Blogs from Punjab, Pakistan, Asia - page 5

We planned to spend 3-4 days in Quetta resting and servicing the bikes before pushing on. But we were exhausted after crossing the desert and 3 days passed quickly without us doing anything much other than lazing around watching satellite TV, eating lots of cheap curry and being baffled by the oddities of Pakistani politics in the daily newspapers. Reading back over the last blog I realise I gave Quetta a pretty bad press. Not that this was totally undeserved mind, but more to do with the fact that I was fed up writing by that point. There are few real attractions to the city other than the usual colourful bazaars teeming with big-bearded local Baloch and Pashto tribesmen, and with a large number of Afghans to boot. In fact most of the street traders seemed ... read more

The train left at 11:25am while Shahid Afridi was tearing the Indian bowling attack into pieces at Faisalabad. Everyone at the train station was glued to the TV's. It was quite an effort to get into the train like in India there is no queue and people just don’t give a damn about the people trying to get in. They will bulldoze their way through and get in. After much difficulty I got into the train and wow it looked very clean. Now the Jaffar express I believe is the Rajadhani / Shatabdi equivalent in India. Cannot make a comparison between them because I have not been in the Indian equivalent nevertheless it was much cleaner than the Indian trains. People aren’t spitting or throwing things anywhere at least temporarily. As I saw later on, the ... read more

Here are some pictures I took of people while walking about in the city....... read more

Early morning went to the Lahore train station with the Japanese guys as I was told that foreigners get a 25% discount on trains. Afterward I finished at the railway station I met Amina at 11am and went all over Lahore. We went to Anarkalee Bazaar, a few other bazaars. The Anarkalee bazaar is the Pettah equivalent (Pettah is a large wholesale shopping area in the heart of Colombo, Sri Lanka). Went to the Mineri Pakistan. This is where the resolution took place to separate Pakistan from India. Lahore Bad Shahi Mosque Lahore Fort Area Masjid Wazir Khan While walking in the Bad Shahi Mosque area this guy came upto us and offered me a guide service and I refused saying that Amina will show me around. When we went to the Lahore fort, I went ... read more

ENTRY 44 — April 13th 1987 Mule Sahib In all our travels, Miranda hadn't ever seen anything quite like this! With great fascination she studied the travel journals of Harold Nigel Fox. Although the material was interesting, it had been difficult going. There appeared to be several occasions where the journals contradicted themselves—sometimes the time line was unclear. There were also problems in continuity: often the story would ramble terribly, resembling a euphoric flight of ideas rather than a travel journal. The letters from Hans were sometimes in German, and his confidential reports were in Xhosa. On top of all that, the travel journals and other items were damp, the ink had run, and nine times out of ten the pages were stuck together. Enoch couldn't have chosen a worse place to store such material for ... read more