---
type: Video
title: "Avoid This Pakistani Man! Karachi Airport Scam 🇵🇰"
description: Flying Islamabad to Karachi for $80 with a meal on a two-hour hop, a 1,000-rupee minimum just to leave the airport, and a porter who carried nothing and would not leave without being paid.
tags: [pakistan, karachi, islamabad, flights, airports, scams, hotels, covid-testing]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvonmD1TIIE
video_id: zvonmD1TIIE
upload_date: 2022-01-19
duration: 1289
---

# Avoid This Pakistani Man! Karachi Airport Scam 🇵🇰

The last move of the trip: [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md) to
[Karachi](/places/karachi.md) by air, completing the set after the bus and the
train. Then an airport exit that costs more than expected, a hotel that is much
better than its reviews, and a long piece to camera about what the five weeks
added up to.

**The incident in the title is small and Harry says so himself.** They declined
a porter, carried their own bags the thirty seconds to the taxi, and the porter
asked for money anyway and would not leave — so Harry gave him 200 rupees, a
little over a dollar. His objection is stated as principle rather than cost: it
was payment for work not done, and, as he puts it in the description, if the man
had simply asked for help for his family that would have been a different
conversation.

*Obs: the video's title is reproduced above because that is how the video is
cited. The man is not named or described here, and Harry's own framing — that
the sum was trivial and the objection was to the principle — is recorded
alongside the incident.*

## Key moments

- [00:30] **Third mode of transport of the trip**: train, bus, now plane.
- [01:01] Islamabad airport at 8am — clean, quiet, security through fast.
- [03:18] **The flight cost about $80** for two hours, which he rates as fair for
  Pakistan while noting a two-hour hop at home would be a fraction of it. Three
  by three, decent legroom.
- [03:48] **A full meal on a two-hour domestic flight** — sandwich, a sponge cake
  dessert with nuts, coffee — which surprises him.
- [05:22] **The minimum charge to leave Karachi airport by taxi is 1,000 rupees**
  — five to seven dollars — regardless of distance; the ride was ten minutes. A
  second driver had quoted 2,000.
- [05:52] **They decline a porter and carry their own bags.**
- [06:26] At the taxi, the porter asks for money regardless and does not leave.
  Harry pays 200.
- [07:31] His reasoning afterwards: it is not the amount, it is being charged for
  nothing — *if I kept giving money out to people randomly I would have no
  money.* He notes it has now happened at the train, at hotels (where he says it
  is fair enough) and at the airport. See
  [be assertive with touts](/tips/be-assertive-with-touts.md).
- [08:33] **A room at the Ramada near the airport for about $120**, walked in
  without booking — which is why the wait was long, and he says so rather than
  blaming them. **The TripAdvisor reviews were terrible and his stay wasn't**;
  small, clean, two beds, a desk and a lounge area.
- [09:35] **Pasta alfredo with chicken and mushroom; two meals for about $14.**
- [10:36] **A PCR test done in his hotel room**, arranged through the hotel:
  **ten minutes, around $35** against the $25 he had been told.
- [12:10] Gym, sauna, jacuzzi and pool — and a rat on the way to them, which he
  reports without making a meal of it.
- [14:55] **The summing up**: the most intense and enjoyable weeks of his life,
  **50 videos made**, a channel started the previous November now at 13,000
  subscribers as he records.
- [15:26] **Where he wants to go back to**: Skardu, Peshawar, Kashmir.
- [15:57] The two things he wants understood: **the hospitality is not an
  exaggeration**, and — to be argued properly in the next video — **he thinks
  Pakistan is safe**.
- [16:27] On replying to comments, and wanting to give something back to viewers
  once the channel is bigger.
- [17:28] A note to Pakistani viewers that the next series is a different
  country, with an invitation to try one video of it.
- [19:32] A friend's birthday, and a chocolate cake he cannot stop describing.

## Extracted pages

- [Karachi](/places/karachi.md)
- [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Be assertive with touts](/tips/be-assertive-with-touts.md)