Road trip: Day 6 & 7 Wednesday & Thursday 7.12.2011/8.12.2011: Sights, sounds and shops of Karachi

Most of the photographs in this post have been taken by Bilal Hameed. A few were taken by Usman from his mobile. The picture of M.A. Jinnah in sherwani has been taken from urdupoint.com

Although the desire to go and thoroughly visit the Makran coastal highway again was very strong but we erred towards caution and decided to get the car checked first thing in the morning on Wednesday; it was making some funny noise the day before. We were suppose to head back towards Islamabad on Friday and did not want  to take any undue chances.

So Usman and Balouch took the car to the mechanic for a thorough check-up after breakfast. Bilal decided to visit his bank’s head office in Karachi and meet the executives there. Samina and I spent a lazy morning in bed, chilling and gossiping.

We had expected the car work not to take more than a couple of hours but due to various delays one way or the other Usman and Balouch came back mid afternoon. Good news was that there was nothing wrong with the car; all it needed was some oiling on brake pads.... or something of the sort as I am not too savy about such matters.

Since we had lost half of the daylight so we decided to start our shopping from today onwards and also do some sightseeing in Karachi. Originally we had dedicated Thursday for shopping and relative visits.  


It was the first time Balouch was visiting Karachi and he was very keen to see the city. So we gave him the front passenger seat to take in all the views unhindered...  :)

We hit Zamzama street first for shopping as that was closest to our guest house. And also because we were waiting for Manzoor and he was in office at that time.

Samina and I hit some boutiques from where I bought some stuff thus formal opening our trip’s mad shopping spree.... Little did I know that I have opened a Pandora’s box....  ;)

From there onwards till the evening of the next day was just one big shopping blur......

Manzoor took us to Zainab market, Sadar, Gulf Plaza, some shop called “Corporate” near boat basin and Tariq Road. Apparently he knew all these places which had really nice stuff but at very affordable prices. We went to factory outlets of Levis where a T-shirt was around Rs. 400/-. The same T-shirt was around Rs.1200/- or so in Islamabad.

Needless to say that both Usman and Samina went a little mad with their shopping after looking at the prices... :) I was particularly surprised with Usman as it was the first time that I have seen a man shop so patiently and with so meticulous detail. He tried on everything and then bought that looked the best on him. Both he and Samina also bought a lot of gifts for family and friends. But undoubtedly Usman was the shopaholic king of our trip and bought stuff worth Rs. 50000/-.. Yes!! That’s 50 K!!   :)

With the amount of shopping that they did and some of our additional stuff,  on our return journey to Islamabad we had to tie our luggage on the top rack of the car to make room for the extra stuff that we had picked up...  

I really wanted to post a “before shopping” and “ after shopping” picture of the car but unfortunately we do not have any picture of the car with the luggage tied overhead.

In between shopping we also did some sightseeing. We passed by the shrine of Hazrat Abdallah Shah Ghazi (R.A) and paid our respects from outside.

Abdullah Shah Ghazi is considered to be patron saint of Karachi. He is widely revered in Pakistan. Legend has it that due to the saint's closeness to God, the city has been protected from sea related disasters such as cyclones. His shrine is right along the seaside in Clifton area. Consequently a  famous myth about the shrine is that Karachi never had a tropical disaster in a thousand year because of the shrine's blessing.

This myth gets one thinking hard as it has been seen lately and previously as well that whatever tropical storms that were slated to hit Karachi would somehow change course and veer off towards another direction, always missing Karachi's shoreline... hmmmmm....

Some more sights of Karachi...



A traditional yogurt drink, Lassi



We also briefly visited Manzoor’s house where he showed us his “sea offerings” collections. Beautiful and unique sea shells and fossils that he and his sister had picked up on the beaches of Maldives and Sri Lanka.



It was also at his place that we tasted Sharifah fruit for the first time; Sharifah is not easily available in Islamabad. He had sharifah trees in his garden.

 On Thursday late afternoon after we were done with all the shopping we decided to visit the Mausoleum of the founder of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Even though all of us except for Balouch had been to Karachi previously many times but had never visited the place. This time as we were playing tourists so we decided to go the whole nine yards....  :)

Muhammad Ali Jinnah ( December 25, 1876 – September 11, 1948) was a Muslim lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam ( "Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum  ("Father of the Nation").

Visiting the mausoleum was a learning experience for all of us. I was always under the impression that only  Quaid-e-Azam was buried there. But it seems that some other notable figures from his time including his sister, Fatimah Jinnah were also there.

Next to the mausoleum was a museum full of his personal artifacts. It was again a pleasure to see his belongings. The ones I literally drooled over were his 2 cars: a Packard and a rolls Royce.. I love vintage cars!!

His living quarters. In the background is the picture of his second wife Rattanbai.

