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https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...highlands-arent-happy-to-see-pakistani-touris
Why Pakistanis In The Otherworldly Highlands Aren't Happy To See Pakistani Tourists
February 15, 20207:01 AM ET
DIAA HADID
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ABDUL SATTAR
An informal dump in far northern Pakistan where residents hurl medical and tourist trash. The trash is frequently incinerated, sending up plumes of foul-smelling smoke right near a glacial lake frequented by tourists.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
The residents of Murtazabad, a village in the highlands of Pakistan, are welcoming of strangers. On a recent day, they proffered passing visitors a yak meat porridge they'd made for a religious celebration. They indulgently smiled as a horde of Thai tourists raced into one of their orchards and posed with piles of red and yellow apples.
But some days, their patience wears thin.
And those days are happening more often as this once remote province becomes a wildly popular destination not for foreign tourists posing in their apple orchards but for their own brethren — Pakistanis who come from the plains below.
Men cook yak porridge in an enormous cauldron over a wood fire in their mosque in the village of Murtazabad. They prepared the dish for a religious festival and handed out portions on the street.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
"Most tourists are wonderful, but some are just so dirty. They come here to see our beautiful region, and they leave their trash behind," says Benazir Jamal, a 25-year-old gym teacher, who said her village organized a committee to clean up after tourists. "Not all fingers of the hand are the same," Jamal said, referring to Pakistanis visiting the area.
Pointy opinions about Pakistani tourists can be heard across the far northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, an otherworldly place of snow-capped peaks, glaciers, rivers and orchards. It spotlights the frictions between Pakistan's multiple ethnic and religious groups, and the challenges facing the country as it tries to lure in more visitors. Signs are pasted throughout residential areas forbidding photography and entrance to tourists. Other signs urge them, in English and Urdu, to pick up their trash.
NPR's terms of use and privacy policy. NPR may share your name and email address with your NPR station. See Details. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
"The problem is basically, unfortunately, and I am sorry to say this, especially our Pakistani tourists. They have not right manners," says Aqeela Bano, who heads the Ciqam Project, which is a network of organizations run by women, including a carpentry workshop and a café and hotel.
Women work in a carpentry workshop run by the aid group Ciqam. The group trains and employs 25 women, in part because of a building boom in far northern Pakistan, triggered by a rush of domestic tourism. They make door frames, window frames and furniture.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Tensions emerged after domestic tourists nearly outnumbered the territory's 1.5 million locals over the past two summers, according to Usman Ahmed, commissioner of the Gilgit division, one of the area's highest-ranking officials. There were no official figures for this past summer, but it was even busier, officials said.
"We were not ready for that," Ahmed says. He noted that a decade ago, just over 50,000 domestic tourists visited.
Tourists pose for photos on a medieval fort near the town of Karimabad in the highlands of Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Only one town in the territory has a sewage system, and so more visitors means more human waste washes into the tributaries that feed the Indus River, Pakistan's main water source. The area does not have regular trash collection, so the extra garbage tourists generated was dumped into the river or incinerated at an informal dump near a glacial lake –frequented by the same tourists. On a recent day, crows picked through smoldering trash that emitted foul fumes.
To accommodate tourists, there is a construction boom. Enormous hotels now loom over some villages. Concrete flophouses flash neon signs. Ahmed is worried, he says, because the construction industry is loosely regulated.
"We don't want to become a concrete jungle," he says.
Domestic tourists began pouring in about six years ago, Ahmed says. The sudden surge is owed to a convergence of factors: sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites in far-northern Pakistan was quelled by authorities, making the road safe for visitors. The road itself – a highway of hairpin turns – was improved, making it easier to drive up. And word spread of the area's beauty through word of mouth and social media, according to both tourists and officials.
The Attabad glacial lake, which is several miles long. Boat rides on the lake is a popular tourist attraction in far northern Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
The tourists include Mohammad Afzal and his wife Nazira from the southern city of Larkana, who said they'd brought their extended family of 22 people for a week-long stay in the region. "We saw a video and were like, let's go!" Nazira says, as they passed around hot mugs of chai on a freezing day.
"We went to the China border, and the kids saw snow. They were so excited," she says.
A child waves to tourists from a minivan in a small town in far northern Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Nazira, like many Pakistani tourists interviewed, says she was horrified to hear that locals found them to be unclean.
