OpinionAugust 25, 2026 — 5:00amSomething was amiss the instant I stepped outside Islamabad International Airport. I expected the chaotic taxi touts you’d find arriving in Delhi, but it was unsettlingly quiet. A measly half-dozen drivers stood around listlessly. Jet-lagged from 22 hours in transit, I lugged my suitcase into a cab driven by a man named Bilal Shabbir and settled in for what should have been a 30-minute drive to the hotel. Keys turned, engines revved, Bilal turned to leave the airport – and drove us straight into a military blockade. Now I understood why everything was so quiet.Illustration: Jamie BrownIt was too late to turn back. We weren’t even grinding forward. We were idling in gridlocked traffic that had brought the entire city to a standstill. Bilal searched the radio, but there was no news. Drivers gathered on the road, smoking and gossiping in Urdu beneath the baking afternoon sun. The rumours were proven true when, an hour later, two white government cars sped down the outbound lanes with a military chopper overhead. Angry drivers tooted in response.The Pakistani government was hosting a military conference in Islamabad with China and, more importantly, India. Not wanting to run the risk of protests embarrassing the government, it simply shut down Islamabad’s arterial roads without any public notice.As the minutes slipped past, and with nothing else to do, Bilal and I got chatting while sharing a block of chocolate from my suitcase. As young fathers, we bonded over potty training and messy tantrums. We swapped travel stories, and Bilal reminisced about travelling across Europe while studying in London. Assuming all Westerners must love Katy Perry, Bilal put Firework on the radio but quickly switched to Urdu hip-hop when I begged him to play something local. From there, our car bounced to a whole playlist of thumping Indian rap.Suddenly, cars were moving. Buoyed by hope, we crawled to another barricade just down the road. Hungry and fed up, we decided to move forwards we’d need to go backwards. With tooting motorists watching on, Bilal did a U-turn over the highway median strip and into the opposite lanes heading away from the city. Our plan now was to circle the city in a wide arc through Islamabad’s outer suburbia towards the distant Margalla Hills, then cut back in from the north. The result was a glimpse of the city I didn’t expect to see.Sign up for the Traveller newsletterThe latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.We passed shepherds herding their goats past low corporate offices and got stuck again, this time behind a livestock trailer crowded with sheep trying to do a three-point turn at a crowded flea market. Cue plenty of bleating and tooting. Later, rainbow-coloured trucks blazoned with Koranic scripture roared by.The heat of the day was melting away, and a purple haze was settling on the horizon. I opened the window to get some fresh air, but Bilal warned me. “You can only have windows open for an hour before the smog starts to poison you,” he said.Perhaps sensing our time was coming to an end, he rattled off more advice for me. Don’t walk around with your phone out. Don’t tell people where you’re going. Don’t get too close to people. I point out he and I had only just met, and I’d told him all my plans. “You can trust me,” he said with a smile.It’s dark when we finally pull up at the hotel, five hours after leaving the airport, exhausted but bonded by a bonkers road trip across the city that neither of us expected. It might seem odd to hug a stranger, but then again Bilal was no longer a stranger. We had far more in common than I expected, it only took a lockdown to bring it out.“Thanks for the ride,” I say, handing him an exceedingly large tip.“No, the adventure,” he corrects me.The writer travelled as a guest of Intrepid Travel, see intrepidtravel.comJustin Meneguzzi traded his corporate suit for a rucksack and hasn’t looked back. With an emphasis on travelling sustainably, he now travels the globe as a journalist and photographer documenting the people, cultures, food, history, and wildlife that make up our big, beautiful world. Justin was recognised with the Australian Society of Travel Writers 'Rising Star' award in 2018.Connect via X.From our partners