The City That Loves You, is what the billboards and posters proclaim when you arrive at Tbilisi International Airport. Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, is a bustling metropolitan city, full of life, people, entertainment, culture and is the heart of the Caucasus.

I arrived at the airport via Turkish Airlines from Istanbul early in the evening, the people at immigration went through my passport and after I showed them my invitation letter and paid the visa fee they stamped my passport with a Georgian visa, the process took no more than ten minutes. However, I did run into trouble at Karachi’s Quaid e Azam International Airport as I had a paper visa and my passport was to be stamped on arrival, so the FIA officials weren’t too keen on letting us go, in fact, we were informed that no one from Pakistan had been to Georgia since 2003!

We got through customs with no hassle at all and went out into the parking lot to grab a taxi. It cost us about $15-20 dollars to get from the airport to the city centre where I was staying at the Citadines Apartments which stand right in front of Freedom Square and next to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Rustaveli Avenue.

Rustaveli is a long avenue in one of the richer parts of the city and is home to most of the lavish hotels, including the Radeissen Blu, Marriott and Citadines. Plus, that’s where you’ll find most of the trendier clubs, bars, wineships, the cinema, museums and art galleries.

The Citadines Apartments themselves were pretty good. The reception staff were really friendly, and would spend a lot of time explaining places of interest and giving me directions on the map. The rooms were pretty decent, had a nice LCD TV, wireless internet, a kitchenette with a stove, running water, an electric kettle and an assortment of various teas and coffee.

Georgia is in the Caucasus region and as the fairy tales go, home to the most beautiful women on Earth, any doubts I may have had about that were quickly dispelled as soon as I arrived. The ratio of women to men is roughly 60-40, which means you’ll see beautiful Caucasian women anywhere you go.

Being a majority Christian country it was difficult to find decent food in the city as you can’t find halal food. So we had to make do with McDonalds, which was a 10 minute walk on Rustaveli avenue, a few Turkish places, also on Rustaveli, and fried fish at the Elvis Diner, near the Tbilisi Concert Hall. The Elvis American Diner was full of pictures and artefacts paying tribute to the legend.

The city has a great subway system which connects the different parts of the city. You get a metro pass for 2 GEL and it costs half a GEL to use the metro and you can stop at any station you want. Which is great since taxi’s generally cost around 5-10 GEL to get around.

My first evening in Tbilisi I got to the hotel and slept for a while, woke up in the evening and explored the hotel looking for some coffee and chatting up the hotel staff who spoke pretty decent English. For dinner we went to McDonalds and later that night I put on my overcoat and scarf and went out looking for adventure. It was the week before Christmas and it was pretty cold, around -1 to -2 degrees Celsius. I walked along Rustaveli Avenue, admiring the architecture of the city, the beautiful women, and the brightly lit shops.

Freedom Square

The city has a great number of amazing clubs and I hit pretty much all of them! First stop of course was Diva, which turned out to be a strip club. The entrance fee was something like 10 GEL. Inside there was a bar to the left of the entrance, a ramp up ahead in the centre with sofas all around the ramp. At the end of the ramp was a pole where a girl was dancing. I entered and was met with a waiter dressed in black who led me to Perverts Row. Pervents Row happens to be the front row or the seating closest to the strippers ramp, once seated I was handed a menu and asked to order a drink, I said I would order in a bit and proceeded to order a drink watching the girl on the pole dance to some club song, during that time I was being hounded by the waiter to order an overpriced drink so I did so he’d leave me alone, when the girl was done dancing she came down and sat next to me then proceeded to chat me up in an attempt to win some tips. I declined and she went away with a frown.

The strip club is designed to rob you of every cent in your pocket, with the waiter constantly hounding you to order overpriced drinks, the strippers asking for tips and pitching other entertainment which will leave you up to $300 poorer.

The girls however are gorgeous, the music was really good too!

Dolce Vita

Another club, called Dolce Vita, also on Rustaveli Avenue but down a flight of stairs is owned by the son of Diva’s owner. Outside I was met with Steve, an African host type guy who was from NYC and I finally found someone who spoke good English. I showed him a free entry coupon which I had cut out of a newspaper I was reading at the hotel (Good financial management!) he laughed at me for that but led me inside and had me seated at Perverts Row, again. I had a couple of drinks and watched the gorgeous girls dancing, the place had some really good music but the DJ wouldn’t play this one track I wanted him to. The girls were really friendly and after every dance they come sit with you and try to get you to tip them or buy a table dance or something. Unfortunately, watching the strippers isn’t much of a turn on, except for a few really hot ones who really know how to hit your spot but those are rare.

While leaving I had a little chat with Steve and he gave me his number, Steve my man was going to hook me up in the city of the devil!

