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Ayubia - Lahore
A. route : Aybia - Lahore : ATD 0757 : ATA 1857 : Dist. 234.5mls
- Depart Ayubia 0757
- 0925 - 0933 Fuel stop ( Murree )
- 10:03 - 1012 Crew change
- 1123 - 1128 Fuel stop ( Rawalpindi )
- 1307 - 1340 Shop and paraffin stop
- 1402 - 1506 Lunch stop.
- 1736 - 1746 Fanta stop.
- 1754 - 1757 Bog stop.
- Arrive Lahore 1857
Est.A.Spd ----- : Gross A.Spd 21.3 mph : Net.A.Spd. 27.2 mph.
Stop time 2:06 hr. : Speedo TD 9500 : Speedo TA 9734.5
Comment : (1*) - there is no official scheduled time or distance measure for this day's travel. (**) - ETA in the log is 1657 - however, as stop times previously go as far as 1757, there is an obvious mistake. Apart from there being two stop times after 1700, and therefore less possibility of mistake, an ATA of 1857 ( taken as base of calculations throughout) is more likely, particularly with the long slow downhill section to Rawalpindi. A monotonous journey.
Don C: "I will always remember the huge pot of rice (and things) which Sarva's uncle produced for all of us. Up to that point I'd been, shall we say, "loose" in the digestive department, but after sampling that marvelous cauldron, I was right as rain for quite a while"
Jim Lindsay's diary:
20 August
For once the cloud cleared early and visibility was good before we left around 0800. There
was a lot of grumpiness. Although most people were probably keen to get active again, it
involved getting back to normal discipline again. There was one of these silly incidents
where Ricky managed to get more than his fair share of the breakfast bread, and everyone
else felt aggrieved. Sometimes it was like a giant student flat on the move.
The fermenting apricot jam was now well past its best and it was abandoned in a bag of rubbish.
As we left a small boy could be seen rummaging in the bag and pulling out a hand covered in
alcoholic goo.
The downhill journey lacked the drama of the uphill one. We passed through Murree - rather
tame and not at all like Blackpool - and then downhill in constant slow traffic until we got
onto the Grand Trunk Road to Lahore. We ate lunch standing in a clump of trees by the roadside
- standing because the size of the ants discouraged sitting down. Every passing truck driver
gave us a prolonged blast on his twin horns - something that we experienced every travelling
day until we left Pakistan on the return.
It was a fascinating landscape with streams and ponds creating a lushness very different from
most of our journey so far. The trunk road ran between lines of trees with flights of
parakeets, and every so often there would be a mosque or army post. We went through a
succession of little villages, all very much laid out to the same pattern. On each side
of the road there would be a broad crescent of packed earth cluttered with parked horse-carts
and bicycles and backed by a handful of shops and booths, with pedestrians and cyclists and
wagon milling around and sometimes very slowly sauntering through the traffic on the main road.
Some of the bigger villages had markets going on. In one there was a crowd watching a dancing
bear, in another the possessor of a stud goat was offering its services to the owners of a
line of nannies. Every house was plastered with dung being dried for fuel. Sometimes on the
outskirts of a village there would be a pond full of cattle cooling themselves.
Lahore itself was big and quite impressive, but difficult to navigate. We got only very
garbled radio advice about the stadium where we were going to stay, but eventually someone
we asked for directions came on board and steered us there. Needless to say it was on the
outskirts on the far side of town.
At the stadium there was plenty of room to make a home on the steps under the roof of one of
the stands, and there were huge communal shower rooms - one for each sex.
Just outside the gates was a coke stand where some of us sat in the warm dark watching the
world go by. When we went back in we found that a hospitable relative of a friend of one of
the contingent (familiarly known as Sarwar's Uncle) had laid on an entirely free crate of
lemonade, so we managed to drink some of that too as we watched the fireflies out on the grass
of the stadium.
21 August
After the cool of the hills it was a sweaty night even out in the open. In the morning we
had a visitor in the form of a US airman called Clyde. Ricky and Don W had met him when they
were with Lancaster at Peshawar, and they had some hopes of getting some C-Rations from him.
Whatever they had said to him, he thought it was worth coming to Lahore and booking himself
into the Hotel Intercontinental to renew the acquaintance. The C-Rations never materialised
and neither were we sure quite what Clyde was looking for. He was amiable but hardly bright.
