Guest Interview – Tasha’s Tales
Tag: Bali
Travelling as a Muslim with a Pakistani passport
Hey! I’m Natasha, and here is a glimpse of my life across two continents and three countries. What follows is a little bit of flavor of what it is like #TravellingWhileMuslim.
Having been ferried from Europe to Pakistan and back during my early years, I never had a problem. My first shock to the system was going to the U S of A with two White British female friends. So here’s the thing. As rare as it is for Muslim girls to get up and go on holidays without any relations or ethnic friends, it actually happened. My friends and I went to Florida in 2011 for our “girly holiday.”
What followed was a standard stereotypical tale of brown-Muslim-airport-random-selection. We got to Manchester Airport nice and early and were set to board. Now just imagine, the only brown face sitting in the gate and all of a sudden we hear an announcement, “Natasha Naveed, can you please come to the counter.” My heart skipped a beat and my friends’ faces lost all color that was left! As I went to the counter, I was asked to take my shoes off while the airline staff swabbed my feet and mouth for “toxic” items. Call me a cynic, but I’m not sure it was much of a coincidence!Anyway, we eventually managed to get through immigration without too much hassle; although the immigration officer did look somewhat puzzled as he evidently asked me more questions than my friends. As a Muslim, if you haven’t been randomly selected as yet, you know deep in your heart it is only a matter of time before you’ll be paraded through the routine.
Fast forward to recent times and the story just gets better!
Most Muslims are aware of the narration from the Prophet which states, “when a person gets married, they have completed half of their religion.” So here is the person who completes mine: *drum roll* meet Ahmed, my husband!
It’s always nice to put words and a face together so this is a picture of me and my husband from our wedding. He not only completed half my religion, but opened up a parallel universe of the intrinsic details associated with visa applications.Okay, so firstly I think it’s important to mention that being a brown traveler is one thing, being Muslim is another, but being brown, Muslim, and from a third world country holding a Green Pakistani Passport – like my husbands, is a whole new challenge. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience! I didn’t believe it either until we went on our honeymoon.
So my husband surprised me with a trip to Thailand for our honeymoon. It was an arranged marriage so it was still all new and exciting. As we got to the Thailand airport, I passed through immigration with my UK passport without any hiccups. However, my husband was told to wait as a member of staff waved his passport in the air screeching “pakeeeethani paaaakithani.” He was then asked a gazillion questions before he was allowed to pass through immigration. This was first of many.Since then, we have accepted that there will be issues at immigration for being Muslim and for having a Pakistani passport. This is despite having to apply, yes that’s right. His passport only allows us to travel to a handful of countries. For the rest we have to apply via embassies, which can be costly, timely, and inconvenient!
It’s obviously not all doom and gloom of course. When my husband and I travelled to Turkey in 2016 and Morocco in 2017, the differences were incredible. Being in a Muslim country meant next to no interrogation at the immigration counter and no awkward looks!It had its perks in terms of being allowed to enter mosques and eating unlimited amount of Halal food. We also were able to get things for cheaper, “Muslim price,” according to the sellers! There were also lots of mosques all over when it was time for prayers.
In terms of meeting other Muslims whist being on holiday or traveling, we have had very little experience of this. The only time we have seen or met other Muslims has been in Muslim countries such as Turkey and Morocco. However it was interesting as they were only in the bigger and more popular cities like Marrakech and Istanbul as we did not come across any other Muslim travelers in Fes or Cappadocia.
With regards to praying, I really feel that if you’re wanting to pray, anywhere and everywhere is an opportunity. You see that little towel placed on the floor on the left? Well we used that to pray! So yes, I feel it’s about your intention and thus you can pray anywhere!
Part of why I started blogging was to inspire and encourage other Muslims to travel more and to explore God’s creations, as there is so much to do and see! I hope this blog also gives non-Muslims a perspective of what it’s like to #TravelWhileMuslim.If you want to know more (I have lots of stories), then please contact me as I would love to share more with you guys!
This blog was first posted on ’How not to travel like a basic bitch’ dated 17 May 2017.
Tasha's Tales 
This week’s guest post comes from Natasha, travel blogger behind Tasha’s Tales. She explains ‘I’m an only child to two most incredible parents and a wife to an extremely supportive husband. Say Alhamdulillah! I am also a Social Worker by profession and a wanderlust at heart. A dreamer with an endless bucket list of things I have done and things I wish to do. I have lived and moved around in three countries so far; Azad Kashmir, England and Qatar and have loved every second of all three experiences. I’m not quite sure what the blog will look like as it goes on, but what I do know is that it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while. So here I am. As you can tell, I love travelling so the main focus of the blog will be travel. But I will also do lifestyle, food and random rants and observations of the world as I travel through it, slowly but surely!”
1. What is your name and where do you come from?
I answer to pretty much anything, including, Nat, Tash, Tasha, Natty, but the name that is on the Birth Certificate is Natasha! But yes, you can call me anything you like – within reason of course.
