G’day folks wherever you are today! My adventures continue as today I am writing about Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, a city which I never really felt any compulsion to visit in the past, but actually I must admit when I did take the plunge I really liked it.

When last I was writing about my big adventure – which was last Sunday, I’m working my way through it bit by bit on Sundays (spoiler alert – this is going to take a while) I was in Bahawalpur. To get to Karachi I opted for the train this time, as you may know if you’ve followed this vlog for some time, my favourite mode of transport. To get the ticket I knew would be tricky, they get sold out in advance in Pakistan and the Pakistan Railways website pretty much requires you to have a Pakistan phone number, but I was lucky enough to have some contacts in Pakistan and had my ticket pre purchased before arriving by a friend of a friend who went to the station in Lahore for me, which was super kind.

I will probably get around to writing up the full train experience, but I have already put together this video above of the experience. In Bahawalpur I had a policeman with me pretty much wherever I went, on the train I did not but curiously a bunch of police turned up not far out of Karachi to presumably make sure I survived the train journey! Police escort is not required in Karachi so I was free to move by myself, but the main policeman asked me how I would be getting to my hotel, and seemed to think it was highly unlikely I could navigate the auto-rickshaws outside the station and get to my hotel by myself. HA! I showed him!

I settled in to the Hotel Excelsior which I had booked in advance. It was around 80AUD and comfortable, came with breakfast and decent air conditioning. Karachi was the most humid place I had been in Pakistan but in February the weather was pretty pleasant. I decided to take a bit of rest as hadn’t slept all night before heading out in the afternoon (I had arrived I think around 11am).

There was a mall opposite which had a cinema and a bunch of fast food options as well, although there are a gazzilion food options in Karachi. The area the hotel was in was the Sudder Area, which is a pretty good location but to be fair I found Karachi to be a big city so it didn’t really matter where I was to reach parts of the city I would have to travel, although the Sudder Area was good to walk about and explore and it wasn’t too far from the market and a number of old and significant buildings.

My first day though I was headed to an historic house, a significant mosque and the beach – all generally in the same area. I hailed an auto-rickshaw on the street. In Karachi, unlike Lahore, you can’t take Uber and that was a bit of an issue because the drivers are good around their area of the city but when you head to another area, they tend to get a bit lost.

Mohatta Palace Museum

So this was my first stop on my first day in Karachi of sight seeing, and I had to use Google Maps to direct the driver there in the end but we did get there. It did take a good 30 minutes I think through a bit of traffic. This beautiful historical building was built in 1927 so it’s nearly 100 years ago. It was built using pink bricks from Rajasthan (now India) and was designed by Muhammed Komail Hussein.

Today there are photography exhibits inside and there were loads of photos dealing with the creation of the state of Pakistan and the man who is regarded as the ‘founder’ of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and it had been occupied at times by members of his family. Unfortunately photography was not allowed inside, but it certainly was impressive from outside!

Shrine of Hazrat Syed Abdullah Shah Ghazi

This shrine to a ‘Muslim Mystic’ and Sufi who lived in the 8^th century CE was a fair walk from the Mohatta Palace Museum in the suburb of Clifton which is not far from the beach. It’s attached to a mosque which is much more recent than the tomb which is located beneath the building, there was a queue to shuffle in past the tomb and out again but I didn’t feel it was right to go in there.

Outside was beautiful (and incidentally there were massive queues to get in the whole complex) and there were many crows flying around and the sun was starting to set when I was there so it was really a little bit special. Also loads of people came up to me and chatted which again made it all the more special.

Clifton Beach

From there I went down to the beach, Clifton Beach the most famous beach in Karachi at the very least if not all of Pakistan. It was hugely popular actually and there was a path with stalls on either side leading down to it selling souvenir type things or food etc. The sand was an amazing black colour which I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

There were loads of friendly people and then there were the camels as well as the sun went down – not over the ocean but still, it made for a unique scene. I spent a good hour plus at the beach because it was kind of magical. Then I had to get an auto-rickshaw back to Sudder and my hotel, and that was a bit tricky but I made it!

And there was still plenty of Karachi to discover! But for today, I have covered all I planned to in this post. Thanks for reading as always, take care and… May the Journey Never End!