Avoid This Pakistani Man! Karachi Airport Scam 🇵🇰

The last move of the trip: Islamabad to Karachi 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.
• [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
• Islamabad
• Pakistan
• Mac
• Be assertive with touts