‘Where are you from?’
The most dreaded question! So, here it goes. I was born in England and at the tender age of 3 months I moved to Azad Kashmir with my parents (google it if you don’t know where that is- or even better, message me and I will tell you all about it)!
I then spent 13 wonderful years in Azad Kashmir, until my parents decided enough was enough and moved to the UK. Coming from a third world country meant that my options and independence was somewhat limited, so my parents decided to make some sacrifices in order for me to have as many opportunities as possible.
In my early 20’s, I crossed paths with my better half, my husband, Ahmed who was living in Qatar at the time. After getting married, I joined him in Qatar and spent 12 months of luxury and paradise!
2. What sort of traveller are you? Full time / part time / business / backpacker etc?
I am an annual leave/weekend traveller – if such a thing exists? I aim to plan my 21 days of annual leave according to my plans and I plan holidays around weekends.
As much as I would love to travel on a full-time basis, this is completely not possible as I love my luxuries too much and wouldn’t be able to do a backpacking holiday! Snob traveller is the term perhaps?
3. How do you fund your travelling?
I work, I save hard and I travel harder!
I have only recently – well for just over a year been working full time, so travel is a bit more affordable. Before I started working full time, travelling was impossible on my part-time wages! But right now, most of mine and my husband’s travels come from our wages and we tend to split the costs between us.
Although I once sold tonnes of items on eBay for my trip to Florida and managed to make £1000! woohoo!
4. Where is the best place you have ever been and why?
This question is SO hard! It’s like asking who your favourite child is, no? Maybe not. How would I know anyway, I am not even a mom, YET!
Okay, so my personal favourite country that I have ever been to has got to be Sri Lanka. Oh my, what a pleasant surprise Sri Lanka was. Sri Lanka is a country that I never had the desire to visit until my husband mentioned it one day in passing. After doing some research, I got myself majorly excited and asked my husband whether we could spend our first wedding anniversary there. After some contemplation and persuading, my husband decided to book Sri Lanka and off we went. Sri Lanka gave off the most relaxed and positive vibes, similar to Ubud, but even better! My husband laughs at me, but the train journey in Sri Lanka alone made the trip worth while. I had only ever imagined and dreamt of riding on a romantic/therapeutic/scenic train journey. Our train from Nuwara Eliya to Ella consisted of all things beautiful, including the landscapes and the authenticity of the country. I genuinely feel that Sri Lanka is under rated and has the potential to be so much greater than what it is! Oh, and the tea was the tastiest tea EVER!
5. Where is the worst place you have ever been and why?
Erm, dare I say Belgium?
I spent less than 24 hours in Belgium, where i manage to squeeze in some sleep, took a tour bus ride, devoured many waffles and even got the infamous picture with Mr Pis. But I dunno, I wasn’t captivated by Brussels charm. Within my brief visit, I even experienced a stranger groping my butt as well as being chatted up by a stranger who I tried to tell that I was already taken.
so yeah, not my fav, although I would like to return to visit some other cities.
6. Do you have a Bucket List? If so where are the 3 top places on it?
Oh yes, I do have a bucket list, a very long, never ending bucket list.
The top three places that I would like to visit – in a chronological order:
7. What 3 things (apart from the essentials – food/water etc) do you always travel with?
8. What makes you happy and why?
Man, I am so easily pleased that everything makes me happy. But food, food always makes me happy!
But more than anything, travelling, planning to travel, reading travel blogs and hearing about peoples travels makes me really, genuinely happy. It’s almost like watching a film. It transports you to another dimension. You know what I mean?
9. How long have you been blogging and why did you start?
I have been blogging since… May 2017. I am still a newbie, trying to figure it all out.
So what led to the craze of blogging?
Prior to meeting my husband, I really had not travelled much at all. But since our marriage, we have both had the luxury to really make the most of our time (long-distance issues, but that’s a topic for another time).
so anyways, as we travelled around 10 countries together, we noticed that there was a re-emerging pattern. There were absolutely no other Muslim travellers that we came across during all our travels and adventure. It made me feel somewhat empty. A little raged and mostly confused.
So one thought led to another and I decided to start a blog, mostly to encourage other Muslims to travel more. Now you must be thinking, EXTREMIST! but no, it’s really quite the opposite. I want Muslims to travel more. To integrate more in order to diminish and end the negativity around the word ‘Muslim’. I want to be able to introduce myself to people as being a ‘Muslim’ without the fear of being judged. Y’know? I just want to spread positivity.
10. What makes your blog unique and why should people read it?
My blog is unique because I genuinely believe that I am the combination of east meets west and I feel that I am extremely lucky to have the best of both worlds. I have some interesting tales to share and some amazing photos to show off. I absolutely love interacting with other readers and bloggers so they will no doubt be able to approach me at any time.
This blog was first posted by ’Eat Sleep Love Travel’ dated 18 September 2017.