problems of measurement

„Where are you right now?“ asked a friend on skype

I looked around: „in an internet cafe with some travellers and a milk tea“

„No, where you are geographically...?“

„Ah! In the north of Pakistan.“

„Isn't there fighting everywhere right now?“

„No, I can just see autumn coloured trees outside, to be honest.“

One of the fact that hit me the hardest when coming to Pakistan, is the scale of the country that can just be misinterpreted when seen from the west. Before I came here, I had seen maps of the countries, political analysis and of course the way the media presented Pakistan in Germany (which I take as a general example for our inovative and well informing

european media....grr...).

I was worried as the military was launching an offensive against the Taliban in the northwestern border region to Afghanistan and it seem to be very close to Islamabad, the place that I had selected to go for studying. It looked too close not to be effected by streams of refugees and by military action.

When being in Pakistan, the situation looks quite different. The country is bigger than you would imagine and even when I say, I go for a holiday trip into the north, it doesn't mean that I travel into mountaineous areas where there's just fireing of guns, blasting cars and terrorists who hide in caves.

In a two weeks trip we (some friends and I) went up north along the Karakorum Highway.

First to Naran with beautiful lakes and a breathtaking mountain scenery.

Then it took us further, to Gilgit, the provincial capital of the north, and all along until the valley of Hunza, in which you can see coloured trees like a canadian dream piled along steep mountains and deep cut in rivers flowing by.

No terrorists to be found, sorry to say, that I just had a lovely holiday trip.