The bus stopped in a dusty whirlwind of rickshaws, mango carts and donkeys. "Lakarna, Lakarna!" The Pakistani boys in the seat behind us yelled. Kent, Peter, and I got off and retrieved our backpacks from the luggage space below. We had made it to Lakarna in Southern Pakistan-the base for exploring the ancient city of Moenjodaro, and the base for the highest bandit activity in the country. Well, that’s what Lonely Planet says. Quoting the guidebook: "...the town is of little interest and more than a little dangerous." Though this edition had been written six years ago, I still had to admit I was more than a little nervous. Crowds of wide-eyed curious locals gathered around us, as I gathered that foreigners didn't come here very often.

"C'mon," Kent said as the crowd of locals closed in around us and touched our foreign backpacks, jeans, and Teva sandals, "let's go find a hotel."

We made our way down the dusty street with the crowd following us. "Allo, allo Mister! Where do you come from?" These are usually the only words of English small-town locals know. It gets old after a couple of weeks of traveling, but you can’t get annoyed because, really, they’re just being friendly. All the attention makes you feel like a movie star, and for them it's as though we were movie stars; the first foreigners many of them had ever seen-straight off the screen from their local cinemas; Hollywood blockbusters dubbed in Urdu. Out of the movie theaters and onto their dusty streets. Sometimes celebrity status is unwanted, especially after you’ve just finished a long bus ride and all you want is a shower and some food, so we zigzagged through the crowds in our pursuit for lodging.

After an hour of going to hotels that told us they were full, we finally found one with a vacant room. Eight hundred rupees, with fifty rupees being equal to one dollar, this room was costing us around sixteen dollars. It sounds like nothing to spend on accommodation, especially when dividing the costs between three people, but when you're used to paying no more than 150 rupees for a three-bed room, it sounds like an exorbitant venture. Ah, the spending habits one acquires in the Subcontinent: you start thinking a dollar is a fortune too dear to part with. Still, we had had a rough five days traveling to Lakarna from the Iranian border, sleeping on cramped buses, trains, and in dirty hotels with stinky toilets. We were in need of a nice hotel and when we learned that the room came with Satellite TV, we knew we had found the right place. Besides, what accommodation for three people can you get in the West for sixteen dollars? Really, we had no right to complain and besides, channel-surfing sounded like the best way to relax, and that's what we were in dire need of after having traveled here all the way from Iran.

I had met my traveling companions there at Abhar Khan’s Guesthouse in the oasis town of Bam, close to the Pakistan border. Kent was a bodybuilder from Sweden, Peter an engineer from Austria. Since all three of us were heading to Pakistan, we decided to do the trip together. I couldn't think of a safer way to travel as a woman through Pakistan than with two big European men.

The decision to undertake an overland trip from Greece to India meant that going through Pakistan was the safest option; well, at least safer than going through Afghanistan. The other overland route goes through Central Asia, but this option wasn’t possible because the ultra-paranoid government of Turkmenistan stopped issuing tourist visas because of the SARS epidemic, an epidemic that had been over for months, and had never even affected Turkmenistan, in the first place. I guess they wanted to make sure that didn’t change. Fair enough, but it complicated my travel plans. Doing a cross-continent trip between Europe and Asia was something I always wanted to do; crossing from one continent to another and seeing how the people and landscapes chang sounded much more adventurous than just flying from Greece to India.

I’ve never done this trip however, because of security issues. The “War on Terrorism” launched by American president George Bush in retaliation for the World Trade Center Bombings of September 11 has called on Muslims worldwide to launch a "jihad", or holy war, on Westerners. Well, that’s what CNN says. Maybe it was just media propaganda, but it nonetheless scared me enough to not want to go to any Muslim countries; especially one as fundamentally Muslim as Pakistan. I wasn’t worried about Turkey and Iran. Sure, both countries had had isolated cases of terrorism, but no where near as many as Pakistan. In Pakistan, they blew up churches, beheaded journalists, and vociferously supported Bin Laden. I could fly from Iran to India, but that wouldn’t be going overland. I could wait until the world was a safer place, but when was that going to happen? And so because going through Pakistan was my only other option to get to India, I convinced myself it was safe-safe if I didn't travel through the country on my own. Traveling through the country with Kent and Peter made me feel a lot more comfortable.