"We throw our trash in the bin," she insists. But at the next table, another group of Pakistani tourists left their pizza boxes and plastic cups of tea behind on a table, ignoring the large trash can nearby.
Regardless of how the majority of Pakistani tourists behave, clearly there are problems. Some of the city's bazaars are pasted with signs pleading with tourists to use trash cans and not take photos. Residents said during the summer, visiting Pakistani men snapped photos of local women without their permission and shared them online.
Signs abound through heavily-visited tourist areas in far northern Pakistan urging tourists not to take photos, to clean up their trash and not to enter residential areas.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
"We didn't put [these warning signs] up when it was just foreign tourists," says Nazir Ali, who guards a mosque. "But when domestic tourists came, they misused the pictures. A lot of women weren't comfortable. They were scared, they don't know how the picture will be used."
Ali says the issue really emerged when residents found images of local women on social media with commentary that suggested they were not honorable. That's because the women in far northern Pakistan don't always cover their hair and they have a tradition of working in public as farmers, shopkeepers and shepherds and their girls play sports in public — a stark contrast to the far more conservative plains below and even to other communities in the mountains.
The patron of a tiny restaurant, Lal Shehzadi, 38, acknowledged cultural tensions with domestic tourists. She says some of them have asked if her husband was dead, and if not, why she worked, because it was so unusual in the plains.
As she served local delicacies like savory apricot soup, yak curry, salty tea and mutton pies, Shehzadi says she often retorted: "Why do you cover your women?"
Lal Shehzadi flattens out dough to make a mutton pie in her small restaurant in the town of Karimabad.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Other residents noted the upside to domestic tourism, even as they were critical, like Bano of the Ciqam Project. Bano said the upswing in tourism has allowed the Ciqam network to employ 25 female carpenters to supply window frames, doors and wooden designs for new buildings.
Musician Zia Ul Karim, 25, says the tourists helped revive interest in folkloric music by requesting it to be performed at local shows.
"Melodies which are almost dying," he says, because the "lack of importance given to them by people." Speaking after a performance, he said sometimes it took a stranger to remind people of what they should hold dear.
In a territory once nearly entirely reliant on farming, Mubaraka, 13, listed the ways tourism has bettered the lives of residents in their poor, one-road village, where children ran around in flipflops in heavy-jacket weather. Tourists bought their farm produce. Shops sold more goods. There was work in the industry.
But domestic tourists also upset her, she said. She gestured to a meadow where goats graze, overlooking pointy, snowy peaks. A few weeks ago, she cleaned it up after tourists.
Officials said they were also trying to lure high-dollar foreign visitors – with some success, like the Thai tourists who tumbled into that apple orchard in Murtazabad. Piayooan Yuentiakul, 55, from Bangkok said Pakistan was a "top of the bucket list" among his friends because of the stunning red and yellow fall colors.
Thai tourists pose in piles of picked apples in an orchard in the village of Murtazabad.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
To attract more visitors from other Asian countries, authorities advertise the area's ancient Buddhist heritage. To lure adventure tourists, they host activities like a desert car rally, yak polo and the world's highest altitude bike race alongside climbing some of the world's tallest mountains.
Figures given by Ahmed, the commissioner, suggested a slow but steady climb of foreign tourists to Murtazabad, reaching just over 10,000 last year – a tiny proportion of the 1.2 million foreign tourists who arrived in Pakistan in total, according to the country's 2018 Travel & Tourism Economic Impact report.
Tourists loiter about the Khunjrab Pass – the icy, snowy border crossing between Pakistan and China.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Foreign tourists say they are delighted by Pakistan, like German visitor Carsten Korfmacher. He'd been hiking on glaciers and trekking through base camps of some of the world's tallest mountains. The best part was "people are so friendly," he says. Twice, he said, he'd been invited to attend local weddings. "I wish people were so friendly in my country," he says.
Nothing though, could beat the enthusiasm of Daniel Porter, from Britain, who just finished a boat ride on a glacial lake. Smoothing back his dreadlocks, Porter said people kept inviting him to stay with them. "Everyone just smiles," he says. "Everyone wants to help you." Locals agree. As long as you pick up your own trash.