My favourite activity was to walk down to Old Tbilisi which happened to be the centre of the club and art scene, full of clubs, art galleries and such. It’s a maze of winding streets, and the fact that I had a map didn’t help. The first time I was heading there I asked these two very sweet ladies to give me directions by pointing on the map as they only spoke Georgian and I spoke none of it, they soon realized I didn’t get a word they had said so they changed course and actually led me to Shardeni street, which was very sweet of them and goes to show how friendly the residents of Tbilisi are.

In Old Town I went to a restaurant named Kala, which was dead so I left. Went to another place called Bamba Room, which was also dead as it was only 6 PM, so I explored a bit more and came back at 7 PM, still dead so had a drink and went back to the hotel. After dinner I went back at around 10 PM and found the place packed! I handed my coat to the coat check girl and walked downstairs. Bamba had a long bar counter with a restaurant type seating place opposite, when I entered the first thing I saw was the gorgeous gogo dancer dancing on the bar counter. I walked right up to the counter, sat down on a stool, ordered a drink and watched her dance! The music was awesome, they had a great DJ and I was really in the mood to dance. Katarina, the gogo dancer, stopped for a break and had a cigarette and drink with me, I grabbed her hand and took her to the dance floor and we started to dance, soon I lost her attention to another guy and then I proceeded to dance with another gogo dancer, a black haired beauty. Then went back to the counter and got Katarina’s phone number. I hung around for a bit and then stumbled back to the hotel.

Next day, went back to Old Town and decided to check out a bunch of other clubs there, went to Safe, the entrance of which is designed like a vault door. Went in and headed for the bar, had a drink, not many people then realized the club is downstairs. Went downstairs, the place was designed to have a bar in the centre of the room with a circular bar counter all around it, and sofas in the corners, the place was packed. I circled around the bar looking for an empty stool but found none so decided to leave since everyone was just sitting and drinking and no one was dancing, not like there was any room to dance anyway.

Explored the city a bit more looking for some good clubs but only found a bunch of bars and empty restaurants and decided to head to City Club on Avlabari Street across the Mtkvari river. It took a while to find the place and it was a few flights of stairs up. It had some decent jazz music which isn’t really my thing but it had a nice crowd, a nice balcony with a great view of the city.

My friend and I sat on the bar for a bit, had a couple of drinks then proceeded to dance, a couple of girls ditched their guys and danced with us and we spent the rest of the night dancing away! Finally leaving at around 2 AM.

The next day we went to Elvis to have dinner which was quite a walk, and we got lost cause we got off the metro at the Marjanishvili station and had no idea where to go, so finally got to Elvis after walking for about an hour, and then walked another 20 minutes back to the hotel. I was going to go out that night but was so exhausted I fell asleep on the sofa listening to music.

Tomorrow however, I had a spur of the moment thing and texted Katarina, she said she was dancing at a club called Come Down in Akhmeteli, which was kinda far, 15 minutes by metro. I wondered for a while whether to go or not since it was already 10 PM, went downstairs and asked the receptionist, Nino, for directions and left for Rustaveli to catch the metro to Akhmeteli. The metro cost us 1 GEL each and in 15 minutes we were in Akhmeteli, near the Akhmeteli Theatre. Most of the shops in that area were closed, except for the bars, a few convenience stores and a couple of casinos. I asked around and finally found the club. It was a huge hall, with booths lining the left wall, a dance floor on the ride side, a bar in the front left corner and a stage with a DJ on the front right corner. I walked straight up to the bar and sat on a stool and ordered a drink or two. I saw Katarina dancing on the stage and waved, she saw me and waved back.

At the bar was one of the bartenders from Bamba Room so I went up to say hi and we chatted for a bit. The music was pretty good, there were a few girls and a couple of guys dancing and we joined them, dancing for a while, drinking lots. I chatted up this Bengali guy who was sitting at the bar after getting a cigarette off him and he gave me his number and told me he was part owner of this club and invited me to another of his more trendier clubs.

I danced for a while with the crowd and a bit later Katarina had me come up on stage and dance with her! Later that night, we were on the way back and after making some inquiries of the taxi driver in the pursuit of further adventure, the guy took us to this place a little out of town. It looked like a huge house, when we went inside I was led through a door which went into a huge hall with a little bar and lots and lots of tables and seated on every table were lots and lots of, you guessed it, hookers! For $100 dollars you got a hooker for an hour, for $50 you got a steam room with a hooker for an hour. However, I passed that up and headed back to the hotel.

It was the weekend again and during the day I walked around exploring the city, walking to the famous Sameba Cathedral which is the second tallest Orthodox church in the world.

Sameba Cathedral

Tbilisi is a great cultural centre, with a number of art galleries, museums and theatres. I grabbed a copy of a local magazine called Tbilisi culture guide which had listings for a great number of theatre plays playing at the Rustaveli, Marjanishvili and Tavisupali theatres all month long, along with dates, times and ticket prices.

