What’s more dangerous than cycling unhelmeted through anarchic Lahore traffic on a bike? Doing so while taking photographs? On a bike that handles like a shopping cart? Grinning madly?
We rode by slums, farms, military bases, more slums, buffalo soaking in the Canal (runs all the way to India – thanks Raj!), we rode past dusty amusement parks, highway cricket, gulley cricket, alley cricket, sandlot cricket, we rode past donkey carts, Mercedes, horses, other bicycles, a thousand festooned rickshaws, hordes of motorcycles, and one wheelchair.
Dodging through the traffic was shockingly comfortable. It required the same intense concentration and awareness as skiing, and produced a very similar pleasure. (It’s probably a good thing I don’t live in Lahore; Islamabad is much, much more behaved.) I was very glad for my Islamabad cycling practice, and for being in good shape.
My loaner bike was a total, 7th hellcircle piece of shit, and too small besides, but I didn’t care. The sun shone, my black shirt baked me. I took pictures of a Ranger base in flagrant violation of what I later discovered was the Law. At one point we rode through a clothesline-strewn slum to a market stacked with chicken cages, and finally on to a bristling army checkpoint. Waved through (a Gora on a bike is pretty much the opposite of the profile they’re worried about), I was suddenly released into the elegant precincts of the Cantonment residences, the neighborhood of military families. It strongly reminded me of Bozeman, Montana (my Western Jerusalem, soils steeped in happy memories). I would’ve taken pictures of it but I was by that point aware of the risk such snapping would pose to my existing photos. If caught in the Cantonment, I’d be forced to delete the lot, and I was not going to risk losing this picture:
- There are many phallic monuments in Lahore, but only one with balls to tickle.
Or my photoshoot with a festively-painted sheep…
I met a new favorite Person, a lawyer named Rafay (5ft 10 inches, around 35 years old, JD from London, formerly a popular radio host). He suited up for the day’s ride in Hawaiian shirt, nylong hiking pants, and — gasp! — Vibram Fivefingers. I AM NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS COUNTRY WITH FIVEFINGERS! Here is Rafay, cigar in hand, barefoot/shod, with his hog:
We stopped for lunch next to a minor canal, at an open-air eatery that was entirely off-limits to my gut. I went for the only edible item– juice. It tasted strange, so I inspected the package, and discovered that this particular brand of “apple beverage” has fucking milk in it
- Really, random Pakistani Beverage Corp? Really?
Lahories seems to be less accustomed to foreigners than Islamabytes. At every stop, children would gather and stare at me, and more than one local introduced himself and asked here I was from. Nowadays, less paranoid than when I first arrived, I answer without hesitation that I’m American. It’s truer now than it’s ever been.