Lahore seemed to be full of hospitable amiable people. Johan and Liz and I went into town
shopping and started with breakfast in a place called Cheney's Lunch Home - soft chairs and
mechanical fans on the ceiling - where Johan made friends with a local banker called Zaidi
who wanted to treat the whole contingent to a meal and possibly would have done it if time
had permitted. He took the three of us out in a taxi (a Morris Minor 1000 in black and yellow
like a fat bee) to Jahangir's Tomb and the Shahi Mosque. The courtyard of the mosque was
ferociously hot and strips of carpet were laid across the courtyard to protect bare feet.
Poor and sick people were sleeping in the shade.
He took us back in the taxi to a complete contrast in the form of tea and cakes in "Lords",
which was officially a third-grade restaurant but certainly quite lavish. The tearoom was dark
and windowless with multicoloured roof lights and fierce air-conditioning. We talked about topics
that were to become familiar - the drive for economic growth, the evils of warlike India (in India
this was replaced by the evils of warlike Pakistan), and the government's language policy. We
repaid his hospitality with lunch at Cheney's and then he helped us with the contingent shopping
(at long last the aim of our day out!). At Cheney's I had one of these odd cross-cultural moments.
I wanted to change a 5 rupee note so asked the room supervisor if he could do it. He nodded,
took the note, and handed it out of the window to a small boy who then ran off. Then he went back
without a word to what he had been doing. I was rather startled and not sure quite what to do, so
I was quite relieved when eventually the lad returned with my change. He had presumably run to a
bank to get it.
In the evening Sarwar's Uncle provided a memorable meal for us in the form of a huge cauldron of
what he told us was wild boar biryani. It was wonderful and we ate and ate without any remote danger
of reaching the bottom of the pot.
The day was not finished. About 15 of us went with Clyde to the Intercontinental. We had drinks in
his room, had more drinks and danced in a huge ballroom that we had more or less to ourselves, and
then went back to his room again. After coffee and croissants on room service we settled for a few
hours of uncomfortable sleep on chairs and in corners.
Generosity in Lahore By Liz Y
There had been many occasions on our journey, when it could have been fascinating to converse with local
people at more than a superficial level. A window opened when we crossed into Pakistan and that window was
language. English is one of the official languages in Pakistan and was understood by more than half the
population, giving us an easy avenue of communication. It was rather humbling that so many people were
willing and interested to spare time to share their views and tell us something about their country,
travel-scruffy and young though we were.
One such person was Zaidi, a banker from Lahore. Four of us (Jim records three but I think we were four,
the two Lizes B and Y, Jim and Johan) had the allotted task of food shopping that day and were treating
ourselves to some preliminary morning refreshments in Cheney's Lunch Home, when we got into conversation
with Zaidi. Jim has already described our meeting so I won't repeat it all in detail. In those days, both
Cheney's and Lord's Cafe, which we visited later, were iconic haunts of Lahore literati. Reportedly this
cafe culture of leisurely debate no longer exists in Lahore. Corporate cafe culture has taken over as in
so many cities elsewhere.
We were on a steep learning curve in Pakistan and India, and mostly I preferred just to listen to what
people said. Zaidi talked about the problems of economic development and the issue of conflict with India.
There had been significant economic growth in Pakistan during the 1960s, reduced by the impact of war over
Jammu and Kashmir in 1965.
A big issue, which I don't think we did discuss, was that benefits of this economic growth were concentrated
in the hands of a few wealthy families. In March 1969, several months of strikes and popular unrest had led
to the resignation of President Ayub Khan, an army general who had seized power in a coup in 1958. Tariq Ali
describes the protests in Pakistan in 1968/9 as the most effective of all the student-led protests around
the world at this time.
Zaidi took us to two wonderful places of great cultural and historic interest. Without him, we might have
missed these, in the short time we had before heading to Delhi. The first was the Badshahi Mosque, built in
1671 by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The mosque has been described as the crown jewel of Lahore and a powerful
example of Mughal architecture. It is constructed of red sandstone with inlaid marble and can accommodate
100,000 people. I still remember the dazzling splendour of this magnificent building and how we stepped
gingerly, without shoes, along narrow strips of carpet, so as not to blister our feet on the sun-soaked
paving of its vast courtyard.
The second place was Jahanjir's Tomb. Jahanjir was a Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605-1627 when the
empire was at its peak. The mausoleum, like the Badshahi Mosque, is of red sandstone with marble inlay.
It is surrounded by a beautiful Persian-style garden of paradise. Both mausoleum and garden were designed
by Nur Jahan, the twentieth and favourite wife of Jahanjir.
Zaidi gave us a lot of his time and even helped us with the shopping. Several people have already described
how the contingent was treated to yet more generosity that evening. A meal was provided at the stadium
campsite by the uncle of a Comex II member, Sarwar.