The city is home to a great number of painters, sculptors, writers, poets, actors and theatre producers. A city of artists indeed and a great muse, for one can find inspiration everywhere around the city. I myself was spurred to write a number of short stories from ideas and events inspired from my travels and adventures in the lovely city of Tbilisi.

The following Saturday night I went to the former GURU Club, now known as Sound Central, which turned out to be the best I had visited so far. It had two floors, the dance floor and bar on the ground floor, and the flight up the stairs took you to a seating area with a railing from where you could look down and view the dance floor.

As it was the weekend the club was pretty packed, the music was great and the crowd was pretty good too. After dancing till 1 AM however, it was time to head back to the hotel and pack up as I had a flight back from Tbilisi to Istanbul.

Overall however, it was one of the best trips ever! The city was beautiful, the people friendly and wonderful, and the opportunities for adventure were endless!

The Blue Mosque

It was in the summer of 2010 that I traveled to Mazar-i-Sharif, The city gets its name from the shrine of Ali, a companion of the Holy Prophet and the fourth caliph, located in the city and referred to as The Blue Mosque or Mazar i Sharif. 

Legend has it that Ali demanded that when he dies, four camels be set in different directions with one of the camels bearing his body and where the camel stops is where he is to be buried. One of these places is alleged to be the Shrine of Ali in Mazar i Sharif. It is said that many years ago the king of the time, King Sanjar, had a dream that the camel bearing Ali’s remains halts at location in the now city of Mazar i Sharif, and he had the shrine of Ali built and the city came to be known as Mazar i Sharif.

I first arrived in Kabul and had to wait for one night in Kabul as my flight to Mazar i Sharif was early the following morning, so we made arrangements with a taxi-driver who was the acquaintance of a friend living in Kabul, and had also picked us up from Kabul airport, to drive us to the airport the following morning as we didn’t think it would be safe to go out searching for a taxi at 5 AM in the morning.

It’s possible to drive from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif too it’s a 4 hour drive but back in the summer of 2010 the road wasn’t very safe so we decided to fly by one of the location airlines, Pamir Airways.

The following morning we got to the airport, went through boarding and got into the boarding lounge which was PACKED, more like crammed, you were lucky if you could find a place to squeeze yourself in between a bunch of people. Since Kabul airport is a strictly non-smoking facility (How and where to get your cigarette fix in Kabul airport is a different post) so I had to chat up and befriend a security guard right outside the departure lounge and he let me have a smoke with him, he also mentioned that the aircraft flying in from Dubai which would take us to Mazar was late and we would have to wait another hour, so I had another cigarette, but when I got back to the lounge which was previously packing at least one hundred people in it was deserted! Turned out everyone had already boarded the plane, so I had to make a fuss and made the bus come back for me.

Okay so the local Afghan airlines aren’t the best in the world and the take-off and landing are awful, worst I have ever seen. What I’ve heard is that their pilots are former Russian military pilots who don’t have enough experience of flying commercial jets. Plus there’s the fact that it has male flight attendants, with one chubby female Russian flight attendant for the Business Class cabin. Anyway, it’s a short flight to Mazar and we were there in about an hour.

The airport at Mazar-i-Sharif is pretty small, it’s a gravel spot with a runway in the middle and once you land you walk through the gravel, pick up your luggage from the cart, sit in your car and leave, it takes about 15 minutes for the entire process.

I was picked up and driven to my hotel, Mazar Hotel. Now, I was worried about two things when I got to Mazar. One, that the hotel would be very crappy and two, I wouldn’t be able to hit the gym during my month long stay in Mazar. On the way to the hotel from the airport I saw countless gyms which kinda lifted my spirits however, when I got to the hotel I was pleasantly surprised.

Mazar Hotel is one of the larger and finer hotels in Mazar-i-Sharif and since it is owned by the Governor of the Balkh Province it receives tight security, it’s located on a main road in a market and you can grab necessary items just outside the hotel.

It’s a four storey building and boasts a moderately equipped gym, pool tables, a large dining room for breakfast and dinner, although the laundry service is pretty bad, the maid spoke no English or Urdu and it was hard to communicate with her and understand what she was saying when you asked for your clothes back. But the room was nice and spacious, had cable TV and WiFi internet, there were TV lounges on each floor. But in summer, Mazar-i-Sharif gets extremely hot and the airconditioning barely worked, my first night in Mazar I couldn’t sleep for a minute. However, overall it was a great hotel and quite reasonable too like $50 a night or something.

Mazar-i-Sharif is a much safer city than Kabul and thus there is much more economic activity, there are proper roads, bustling markets and lots of places to eat out, also, you can safely stay out till 11 or 12 at night without feeling unsafe.

