The arrival of the brother

Having trouble booking a flight back to the UK. BA are, in a nutshell, shit. NEVER fly to Pakistan with BA – they have dumped me here to sort myself out with a return flight and their local offices all seem to be closed now (no flights, no office staff). So, I've been calling the UK office. I keep getting told I need to visit a major city to buy my ticket or go to a PIA sales office in Islamabad, 5 hours away because BA and PIA have a repatriation agreement!! Of course, I didn't accept this, but that I had to make a number of calls today and got no where bothered me hugely to say the least. I kinda need to get home. In the end, I focused on calling PIA and finally managed to speak to someone more helpful. She said she could get me a flight, but I could only buy it in person from a sales office, the nearest one being Islamabad. However, she reserved me a seat for the 20 Oct, my original return day, on the same flight as Zahid, my brother, but I had to buy it today. There was no way I was going to get to Islamabad before the day was out so I accepted the reservation and would try my luck later at extending this deadline.

I decided that my illness was fatigue, related to a lack of good sleep (as are many illnesses, in my opinion). However, I soon recovered just about in time to received Zahid, my brother.

Zahid finally reached Muzaffarabad today after an upset tummy/jetlagged start. He also needed to purchase a cycling helmet as he accidentally left his at home - not normally a problem, but given the limited use of motorcycle helmets, cycling helmets were met with strange facial gestures and shoulder shrugs indicting "you'll be lucky, mate". So, he didn't actually leave for Murree until Thursday. However, in his gentle cycling/ramblings around Islamabad in search of a helmet, he realised that perhaps Murree was a bit too much of a steep climb given his slightly ill state. After all, Islamabad is 300m above sea-level and Murree is 2100m and the distance between the two cities is only 60km. You do the math!

So, he decided to catch the bus – again, not a problem assuming you can find the bus station. Now, you've got to remember, Pakistanis don't do much in the way of a) road signs, b) road names, c) inter-city traveling, d) reading or e) saying "I don't know". So, you can imagine finding the bus station was not simple at all. Eventually, he got there after being told be different people that the station in every major direction of the compass and arrived into Murree on Thursday afternoon. Zahid described the journey to Murree as "beautiful and fantastic", but reaching Murree seemed a huge anticlimax, "boring and dirty". However, he did manage to break into the only church to enter what sounded like aanother world or green grass, children playing on the lawns, parents sitting at a picnic. These were the priest of the church's family who invited Zahid in for a cuppa. Lovely. The 3 police check points even seemed trouble-free, even if one of the policemen tried Zahid's bike and rode a fair distance away, inadvertently scaring Zahid into thinking he was watching his bike and luggage being stolen.

Zahid left Murree on Saturday, direct to Muzaffarabad on bike. 40km was marked mainly by "weeeeeeeeee…" and the remaining 40km were tougher. I was at a typically Muslim wedding (ie boring and impersonal, though, atypically, food was served some 3 hours late that when it was announced, everyone stormed the dinner hall as if they hadn't eaten for 3 iftars of Ramadan. My hand was even slapped away after I, in true Brit style, patiently waited my turn to serve myself!! Some people then very strangely proceeded to cast their chicken bones on the floor ready for their next helping. I was a little perplexed by this behaviour and tried to shield myself in a corner of the dinner hall) and so was very pleased when Zahid called to say his legs were now jelly and could I pick him up from the petrol station he had almost collapsed in and where the owners of a nearby shop were helping him regain the feeling in his legs by feeding him Cornettos. So, I did!

It was really great to see him, particularly after his adventure, but I must have been in conservative Kashmir too long as hugging him seemed a bit awkward. I was surprised I didn't let that cultural issue go, but we sat in the back of the Suzuki chatting an laughing away as we drove back to the village. Twas lovely.