Culture:
  The pleasures of Pakistan are old: Buddhist monuments, Hindu temples, Islamic palaces, tombs and pleasure grounds, and widely spaced Anglo-Mogul Gothic mansions - some in a state of dereliction which makes their grandeur even more emphatic. Scuplture is dominated by Graeco-Buddhist friezes, and crafts by ceramics, jewellery, silk goods and engraved woodwork and metalwork.
Even Pakistan's flotillas of vintage Bedford buses and trucks, mirror-buffed and chrome-sequinned, are dazzling works of art. Traditional dances are lusty and vigorous; music is either classical, folk or devotional; and the most patronised literature is a mix of the scholastic and poetic. Cricket is Pakistan's greatest sports obsession and national players are afforded hero status - unless, of course, they proselytise young and wealthy English women, then marry them.
    Nearly all Pakistanis are Muslim and Islam is the state religion. Reminders of their devotion are many: the muezzin's call to prayer from the mosques; men sprawled in prayer in fields, shops and airports; and veiled women in the streets. Christians are the largest minority, followed by Hindus and Parsees, descendants of Persian Zoroastrians. Note that dress codes are strictly enforced - to avoid offence invest in a shalwar qamiz - a long, loose, non-revealing garment worn by both men and women.
     Pakistani food is similar to that of northern India, with a dollop of Middle Eastern influence thrown in for good measure. This means menus peppered with baked and deep-fried breads (roti, chapattis, puri, halwa and nan), meat curries, lentil mush (dhal), spicy spinach, cabbage, peas and rice. Street snacks - samosas and tikkas (spiced and barbecued beef, mutton or chicken) - are delicious, while a range of desserts will satisfy any sweet tooth. The most common sweet is barfi (it pays to overlook the name), which is made of dried milk solids and comes in a variety of flavours. Though Pakistan is officially `dry', it does brew its own beer and spirits which can be bought (as well as imported alcohol) from specially designated bars and top-end hotels.

History:
   The first inhabitants of Pakistan were Stone-Age peoples in the Potwar Plateau (north-west Punjab). They were followed by the sophisticated Indus Valley (or Harappan) civilisation which flourished between the 23rd to 18th centuries BC. Semi-nomadic peoples then arrived, settled down, and by the 9th century BC were blanketed across northern Pakistan-India. Their Vedic religion was the precursor of Hinduism, and their rigid division of labour an early caste system.
In 327 BC Alexander the Great came over the Hindu Kush to finish off the remnants of the defeated Persian empire. Although his visit was short, some tribes tell picturesque legends in which they claim to be descended from Alexander and his troops. Later came the heyday of the Silk Route, a period of lucrative trade between China, India and the Roman empire. The Kushans were at the centre of the silk trade and established the capital of their Gandhara kingdom at Peshawar. By the 2nd century AD they had reached the height of their power, with an empire that stretched from eastern Iran to the Chinese frontier and south to the Ganges River. The Kushans were Buddhist and under King Kanishka built thousands of monasteries and stupas. Soon Gandhara became both a place of trade and of religious study and pilgrimage - the Buddhist `holy' land.
     The Kushan empire had unravelled by the 4th century and was subsequently absorbed by the Persian Sassanians, the Gupta dynasty, Hephthalites from Central Asia, and Turkic and Hindu Shahi dynasties. The next strong central power was the Moghuls who reigned during the 16th and 17th centuries. A succession of rulers introduced sweeping reforms, ended Islam's supremacy as a state religion, encourged the arts, built fanciful houses and, in a complete volte-face, returned the state to Islam once again.
    In 1799 a young and crafty Sikh named Ranjit Singh was granted governorship of Lahore. He proceeded over the next few decades to parlay this into a small empire, fashioning a religious brotherhood of `holy brothers' into the most formidable army on the subcontinent. In the course of his rule, Ranjit had agreed to stay out of British territory - roughly south-east of the Sutlej River - if they in turn left him alone. But his death in 1839 and his successor's violation of the treaty plunged the Sikhs into war. The British duly triumphed, annexed Kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit and renamed them the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Thus, they created a buffer state to Russian expansionism in the north-west and, unwittingly, what would transpire to be the subcontinent's most unmanageable curse. A second war against the British in 1849 brought the empire to an end, and the annexation of the Punjab and the Sind in the 1850s; these were ceded to the British Raj in 1857.