The Kefayat Club

There are lots of options to eat out in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Amiri’s for Turkish cuisine, located in Amiri Town a housing society a little outside town, I really enjoyed the Balik sis a Turkish seafood dish. One late night while we were having dinner at Amiri’s, sitting outside in the garden we were approached by a cute little boy in shabby clothes holding a shoe-shine box, he asked our Afghan host if he wanted his shoes shined in Persian, our host declined then translated the conversation for us, informing us that he belonged to the Hazara ethnicity who are quite impoverished in Afghanistan and he can’t go home until he has shined enough shoes to make money to go home. Our host refused to give him money as he didn’t want the child to grow up a beggar so I decided to have little Esmatullah shine my shoes which badly needed a shining from the dust they  had accumulated. He did a great job but when I looked into my wallet I didnt have any small notes of Afghani, so I paid him 100 Pakistani Rupees which is 50 Afghani, the little boy was very confused to see the foreign money and I was embarrassed to have given him foreign money, the kid walked to another table and was assured by the gentlemen that it was real money and equivalent to 50 Afghani so he went away contented though still slightly confused.

Kefayat Club has great Afghan food and has outdoor seating which is great on a cool evening.

The Delhi Darbar chain also has a restaurant in Mazar-i-Sharif and has a garden outside where you can eat, it’s mostly frequented by expats, probably because it was only one of two places in Mazar I found to serve alcohol. The Indian food tastes great but I’m not sure whether it’s very hygienic since I always felt sick the following morning, it’s still one of my favorite places in Mazar i Sharif.

The English Hotel or Renaissance Hotel is located very close to Mazar Hotel, but has no board and tight security for safety concerns. It’s a big pricey unless you’re getting hefty per diems but has great food, I tried the steak and it was awesome, plus it has a great bar. It also boasts photographs by some renowned artist with some great shots of people and places in Afghanistan. We were invited to dinner here on our last night in Mazar, if I had known about the place earlier I’d definitely have gone here more often.

If you’re looking for some good fast-food or pizza you should head over to Everest Pizza.

The Rah e Abresham or Silk Road restaurant has some great Afghan food at reasonable prices.

If you’re lucky enough to visit Mazar-i-Sharif in the winters you should go watch a buzkashi match. Buzkashi is a sport played by tough Afghans riding horses where the goal is to grab a sheep-skin and carry it over to the goal line.

Also, be sure to visit the beautifully it Shrine of Ali at night, which is pictured above.

Mazar i Sharif is famous for it’s hand-woven Persian rugs, which generally cost you about $100.

Also, if you’re in Mazar i Sharif consider making a day trip to Balkh which is a 30 minutes drive from Mazar i Sharif.

UN Terminal, Mazar-i-Sharif airport

I was supposed to fly back to Islamabad in the first week of August 2010, during that time there was heavy rainfall in Islamabad and a few days ago the Airblue jet has crashed into the Margalla Hills in Islamabad so I was very concerned about flying back on the local Afghan airlines and had insisted on being flown by UNHAS. Finally, it was decided that I’d fly to Kabul on UNHAS then take a PIA flight a few hours later to Islamabad.

Now I have to mention that the UNHAS flight attendants are extremely hot! The South African air hostess on my flight was just that, unfortunately she said she had a boyfriend when I asked her for her number, things only seemed to get worse as when I arrived to Kabul airport for my flight back home we were informed the flight had been cancelled and the next flight was in three days’ time, if it was even possible things got even more worse when we went to our usual guest house to find it full, then wandered the streets of Kabul with our heavy luggage going from hotel to hotel only to find them completely full. Eventually we struck gold and found one executive suite at the Safi Landmark Hotel and relaxed for the next three days in luxury while we waited for our flight back home.

As I crossed the Faisal Avenue flyover I was met with the police checkpost and barriers in front of the Islamabad Stock Exchange building, I parked behind the line of vehicles waiting to pass the barrier and when it was my turn to cross the barrier a white Cultus with a police siren on the roof(GZ 999) tried to cut into line, the car stopped and let me pass when I honked the horn as I had the right of way, but when I was past the barrier the car came up next to mine and the gentlemen driving it motioned for me to stop the car.

I parked beside the road and the gentleman and his guard came out, he introduced himself as a Traffic Magistrate and asked me to give him the registration book of my car, my drivers’ license and CNIC and stated that he was going to impound my car for some obscure violation of not having a proper license plate on my car (despite the fact that the registration had been renewed only two days prior).

Knowing that I was in the right, I refused to hand over the said documents at which point the gentlemen made a few phone calls and called over ITP and ICT policemen who confiscated my registration book and gave me a Traffic Violation Ticket.

