Welcome to Pakistan

When the plane first dipped below the clouds, I caught my first glimpse of the land I had only known through family stories, cricket matches on TV, and the occasional YouTube vlog. It was raw, golden, vast. The mountains stood like ancient sentinels in the distance, and the plains below bloomed in the glow of a sun I had never quite seen before. The words I had read on signs in airports all day finally landed in my heart: “Welcome to Pakistan.”

I stepped into the warm air of Lahore, and immediately the city hit me—not in a way that overwhelmed, but in a way that embraced. There was a hum in the air, the kind that’s born from a thousand stories happening all at once. It smelled like spice and earth and something sweet I couldn’t quite place. That was my first introduction to Pakistan: not just a place, but a feeling.

My journey began in the heart of Lahore, where history and heartbeat dance together in every brick. I wandered through the red sandstone arches of the Badshahi Mosque, hearing echoes of centuries-old prayers beneath the vast, sky-painted domes. Nearby, the Lahore Fort stood in silence, noble and weathered, a witness to Mughals, Sikhs, British generals, and now—me.

But it wasn’t the monuments that moved me most—it was the people.

Everywhere I went, I was greeted with a smile, a wave, a “Bismillah, welcome!” or “Come, sit, have chai!” In the narrow lanes of Anarkali Bazaar, a shopkeeper handed me a steaming cup of doodh patti and insisted I try his homemade samosas. He asked where I was from. “You’re Pakistani now,” he said with a wink, “You just don’t know it yet.”

In Multan, the city of saints, I met a Sufi musician who played the dholak under a tree and told me about love—divine and human. In Peshawar, an elderly woman gifted me a handwoven shawl just because “you’ve come all this way to see us.” In Gilgit-Baltistan, children posed proudly with their goats and smiled so wide I forgot the world had problems.

One evening, as I sat on a rooftop in Karachi, looking out over the Arabian Sea while seagulls hovered and kites flew, someone next to me said, “This is what people don’t see. They only see what the world shows them on news. But you, you saw the heart.”

And it’s true.

Because Pakistan is not just news headlines or dramatic tales of history. It’s not just mountains and mosques. It is a million acts of kindness. It’s mangoes in the summer and shawarma stalls at midnight. It’s weddings that last three days and laughter that lasts longer. It’s truck art and rickshaws, call to prayer and bhangra beats, qawwali and cricket and poetry and chai.

It is the pride of a nation that has known hardship—and still smiles. It’s a country stitched together by traditions and dreams, by resilience and hope.

I remember visiting a small village in Swat Valley, where a young boy named Saif took my hand and said, “I’ll show you our world.” We climbed hills. We drank from streams. He introduced me to his grandmother, who hugged me like I was family. She spoke in Pashto, but I didn’t need a translation. I understood her smile.

In that moment, I realized: Pakistan doesn’t ask you to understand everything. It simply asks you to feel.

And I did. I felt welcomed. I felt humbled. I felt like a guest—yes—but also like I belonged. Like I had found something I hadn’t even realized I was missing.

When it came time to leave, someone told me, “You’ll carry Pakistan in your heart now, wherever you go.” And they were right.

I left with my bags heavier—not just with souvenirs, but with memories, stories, and a deep appreciation for a land so often misunderstood, yet so full of soul.

So to anyone who asks me now what Pakistan is really like, I say this:

Come and see. Come and feel.
Come for the mountains, yes. Come for the food, absolutely.
But more than that, come for the people.
They’ll welcome you not just to Pakistan…
They’ll welcome you into their hearts.


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