I did the only thing which any self-respecting traveller would do under such trying circumstances and hit the bar. I was already feeling queasy at the thought of travelling in an alcohol free country and so a large scotch, I reasoned, was just what the doctor would have ordered. Actually, my doctor was more pragmatic and after each trip he would rub his hands together in glee and ask "what have you brought back this time?" He once told me that after a few more of my trips he would have enough for a paper to the Journal of Tropical Diseases.

When we eventually took off, a mere 4 hours late, I sank back in my seat was just dozing off when the stunningly attractive stewardess lent over and offered me a large scotch - as the only infidel on the flight I got special treatment she told me. Of course, who was I to refuse, and besides I thought, after Dubai it will be dry. It wasn't - neither was the next leg or the leg after that. Only when we finally entered Pakistani airspace was my drink whipped out of my hands and half the women made a last minute dash to the toilet to swap their designer suits for the all encompassing chador or the more flattering veil.

'Inshallah' we shall be landing at Karachi international airport, the pilot crackled over the speaker. You hear this all the time whilst travelling in Muslim countries. It's like a cultural reflex - God willing we will be landing; God willing my hotel will be completed; God willing I will survive this taxi ride. Perhaps after so many years of uncertainty it is another way of dealing with the squalor of the real world. Inshallah I will clear customs...

I hastily swallowed a packet of extra strong mints in a vague attempt to disguise the whisky fumes. The rush for customs and immigration was no better or worse than any other country. I was in the middle of a pitched battle between a chador-clad local and my ruck sac when a khaki clad immigration officer tapped me on the shoulder.

"Excuse me," he began politely, "you do realise this is Karachi, Pakistan." He took my proffered passport that I had opened at the page containing the colourful visa and smiled weakly. He examined it in minute detail with a mixed expression somewhere between bewilderment, amusement and shock. With a limp handshake he returned my documents and wandered off murmuring "how strange, how very very strange."

I had arranged for a friend to meet me which was just as well as the arrivals hall was a war zone – though in all fairness it was child's play compared to some I had come across in South America. Having the unique position of being the sole Caucasian in a crowd of what seemed liked seventy million I was instantly surrounded by every taxi driver in a 4 mile radius, I thought: I bet Richard Burton never had this trouble as I shouldered my way through the throng.

I guess I was not too difficult to find and was soon relieved to see my friend pushing his way through the masses. With his sharwani and university scarf flying he certainly cut a dashing figure. A few minutes later we were bouncing through the damp streets dodging the gaudily painted busses, cows and other hazards that tax day-to-day driving in Pakistan. In between dodging cows, chewing beetle nuts and leaning on the horn the driver found time to practise his few English expressions "tip tip good driver I am", "no hit busses...much", and my personal favourite "I speak English, 2,3,4 egg."

I was in town for my friend's wedding and as we bounced towards the hotel he gave me a run down on things I had to do; rent the car, buy the flowers, pick up his suit, arrange the dowry and rent a horse drawn cart for the post-wedding festivities and so on. The list was making my head spin. His final words to me as he left me to check into the swish hotel were "don't forget the horse and cart."

The next day I whizzed around the city. From the tailors to get a natty charwal chemise for myself (I had hoped it would help me blend in and make me look a touch more dashing. – it didn't, but it gave the driver a good laugh) to the gold market where I haggled my socks off for some stunning gold earrings for the blushing bride to be, and then a dash by rickshaw across the smoggy city in time for a pre-wedding lunch with the groom and his family.

We meet in a dingy restaurant in the heart of the old city. The place lacked all the charm and elegance of the world's finest eateries, but I was told it did a mean vegetable kebab. I also reasoned that there was very little that you could do wrong to a kebab. It was after about 2 mouthfuls that I felt my stomach give the first twitch, the room began to swim and I felt the colour drain out of my face as I dived down two flights of stairs in search of the toilet.

The scene was set for the next two weeks, rushing between tourist sights and the nearest bathroom. And still I was no closer to finding a horse and cart for the wedding, which was incredible as the streets were lined with them. Each driver I approached seemed to have prior commitments. I guess they were a bit unhinged by a charwal chemise wearing stomach-holding Englishman.

One afternoon, however, I did get a good offer on a camel. I was killing time wandering around the beach at Clifton whilst my friend was having another fitting of his wedding clothes. I had fallen into conversation with a camel herder who was busily explaining to me how the bottom had dropped out of the market (which I thought was amusing as the world was continually dropping out of my bottom) and how for a few hundred dollars he would sell me a camel which would be the pride of all England.

Though the idea of galloping to work each day on a dromodarian charger seemed initially appealing I wasn't sure how my landlady, or the neighbours, would react to a camel on the second floor of a cramped student house in west London.

In between the complex and largely incomprehensible preparations for the wedding I continued my sightseeing. One day, when my bottom was largely behaving itself, I took a cab out of town to visit the Quaid-i-Azam Mausoleum, a monument to Pakistan's founder. I took my shoes off and left them at the bottom of the marble stairs, and as many pilgrims have done before me, climbed upwards. The silver tomb itself was impressive and it commanded a view of the fertile coastal plains tapering away to distant mountains. I was happily snapping away with my ancient Pentax when two soldiers rushed up. It wasn't so much as their guns which scared me but their fearsome looks and abnormally large biceps. I had that sinking feeling which always proceeds a brush with the authorities.

"No, no," they screamed at me in heavily accented English, "the lighting is all wrong from this direction. You would be better taking pictures from the other side." I was frog marched across the tomb and helped to climb onto a ledge from which I could photograph the whole tomb. I wonder if these soldiers were involved in the debacle that happened a few weeks later when a small scuffle about the ownership of a pair of shoes tuned into a riot that left many dead. Soldiers had indiscriminately opened fire on the pious worshipers who had replied in kind by beating several soldiers to death with their shoes. It seemed a uniquely Pakistani solution.

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