This is after the Traffic Magistrate admitted to having tried to cut in wrongfully though I had the right of way, the ITP officers who wrote the ticket admitted that there was nothing wrong with my license plate but had to book me as they had been directed to do so by the Magistrate.

It’s a known fact that government, army and police officials pay no heed to traffic laws and bully other drivers, however, most people don’t tend to speak out or take action against it. I tried to speak out and ended up with a falsified traffic violation from a Magistrate who was looking to do nothing but harass someone who wouldn’t let him cut in line. If a Magistrate can’t do justice, who can?

So how do I get back at them? Their salary is paid from my taxes, their shiny vehicles are bought from my taxes. The magistrate did what he did because he has the sanction of the victim, I keep feeding the looters and moochers with my taxes and by taking whatever punishment they give out in return without speaking out.

My answer: leave the country, I couldn’t live with myself if I contributed even a single penny to the looters; let them rot and die among themselves, they will then realize they can’t loot anything when there is no one left to produce.

I’m a big travelling enthusiast, sometimes forced to wander where no man has gone before or no man in his right mind anyway.

So today we’ll take a look at destination Kabul.

Kabul is the capital of the Republic of Afghanistan and rarely comes up when looking up tourist destinations due to the constant depictions of Kabul as a warzone most foreigners stay as far from the place as they can.

However, it’s a much safer place than Pakistan. A gentleman travelling with me on board the PIA flight from Kabul to Islamabd remarked “Be careful, you are about to enter the most dangerous place in the world” as soon as the flight attendant announced we were about to land. The fact that this gentleman who was coming in from Kabul considered Islamabad to be the most dangerous place in the world was quite amusing.

How to get there

There are a number of options on how to get to Kabul.

The cheap and most frequently used is to take a bus from Islamabad to Peshawar for a couple of hundred bucks, then from Peshawar you can hire a car to take you to Torkham for another couple of hundred rupees. And from Torkham you can hire a Toyota Corolla taxi which will take you to Kabul for PKR 1,000. So the whole trip will cost you around PKR 2,000.

However, it’s an 8 hour journey from Islamabad to Kabul and if there’s a road block or accident you can expect to have to spend the night in your car.

UNHAS Regional One airline

The second, fastest and safest option is to fly with PIA with a round ticket costing around Rs. 30,000 and flights to Kabul three days a week. The newly constructed and renovated Kabul Airport isn’t very state of the art but it’s close to the city, for a few hundred Afghani (That’s their national currency) you can get to most places relatively quickly.

1000 PKR = 520 AFN

Yes, the Afghan currency is stronger than ours.

Where to stay

There are a number of choices for accommodation ranging from the hole in the wall, to 3 star,to 4 star and the 5 star.

Hole in the wall

• A friend’s place
• Budget hotel for $10-20/night
• UNICA guest house The United Nations guesthouse was the target of a terrorist attack a few years back but security has been beefed up. It offers room from between $25-$40/night, has a bar and a swimming pool for $10/swim and is very popular on Fridays.

Midrange

• ASSA 2 guest house The ASSA 2 (I have no idea what the ASSA stands for) is a very reasonable guest house located in the Shar-e-Naw district and has rooms ranging from $40-$60, a swimming pool, Internet and cable TV in your rooms, a nice garden and lounge where you can sip tea and mingle with the other residents, a nice gym with a table tennis table and provides complimentary breakfast and buffet dinner and live music on Fridays.

My room at the ASSA 2

• ASSA 3 guest house The ASSA 3 is located on Torabaz Khan road near the UN WFP office and although I haven’t stayed there myself I’ve heard it offers the same facilities as ASSA 2 but isn’t as popular as the ASSA 2.
• Cedar House Another popular guest house for the business folk which features complimentary buffet breakfast and dinner, a gym and other amenities and although I haven’t stayed here myself I hear good things about it from friends and colleagues.

Splurge

• The Safi Landmark Hotel The Safi Land Mark Hotel is one of the high end hotels in Kabul, and the only high-end hotel that I’ve personally stayed at,the rooms are impeccably clean, the furnishings and fittings are really first class, they have a laundry service, room service, cable TV, Internet access, the buffet breakfast is divine and buffet dinner at the hotel costs a hefty $15 but is totally worth it. It also has a great gym and steam room which is free for guests. Rooms start at $70/night.
• The Heetal Hotel
• The Kabul Serena Hotel
• The Kabul Intercontinental Hotel

What to see and do

• Darul Aman palace The Darul Aman palace was originally built as King Amanullah’s palace in the 1920’s, however, it has been destroyed during the successive wars.

• Lake Qargha Lake Qargha is a popular spot for boating and hanging out in the sun.

• Kabul zoo The zoo houses over 100 animals.

