(Daniel) After the farcical escort from the Police yesterday, I was incredulous to be woken up today by a knock on the hotel room door. It was the same officer that gave us an earful last night, “OK, it’s 10 o’clock!” He shouted with the same voice as last night, this time he seemed happy but there was no difference in his tone. Rowan was behind him, having obviously been woken up in similar fashion. We shot each other understanding glances which meant, ok lets just keep moving, after all if this is what Multan is going to be like, why bother staying? I guess that by now, all of us thought that Lahore would be the light at the end of the ever narrowing tunnel that is the Punjab.
While Rowan and Gabbs ate breakfast, I moved the truck and trailer out from the particularly small space which I had managed to park it in last night. All the while, our Police officer friend stood by and gave me regular time-checks on how late we were! Eventually Rowan and Gabby came downstairs and hopped in the Wolf ready to leave. Funnily enough, the officer spent another ten minutes in the hotel reception after we left, possibly collecting a commission!
When we got back on the road, it became apparent that we weren’t simply getting an escort to the edge of town, as another car picked us up when the first one pulled over. The drive to Lahore was over 300kms, and we were escorted every step of the way, another 6 cars, another 25 officers, another big day for our tab with the Pakistani government!
Arriving in Lahore, I don’t think that any of us knew what to expect, but one thing was for sure, the traffic would be bad. This turned out to be an understatement. Lahore traffic takes the biscuit, one way streets mean nothing, traffic signals mean nothing, you are constantly vying for position on the street; with tractors, donkeys, horses, rickshaws, mobile food stalls, cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, Ox pulling carts, people… the list goes on and on. If it moves, it is driving down the road in Lahore, seriously overloaded, fitted with a very loud horn or siren, and paying no attention to any rules of the road which may or may not exist in Pakistan!
We picked through the traffic, with a detour through a flood that must have been four foot at it’s deepest. It was certainly not easy to find our way around, but with the compass, one minor scrape on the trailer, and several stops to ask for directions, we eventually found the right area, and stopped to check out some hotels.
A note on Lahore, (and I can say this as I am now writing this several days later than it happened.) Do not, under any circumstances bother with hotels. They are all on the main roads, which never stop with the beeping and traffic. They are all over priced, and none of them are very clean, unless they are over $100 per night! The way to go, is a guest house, and there are plenty of these around. Just ask a taxi driver for some good ones, and try to stay around the Gulberg area. Anyway, not knowing this yet, we checked a few hotels in the area, a tour of filth and noise. All of these were asking between 1500 and 2500 rupees per night, ($25) and so were considered budget hotels! In the end, we managed to get the best rooms in the Hotel Sanai, but these were still windowless cells, with a water system that required a plumbing degree to operate! After checking in, Rowan and Gabbs came to my room, to discussed ideas for dinner. I have to say that I would never normally eat at a Pizza Hut, or MacDonald’s, but after all the craziness and smells etc. some western predictability sounded like a really pleasant idea. We took a taxi to Pizza Hut on Mall road, and sat down to a huge meal of Pizza and all the trimmings.
After dinner we headed home and went to bed, My stomach was acting up a little, but I put this down to the Pizza.
Distance driven 310kms.