Sick with rhea during the train ride to Rawalpindi from all my mango juices the day before (not to mention drinking local brotherhood water at the Sufi saint’s tomb). Not really hungry but since the train was so nice and Air Con I assumed wrongly that the lunch the attendant brought around was included. Turned out to be the a heaping plate of the most tough, unappetizing chicken overpriced at 190 rupees (that is $3 USD) and we all felt scammed.

Turns out Rawalpindi (called simply ‘Pindi’ by most people) was another polluted hot place. Nearby Islamabad was calm and controlled by comparison – the Pakistani idea of mall paradise. Spent many an hour with a Pashtun man (people around here actually say “Patan,” not “Pashtun” or “Pushtun”) named Lal Badshah in his dispensary clinic fiddling with the rabab, a traditional Patan stringed instrument. “We enjoyed very deeply” said Lal.

Like all men we’ve met – sex was on Lal’s mind – “very difficult to find women for sex here, mr. Jason.” He was from a Patan tribe in the mountains near Peshawar and spoke Pushtu. Last night we moved our bags there from Pindi, slept on his floor at the clinic and walked into the hills behind King Faisal Mosque before bushwacking to where I slept strewn over a small boulder and my friends nearby bathed in a stream there (and probably prayed) for hours.

Returned to Lal’s dispensary after lunch in a fully florescent and wall-to-ceiling mirrored mall restaurant named “Heaven” where in our conversation I blasted the notion of “The Last Prophet” and Armageddon in Islam but came to understand that:

1) This is really just my desire after one week of 24/7 Parisian Moslem brotherhood to lash out at Abdul Rahman, the more vocal of my two companions.
2) Islam is a system that enables men to live with one another at least, and provides a place where the seeker of deeper spiritual learning can approach God unfettered by other men – an environment to persue union with God.
3) Different men need different motivation to reach the same good end. Don’t take away another man’s basic motivation by negating the concept of the Last Prophet and the judgement day, what my be key parts for him to an irrefutable whole.

A friend of Lal was waiting for us back at the dispensary with the rabab in his hands. A master, he gave us a concert that had me swooning, Only after half an hour I got ahold of my senses enough to make a recording and got what I could (if you are interested in hearing a copy or an excerpt contact barry@ninestones.com).

Now in Peshawar by bus to learn about a possible side-trip to Afghanistan for one week.