Rohtas Fort
The entrance to the fort.
I was due to visit the Rohtas Fort. It is the largest fort in South East Asia. But first I had to get there. It is a two hour drive from Islamabad going east on the way to Lahore.
On the way, we passed some old Ford Transit minivans, decades old but still going strong used as minibuses throughout the country. There were blue and red ones...
...but they come in a variety of different bold colours such as lemon...
...and mustard yellow
We reached Rohtas Fort and entered the Gotali Gate, one of twelve gates into the fort. It was built in 1541. Its walls stretch for four kilometres. Its walls are 10 to 13 metres thick. The heights vary from 16 to 27 metres high. It can house 50,000 troops. It is stratigically located on roads between Kabul and Peshawar, Kashmir and Lahore.
It has some well preserved walls.
We drove through the village that still sits within the outer fort. It has 600 inhabitants and 16 mosques. It used to be larger but on partition, all the Hindus moved to India. We stopped at the Shah Chand Wali Gate. This is the gate between the outer and inner fortresses.
A view over the rough terrain that protects the fort on two sides. The other two sides are protected by rivers.
A view from one bastion along the walls to the next bastion.
The Man Singh Palace with the walkway up one side and a balcony clerly seen on the other side.
The mosque.
Inside the mosque, which is still used today on special occasions by locals and by visitors.
A detail of the dome inside the mosque.
A view of the outside of the Kabul Gate, next to the mosque.
A detail of the insides of the Kabul Gate.
The Queen's Palace
The most decorative gate, the Sohail Gate, for which the fort is famous, showing one of the side bastions to protect the main gate...
...and the gate inself with side bastions out of shot on each side. There was too much vegetation to stand further back and get a better shot, the photos that you see on line.
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