Farewell Pakistan

 Farewell Pakistan 

It was my last morning in Pakistan. And there were still buildings that were architecurally interesting.

And the buses! Some were imported as standard buses and then sent to a bodybuilder to make it into a Pakistani bus, much along the lines of Truck Art. Some of the buses were iported as chassis nd engine with the body work designed and added locally. Some were old Bedford buses built more than 60 years ago and still going strong.

Another old building but in need of restoration as the roof was badly damaged, and just by the tower, it looked like someone had dropped a couple of beds onto the roof with the legs sticking up into the air.

We passed through the port with warehouses, wharves and containers...

...plus some solar panels on the roofs of the warehouses.

We were on our way to Paradise Beach and Gadani where ships are beached and broken up. The police were content to let us go but the army checkpoint trumped the police advice and we were not allowed to go any further. Either it was due to being Balochistan being a no-go area or it was just too close to one of Pakistan's nuclear reactors. We stopped at another beach, clean, sandy and deserted...but it was 25 kilometres out of town.

                                        

We passed some evaporation ponds. We had to pay a toll to go further along the beach road. We paid, drove 500 metres and were stopped by a police road block...we couln't go further. The toll takers nust hve known that we would not be allowed along the road but still took our money and wouldn't give a refund.

Its a brave or foolish man who builds his house on sand... despite the pilings, there is a big crack and other buildings had slipped into the sea...

...and the beach was filthy...

...but still people were building houses on the beach. This one was being used for a party, with music on the top floor, beach volley ball or kabadi...

The last stop of the day was at the Malhotta Palace. It was built by a local businessman but lived in by Jinnah's sister from 1927. It has some lovely varied tiled floors and decorated ceilings. It is now a museum housing amonsgt other things a large collection of ethnic textiles and gaj, the symbol worn by women on their clothes to deote status,rank marital status and a host of other telltale signs, if you can read the gaj.

There was a lot of building going on in the area, a former free land area expropriateed by the army, and given to senior officers and sold to the public or to developers.

We stopped for ice creams on the beach. A view of here the Indus enters the ocean with a fishing boat motoring past. And then it was off to the airport.