Getting There & Away

Most flights from European and Asian centres arrive in Karachi, though a few also go to Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Gwadar (Baluchistan). Much more interesting is taking an overland route. A railway links Lahore with the Indian railway system through Amritsar, and another from Quetta crosses briefly into Iran. After the Grand Trunk Road, the most famous road into Pakistan is the Karakoram Highway, over the 4730m (15,514ft) Khunjerab Pass from Kashgar in China; roads also run from India and Iran. A bus service between Delhi and Lahore, operating four times a week, is now up and running. Sea passage is a possibility, with cargo ships calling at Karachi from either the Middle East or Bombay.

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Getting Around

Getting around Pakistan is not always comfortable, but it's incredibly cheap. The state-owned Pakistan International Airlines (PIA, sometimes referred to as 'Prayers in Air') has regular flights to 35 domestic terminals and daily connections between the major centres. One of the bonuses of flying is that some of the air routes, especially to the northern areas and Chitral, are spectacular. Buses go anywhere (the true meaning of the term Inshallah - God willing - will soon become apparent along some of the treacherous mountain roads), anytime. Vans, wagons, pick-ups and jeeps are also a popular form of road transport. Train travel is slower and easier on the nerves but, unfortunately, there are no routes into the mountains. If you're fit and unafraid of feverish traffic, cycling is a particularly good way to see the country. City transport is dominated by buses, taxis, auto-rickshaws and two-wheeled, horse-drawn tongas.

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Recommended Reading

• Brief but descriptive odysseys through Pakistan can be found in The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux and Danziger's Travels by Nick Danziger. Other good travel narratives include The Golden Peak: Travels in Northern Pakistan by Kathleen Jamie, To the Frontier by Geoffrey Moorhouse and Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy.
• Pakistan's historical and cultural traditions get a good going over in the excellent Every Rock, Every Hill: A Plain Tale of the North-West Frontier & Afghanistan by Victoria Schofield and Words For My Brother by John Staley.
• Less recent histories and more in the 'Gripping Yarns' vein are John Keay's When Men & Mountains Meet, Sir George Robertson's Chitral, The Story of a Minor Siege and Derek Waller's The Pundits.
• For fiction, don't ignore Shame, Salman Rushdie's engrossing tragi-comic fantasy about Z A Bhutto and General Ziaul-Haq. Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King and Kim provide a British colonial perspective and a romping good read.

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