| "There were many miles between Tash Rabat and these ancient Buddhist ruins in Pakistan at Takht-I-Bahi, a half days journey by jeep from the northern city of Peshawar. I had crossed Kyrgyzstan with Sasha by jeep, Uzbekistan by bus, and Afghanistan by plane (my only non-overland part of the journey.) From Ultimate Journey: 'After the bleakness of the former Soviet Union, Pakistan comes at you like something detonated, a plenitude of color and mass, weirdness and catastrophe. ..China is buttoned-down, self-controlled, repressed, conformist, practical, guided en masse by the principle of postponing gratification...The Islamic former republics of the Soviet Union are tawdry and friendly, pared-down versions of something familiar, something from Russian Communism. Pakistan is different, and Peshawar and the Northwest Frontier Province is especially different. Peshawar, which the monk believed to be the gateway to India is an eruption, a stained and aromatic profusion.'" |
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