• Afghan National Museum The Afghan National Museum once housed the greatest collection of Central Asian artifacts in the world which were subsequently looted by the Taliban during the war. It still displays some impressive early Buddhist and Islamic artifacts.

• Kabul City Centre If you want to shop for cosmetics, leather boots, clothes, electronics, laptops, cell phones head over to the Kabul City Centre on the ground floor of the Safi Land Mark Hotel.
• Beauty School of Kabul The Beauty School of Kabul is run by a foreigner, Deborah, and besides teaching Afghan women hairdressing she also runs a massage parlor for foreigners. Expatriate men can head to the Beauty School of Kabul if they’re looking for a nice relaxing massage.
• The Gandamak Lodge The Gandamak Lodge is run by a former journalist, Peter Juvenal at No. 5 Passport Lane, +3 (0)795 69904. Head there if you’re looking to drink up and unwind with fellow expats.
• Chicken street  Chicken street is the place for tourists, the narrow street with no cars on it is flanked by jewelry, fur, handicraft and book shops on both sides and is most popular for visitors looking to make cheap bargains. I once found an authentic Russian soldiers’ hat here, complete with hammer and sickle emblem for $50.

Where to eat

There are a number of eating options in Kabul, from regular Afghan cuisine consisting of kebabs, mahecha, kabuli pulao, manto, etc to more fine dining like oven baked Italian pizza or French cuisine.

• Baba Amir Baba Amir is located in Shar E Naw, near the Safi Landmark Hotel and has the best mahecha in town, basically Kabuli pulow with a huge piece of meat in it.
• Afghan Fried Chicken Afghan Fried Chicken is a KFC knock off preparing KFC like fast-food, pizza and also offers Afghan cuisine and reasonably priced buffet dinner.
• Flower Street Café My second favorite place in Kabul the Flower Street Cafe, located in an unknown house in Qila Fataullah offers fast food and beverages in the garden. I went there for lunch during the late winter and the garden seating was awesome as you could enjoy the sun and the very pretty expats that frequent it. Be sure to leave your weapons outside!
• Everest Pizza Never really tried it to be honest, but it’s there, and it’s supposed to be good, located somewhere in Wazir Akbar Khan, I’m sure you can get the address and phone number off Afghan Scene.
• Boccaccio restaurant My favorite place in Kabul, located at 10 Wazir Akbar Khan it’s a quaint little Italian restaurant with a well stocked bar and gorgeous waitresses who hail from Tajikistan. Shots are $8 each. Never tried the food but I’ve heard it’s good especially the oven baked pizza.
• Chief Burger Chief Burger is a fast-food joint in Shar E Naw, close to the Shar e Naw Park,that offers KFC type meals, pizza and Afghan style fast food. Their shawarma and pizza are really good! Oh and so is the chocolate shake!
• Café Zarnegar Cafe Zarnegar is located at the Kabul Serena Hotel where security is pretty tight, it’s one of those expensive places that only diplomats, expats and wealthy Afghans go to.
• Herat hotel Herat hotel is located in Shar e Naw, right opposite Chief Burger and has offers great local food at a very reasonable price, their Kabuli Pulao and kebabs are really good!
• Lucky Town Lucky Town is a little restaurant located in Shar e Naw, right opposite one side of the Cinema park, that offers Pakistani food at reasonable prices, since there aren’t many Pakistani restaurants, at least good ones, you’ll find that it’s usually packed for lunch and dinner

What not to do

The Afghans are quite sensitive of their Taliban past and any religious or political discussion is highly discouraged. Keep your views to yourself and appreciate the local culture,

And finally

Despite all the bad press Kabul is a great place to visit

Go shopping for local artifacts, go swimming at the UNICA swimming pool on Friday’s where there’s more catwalking and less swimming.

And in the evening you can hit the Boccaccio restaurant to enjoy oven baked pizza, drink Smirnoff and be waited on by the gorgeous Tajik waitresses.

Saturn, Islamabad’s very own progressive rock band released a music video for their song ‘Kuch Nahin’ at an exclusive video launch event at Kuch Khaas in Islamabad on Thursday, July 7th.

The band line-up is as follows:

• Salman Zaidi – Lead guitars
• Shahbaz Zaidi – Vocals
• Shahbaz Asad – Drums
• Aashir Irfan – Bass
• Rawal Shahdab – Keyboards

The music video was directed by Usman Mukhtar and produced by Kuch Khaas, who has done an amazing job, plus the song is awesome so that helps too.

The video shows faceless and masked figures representing the people of the country who are blind to what’s going on around the country and lyrics like ‘Andhera phehla hua, soona hai yeh aasman’ seem fitting for the state of the country.

If you’re a follower of Islamabad underground rock scene you’re gonna love Saturn, check out the video below and go easy on that repeat button!

