G’day all hope this post finds you well! I’m wrestling at the moment with what to present in my posts – I’ve sort of been retracing the three month trip earlier this year (Dhaka to Dakar) in order so far, and today I continue on with that trend, but personally I feel the urge to randomly choose things here and there from it. Just for a bit more variety. What do people think?

Anyways, for now I will keep along the journey in order, which means after last week’s post on the Wagah border crossing into Pakistan from India, I arrive at Lahore. The Dhaka to Dakar journey has continued on from Kolkata in much the same order as when I was travelling this route back in 2004, albeit without a stop in Delhi. So Lahore – did it feel familiar?

To be honest, not really! Lahore is the second biggest city in Pakistan behind Karachi with over 11 million inhabitants and that’s just in central Lahore. In 19 years there have been a lot of changes, and this time I was staying in the somewhat fashionable area of Gulburg. To be honest, Lahore is a city with a layout that I found hard to get my head around. There is the old city, which is not so close to Gulburg, which for the visitor is the place you want to explore I guess.

This time I opted for Uber – which is actually just auto-rickshaws using the Uber app for the most part. It’s not a bad option and it worked most of the time I needed it too. The price is fixed, you pay by cash and it’s up to you whether you want to tip but generally I did. Also it allows you to enter your destination and gives the driver a path to follow, so you are less likely to get lost (a very common occurrence otherwise!). Of course there are the regular auto-rickshaws (you may know them as tuk-tuks) but it means bargaining over the price.

I also tried the pretty new Lahore Metro. There’s just one line in Lahore at the moment, and it didn’t prove ultra-useful when I was there, but it was a cool experience, on an elevated track giving you decent views of the city. It’s dirt cheap too and people are friendly and will come up and talk to you.

I had four nights in Lahore which was less than I wanted, and in the next post I plan to go through the places I saw. It’s a city with a bit of a buzz and you could easily do a week here I think because you’ll meet people and there’s so much to explore and it’s not all next to each other.

I stayed in the Rose Palace Hotel Gulburg, it was just a short drive away from MM Alam Road, which I walked to on my first evening there and was amazed by the glitz and glamour! It’s a wide road with boutique shops selling name brands, lots of lights, fast food joints and more. On another night I went there with friends of a friend and we went to a Qawali Show.

Qawali singing is a special kind of ‘devotional’ singing that comes from this part of the world. There are more private experiences to be had, but we saw a group (all male) in a restaurant setting on a roof top which was pretty cool. We would hand in larger notes/bills for smaller ones and then when they were singing/playing we would throw the notes up in the air at the performers as is the tradition. Interestingly the menu was a mix of Pakistani and Western food.

Lahore today really felt so different from the Lahore of 19 years ago. Well, 19 years is a pretty long time! With quite a bit to see I needed to plan my days out carefully so that I could get to all the things I needed to see, and buy a bus ticket for the next trip down to Bahawalpur. There are a number of bus companies in Pakistan, last time I remember taking Daewoo and their buses were excellent, so I thought I might as well take them again. Trains are also an option but sell out well in advance, the buses are clean and comfortable. The bus stations – at least the one I used – are big and have various shops and cafes all along this bustling road.

All in all, Lahore was a great stop on the road from Dhaka to Dakar and a city on the grow. From the parts where it’s growing though you can still find the Old City where it still brings back feelings of how the city used to be and you can really see it’s history.

Next time I will be going through the sights and talk about what there is to see and do. Thanks for joining me today, take care wherever you are and May the Journey Never End!