I’m a couple of years older than Obambi and travelled a good deal in student-type hostels, cheap hotels, campgrounds, etc. in western Europe, North America, and Latin America in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. I was hitchhiking, taking trains, hanging out in youth hostels etc. Thus, I talked with tons of people doing similar things and heard all the tales of where they’d been and where they wanted to go. Of all the places in the world, I cannot remember ANY of my contemporaries EVER saying they had been or wanted to go to Pakistan..... not even from among all the ones who wanted to go to India or Nepal, etc.
I find it extremely curious that Obambi would have found his way to Pakistan in that era.... WHY? Who or what brought him there? Pakistan was not anywhere on the travel agenda of any of my fellow hippy-dippy student travelers who longed to explore Europe, Africa, Latin America, east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and India/Nepal.
It seems Pakistan was a land of great inspiration for certain people in the 1980s.
He was invariably identified as a Russian due to the peculiarities (in those days) of Russian men's non-dress shirts.
He told me to NEVER RIDE THE TRAINS THERE.
Every now and then we'd get a train in that belonged to the Turkish railway systems and you'd get a whiff of what happens in the East. Never forget it.
I also traveled to Pakistan in the 80's, did Lahor and then the Karakoram Highway route thru the tribal area (I know, it's almost impossible to imagine doing something like that today without a death wish, but it wasn't that long ago when the people weren't so radicalized and frontier Pakistan was, perhaps a bit off the beaten path, but still very do-able trip either on your own or with a guided tour) , great scenary, some of the most wild and beautiful places on earth.