The Worlds Most Unlivable Megacity That Still Works 🇵🇰

Harry’s third visit to Karachi, framed as a James Bond mission complete with suit, and the only modern entry among his Pakistan films — everything else in the bundle from this country is from 2022. That gap is what makes it interesting. He walks back into Sadar Bazaar, finds the sunglasses seller he bought from four years earlier, and pays the asking price without haggling because he decided he negotiated too hard the first time. He points out the exact spot where he filmed with Mac when he had no idea what he was doing.

The city he describes is one he calls unlivable and hospitable in the same breath: 22 million people, the fifth largest in the world, 40°C, traffic he names as the genuinely dangerous part, and an inequality he doesn’t try to soften. The middle of the video is a walk through Lyari — Karachi’s most notorious district — with a police constable who spotted him on the street, told him he couldn’t go alone, and took him himself. It ends with a subscriber meet-up arranged four hours in advance, which Harry admits he was nervous about and which turns out to be entirely peaceful.

Obs: he lost two days of footage before filming this and restarted the video from scratch, which he explains on camera. Some of what he describes — taxi drivers refusing his fares — was in the deleted material and is recounted rather than shown.

Key moments

• [00:46] The Bond framing, and the joke that the budget only covers economy.
• [01:17] Why Karachi: this is where the channel started, and he says he owes the country.
• [03:09] The footage loss, and starting again.
• [03:41] The numbers: 22 million people, fifth largest city in the world, one of the least livable — and, unofficially, one of the most hospitable he knows.
• [04:13] A man stops to offer him a lift before he can flag a bike.
• [04:43] Everyone is in a rush, which he compares to London.
• [07:00] Why he likes it: the closest thing left to the Wild West, where nothing makes sense and everything works anyway.
• [07:00] An intersection with no traffic lights, run by one man with his arms up hoping people comply.
• [08:10] Sadar Bazaar, old British-era buildings, and lunch offered by a stranger within a minute of arriving — something he says happens ten times a day.
• [09:16] Keep moving is the rule: it’s stopping that makes things sketchy.
• [09:16] The exact spot where he filmed with Mac four years ago with no confidence and no idea how to make videos.
• [10:22] The sunglasses seller remembers him, and remembers the deal.
• [10:55] The reversal: he haggled hard four years ago and regrets it, so this time he pays 3,500 without negotiating. His phrase for it is the friendship business.
• [12:33] A street shave found behind a tree, in the back of the seller’s brother’s shop.
• [16:15] He asks for a clean razor and is shown a new one.
• [17:15] 300 rupees, negotiated by a friend, which he thinks he’d have been charged anyway.
• [17:47] India or Pakistan? He answers that India has the better food and Pakistan the better mountains.
• [18:18] The shave turns into a head and body massage he didn’t order.
• [13:08] Earlier, in the shop: asked for a message to his own people, the shopkeeper says love each other and keep religion out of it. Asked about India, his answer is hostile — and Harry pushes back directly, arguing the people are the same as each other and that hating a government is not the same as hating a country. The shopkeeper agrees the distinction is the government, not the people.
• [14:29] The hardest thing about Karachi, per the shopkeeper: traffic, and too many people.
• [15:12] An alley he’d never have found — printers, a shoe repairer, and a paratha shop turning out two a minute on a human conveyor belt.
• [19:26] A residential side street, a mosque he declines to enter out of respect, and his honest read on the rubbish — better than he expected, and improving.
• [20:00] Unemployment he puts at 30–40% in the city (from video – unverified), driven by migration from the villages to jobs that aren’t there.
• [20:33] A food delivery rider who learned English in Dubai, and the children with him who are studying Quran only — no maths, no school English.
• [22:41] Four separate invitations into homes and shops in one walk. He loses count.
• [23:16] The claim he knows is hard to believe: taxi drivers booked through an app refuse his fare, on camera and off.
• [23:51] The poverty, stated flatly. A huge divide, getting worse, and not much the people in front of him can do about it.
• [24:22] A police constable, Saddam, stops him and asks where he’s going. Harry says Lyari; the constable says you can’t go alone, and takes him.
• [25:23] The driving is, in Harry’s view, the genuinely dangerous thing about the city.
• [25:56] The word he settles on, with an apology for it: post-apocalyptic.
• [26:31] Lyari, described to him as the most dangerous area of Karachi.
• [27:02] His stated approach, and the closest thing to a mission statement he gives: don’t state the obvious about a poor place, have some compassion, ask what it would be like to have been born here — but don’t sugar-coat either, and don’t call something amazing when it isn’t.
• [28:05] He films himself rather than the street so as not to film the women in it.
• [28:38] Lyari holds three and a half to four million people, with problems including electricity and gas.
• [29:12] A spice shop, and a seller who says without hesitation that life here is good.
• [29:42] The informal economy: people who can’t get jobs set up a stall instead, and one sale a day can be enough.
• [30:53] A gaming shop full of kids on Counter-Strike, one grandfather watching wrestling, and one boy scrolling Instagram through all of it.
• [31:58] A government-funded football stadium going up in the middle of the district. Harry’s question is what happened to whoever lived on the site.
• [32:32] Free food and water pressed on him again, and his observation that the people with least give the most.
• [33:45] A stallholder drives off rather than let Harry pay him.
• [34:20] The other creators arrive, also in suits.
• [34:55] A subscriber meet-up arranged with four hours’ notice and a changed location, which he expected to be chaotic and finds calm.
• [35:28] A crew introducing themselves as national television ask him about the Field Marshal and last year’s fighting with India. He declines outright — he’s not talking politics, only culture.
• [36:35] Coffee bought for everyone who turned up.
• [38:14] A viewer gives him a limited-edition stamp sheet for Pakistan’s 2017 Champions Trophy final win over India, because Harry’s grandfather collected stamps.
• [37:43] The consensus of the meet-up on the most dangerous thing in Pakistan: the driving.

Extracted pages

• Place: Karachi
• Country: Pakistan
• People: Kieran, Mac
• Tips: Insist on paying, Judge a place for yourself