We took a bus to the Pakistani border where the immigration officials were surprised to see us, as most of the people that do this border crossing are local traders. After getting our passports stamped, we took a 14-hour bumpy bus ride through the desert to Quetta, a city dramatically enclosed by the jagged points of the Murdar, Takatu, and Zarghun mountain ranges. The people were as striking as the landscape, sun-scorched locals with turbans twisted high on their heads, long beards, and blue, green, or gold eyes that stood out from their brown skin like jewels. They would ride their horses and wagons through the streets, vying for space with the multitude of rickshaw drivers, bicycles, and date merchants. It was quite entertaining watching the chaos that is Quetta traffic unfold from the relative safety of the sidewalk. I say relative, for sometimes the sidewalk wasn't safe either for rickshaws would careen up on the pavement and cut off the beeping buses and cursing vendors.

But because the only women to be seen on the streets were those who went unseen underneath their borquas, I agreed to join Kent and Peter when they announced that they were travelling further south into Pakistan to visit the ancient Indus City of Mojendaro. My argument that Lonely Planet claimed that it was too dangerous to go, could not convince them not to go. I decided that heading to volatile was better than staying in this womanless town on my own.. And that's how I ended up in Lakarna with a Swede and an Austrian and with the locals staring at us. Perhaps they were staring at us because foreigners didn’t come here. Or maybe they were staring at us because they thought we were idiots for coming to a place where we’d be killed. Whatever the case, all that staring made me really nervous.

After booking in our hotel, we went to a nearby restaurant to get some dinner. In the middle of eating our dhal and curried vegetables, a police officer wearing tin badges, shiny sunglasses, and an even shinier AK-47 strapped across his back drove up loudly on a motorcycle. When he got off his bike we saw that he was tall and skinny with tight brown pants pulled up to his waist. He walked up to our table and without a word, pulled up a chair and sat down, put his gun on his lap, folded his arms, and stared at us.

"Hello..." Peter started. The cop nodded, picked up a toothpick from the table and picked his gums.

"Uh...are you hungry?" Kent gestured towards the vegetables, but the cop just shook his head, and continued to poke at his teeth.

We couldn’t figure out why he was sitting at our table, and why he wasn't making any effort to communicate. This guy was more interested in the curry stains on the table than in us. And perhaps it wouldn't have been so confusing if there wasn't a shotgun pointing in our general direction.

We gave up talking to him after a few minutes and went back to our meal. After our dishes were cleared, we looked at each other while casting sidelong glances at the cop. It was time to go, but there's something about an AK-47 pointing at you that stops you from making any moves.

"Well," I started, at a loss of words. I wasn't sure how to say that I was pleased to meet this person, since he hadn't said one word to us. I finally decided on the worn out but effective: "It was nice to meet you, have a good night!"

I stood up and the other guys followed my lead. "Yes," Kent said, and Peter nodded. "It was great to meet you, but now we must go back to our hotel and get some sleep." They shook his hand, and we left the restaurant.

Battling the tangle of traffic, we started to make our way back to the hotel for a night of serious channel surfing when I looked behind me and saw that Copman was walking about six feet behind us. He looked menacingly at the crowds that had gathered to watch our promenade back to the hotel, and held the gun upright as though he would use it at a moment's notice.

"Hey guys," I whispered, "that cop is following us." Kent and Peter turned around and smiled uneasily at the cop. He nodded back at them, and continued to sneer at the staring, but now scared, locals.

"Why is he following us?" I whispered. "Maybe foreigners aren't allowed here."

"Of course foreigners are allowed here," Kent said. "Mojendaro is only half an hour away. And if foreigners aren’t allowed here, why would they give us a hotel?”

Once back at the hotel, we looked wearily at the man behind the front desk, “Sir,” Peter started. "Can you ask this police officer why he is following us?"

"We called the police to let them know we have foreign guests in town! So they sent this man to protect you. He will be with your during your stay in Lakarna!"

Kent chuckled. "Thanks, but please tell him he can go home. We don't need police protection."

The clerk frowned. "No, not possible!" He intoned in the sing-song voice that is typical of the subcontinent.

