Lot of travel since my Islamabad trip. I'll just list some of my impressions.
I checked in for my flight to ISB in AUH with EY. The agent checking me in, upon returning my passport and BP said " Good Luck"! I asked why he said that and his response was not many people go there.
The EY flight was quite nice a 777 with the new Biz seats - there were only three of us in Biz, coach was packed. Service was good for the sector, I had a lot of champagne while watching Zero Dark Thirty. Not the best movie as it shows my hotel being blown up!
My ride was at the airport despite the 3 am arrival, immigration and customs were quick and uneventful.
Check in at the Marriott was eas and I was upgraded to a club floor.
Upon reaching the room, there was a great clap of thunder and the lights went out. This happened to be a coincidence, as I would discover the power goes out basically every hour and the switch is made to generator back up. This was annoying as it would cycle the A/C on off not making for the restful sleep. Apparently the govt. is not able to provide enough electricity and this happens everywhere.
The hotel is full of restaurants and seem almost fully occupied. During my stay (3 days) I only observed about 6-8 westerners.
My interaction with the local people was kind of a mixed bag. Most came across us very hospitable and friendly. There were some where I sensed my presence was not appreciated despite no overt sign indicating so.
The alcohol situation was strange. My business colleague is Pakistani but happens to be Christian. One night at the hotel we wanted to get a drink and I had read about the existence of a bar in the hotel called Rumors. I did not know where it was and had not found it during my cursory walk around. He asked the front desk staff and they would not tell him. So I went to ask and they also avoided telling me, perhaps because they knew I was with him.
So we went up to my room where I had the option of ordering beer from room service. I ordered two of the large cans - they were delivered in a black plastic bag. I thought I would just have to sign the room service delivery slip. Not so simple, he had a log book that needed to be filled out asking for a lot of detail. The waiter indicated that I could skip most of it, other than my name and room which the hotel had anyway, I filled out the rest with nonsensical information.
The next night, after more research on the bar on FT I was able to find it. As others have reported it is nothing that great. In fact I walked in, looked around and walked out.
I did go for dinner at Monal as writermatt suggested. The food was good and the view was better. It was interesting to note that on the drive up the hill that marijuana was growing wild all along the roadside.
My departure from ISB was not nearly as easy as my arrival. For a variety of reasons I arrived at the airport 1.5 hours before departure around 9:30. It seemed like the entire population of ISB was trying to get into the intl. departures terminal. I could not even get close and was walking around the edges trying to find a way in - no dice. A Porter noticed my dilemma and offered help. I accepted and he parted a way to the first obstacle - someone who wanted to see my ticket, I had none it was an eticket. The guard was not going to budge - I'm trying to find the info on my phone in the meantime my porter grabbed my passport and before I could really object he was off to get a printed itinerary. All right, I admit slight panic set in - I have never let my passport out of my control anywhere. About the same time I was able to connect on my phone the porter came back with a print out of my itin. and passport. Next obstacle was the xray before entering the terminal - of course my bag was flagged. The porter got me to the head of secondary inspection, next up was a final passport check before getting to the ticket counter. Made it to the Emirates check in desk. After receiving my BP my porter had to leave as he is not allowed to go through outbound immigration. I had Dirhams and offered him about USD 30 worth. He noticed the dollars underneath and ask for that instead. Gave him forty as without him I would still be trying to get into the terminal. He wanted more but I politely declined.
At immigration there were a couple of dozen people ahead of me all with numerous children. I saw the clock running out on my ability to make the flight. I moved to an empty line and became the rude traveler by cutting in line with apologies and pointing to my passport. After Immigration there was yet another xray belt for my carryon. It went through and a tag placed on it. I thought I was good to go and started heading up the stairs to the gates. A guard yelled at me, apparently he needed to stamp/punch the tag on my carryon that was placed on it 6 feet ago. As I got upstairs to the gate, I was the last one through and on to the bus to my waiting EK flight to Dubai!
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to visit, but I don't think I will be going back soon. It is unnerving to me to be constantly reminded about security concerns and sometimes with good reason as evidenced by the bombings and assassinations that occurred while I was there. My business colleague insisted that next time I come to Lahore as it is more 'liberal' than ISB. We'll see.
Th