similar to middle eastern countries for women. But it is not. It is modest and moderate. Still, the atmosphere of male dominated society is there. I just realised how nice to have a mixture of female and male chatting and socialising in every corner of jakarta. Could not stand a boring picture of a hotel lobby full of men in Islamabad. Even PIA cabin crew are men!

Talking about the cities, as my Indian colleague says, Lahore is comparable to Chennai, Islamabad with Delhi and Karachi with Bombay. But I got tired of eating bryani and curry. I miss my morning ritual of papaya chunks with lime juice.