Cultural Observations

There are a number of things that have caught my eye usually because they are different from Canada. For example, going through airport security I am patted down not scanned with a hand held device. There is still the metal detector doorway frame. The women are not patted down in public. They go into a screened box where there is a security women who closes the curtain and I assume, pats them down.

Motorcycle Helmets:
Helmets are optional and very, very few riders wear them. In Karachi there are 3,000,000 cars and 9,000,000 motorcycles. The population of Karachi is around 20,000,000. The population of Lahore is around 10,000,000. It is not uncommon to see 3 riders on a motorcycle and I have seen 4, all without helmets. I saw a family of 4 on a motorcycle without helmets. The father was driving with the wife riding side saddle on the back, a young child infront of the father and a very young child on the handle bars. And they were in 7 lane traffic where every vehicle appears to have the right of way. Scary.

Vehicles:
It is common to see cars, busses, motorcycles, bicycles, donkey carts and horse carriages on the road at the same time. I passed a donkey cart in the middle lane of a 6 lane roadway with cars travelling at 80 km/hr.

Buses:



Buses are privately owned. To run a bus you get a vehicle and apply for a route. The buses demonstrate their owners pride of ownership through the paint jobs. It is almost like the cable cars in San Francisco, that is you just jump on and hang on, inside, on the side or on the top. There is a ticket guy at each end of the bus who checks for tickets. I don't know how they check on the passengers riding on top of the bus.

Animals:
In downtown Karachi and Lahore I have seen cows wandering across the street. In Karachi I passed through a Hindu community where the cows are allowed to roam free. In other neighbourhoods the cows are allowed to graze freely. The water buffulo are too big and are keep of road. More than once we had to slow down to pass cows in 3 lane traffic.

What about goats you ask? Well there are a lot of those wandering the streets also. I didn't see too many cats or dogs, surprisingly.


Schools:
There is no public school system. If you want your child educated then you have to send them to private. That means that the majority of people in Pakistan do not know how to read and write. This also means that you cannot hand a written address to the common man on the street and ask for directions. Most if not all educated Pakistanis can speak English as they study that in school and watch English TV.