"You must have a guard. There are bad people in Lakarna who might want to hurt you. He will protect you against all harm that may happen here on your visit." The guard stood behind us with determination etched into his face; he was serious about protecting us. The sneers he made and the fact that he was brandishing an AK-47 made his stance threatening, but as threatening as Pee-wee Herman dressed up as Rambo could be.

I was nervous about coming to Pakistan, but not so nervous that I wanted an armed guard following me around. "Sir, please," I implored the clerk. "Having this man wave a huge gun around doesn’t make me feel safe at all!"

"Oh, you must not worry!" he smiled. "He will protect you! He is your very own personal armed guard!" There was a crowd of about twenty people staring at us in the hotel doorway behind the police officer. Copman turned to see what I was looking at, and waved his gun at the people who promptly ran away. "But," I tried again. "Can’t you understand that he actually puts us more in danger? He draws attention to us, making us more of a target for anyone who would want to bother us! Please, we would rather not have him following us."

"Yeah," Kent said. "We don't want to pay for an armed guard that we don't even want."

"But you don't have to pay for him!" the clerk boomed. "Compliments of the hotel and the government of Pakistan! And," he said, pushing us in the direction of our room, "it is law here in Lakarna for foreigners to have personal protection! So enjoy your stay, and if you need to go out, your guard will be happy to accompany you." The guard sneered and followed us to our room.

We showered and put on fresh clothes, but couldn’t relax with the furious pacing of Copman outside our door. Kent decided to go out and get some Pepsi, and the cop followed him to the store. He even followed me when I went down to the front desk to get more toilet paper. We were starting to feel like hostages held captive in our hotel room.

The next day, having had enough of Lakarna and our police escort, we decided to go visit the ruins of Mojendaro like we had planned, and then get out of town. We went down to the front desk and inquired on how to take a bus to the ancient city.

“Oh no!” the clerk boomed. “Taking a bus is too dangerous for our foreign guests! You must take an armed taxi! And you must take a convoy!”

“Uh, ok. Is it free?” Peter asked.

“No, not free but for my hotel guests, cheap! Very cheap! Fifty dollars!” he beamed.

“Fifty dollars?” Kent stepped back. “But Mojendaro is only a thirty-minute drive from Lakarna!”

“Yes, yes, very close!” he smiled widely. “Not far! But long enough for horrible things to happen to our special guests! You must take the taxi, to insure and protect your safety. Guard free for you yesterday, so taxi cost is no problem for you, ok? And, special, for you,” he said, pulling three brown paper bags from underneath his desk, “our hotel has prepared a special lunch for you! Special sandwiches of your country’s delicacy, a delicacy that we have imported to Pakistan in anticipation of foreign guests-foreign cheese!” He produced one of the sandwiches, an Indian flat bread-chapatti-,glued together with the neon orange glow of processed cheese stuff.

The clerk must have taken our shocked silence for hungry appreciation, for he pulled out a two-liter plastic bottle of thick orange liquid that was even brighter than the Cheese Whiz.

“And delicious orange juice-to quench your thirst from the hot, hot outside!” he beamed. The drink’s dusty label read “Yum-Yum Orange Drink”-the orange obviously coming from something other than fruit. We were in more danger of something happening to us if we ate the special lunch than if we went out unescorted. By that point, we were happy to face the bandits that this clerk was sure were out to get us.

“Uh..” I started, “thank you very much, but we will take the bus instead.”

“No, no you cannot!” the clerk practically shouted. “We have called a special taxi for you because it is too-“

“Yes, but fifty dollars is too expensive.” Kent interrupted. “Thank you, but we will take the bus.” He walked out of the hotel, and Peter and I followed.

“But, Hello!!” the clerk yelled. “At least take the lunches I have prepared! Only five dollars!”

We practically ran down the street towards the bus station to escape the hotel clerk and an unbearable fate of Cheese-Whiz constipation. When we slowed down we saw that Copman was walking right with us.

Peter stopped walking and gestured towards the hotel. “Look, officer, sir. Thank you for your services, but we would be much happier, and probably safer without you around. So thank you, but we would greatly appreciate you going back to the hotel.”

