(Daniel) I can’t believe it!  After the farcical escort from the Police yesterday, I was woken up this morning 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 was happy but there was hardly any difference in his tone!  Rowan was there too, having obviously been woken up in a 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!?  And 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 had some breakfast, I went downstairs and moved the truck and trailer out from the particularly small space which I had managed to park it in last night.  All the while the Police officer stood by and gave me time checks on how late we were!  Eventually Rowan and Gabby came downstairs and we hopped in the Wolf ready to leave.  Funnily enough, the officer spent another ten minutes in the hotel reception after we left, probably 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 this 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!

As we arrived 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, and oh boy was it crazy.  This place takes the biscuit, one way streets mean nothing, traffic signals mean nothing, you are vying for position on the street with tractors, donkeys, horses, rickshaws, mobile food stalls, cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, Ox pulling carts, people and the list goes on and on, if it moves, it is driving down the road, seriously overloaded, fitted with a very loud horn or siren, and paying no attention to any rules of the road which there may or may not be 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 the 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 lesson in filth and noise.  All of these were asking between 1500 and 2500 rupees per night, ($25) and these were the 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 degree to get the hot water working!  After checking in, Rowan and Gabbs came to my room, and discussed the 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 standards sounded like a really pleasant idea, this in mind, 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.

PREVIOUS |  NEXT