Michael Thexton

I borrowed these from Pete's friend, Jim Curran.

And so I was making a film as well as being the base camp manager.

And, you know, everything else I was wearing.

I was wearing this red duvet jacket that is quite appropriate at Urdacast, but it's...

pretty eccentric in Karachi Airport, and a battered Panama hat that had seen better days, and my mountaineering boots, because we just had too much luggage, you know, and what you can't put in the kit bags or put in your hand luggage, you have to wear.

I went through the security.

What they did do was they searched everything very thoroughly.

They took everything out of this 15-kilogram

Although there's nothing in there that shouldn't be there apart from probably about 10 kilos.

But, you know, it was quite a struggle to get it all back in again.

And I mean, these days, of course, I tend to pay more attention to the security in airports.

But on that day, there was a rumor afterwards that they'd had a warning.

And maybe that was why they were taking everything very seriously.

But unfortunately, they were looking in the wrong place.

I was reading the news for the first time, but there was an article about Pakistan, and it said that the military dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, had allowed...

the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, to come back into the country.

And it was speculating about the fact that this was political liberalization and there might be trouble.

And I can remember reading this and thinking, well, as long as the trouble doesn't happen in the airport in the next half hour, it's not my problem.

I'm not coming back.

There were people sort of standing by the plate glass windows looking out for the plane.