Travel Guide

Places To See

Chaukundi

Graveyards stretch for many kilometres along the coast around Karachi, but the largest and most impressive tombs and mausoleums are concentrated at Chaukundi. The buildings are constructed of slabs of rock, stacked into oblong pyramids of cubical stone and carved with exquisite designs.

Takht-i-Bahi

By far the best and most complete of the ruins of the Gandhara region, which once flourished in the remote valleys of Peshawar and Swat, are those of the 1st to 7th century AD Buddhist monastery Takht-i-Bahi, spectacularly positioned on a rocky hill. It was excavated (and stripped of statuary and friezes) from 1907 to 1913, and later reconstructed.

Moenjodaro

Of the 165 sites of the Indus Valley civilisation so far uncovered, the remarkable ancient city of Moenjodaro is by far the most impressive visually and archaeologically. Except for the stupa, all of the present layer of excavation is from around 2500 BC. There's also a museum containing relics from the site, including engraved seals and terracotta toys.

Pre-Departure Information

When to go?

The best time for travelling to Pakistan depends on which part of the country you intend to visit. Generally speaking, Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and the southern North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are best visited in the cooler months between November and February. After that it gets uncomfortably hot. Northern NWFP, the Northern Areas and Azad Jammu & Kashmir are generally at their best from around May to October (although occasionally stormy) The trekking season is from late April to late October, peaking from mid-June to mid-September. The weather may be a little stormy during this time, but the mountain districts are usually still accessible.

Try to avoid visiting Pakistan during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, which occurs in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar (not the Gregorian calendar). Check the web for Ramadan dates or you may find yourself involuntarily joining in the fast, because activity is kept to a minimum and food can be hard to find (and, if found, often considered offensive if consumed publicly) during daylight hours.

Travel Visa Overview

Everyone needs a visa to enter Pakistan. Most visitors are issued with a single-entry tourist visa that enables entry up to six months from the date of issue, but you can only actually stay for a maximum of three months from the date of entry.

Electricity

220/240V

50Hz

Electrical Plugs

South African/Indian-style plug with two circular metal pins above a large circular grounding pin

European plug with two circular metal pins

Health Information

Typhoid

This serious bacterial infection is spread via food and water. It gives headaches and a high and slow progressive fever, and may be accompanied by a dry cough and stomach pain. It is diagnosed by blood tests and treated with antibiotics. Vaccination is recommended for all travellers spending more than a week in Pakistan. Be aware that vaccination is not 100% effective so you must sill be careful with what you eat and drink.

Japanese B encephalitis

This viral disease is transmitted by mosquitoes and is rare in travellers. Like most mosquito-borne diseases it is becoming a more common problem in affected countries. Most cases occur in rural areas and vaccination is recommended for travellers spending more than one month outside in cities. There is no treatment, and a third of infected people will die while another third will suffer permanent brain damage.

Dengue fever

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits the dengue virus, is most active during the day, and is found mainly in urban areas, in and around human dwellings. Signs and symptoms of dengue fever include a sudden onset of high fever, headache, joint and muscle pains, nausea and vomiting. A rash of small red spots sometimes appears three to four days after the onset of fever. Severe complications do sometimes occur. You should seek medical attention as soon as possible if you think you may be infected. There is no vaccine against dengue fever.

Hepatitis

Several different viruses cause hepatitis; they differ in the way that they are transmitted. The symptoms in all forms of the illness include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, feelings of weakness and aches and pains, followed by loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-coloured faeces, jaundiced (yellow) skin and yellowing of the whites of the eyes.

There are 6 known types of viral hepatitis:A, B, C, D, E and G. G is not dangerous. A and E are passed on by the fecal-oral route of transmission; there is a vaccine. Seek medical advice, but there is not much you can do apart from resting, drinking lots of fluids, eating lightly and avoiding fatty foods. A and E cause an acute illness, but you will recover fully from it.

B and D are passed on via blood, saliva, semen and vaginal fluids. They can be passed on by close contact, sexual contact, and blood-to-blood contact. The symptoms of hepatitis B may be more severe than type A and the disease can lead to long-term problems such as chronic liver damage, liver cancer or a long-term carrier state. There is a vaccine.