His golf collection

During his stay in England, the culture there had greatly influenced his personal preferences, particularly when it came to dress. Jinnah donned Western style clothing and he pursued the fashion with fervor. It is said he owned over 200 hand-tailored suits which he wore with heavily starched shirts with detachable collars. It is also alleged that he never wore the same silk tie twice. Although in his later years he was most commonly seen wearing Sherwani and Karakul hat which subsequently came to be known as "Jinnah cap".

On Wednesday evening Manzoor also took us to this restaurant called Farouge where we had the best Lebanese food; the chicken was really amazing.

On our last night in Karachi, after a very hectic day of shopping and sightseeing ,we came back to the guest house with take away food. To round off the trip we played a game of luddoo in our usual style, with Manzoor winning the game fair and square.

Tomorrow we were to start our journey back home....

Road trip: Day 5 Tuesday: 6.12.2011 Charna Island

Most photographs in this blog post have been taken by myself and Bilal Hameed. A few have been taken by Khizar from divers reef Karachi.

Today was going to be an adventurous day for us. We were all going snorkeling and that too for the first time in our lives. Manzoor had made arrangements for us and we were to leave the guest house at 6am. It was going to be nearly an all day activity.

Manzoor came to pick us up and the first order of the day was breakfast. Our snorkeling package included breakfast and lunch both. So he took us to boat basin in Karachi first where we were to meet our snorkeling instructor Khizar and have breakfast with him first.

Khizar is a very talented 23 years old who has started this business a while ago. His company divers reef karachi organises these snorkeling trips for different groups. He takes them out to Charna island in Baluchistan. Our snorkeling package per head was Rs. 2500/- which included breakfast, lunch, boat ride and all the necessary gear that is required for snorkeling. Khizar had also brought his under water camera for some great coral life shots.

After an amazing breakfast at boat basin we headed out towards mubarak village from where we were to get on a boat out to Charna island. The drive was about 50 minutes long: it was early in the morning and there was hardly any traffic on the road.

I personally had great trepidations about snorkeling. I do not know how to swim at all and therefore was quite apprehensive about going in the open sea, although we were all wearing life jackets; Khizar was very particular about safety.

Nonetheless I decided to keep my options open and see if I can overcome my hesitation and try it out once we get there. Everyone else in group were super excited about it. It was the first time in our lives that all five of us were going for snorkeling. Manzoor was already quite a pro in it.




Charna Island, Baluchistan



Khizar giving us life jackets. Our boat in the background.



Rustam, the captain of our boat

 The tide was really high that day so the boat ride was exhilarating and quite bumpy. It took an hour to get to the spot where we anchored for snorkeling.

After anchoring at the spot much to our surprise the first one to jump in the water was Balouch. Now Balouch in our group is someone who is constantly worried about one thing or the other. And whenever we take trips in the mountains he always sits in the front passenger seat with his hand on the door handle: ready to jump out if it seems that the vehicle is about to part ways with treacherous, curving, uphill mountain roads...  :)  But here he amazed us all with his swimming prowess: the man swims like a fish....  :)

Usman was also in his elements in water and was thoroughly enjoying the experience. Samina turned out to be quite an adventurous gal as well. Manzoor was an apt swimmer and an expert in snorkeling. Bilal started out with quite an enthusiasm and energy but after a while he started feeling seasick. He came out of the water and lied down as he was really not feeling well at all. This gave Balouch an opportunity to gloat and which he did to it's fullest...  :)

It was no doubt Balouch's day and he milked it to it's extreme....  :)

I on the other hand very shamefully accept that I chickened out at the end...   :(  The most I did was float a few meters away from the boat and that too with Bilal and Samina's help. I really need to learn how to swim......  

But other than this it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. Weather was gorgeous. The tan that we acquired that day was still with us even after 3 weeks.  We stayed at the place for about 3 hours or so. Khizar served us lunch i.e. really yummy biryani ( rice dish) and cold drinks.



On our way back: tired after our froliciking in the sun and sea

 We decided to build a sand castle once we were back on shore. Samina and Usman went in search of sea shells and other offerings from the sea for their aquariums back home.

After a short while it became apparent that our sojourn back into childhood was not that creative as we were unable to come up with any fortified shape for our castle. So we settled on a round shape giving it more of a dome look....   :P



Who's got a bigger mouth?!  :)

 So after filling our car with water we headed back to the city. We also noticed that the car was making a funny sound as well.

At the guest house after refreshing showers and much needed rest we went out to dinner at a restaurant called Sajjad's. Khizar also joined us. The food as usual was really sumptuous. A very good friend of Bilal's, Noreen, also joined us for dinner. She was a bit bumped out that we had not taken her with us for snorkeling, which was a clear over sight at our part. Sorry Noreen!   :)




Sajjad's, Karachi



So a great day with lots of fun and adventure and we also made a new friend, Khizar, one of our adventurous kind....  :)