Feb. 17 - Taxila, Pakistan
Friday, February 17 :: Taxila, Pakistan :: 40km today / 4595km total
I didn't have far to go today, so took the morning preparations and ride to Taxila very, very easy. Taxila is a major historical sight for a number of reasons - for me the biggest reason was that it marks the furthest East Greek city that I'm aware of, built by the garrison left by Alexander the Great after his roll through the area. Pakistan was about as far as Alexander got, as I understand it, and I haven't heard about or read of any Greek remains or artifacts anywhere else in Pakistan or India.
The museum was, again, a little disappointing, and I hopped on my bike to check out some neighbouring archaelogical sites. Several kilometres down a little track I came across some sort of celebration; the track was crowded with people, I could see a black flag with Arabic writing on it in the distance, so I hopped off my bike and slowly made my way forward. I soon realized there was something... different in the air, and that the mood of the crowd was not quite... favourable towards me (a first in Pakistan). There were some police milling about, eyeing me nervously, and my pulse began to race at their apprehension. I stopped my forward progress, and as I was turning around I saw a man appear through the crowd, about 50 metres ahead of me, with his back covered in blood. He was in some sort of euphoric/enraged state, and I knew immediately what was going on. It was a Shiite Muslim ceremony where men whip their backs with razor blades until they can't take it anymore, representative of some wrong-doing or hard times that a revered Shiite went through, centuries ago. The man was probably not alone in his self-bloodletting. Needless to say it was the wrong place for me to be, at the wrong time. Particularly stupid would have been to hang around to watch, or even worse, take a picture (when you hear of tourists getting killed, usually if you read the fine print it turns out that they did something incredibly stupid when faced with a dangerous situation - "hey look, a guy with a gun, won't everyone back home think I'm cool if I take a picture of him"). But before I knew what was going on, or could make any decisions, I was already speeding back towards the museum, my legs quickly taking me away from the scene. Good on them.
Down another road, in a completely different direction, I came across an ancient Greek temple. Wow, was it strange to see this in Pakistan. The bases of the Ionic columns were still there, as well as the classic raised mound. Very, very odd. Facing the temple, very close-by, was the ancient Greek city of Sirkap. Just like the ancient Greek/Roman cities in the Middle East. A complete time trip for me, walking around the ruins.
Lots of food that night, and a great sleep.
I didn't have far to go today, so took the morning preparations and ride to Taxila very, very easy. Taxila is a major historical sight for a number of reasons - for me the biggest reason was that it marks the furthest East Greek city that I'm aware of, built by the garrison left by Alexander the Great after his roll through the area. Pakistan was about as far as Alexander got, as I understand it, and I haven't heard about or read of any Greek remains or artifacts anywhere else in Pakistan or India.
The museum was, again, a little disappointing, and I hopped on my bike to check out some neighbouring archaelogical sites. Several kilometres down a little track I came across some sort of celebration; the track was crowded with people, I could see a black flag with Arabic writing on it in the distance, so I hopped off my bike and slowly made my way forward. I soon realized there was something... different in the air, and that the mood of the crowd was not quite... favourable towards me (a first in Pakistan). There were some police milling about, eyeing me nervously, and my pulse began to race at their apprehension. I stopped my forward progress, and as I was turning around I saw a man appear through the crowd, about 50 metres ahead of me, with his back covered in blood. He was in some sort of euphoric/enraged state, and I knew immediately what was going on. It was a Shiite Muslim ceremony where men whip their backs with razor blades until they can't take it anymore, representative of some wrong-doing or hard times that a revered Shiite went through, centuries ago. The man was probably not alone in his self-bloodletting. Needless to say it was the wrong place for me to be, at the wrong time. Particularly stupid would have been to hang around to watch, or even worse, take a picture (when you hear of tourists getting killed, usually if you read the fine print it turns out that they did something incredibly stupid when faced with a dangerous situation - "hey look, a guy with a gun, won't everyone back home think I'm cool if I take a picture of him"). But before I knew what was going on, or could make any decisions, I was already speeding back towards the museum, my legs quickly taking me away from the scene. Good on them.
Down another road, in a completely different direction, I came across an ancient Greek temple. Wow, was it strange to see this in Pakistan. The bases of the Ionic columns were still there, as well as the classic raised mound. Very, very odd. Facing the temple, very close-by, was the ancient Greek city of Sirkap. Just like the ancient Greek/Roman cities in the Middle East. A complete time trip for me, walking around the ruins.
Lots of food that night, and a great sleep.
posted by Graham Durrant at 6:18 AM
1 Comments:
good thing you took off and did not decide to sit there and maybe draw some cartoons!
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