Additional reporting by Nazim Ullah Baig
Why Pakistanis In The Otherworldly Highlands Aren't Happy To See Pakistani Tourists
February 15, 20207:01 AM ET
DIAA HADID
FacebookInstagramTwitter
ABDUL SATTAR
An informal dump in far northern Pakistan where residents hurl medical and tourist trash. The trash is frequently incinerated, sending up plumes of foul-smelling smoke right near a glacial lake frequented by tourists.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
The residents of Murtazabad, a village in the highlands of Pakistan, are welcoming of strangers. On a recent day, they proffered passing visitors a yak meat porridge they'd made for a religious celebration. They indulgently smiled as a horde of Thai tourists raced into one of their orchards and posed with piles of red and yellow apples.
But some days, their patience wears thin.
And those days are happening more often as this once remote province becomes a wildly popular destination not for foreign tourists posing in their apple orchards but for their own brethren — Pakistanis who come from the plains below.
Men cook yak porridge in an enormous cauldron over a wood fire in their mosque in the village of Murtazabad. They prepared the dish for a religious festival and handed out portions on the street.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
"Most tourists are wonderful, but some are just so dirty. They come here to see our beautiful region, and they leave their trash behind," says Benazir Jamal, a 25-year-old gym teacher, who said her village organized a committee to clean up after tourists. "Not all fingers of the hand are the same," Jamal said, referring to Pakistanis visiting the area.
Pointy opinions about Pakistani tourists can be heard across the far northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, an otherworldly place of snow-capped peaks, glaciers, rivers and orchards. It spotlights the frictions between Pakistan's multiple ethnic and religious groups, and the challenges facing the country as it tries to lure in more visitors. Signs are pasted throughout residential areas forbidding photography and entrance to tourists. Other signs urge them, in English and Urdu, to pick up their trash.
NPR's terms of use and privacy policy. NPR may share your name and email address with your NPR station. See Details. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
"The problem is basically, unfortunately, and I am sorry to say this, especially our Pakistani tourists. They have not right manners," says Aqeela Bano, who heads the Ciqam Project, which is a network of organizations run by women, including a carpentry workshop and a café and hotel.
Women work in a carpentry workshop run by the aid group Ciqam. The group trains and employs 25 women, in part because of a building boom in far northern Pakistan, triggered by a rush of domestic tourism. They make door frames, window frames and furniture.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Tensions emerged after domestic tourists nearly outnumbered the territory's 1.5 million locals over the past two summers, according to Usman Ahmed, commissioner of the Gilgit division, one of the area's highest-ranking officials. There were no official figures for this past summer, but it was even busier, officials said.
"We were not ready for that," Ahmed says. He noted that a decade ago, just over 50,000 domestic tourists visited.
Tourists pose for photos on a medieval fort near the town of Karimabad in the highlands of Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Only one town in the territory has a sewage system, and so more visitors means more human waste washes into the tributaries that feed the Indus River, Pakistan's main water source. The area does not have regular trash collection, so the extra garbage tourists generated was dumped into the river or incinerated at an informal dump near a glacial lake –frequented by the same tourists. On a recent day, crows picked through smoldering trash that emitted foul fumes.
To accommodate tourists, there is a construction boom. Enormous hotels now loom over some villages. Concrete flophouses flash neon signs. Ahmed is worried, he says, because the construction industry is loosely regulated.
"We don't want to become a concrete jungle," he says.
Domestic tourists began pouring in about six years ago, Ahmed says. The sudden surge is owed to a convergence of factors: sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites in far-northern Pakistan was quelled by authorities, making the road safe for visitors. The road itself – a highway of hairpin turns – was improved, making it easier to drive up. And word spread of the area's beauty through word of mouth and social media, according to both tourists and officials.
The Attabad glacial lake, which is several miles long. Boat rides on the lake is a popular tourist attraction in far northern Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
The tourists include Mohammad Afzal and his wife Nazira from the southern city of Larkana, who said they'd brought their extended family of 22 people for a week-long stay in the region. "We saw a video and were like, let's go!" Nazira says, as they passed around hot mugs of chai on a freezing day.
"We went to the China border, and the kids saw snow. They were so excited," she says.
A child waves to tourists from a minivan in a small town in far northern Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Nazira, like many Pakistani tourists interviewed, says she was horrified to hear that locals found them to be unclean.
