Pepsi gas overload
Trip Start
Nov 11, 2005
1
Trip End
Nov 28, 2005
Islamabad, Pakistan
Saturday, November 26, 2005
tour!
It's been a while since our last update - over a year ago from
Azerbaijan. Since then, we've been to South Africa (cricket, natch), but we didn't
much feel like writing about that. We've moved to Leeds. Our new home is a
boat. Mrs R's brain is being taken to the edge of explosion as she studies
towards a PhD. And Mr R's brain is on the verge of implosion as he continues to
work for The Man. But enough about that and more about this...
We're on a 3 and a half week jolly to Pakistan to see England's 3-match
test series. The first game was in Multan - a dusty town 300km south of
Lahore. The locals looked after us quite well during our stay. On our first
night, we were kerb-crawled by a truck-full of armed police who insisted on
giving us a lift home. This is the first time since a lairy Friday night out in
Chatham that Mrs R has ended up in the back of a police van at the end of the
night!
Unfortunately, the police's duty of care didn't extend to ensuring that
the 60-odd (sic) England fans had an easy route home after play each day from the
out-of-town dust-bowl stadium (some 10km away). They did, however, close all
the roads into town - preventing any auto-rickshaws from coming to collect
us - in order to express the air-conditioned team coaches back to the comfort
of the Holiday Inn.
England managed to bring the familiar fecklessness back into their
game. Ultimately losing on the last day - failing to chase a total that the
Leeds Uni Women's Cricket Club would have knocked off without a flutter of an
eyelash.
And then on to Faisalabad - a dusty town 200km west of Lahore. Again,
England managed to put the feck into ___lessness and were lucky to get a draw
out of the game. The most excitement was to be had on Day 3 on the boundary
at extra cover - around 100m to the right of Mr & Mrs R. A loud explosion and a
scattering of debris had us fearing the worst. As Mr R's thoughts
turned to the end of the cricket, the team being sent home and us spending the
remainder of our 2 weeks avoiding terrorists in the back of a rickshaw, a police
officer appeared behind us, brandishing his stick and uttering the mysterious
words, "Pepsi gas overload". And very perceptive he was too. After 15
minutes of chaos around the crime scene - Trescothick and Bell protected in the
centre of the pitch by the ECB's head of security - the Fat Controller of the
PunjabPolice strutted around the boundary holding up the remnants of a Pepsi
gas cannister. It seemed that the Pakistani love of high-sugar fizzy
drinks had nearly been their undoing. As it is, we can rest safely in the
knowledge that the 'War on Terror' has made us all safer, and the only danger to our
well-being is from the Pepsi Corporation. Or at least, that was the basic
message from the Fat Controller's press conference that evening. By start of
play on Day 4, all Pepsi vendors (and cannisters) had been removed from the
stadium. They'd also evicted the Wall's ice-creams, Pizza Hut chicken tikka
deep-pans and KFC's deep-fried filth, along with all other potentially hazardous
foods.
The last test is in Lahore - a dusty city - starting on Tuesday. The
dust, smog and noise seems to be an unavoidable feature of town-living in
Pakistan. Not untypical of sub-continental cities. And not quite on the scale of
the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. But enough to have left Mr R bed-bound for
2 of the 12 days we've been here so far - coughing up his lungs like a
50-a-day smoker and scratching his eyes. The relative merits of chest remedies
is a hot topic of conversation among the England fans.
We are now in Islamabad hoping to escape into the hills in search of
some fresh air, before the chaos and cricket starts again.
And finally ... 2nd prize in the world's most unappetizing food
competition goes to ... Pakistan. (Veteran subscribers to the Mr & Mrs R
Travelling Circus will be aware of the cold sweats induced in Mr R at the mere whiff of
an Ethiopian injeera and lamb tibs.) When ordering food here, particularly of the vegetarian variety, there seems to be a national slogan: "Sir, would
you like chicken with that?" The market stalls which are piled high with
luscious-looking cauliflowers and aubergines just seem to be there for show -
certainly, they don't seem to make it as far as the local restaurant and into the
obligatory pan of hot oil.
Well, that's all from here, folks. Mrs R's got some carpets to look
at. See you in the next one - India, March 2006, in-sh'Allah.
Pepsi & Shirley
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Mr & Mrs R - Like southern birds
that have stayed north too long.
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