Hepatitis C is only passed on from blood-to-blood contact. There is no vaccine.

Malaria

This serious and potentially fatal disease is spread by mosquito bites and is endemic in most countries of the region (the exceptions being Singapore and Brunei). If you are travelling in endemic areas it is extremely important to avoid mosquito bites and to take tablets to prevent this disease. Symptoms range from fever, chills and sweating, headache, diarrhoea and abdominal pains to a vague feeling of ill-health. Seek medical help immediately if malaria is suspected. Without treatment malaria can rapidly become more serious and can be fatal. If medical care is not available, malaria tablets can be used for treatment. There is a variety of medications such as mefloquine, Fansidar and Malarone. You should seek medical advice, before you travel, on the right medication and dosage for you. If you do contract malaria, be sure to be re-tested for malaria once you return home as you can harbour malaria parasites in your body even if you are symptom free. Travellers are advised to prevent mosquito bites at all times. The main messages are: wear light-coloured clothing; wear long trousers and long-sleeved shirts; use mosquito repellents containing the compound DEET on exposed areas (prolonged overuse of DEET may be harmful, especially to children, but its use is considered preferable to being bitten by disease-transmitting mosquitoes); avoid perfumes and aftershave.

Use a mosquito net impregnated with mosquito repellent (permethrin) - it may be worth taking your own.

Weather Information

Pakistan is mostly hot everywhere in the middle of the year and some places can get quite cold from December to February. Basically the months in between are the best. On the coast, pleasantly warm days between 25°C and 29°C (77°F and 85°F), cool nights and little rain make for delicious weather between November and February. One of the hottest places in the world, southern inland Pakistan is quite extreme, with a torturous period between April and September of frequent mid 40°C (104-114°F) days. The northern regions also cook in the middle of the year, but are pleasant either side of the months between May and September, while things can get quite cool between December and February.

History and Culture

Pre-20th Centure History

The first inhabitants of Pakistan were Stone Age peoples in the Potwar Plateau (northwest Punjab). They were followed by the sophisticated Indus Valley (or Harappan) civilisation which flourished between the 23rd to 18th centuries BC. Semi-nomadic peoples then arrived, and by the 9th century BC they had spread across northern Pakistan-India. Their Vedic religion was the precursor of Hinduism, and their rigid division of labour an early caste system.

In 327 BC Alexander the Great came over the Hindu Kush to finish off the remnants of the defeated Persian empire. Although his visit was short, some tribes tell picturesque legends in which they claim to be descended from Alexander and his troops. Later came the heyday of the Silk Route, a period of lucrative trade between China, India and the Roman empire. The Kushans were at the centre of the silk trade and established the capital of their Gandhara kingdom at Peshawar. By the 2nd century AD they had reached the height of their power, with an empire that stretched from eastern Iran to the Chinese frontier and south to the Ganges River. The Kushans were Buddhist and under King Kanishka built thousands of monasteries and stupas. Soon Gandhara became both a place of trade and of religious study and pilgrimage - the Buddhist 'holy' land.

The Kushan empire had unravelled by the 4th century and was subsequently absorbed by the Persian Sassanians, the Gupta dynasty, Hephthalites from Central Asia, and Turkic and Hindu Shahi dynasties. The next strong central power was the Mughals who reigned during the 16th and 17th centuries. A succession of rulers introduced sweeping reforms, ending Islam's supremacy as a state religion, encouraging the arts, building fanciful houses and, in a complete volte-face, returning the state to Islam once again.

In 1799 a young and ambitious Sikh named Ranjit Singh was granted governorship of Lahore. Over the next few decades he proceeded to parlay this entity into a small empire, fashioning a religious brotherhood of 'holy brothers' into the most formidable army on the subcontinent. In the course of his rule, Ranjit had agreed to stay out of British territory - roughly southeast of the Sutlej River - if they in turn left him alone. But his death in 1839 and his successor's violation of the treaty plunged the Sikhs into war. The British duly triumphed, annexing Kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit and renaming them the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Thus they created a buffer state to Russian expansionism in the northwest and, unwittingly, introduced what would transpire to be the subcontinent's most unmanageable curse. A second war against the British in 1849 brought the empire to an end, and the annexation of the Punjab and the Sindh in the 1850s; these were ceded to the British Raj in 1857.

