Road trip: Day 2 Saturday: 3.12.2011 ( Bahawalpur to Khairpur)

All the photographs in this story have been taken by Bilal Hameed

Inside Bahawalpur city we enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast of purri halwa, channaiy ( chick peas), parathas ( flat bread) and lassi ( yogurt drink)....  J ( this coincidentally became more or less our staple breakfast throughout this journey)  it was a wonder that Usman, our driver at that time, did not fall asleep behind the wheel after this drowsing meal!!

Bahawalpur is a charming city with an essence of its own. Quite a few families were out for a weekend breakfast at that early in the morning. We did not linger long as we had visited the city last year when we had gone on a Cholistan desert safari trip with  Adventure Foundation of Pakistan.

After our breakfast we hit the road again and our target was to reach Khairpur in Sindh by mid afternoon. That was to be our first stay of the journey. A dear and darling friend of mine Yasmeen Lari had very kindly made arrangements for us in the guest house of Shah Abdul Latif University.

With each passing mile the landscape also changed colour once we entered Sindh from Punjab. Punjab was more green hued with cotton and sugar cane crops lining the road on both sides. Sindh on most occasions was more dusty and barren with distant cropping of date trees. Lack of rain seemed more evident in Sindh as everything appeared dusty, which is ironic keeping in mind that Sindh had faced devastating floods back in July- August due to unusually high monsoon rains this year.  We did witness patches of these flooded areas as water was still stagnant at some places. 

Weather also changed its tone as we went further south in the country. We had started off with a very chilly and nail biting cold and by the time we reached Khairpur we had all shed our outer layer of woollies. It became progressively warmer with each passing milestone.  But surprisingly the nights were still chilly; it was only the days which were hot.

The mood in the car also became pensive with just sporadic episodes of ragging and jokes. Fatigue had set in and everyone had their eyes focused on the road urging it to move faster and closer to our destination.

A pensive Samina....

On the way we also briefly visited Sukkhur barrage and saw the only kantaiy wala bridge in Pakistan from a distance as well. We were tentatively thinking of doing the blind dolphin viewing on the Indus river at the barrage but for some obscure reason we never stopped the car there and kept on driving. Fatigue had definitely caught up with all of us by then and we were all looking forward to reaching our destination of the day.

The only kantaiy wala bridge in Pakistan from a distance. Sukkur, Sindh

Sukkur barrage

View from the bridge on Indus river, Sukkur, Sindh.

somewhere between Sukkur and Khairpur

Khairpur  guest house was an extremely pleasant surprise for all of us. After almost 20 hours of exhausting drive this was exactly the kind of place one wants to crash in. It was way beyond our expectations ( our expectations was low to begin with. ;) ). The rooms were mini suites with a bedroom and a separate sitting room. They were quite spacious  and very clean. Bathrooms and bed sheets were up to par as well.  I usually carry extra sheets with me on these trips, just in case I have to use those but in Khairpur they were not needed at all. As they say that a picture is worth a thousand words so here are my few thousand words on this amazing guest house.....  

Guest house at Shah Abdul Latif university, Khairpur, Sindh

A big thank you to Yasmeen for her wonderful hospitality!!

We had originally planned to take a rest of 1 hour and then go see the Diji fort and Fazal mahal (palace) in Khairpur. These were the primary reasons that we had stayed there as Yasmeen had really praised these places and had marked them as “definitely worth seeing”. Apparently Khairpur use to be a princely state back in the days of British Raj and have some lovely palaces from that era.

Unfortunately we were not able to do so at all as it was the 7^th Muharram that day and the roads had been closed off in the afternoon for the Ashura procession. That was disappointing.

Nonetheless all of us took this opportunity to relax and just mull around the place. Bilal as usual took off with his camera. Usman went in search of a wifi or internet connection as he had some urgent emails to respond to. Samina, Balouch and I just chilled around. Samina did pose for some photographs for Bilal. I also tried my hand at photography and tried to come up with some creative “concept” photography...   J 

So after an early dinner most of us went to bed at around 9 pm. We had a 5 am call the next morning. Usman worked till late....

Missed Opportunities of the day: blind dolphins in Sukkur, Diji fort and Fazal palace in Khairpur L