On 27th May 2011 a group of 4 Russians and 1 Tajik crossed over the border into Balochistan, having gone through a series of security checkposts.

In the Kharotabad neigborhood of Quetta they approached a checkpost manned by Frontier Corps personnel and the group of five unarmed foreigners including three women was gunned down by the FC soldiers.

It was later alleged that they had explosive material on them and videos of terrorist training on their mobile phones and were terrorists who had illegally crossed into Pakistan with the intention of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism.

The following video was circulated and cited by sympathizers of the army in an attempt to justify the murder:

It’s an interesting, however gory, video to watch but none of the evidence presented shows that the foreigners were armed and dangerous and an immediate threat to the highly-trained FC personnel requiring them to shoot them down rather than attempt to arrest them which would have proved more fruitful for intelligence. Perhaps the lovely Tajik ‘terrorist’ tried to attack the highly-trained FC soldiers with her deadly 55 GB hard disk.

Patriotic countrymen and army brats give the following justifications for the extra-judicial killing of the five foreigners at the hands of FC personnel:

• The evidence proves that they were terrorists
• They could have been five suicide bombers who could have claimed the lives of 100 people
• They should have stayed in their own country, wtf were they doing in Pakistan?!
• Foreign fighters cross the border into Pakistan and kill innocent people all the time!

The hypothetical turn of events if we lived in a civilized country would have been as follows:

They’d have been arrested for being suspected terrorists, the videos and other evidence obtained would have been presented in a court of law where they’d have been convicted of conspiracy to commit terrorism and put away in jail so they couldn’t claim the lives of 100 innocent Pakistanis.

They would have been deported if they arrived in Pakistan illegally.

We’d have an army that was competent enough to fulfill its only obligation towards the state, to protect the borders and prevent foreign fighters from coming into Pakistan and killing innocent citizens. Instead, we have an army that’s too busy making cornflakes.

We see one of the Tajik women raising her hand in surrender after having sustained bullet injuries but was subsequently gunned down mercilessly by the FC soldiers and stripped of her jewelry. I can think of at least 3 clauses of the Geneva Convention that are being violated here.

The war on terror has given sweeping powers to the security forces including the authority to shoot on sight which translates to shoot first, ask questions later, which later resulted in the much publicized Sarfaraz Shah murder by Rangers in Karachi. Something needs to be done about the human rights violated by the Pakistan army and security forces under the guise of the war on terror, make no mistake, I fully support action against terrorists, but this incident cannot be justified because the victims were allegedly terrorists.

He who fights with monsters beware lest he thereby become a monster. When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The doctor who performed the post-mortem on the five dead foreigners concluded that they died from the bullet injuries they had sustained and was later tortured by security personnel for stating that fact publicly.

The reports who shot the footage of the incident subsequently received death threats.

The military knows they fucked up and have been doing their best to cover up and silence the forces that favor truth and justice.

Bol is the latest film directed by Shoaib Mansoor whose previous venture includes Khuda Kay Liay and was released on 24th June 2011.

I got to watch it last week after everyone and their neighbor had watched it and formed an opinion, although I insisted to everyone that I wanted ‘NO SPOILERS’ so I could form my own opinion, besides, spoilers just ruin the fun, don’t they?

I live in Islambad so I was going to watch it at Cinepax which is a maximum of 30 minutes of driving, 20 if you drive like I do, however, it took me over two hours to get to the cinema, one hour from just inside the gate to inside the cinema, that’s how crowded it was, once I got inside the cinema was packed!

I’m not much for spoilers so I’m going to try to not give away much of the plot, but let’s start with the acting.

I think Humaima Malik and Shafqat Cheema were the two actors who stood out and really wowed the audience with their acting. The rest of the cast, especially Atif Aslam who should stick to singing, didn’t do much for the acting. However, considering most of the cast especially Atif Aslam doesn’t have much acting experience I’d let it slide since the movie is all about the dialogue, script and the issues it brings up.

The movie shows us the lives of five sisters, their mother, brother and highly religious and conservative Hakeem sahib father who live in the old city of Lahore. The Hakeem sahib makes a meagre living and the family appears to be living hand to mouth. Also, the Hakeem sahib uses religion to control the lives of his wife and daughters.

Saifee, Hakeem sahibs son is a gay crossdresser much to the shame and dismay of his father who hates his son and never lets him leave the house lest people find out about his condition. I found myself really feeling for Saifee, not only because he isn’t loved and showered with affection by his father for the way he was born and his sexual orientation but because of the way he was taken advantage of and ridiculed by people and in the end murdered in cold blood.

