Islamabad

Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, was built in the 1960s. It's big, it's soulless, no one looks twice at you if you're bare headed, and you can walk the streets at night. I walked through a crowd of men just exiting a mosque, and rather than raining abuse (or rocks) upon my head for that Newsweek/Koran desecration story, they paid me no attention. The people were polite, well-educated, and friendly. In short, Islamabad is a normal sort of place. And although it's not the most exciting tourist destination in the world, when you've been living in Kabul, it's the best! The sewer system in Islamabad actually runs UNDER ground!

My first afternoon there, I was so busy shopping for clothes, eating in western-style restaurants, and just walking (an activity I haven't been able to engage in since I've been in Afghanistan), that I didn't take any pictures. This was a mistake, because my second day in Islamabad, I was sick as a dog, and the only thing I saw was the ceiling of my hotel room. It was tinted pink from the sun streaming through my bordello-red curtains, and had a rather nice molding.

Note to self: Die of dehydration before consuming anything from a street vendor in Lahore.

And the next morning I returned to Kabul, queasy and disappointed.