"We throw our trash in the bin," she insists. But at the next table, another group of Pakistani tourists left their pizza boxes and plastic cups of tea behind on a table, ignoring the large trash can nearby.
Regardless of how the majority of Pakistani tourists behave, clearly there are problems. Some of the city's bazaars are pasted with signs pleading with tourists to use trash cans and not take photos. Residents said during the summer, visiting Pakistani men snapped photos of local women without their permission and shared them online.
Signs abound through heavily-visited tourist areas in far northern Pakistan urging tourists not to take photos, to clean up their trash and not to enter residential areas.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
"We didn't put [these warning signs] up when it was just foreign tourists," says Nazir Ali, who guards a mosque. "But when domestic tourists came, they misused the pictures. A lot of women weren't comfortable. They were scared, they don't know how the picture will be used."
Ali says the issue really emerged when residents found images of local women on social media with commentary that suggested they were not honorable. That's because the women in far northern Pakistan don't always cover their hair and they have a tradition of working in public as farmers, shopkeepers and shepherds and their girls play sports in public — a stark contrast to the far more conservative plains below and even to other communities in the mountains.
The patron of a tiny restaurant, Lal Shehzadi, 38, acknowledged cultural tensions with domestic tourists. She says some of them have asked if her husband was dead, and if not, why she worked, because it was so unusual in the plains.
As she served local delicacies like savory apricot soup, yak curry, salty tea and mutton pies, Shehzadi says she often retorted: "Why do you cover your women?"
Lal Shehzadi flattens out dough to make a mutton pie in her small restaurant in the town of Karimabad.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Other residents noted the upside to domestic tourism, even as they were critical, like Bano of the Ciqam Project. Bano said the upswing in tourism has allowed the Ciqam network to employ 25 female carpenters to supply window frames, doors and wooden designs for new buildings.
Musician Zia Ul Karim, 25, says the tourists helped revive interest in folkloric music by requesting it to be performed at local shows.
"Melodies which are almost dying," he says, because the "lack of importance given to them by people." Speaking after a performance, he said sometimes it took a stranger to remind people of what they should hold dear.
In a territory once nearly entirely reliant on farming, Mubaraka, 13, listed the ways tourism has bettered the lives of residents in their poor, one-road village, where children ran around in flipflops in heavy-jacket weather. Tourists bought their farm produce. Shops sold more goods. There was work in the industry.
But domestic tourists also upset her, she said. She gestured to a meadow where goats graze, overlooking pointy, snowy peaks. A few weeks ago, she cleaned it up after tourists.
Officials said they were also trying to lure high-dollar foreign visitors – with some success, like the Thai tourists who tumbled into that apple orchard in Murtazabad. Piayooan Yuentiakul, 55, from Bangkok said Pakistan was a "top of the bucket list" among his friends because of the stunning red and yellow fall colors.
Thai tourists pose in piles of picked apples in an orchard in the village of Murtazabad.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
To attract more visitors from other Asian countries, authorities advertise the area's ancient Buddhist heritage. To lure adventure tourists, they host activities like a desert car rally, yak polo and the world's highest altitude bike race alongside climbing some of the world's tallest mountains.
Figures given by Ahmed, the commissioner, suggested a slow but steady climb of foreign tourists to Murtazabad, reaching just over 10,000 last year – a tiny proportion of the 1.2 million foreign tourists who arrived in Pakistan in total, according to the country's 2018 Travel & Tourism Economic Impact report.
Tourists loiter about the Khunjrab Pass – the icy, snowy border crossing between Pakistan and China.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Foreign tourists say they are delighted by Pakistan, like German visitor Carsten Korfmacher. He'd been hiking on glaciers and trekking through base camps of some of the world's tallest mountains. The best part was "people are so friendly," he says. Twice, he said, he'd been invited to attend local weddings. "I wish people were so friendly in my country," he says.
Nothing though, could beat the enthusiasm of Daniel Porter, from Britain, who just finished a boat ride on a glacial lake. Smoothing back his dreadlocks, Porter said people kept inviting him to stay with them. "Everyone just smiles," he says. "Everyone wants to help you." Locals agree. As long as you pick up your own trash.
Additional reporting by Nazim Ullah Baig
