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.