Secondly, there is the domestic violence suffered by the five sisters and their mother, this includes complete dependence on the Hakeem sahib, not being allowed outside the house, one of the sisters isn’t allowed to marry according to her own choice due to differences in religious sects, Zainub is often beaten for talking back (talking logic) to her father, and in one scene you see the Hakeem sahib beating and kicking his wife after she finds out he’s been cheating on her with a hooker, and finally attempted infanticide.

The movie also shows the lives of Saqa Kanjar, a pimp played brilliantly by Shafqat Cheema and Mina, a prostitute played by the coveted Iman Ali. The Hakeem sahib is offered the opportunity to teach the Koran to Saqa Kanjar’s children and other children of the Heera Mandi neighborhood because no other molvi would do it, however, the Hakeem sahib declines due to the fact that Saqa Kanjar is a pimp from the red light district of Lahore. Now, this is one of the reasons why Pakistan can never progress. Our economy suffers because people are too concerned with the hereafter rather than what needs to be done now to progress and improve their standard of living by availing economic opportunities, in the end however it is seen that the Hakeem sahib decides to teach Koran to his children even though he considers the income to be haram and washes and irons the cash he receives from Saqa Kanjar. Double standards or what?

Then there’s the fact that people condemn the use of contraceptives citing it as un-Islamic and continue to have two dozen children without thinking of how they are going to be able to support them or provide a decent standard of living. Which leads to the question by Zainub: ‘Jab khila nahin saktay to paida kyun kartay ho?!’

The movie also brings to light our distorted law enforcement system where the police lets off a cold blooded killer scot-free for a meager bribe of Rupees 200,000, negotiable.

The issues raised by Shoaib Mansoor are the ones that everyone knows exist in our society, secretly whisper about it, completely accept as part of our society but do not acknowledge for fear of what it would mean for them.

Although the acting and production quality hardly meets Bollywood or Hollywood standards, I found the effort and the film highly commendable. Have you gone to the cinema to watch another Pakistani movie? Neither have I.

Plus, it’s way better and thought provoking than the other stuff Lollywood is churning out these days:

In conclusion, Bol did a pretty good job at taking a stab at the social issues facing our society and the stuff no one likes to talk about, thus the title ‘Bol’. Definitely worth a watch!

Last week the US Embassy in Islamabad held a meeting supporting the rights of Pakistani gay, lesbian and transgendered people.

That proved to be just fodder for the protest-happy JI and religious protesters who need an excuse to protest any and every word that’s spouted by the US.

You can read the full story here.

One statement that really made me laugh out loud due to it’s absurdity read as follows:

“Through our peaceful rally we want to give message through the media that we will not allow these people (gays) to live here and they should be immediately deported out of Pakistan,” – Mr. Noorul Bashar of IJT, Islamabad.

This is the best thing since sliced bread, now I can simply accuse every person I do not get along with of being gay and have them deported to Somalia, which is the destination of choice for anti-gay religious fanatics.

I found the statement so amusing that I decided to post it on Facebook with a sarcastic grin on my face at the absurd thought of trying to deport gay people out of Pakistan. I’m hoping they deport atheists next, always wanted to see Paris!

That turned out to be a stupid move since within hours of posting the story and a few comments supporting gay rights in Pakistan it was suggested that anyone who is a gay sympathizer, even if they’re straight like me, should also be deported to Somalia…

It made me realize that deep-rooted opposition to anything that is moral, humanly and just if it’s simply against the religious scriptures we’re fed. Somehow, all our senses and power of reasoning seems to shut down whenever it requires people to question their faith and they end up protesting and burning effigies and US flags all throughout the next day instead of actually pondering the question.

I feel that it’s not so much a religious issue than it is homophobia, let’s face it, the gay people in Pakistan don’t want a stamp of approval or the right to marry, at least not that I’m aware of, however, same sex goes on nonetheless, and everyone is okay with that as long as it’s done in private and not flaunted or made legal. I mean, if there are two gay guys having sex in the next street, or getting married it’s got nothing to do with me or with the state, it’s their business and doesn’t affect me in any way whatsoever so why oppose it? Oh wait, because homosexuality is a sin in the religious scriptures of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Most countries and communities have gone past the restrictive religious scriptures and any country that supports human rights, civil liberties and the freedom of the individual has legalized same-sex marriage. A few weeks ago in Norway there was the first Muslim-Christian gay marriage in a Nordic country.

The United Nations Human Rights commission recently passed a gay rights resolution, supported by 85 countries and opposed by a few including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to uphold the rights of gay people and to stop violence based on sexual orientation.

So basically it’s the entire civilized world against a few savages like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and you don’t really want me started on Saudi Arabia. I wonder if we’ll ever see a civilized Pakistan where human rights, including gay rights are upheld.

No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life;

I’m on the right track, baby I was born to survive;

No matter black, white or beige, Chola or Orient made;

I’m on the right track, baby I was born to be brave; – Lady Gaga