---
type: Video
title: "Foreigners try Pakistani food 🇵🇰"
description: A day with a local who won't let them pay for anything — a free public sports park, a race against a Pakistani sprinter, a police stop that wanted a bribe, and Burns Road.
tags: [pakistan, karachi, burns-road, hospitality, police, street-food, sport]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otYjYz_t1bM
video_id: otYjYz_t1bM
upload_date: 2021-12-03
duration: 1058
---

# Foreigners try Pakistani food 🇵🇰

A day in [Karachi](/places/karachi.md) spent with Abdul Raheem, a local
freelancer who attaches himself to the trip, negotiates prices on their behalf,
drives them round the city, and refuses — repeatedly and successfully — to let
Harry or [Mac](/people/mac.md) pay for anything, including a meal he doesn't eat.

Harry asks him directly whether that is Pakistani culture or just him. The answer
is the most useful thing in the video: **it depends on the person.** Guests
generally get looked after, but Abdul is clear that another local might well have
paid only for himself, and that Harry shouldn't generalise from him.

Two harder edges keep it from being a soft day. Police stopped them for not
carrying passports and were, in Abdul's reading, looking for a payment rather
than a document — his advice was to hand over a small amount and leave rather
than argue, because arguing with the wrong officer goes badly. And children
asking for money at an ice cream shop got ice cream instead, which Harry explains
and which immediately produces a request for more.

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

## Itinerary

Markets in the afternoon → picking up a car for a driving tour of the city →
the national cricket stadium → a public sports park → Burns Road for chicken
curry → an ice cream shop → back to the Airbnb.

## Key moments

- [00:00] Abdul has already paid for their meal and their taxi and won't be
  argued with. Harry's phrase for it: he won't even let us pay.
- [01:05] **Hospitality, qualified by a local.** Asked whether the host always
  pays here, Abdul says it depends who you meet — he won't let them pay, someone
  else might not offer. Harry notes that three people in three days have all
  refused his money.
- [04:24] The national cricket stadium, and next to it a public sports park —
  running track, javelin, archery, football — that they walk into free, no
  membership.
- [05:35] **A race against a sprinter** training for the next Olympics, over a
  short stretch, which Harry loses respectably and enjoys enormously. A five-
  minute improvised workout on the equipment follows.
- [08:40] **The police stop.** Neither of them was carrying a passport, and the
  officers looked for a payment. Abdul's advice, given afterwards: pay something
  small — he puts it at 500 to 1,500 rupees (from video – unverified) — and
  leave, rather than argue, because an officer who has been drinking can make it
  much worse. In the event they paid nothing.
- [09:46] **Burns Road**, which he compares to Bangkok's Khao San Road: a strip
  of independent food shops.
- [10:27] Chicken curry cooked over fire, with chapati and a yoghurt sauce that
  takes the heat down. **1,230 rupees for two**, about $7 or £5.
- [12:34] Abdul tries to pay for the meal he hasn't eaten. They refuse and pay it
  themselves, which takes some doing.
- [14:42] **Ice cream instead of money.** Children asking for cash get pistachio
  ice cream — five of them — because Harry says he doesn't know where money
  would go. They ask for more straight afterwards. See
  [buy the thing, don't give the cash](/tips/buy-the-thing-dont-give-the-cash.md).
- [16:16] Back at the Airbnb: a mouse and several cockroaches, on night three.
  Harry is careful to say he doesn't think it says anything about Pakistan.

## Extracted pages

- [Karachi](/places/karachi.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Buy the thing, don't give the cash](/tips/buy-the-thing-dont-give-the-cash.md)