Pakistan : Quetta. Ok, this is getting ridiculous.

I am bigger than Jesus.

Well not really, but hey John Lennon said that and, taking his lead, I can say that I'm like the Beatles. (Wow, what a horrible transition. Does that even make sense?)

Yep, I'm like the Beatles, except replace the screaming teenage girls with fundamentalist Muslim tribal farmers sporting AK47's.

After a 16 hour drive on a dirt road we reached Quetta, the capital city of the Balochistan region. The Balochistan region takes up 45% of Pakistan's area but only has 6% of its population. It's a desert region populated with tribal people and exiled Taliban. It's considered Pakistan's most backward region and it shows in Quetta.

In Quetta you have open sewerage and decapitated goat heads strewn across the streets. The main forms of transport are donkey, rickshaw and donkey (oh, I just mentioned that). Being so close to the Afghan border I would imagine Quetta would be like downtown Kabul.

And then you have the locals… The official population of Quetta is 500,000 but this swells each day as the mountain tribes come to town to sell their goods. They also come to gawk at tourists. Seriously, I know I have crapped on about my celebrity status but this was unreal. Walking through downtown Quetta, I stopped to admire a disemboweled pig hanging in a shop window and after 20 seconds I turned around to see literally 50 tribesmen swamping me. They weren't asking me if I liked 50 Cent or Pakistan. They just stood and stared and as I walked off they started to follow me.

Swamped in Quetta

I ran to join the other tour members, one of which had walked into the town's only mobile phone store. Each member had their own entourage which merged to create complete mayhem. The crowd swelled and boxed us against a brick wall like a police line up. We were unable to move until four policemen parted the crowd and I escaped to an internet café complete with Windows 95 and a dial up modem powered by an exercising hamster.

We also went to Quetta's main tourist attraction – the Pakistan National Rock Museum (I'll pause while you drown in jealousy). Screw the world's greatest brick dome, this was mind-blowing. I loved looking at sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. I don't have time for igneous rocks.

The amazing Pakistan National Rock Museum

Returning to the bus we saw it was completely surrounded by a mob of inquisitive tribesman. Our driver Jean Paul was trapped in the driver's seat and was furiously shouting at the locals. They'd released the pressure from the bus doors and were trying to force them open. It was like a scene out of Night of the Living Dead. I'm not sure what their intentions were as they didn't look like thieves. Maybe they just wanted to shake Jean Paul's hand and ask him if he liked Pakistan?

Bilal reassured us that they were only curious. Pakistan is a country of 160 million but only gets around 5000 tourists a year – even less in the remote town of Quetta. The locals only see a western face once every few years, so it's understandable they want to see the infidels up close.

Swamped at the bus.

Also, on the way into Quetta I read an interesting article in National Geographic about the rise of Fundamentalist Islam in Pakistan. Basically, all the exiled Taliban are lobbying the Pakistani government to adopt Fundamentalist Islam. To pursue this, they were protesting, setting up anti west Islamic schools, and spray painting billboards bearing women's exposed faces.

Bilal dismissed the article, saying that although there was a faction of fundamentalism it was very small (it got less than 5% in the last election). If you believed the west, Quetta was supposed to be the heart of fundamentalist anti-west Islam, (It's less than 100 miles from Kandahar, the Afghan capital of the Taliban). but all I saw were pleasant bus curious locals more intent on showing you a rock museum than launching Jihad.

Wow, I've come to the realization that you can't believe everything you read. There I said it. Am I the first to say it? Probably. I think I invented that saying… (Awkward silence)… Ok maybe not, but I still believe it.

Geez, thanks Bilal.