Newspaper cut-outs
I was thinking of taking a train journey from Rawalpindi to the city of 'Quetta' in Balochistan province (near the Iranian border). Then I read the article below and had a change of mind. Quetta sits in the shadow of the 'Chargai' mountains in the South-West of the country and resembles a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost. Actually, judging by today's newspaper it is a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost:
'QUETTA, Aug 6: Four people were killed and four others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Quetta on Wed morning. The motorcycle had been parked outside a restaurant on the Majid Road. The bomb was detonated by remote-control. All the victims we're having Tea when the bomb exploded.
In a separate incident, a man on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade at a stall in Quetta. A vendor was injured.
Notice the almost relaxed, nonchalant, care-free tone of the hand-grenade article. If a hand-grenade had been hurled in a vendors store in London it would make front page news! Not in Quetta it seems. Perhaps hurling of hand-grenades is a popular past-time. Or perhaps the hand-grenades they hurl in Quetta are timid affairs like the little fire crackers they let off at weddings that go off with a whizz not a bang; after all the vendor was only injured wasn't he?
Here's another newspaper cut-out from this mornings newspaper:
KARACHI: A suspected bandit, who was fleeing with his alleged accomplice after a bungled robbery was shot dead by the people. They said that two dacoits held a women hostage at gun-point and attempted to deprive her of her bangles. When she screamed they scarpered hotly pursued by the people. Someone then shot and hit one of them.
I don't know about you but this sounds suspiciously like a Bollywood script to me. 'Bandits', 'Dacoits', 'Bangles', 'Scarpered' and 'Hotly pursued??'.And they weren't particularly good bandits either if all it took was a women's screams to scarper them off!
Random thoughts
Currently reading Voltaire's 'Candide'. It is about human suffering and was written in 1758. It challenges (via the medium of erudite wit) the accepted belief (held widely at the time) that all suffering is in the end part of the 'Big Masterplan' - that in the end when you add everything up suffering leads to more good than bad and is for the best in the long run. Voltaire dismissed such thinking as hogwash. Or if he was born today he'd say 'Bollocks! Voltaire says that ultimately suffering is never good and that through our actions we should and can minimise it. i.e it is within the power of humanity to reduce suffering. Surprisingly, in our modern world there are plenty of people who still subscribe to the old fatalistic view.
Fokker aeroplanes
It seems that obtaining a Chinese Visa these days is a very tricky business indeed. You require proof of hotel reservations, flights in and out, sponsors, proof of employment, proof of fitness, proof that you are human (only kidding) etc. There's more hurdles to pass through then the 110 metre er hurdles...I'm not sure whether they'll issue a visa to me (at least during the Olympics anyway) for my land trip across China to Mongolia. So, this is where one must be a little more creative with border crossings and 'grease' some dodgy border guards. I am looking at the possibility of getting into Mongolia (after I have completed the Karakoram Highway) from 'Almaty' in the 'Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan'.
Apparently, I've heard (on the travellers grapevine!) that Mongolian Airways has a weekly flight in an ageing 'Fokker Twin Propeller' aeroplane from Almaty to some flea-pit town in the far west of Mongolia that civilization seems to have forgotten. This is not for the faint hearted though because Mongolian Airways are not exactly the worlds 'premier' airline are they? In fact there safety record is in the top 10. That is top 10 'worst' airlines. In fact you probably have a better chance of surviving a trip to the moon. In a fridge. This is not a detour I had planned but a couple of weeks in Kazakhstan sound like great fun...erm don't they?
