Sunday, September 30, 2007

Karachi Photos

I only had a very short time to see some sights but here is a selection.

Firstly fishermen off Clifton Beach - the name one of many clues to the passage of the English through this historic land. The beach was almost totally deserted as it was Ramadan, but I'm told in the evening it gets packed with Iftar picnickers.

And where you have fishermen you must have nets that must be mended.

Nearby is the sailing centre complete with its two dinghies, launching ramp and flag poles, which as noted is right next door to a rubbish tip:


Also nearby is the 1400 year old Ziarat to the Sufi Abdullah Shah Ghazi, patron saint of Karachi and great-grandson to the Prophet Muhammad.

All around Karachi you could see these colourful buses:

And on the subject of travel, this is the City Railway station:

And here is a train full of very patient passengers: it was meant to leave at 2.30pm and was still sitting there at 5 pm: it was clearly going to be a tough journey. Some of the boxes on the platform to the right were clearly marked as coming from the port of Felixstowe.

Its a part of the world with a fascinating history and was sorry to not to see, hear, and discover more. The BBC has recently shown a great series of the history of Pakistan and India, and clips can be found here.