Modern History

National self-awareness began growing in British India in the latter stages of the 19th century. In 1906 the Muslim League was founded to demand an independent Muslim state, but it wasn't until 24 years later that a totally separate Muslim homeland was proposed. Around the same time, a group of England-based Muslim exiles coined the name Pakistan, meaning 'Land of the Pure'. After violence between Hindus and Muslims escalated in the mid-1940s, the British were forced to admit that a separate Muslim state was unavoidable. The new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, announced that independence would come by June 1948.

British India was dutifully carved up into a central, largely Hindu region retaining the name India, and a Muslim East (present-day Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. The announcement of the boundaries sparked widespread carnage and one of the largest migrations of people in history. Kashmir (properly The State of Jammu and Kashmir), though, was procrastinating about which country to join. When India and Pakistan sent troops into the recalcitrant state, war erupted between the two countries. In 1949 a UN-brokered cease-fire gave each country a piece of Kashmir to administer, but ultimate control still remains unclear.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a prime mover of Muslim independence, became Pakistan's first governor general but died barely a year into his new country's independence. His deputy and friend Liaqat Ali Khan replaced him but was assassinated three years later. What followed was a muddle of quarrelling governors general and prime ministers and a severe economic slump. In 1956 Pakistan finally produced a constitution and became an Islamic republic. West Pakistan's provinces were amalgamated into a single entity similar to that in East Pakistan. Two years later President Iskander Mirza - fed up with the bickering and opportunism that pervaded Pakistani politics - abrogated the constitution, banned political parties and declared martial law. Pakistan has remained in this prolonged state of emergency, in one form or another, ever since.

The next two decades saw Pakistan racked by further war with India over Kashmir, civil war between the east and west, the declaration of Bangladeshi independence, another war with India and the execution of one of its most charismatic prime ministers, Z A Bhutto. In 1977 Bhutto's chief of staff, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, took control, insinuating himself successfully with the USA (thereby gaining valuable foreign aid) and being widely feted as a hero of the free world. His death in an air crash in 1988 opened the way for Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, to claim victory in the next election, the first elected woman to head an Islamic country. She was toppled soon after but was voted back into power in 1993.

Benazir Bhutto travelled widely, trumpeting Pakistan's investment potential and casting herself, and her country, as role models for the modern Islamic state. Her place in the hearts of her own people though was endangered by a culture of official corruption. She was dismissed as prime minister in November 1996 by President Farooq Leghari. Elections held in early 1997 returned her opponent Nawaz Sharif. After India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, Pakistan responded in kind two weeks later, detonating five nuclear devices in southwestern Balochistan. International condemnation was widespread, and sanctions placed intense strain on the country's economy.

It was the 'ruined economy' that General Pervez Musharraf cited as the main reason for his bloodless coup that took place in October 1999. The military stepped in, deposed Nawaz Sharif and then took control of most of Pakistan's institutions. Musharraf issued a thinly veiled warning to India not to meddle in their internal affairs, with the result that tension over nuclear capabilities between the two countries (and the continuing dispute over Kashmir) was screwed up a notch.

Recent History

Musharraf named himself president in June 2001. Afghanistan's Taliban was a creation of Pakistan's military intelligence, and until September 2001 was nominally backed by Musharraf's government, but after the 9/11 attacks Musharraf - in the unenviable position of having to choose sides - took the controversial decision to back the USA rather than lose vital military and economic assistance.

Missile tests in 2002 pushed the country to the brink of war with India. In August of that year, a referendum marred by irregularities granted Musharraf sweeping new powers. The October general election saw religious parties do better than expected and resulted in a hung parliament.

Although civil unrest continued to be a problem, particularly in the southern Sindh province, a ceasefire in Kashmir announced in November 2003 marked the provisional end of the latest round of brinkmanship. It didn't seem to win the president many friends, however - in December 2003 he was lucky to survive an assassination attempt; despite continuing threats of assassination, Musharraf has managed to retain power.