---
type: Video
title: "$4 Nitrogen Ice Cream In Pakistan🇵🇰"
description: An hour inside the Faisal Mosque and roughly a hundred photo requests, then liquid-nitrogen ice cream made to order in an Islamabad markaz.
tags: [pakistan, islamabad, faisal-mosque, attention, desserts, taxis]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbr8o0ERYcI
video_id: Rbr8o0ERYcI
upload_date: 2021-12-24
duration: 864
---

# $4 Nitrogen Ice Cream In Pakistan🇵🇰

Back to the [Faisal Mosque](/places/faisal-mosque.md) in
[Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md), this time inside it and in daylight, with
[Mac](/people/mac.md) — and it turns into the clearest demonstration in the
cluster of what being a Western tourist at a Pakistani landmark is like.
**Around a hundred people over an hour**, twenty in the first few minutes:
selfies, filters, slow-motion walking videos, and a FaceTime call to somebody's
family.

Harry's advice out of it is plain and unbothered: if you are a visitor from a
Western country, expect this at the places tourists gather, and take it as
friendliness.

The rest is ice cream. In an F8 markaz they find **nitrogen ice cream made to
order** — mixed and frozen in front of them with liquid nitrogen, about $4 — and
he rates the texture well above ordinary ice cream because it is minutes old.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles; amounts the transcript
leaves ambiguous are marked unverified.*

## Key moments

- [00:00] His description of the mosque: like something out of Hogwarts. He
  gives its size three different ways in the same video — sixth largest in
  Pakistan, sixth largest in the world, largest in Asia (from video –
  unverified) — and none is adopted here.
- [01:39] His selfie stick breaks, which he takes philosophically on the grounds
  that Islamabad is the one city where he can replace it.
- [02:10] **Shoes off**, into a cloakroom; it is government premises, so
  retrieving them afterwards is slow.
- [04:04] **Being mobbed, quantified**: about twenty photo requests within
  minutes, roughly a hundred people over the hour. Harry's note is that it makes
  sense at a landmark, that everyone is kind, and that some are very full-on.
- [06:46] Leaving at sunset with the Margalla Hills behind it, which he calls one
  of the most beautiful things he has seen in a while.
- [07:46] **600 rupees for a 5–10 minute taxi** to the F8 markaz.
- [08:51] **Nitrogen ice cream, about $4**: frozen to order in front of them,
  Nutella flavour, and better than standard ice cream in his view because it is
  fresh rather than stored.
- [13:24] **250 rupees quoted for the taxi back; he pays 1,000.** Same reason as
  Lahore — the driver quoted honestly, so he rewards it. See
  [reward honesty and hard work](/tips/reward-honesty-and-hard-work.md).

## Extracted pages

- [Faisal Mosque](/places/faisal-mosque.md)
- [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Reward honesty and hard work](/tips/reward-honesty-and-hard-work.md)