      National self-awareness began growing in British India in the latter stages of the 19th century. In 1906 the Muslim League was founded to demand an independent Muslim state but it wasn't until 24 years later that a totally separate Muslim homeland was proposed. Around the same time, a group of England-based Muslim exiles coined the name Pakistan, meaning `Land of the Pure'. After violence escalated between Hindus and Muslims in the mid-1940s, the British were forced to admit that a separate Muslim state was unavoidable. The new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, announced that independence would come by June 1948.
      British India was dutifully carved up into a central, largely Hindu region retaining the name India, and a Muslim East (present-day Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. The announcement of the boundaries sparked widespread killings and one of the largest migrations of people in history. Kashmir (properly The State of Jammu and Kashmir), though, wanted no part of India or Pakistan. When India and Pakistan sent troops into the recalcitrant state, war erupted between the two countries. In 1949 a UN-brokered cease-fire gave each country a piece of Kashmir to administer but who will ultimately control it still remains unclear.
     Ali Jinnah, a prime mover of Muslim independence, became Pakistan's first governor general but died barely a year into his new country's independence. His deputy and friend Liaqat Ali Khan replaced him but was assassinated three years later. What followed was a muddle of quarelling governor generals and prime ministers and a severe economic slump. In 1956 Pakistan finally produced a constitution and became an Islamic republic. West Pakistan's provinces were amalgamated into a single entity similar to that in East Pakistan. Two years later President Iskander Mirza - fed up with the bickering and opportunism that pervaded Pakistani politics - abrogated the constitution, banned political parties and declared martial law, a state Pakistan has been in, in one form or another, ever since.
      The next two decades saw Pakistan racked by further war with India over Kashmir, civil war between the east and west, and the declaration of Bangladeshi independence, another war with India, and the execution of one of its most charismatic prime ministers, Z A Bhutto. In 1977 Bhutto's chief of staff, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, took control, insinuated himself successfully with the USA (thereby gaining valuable foreign aid) and was widely feted as a hero of the free world. His death in an air crash in 1988 opened the way for Bhutto's daughter, Benazir to claim victory in the next election, the first elected woman to head a Muslim country. She was toppled soon after but was voted back into power in 1993.
      Benazir Bhutto travelled widely, trumpeting Pakistan's investment potential and casting herself, and her country, as role models for the modern Muslim state. Her place in the hearts of her own people though was endangered by a culture of official corruption. She was dismissed as Prime Minister in November 1996 by the president Farooq Leghari. Elections held in early 1997 returned her opponent Nawaz Sharif. After India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, Pakistan responded in kind two weeks later, detonating five nuclear devices in south-western Baluchistan. International condemnation was widespread, and sanctions are expected to put intense strain on the country's economy.

Events:
    Nationwide celebrations include Ramadan, a month of sunrise-to-sunset fasting usually in February/March; Eid-ul-Fitr, two to three days of manic gorging and goodwill that marks the end of Ramadan; Eid-ul-Azha, when animals are slaughtered and the meat shared between relatives and the needy; and Eid-Milad-un-Nabi, which celebrates the mighty Mohammad's birthday.
Activities
      With some of the most magnificent mountain terrain in the world, Pakistan is naturally enough a trekkers rave. There are all types of trekking available, from those organised by overseas companies to Pakistan-based outfits. You can also make your own arrangements, which will be cheaper but also more demanding. Popular trekking routes which can stretch from a day to a month are found mostly in Gilgit, Nanga Parbat, Balistan (from where treks leave to K2) and Hunza, all in the country's north. For something a little less demanding there are good one-day hikes in the Ziarat Valley, near Quetta.