My favourite story is flying home from Quetta to Islamabad in a Fokker Friendship (Quetta is the Wild West capital of Baluchistan Province) and we mostly flew over rocky desert that was all contorted like God had put his fingertips in wet mud, and then dragged his hand in twists and loops. We dropped in at a place called Zhob, a mud brick town out in the middle of all this desert, which apparently survives (and thrives) on the sole industry of smuggling truck tyres from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Well, we landed and taxied towards the one small airport building, and they put the steps down (they were attached to the aircraft), and this cat comes running towards the plane from the building, and a hostess goes down the steps in her high heels and puts down a saucer of milk at the foot of the steps for the cat!

Thank you Julia, I loved that story!