Tourism Development? - it's still a long way to go!

Five weeks in Pakistan – the memories that we take with us from this country are diverse, and not necessarily positive:  many beautiful and unique landscapes – an amazing nature in the north of the country – many extremely uneducated people – many boastful and self-important people – the really precarious security situation – the complete lack of respect towards woman – the enormous corruption – the desolate state of the country despite its resources….

Pakistan still has a very long way to go. Quite often we were told that the country would develop fast, if only the people were better educated, if there would be no corruption, if the USA wouldn’t interfere all the time, if the government would only change…. then Pakistan would be a second Germany within a short time. We are sorry, Pakistan – but this is not true! If you don’t completely change many, very many things then this will never happen.

Why are most kids not visiting school? Why are woman still treated worse than the animals? Why are the men in shops and workshops found more often sleeping than working? Why does even the lowest-ranked security person think that he could demand “passport!” from a foreigner in the most unfriendly way? Why does everybody think that he is important and extremely well educated, or that he speaks excellent English – despite the fact that this is very obviously not true? Why work is always conducted in a negligent way? Why can’t you even change tires without the fear that it will be damaged? Why do Pakistani ask questions, but are not interested to hear the answer? And why do they think that Adolf Hitler was the greatest commander of all times and must be worshiped???

Of course, we also met people, which are different, which are open and helpful, which are thinking before (!) they do something, which do not think that they are more important than they really are, which treat woman in a very respectful way, and which are particularly smart and educated. But in total, these people make up only a very small minority in Pakistan.

The landscape in the north is amazingly beautiful, and the nature is stunning – and like we wrote in our previous articles, it was a major highlight of our trip. We are really grateful that we had the possibility to visit this area, and we had some great adventures. But to be honest: 5 weeks in Pakistan were definitely enough! We were rather happy when we were finally leaving the country.

Shalimar Gardens in Lahore - UNESCO world heritage site and oneof the main attractions there. But in reality it is more like a rubbish dump for which you have to pay 200 Rupies entrance fee....

In a way it is nice that people are interested in us, and that they wanted to great us - but too often they lost all respect and distance within seconds - especially towards Heike, because western woman are seen like some easy to get sexual objects.....

We couldn

we came to this accident on the road - nothing serious, but as soon as we stopped, nobody cared about the actual accident anymore - they all came to see us and the motorcycles....

Foreigners pay 20 times as much entrance fee as Pakistanis