Copman shook his head and pointed in the opposite direction. “Bus-there!”

Not only did we have an unwanted armed guard, but we had one that couldn’t understand English.

“This guy isn’t going away. It looks like he’s coming to the ruins with us,” Kent said.

“Yeah, I guess there’s nothing we can do,” I answered. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to stop us from taking the bus, so let’s just go see Mojendaro like we planned, and if he comes along, he comes along.”

Peter nodded. “Of course,” he chuckled. “we can’t exactly tell him what he can or can’t do. Because,” he pointed at the AK 47, “he’s the one in charge!”

So we got on a rickety bus filled with locals who were surprised to see three foreigners get on, and even more surprised to see them accompanied by a growling police officer with a shiny shotgun.

After about ten minutes into the bus ride Copman, apparently exhausted with his security job, fell asleep with the gun propped between his legs. Once he was napping and not growling at everyone, people asked us where we were from, what we thought of Pakistan, and were just being really friendly. So much for bad people in Lakarna wanting to hurt us. One lady even shared with us the fruit that she had traveled an hour to the market to buy. Everyone was really nice and hospitable until the cop woke up and resumed growling at everyone, scaring the people to turn back around and stop talking to us.

After a bumpy ride, we finally arrived at the ruins of Mojendaro. The Harappa civilization of the Indus Valley had settled here and built this city five thousand years ago. They vanished without a trace, leaving archaeologists clueless as to why. They did leave clues that their civilization was a highly advanced one, and this was obvious just by walking around the ruins. The architecture was as advanced as the architecture of Greek and Egyptian sites, only better preserved. Yet this ancient site sees no tourists because foreigners, apart from archaeologists, are too scared to come here because it’s in Southern Pakistan.

And maybe that’s why we were given the armed guard—because the people and government of Pakistan are aware of the reputation their country has, and want to be sure nothing happens to any foreigners that do come and visit. Providing them with police protection ensures they will be safe during their stay, or at least that’s what the authorities think. But having an armed guard kept us away from locals that we could have otherwise met and given us a positive impression of the country, which we had when chatting with locals on the way to Mojendaro. We tried to convince the hotel clerk of this, but unconvinced he remained, probably in hopes of making some cash by scaring us to take an overpriced taxi to the ruins. After being in Pakistan and seeing how friendly everyone was, I realized the reputation this country has as being dangerous is largely a result of media hype. I didn’t feel any hostility when I was there; if anything the people were some of the friendliest I’ve ever met, probably because they rarely see foreigners and are curious.

For sure, there are countries in the world that are much safer to visit than Pakistan. But a person is more at risk walking around London or New York City than Lakarna. Westerners don’t realize that, from a statistical point of view, there’s a lot more violent crime happening in these cities.

You can blame it on the media. There have been quite a few incidents of terrorism in Pakistan targeting foreigners since September 11th, but because of the recent “War of Terrorism” they’re blown out of proportion. How often does a drive-by-shooting in an American city get on international news? Not often. And these casualties are a lot higher than the ones from terrorism incidents. It’s a sad story because Pakistan is such an amazing country, and so many people are staying away because of a danger that’s been blown up by the press.

It wasn’t Copman’s fault, and we had no reason to be angry with him. He was just doing his job. And judging by his paranoia, this was probably the first time that he had to “guard” foreigners from the dangers of Lakarna. From his sneers and growls, he was probably inventing those dangers so he could “protect” us, as Lakarna seemed like a mellow town; it probably is when foreigners aren’t coming through the city. He was probably overwhelmed that he actually had something to do.

As far as Lonely Planet saying that Lakarna was dangerous, it probably was when the guidebook was written six years ago. At that time, Lakarna did have a lot of bandit activity and social unrest. The locals say that things have become a lot more stable since then, but it takes a long time for a place to lose a bad reputation. The Tourist Bureau of Pakistan is trying to convince tourists of this, but giving them an armed guard isn’t the way to go about it.

After seeing the ruins, we went to the train station to wait for out train to Lahore in the north of the country. After seeing how friendly Quetta and Lakarna were, I was no longer scared of traveling further in Pakistan. Copman waited until our train came and stood on the platform, waving goodbye until we were out of sight.

I think he was actually sad to see us go.