Any use???

Out by Murree where the road leads to the disputed area the most underused government agency in the world has a huge billboard advertising their services.....

I give you the Azad Jammu & Kashmir Tourism Department

Taxila

Last Saturday I went to Taxila with a couple of colleagues. Taxila is a collection of ancient ruins dating back to 500BC or so. Pre-christian so definitley pre-muslim. We visited the museum which seemed to be full of stone heads. Not the best or most interesting place to spend a Saturday morning after getting to bed after 4am. Friday night started with a few drinks at the UN club chatting with some friends and ended up back at Shane's place across the city sucking down some Murree classic lager. had to grap a local cab back to the digs as our driver was again ignoring my calls. He has done this on a few occasions now, such is life when you are reliant on unreliable people.

Anyway after wandering around the museum in a daze and not really taking much in we headed off to find some ruins. Not the most intrepid trio who ever scaled an old city wall, Amir with his leg in plaster, me in a semi-drunken daze and Khalid the fit one!

Found out why the museum was full of heads, they had been nicked off of all the statues we saw in the ruins. Why the heads would be stolen is a mystery to me. Unless it is because they are all of Buddah and the religions that followed felt threatened.

One of the many headless Buddahs

An ancient monastry.

You know after visiting many ancient ruins around the world one pile of rocks is begining to look a lot like any other. Just built by different people. They are all thick walls that surround bedrooms, dining halls, kitchens and khazis. Am I just a little toooooo cynical???

Basant

Basant is a festival of kite flying in Lahore to welcome in the spring. Many people go to the rooftops of the old city and fly their kites. Sounded like a wonderful sight so Paul and I had Khalid drive us there. Unfortunatly due to unknown reasons the festival was cancelled for the 5th year. Still I expected to see some kites being flown but nothing. Very disappointing.

Instead we hooked up with Javed of Deosai tours (deosaitours@yahoo.com) for a wander through the narrow alleys of the old city. He took us all over through different bazzars starting with the famous Heera Mandi, the red light area where the dancing girls live. These dancing girls were once important people and entertained the Mughal emperors that build the Fort and the Badshshi Masjid. Over the years they have become not much better than whores even though they like to think of themselves as descended from a courtesan class. They look down on the common whores who have moved into the area from the countryside. For more about these people read 'The Dancing Girls of Lahore' by Louise Brown.

On our wanderings we took in a couple of mosques, the mosque of Wazir Khan which is said to be the most beautiful in the city and later a daylight visit to the Badshahi mosque.

Wazir Khan Mosque

While walking through the old city we saw many different ways to sell wares, here are a selection of sellers and professions.

Butcher

Dentist

Sleeping paintbrush seller

The people in the old city seem very friendly forever asking "What's your name" and "Where you from". The all want to shake hands and say how do you do.

Riding

Recently as there is not much to do around Islamabad we have been hores riding. For those of you who heard about my first attempt at this activity, this horse did understand the command 'bloody whoa'. On the edge of Islamabad there is some farmland and woods. The horse riding is in this area. One week we went down a dry river bed and then through the woods. It is really peaceful riding through the woods.


There have been a few scares here recently mainly resulting from the anti-islam film put on the internet by a Dutch MP. This resulted in the closing of the UN club here. I don't really know how this would help the situation, all it did was to piss of the ex-pats here as we couldn't get a drink for the weekend.