A Free Meal and a Photo Shoot

I don’t remember much of the trip to Lahore. 

I know I met a lovely girl from Quetta in the toilets of a café who was very nice, but who had just come out of the toilet with excrement all over her left hand.  I remember being put off slightly, and trying very hard not to show it.

I also remember we stopped for lunch at a very smart hotel complex with an excellent restaurant, where the bosses came over for a professional photo shoot with us, asked us for a brief review of the food, and gave us the same meals again for free, to take away. I was shell-shocked, and very giggly.  The Uruguayans acted as though it was part of every-day travel, and totally took it in their stride.

On the way into Lahore, a station wagon wound down its window and a shaved Pakistani head poked out. ‘Alright mate’, it said, in perfect Cockney.  He was a Londoner over in Pakistan to see family, and that’s all we could find out before we were off again… 

 

 

Arriving into Lahore was good fun- having escorts generally means you get guided to hotels, and don’t get hideously lost at every junction. 

 

It was a busy, crazy, happening sort of place.  We arrived at dusk, settled into another hotel, and set off for the wonderful lights of ‘Subway’.

That sub was amazing.  The tuna melt was the best thing I had ever eaten, Manna from heaven.  The tuna was perfect, the mayo sublime, and the oregano foot-long sub was tremendous throughout.  That’s what you get for eating dhal and chapattis for weeks, and cardboard and carrot jam for weeks before that.  I know its politically incorrect to want a giant multi-national corporation to expand rapidly into Third World countries, but what can you do…

Satiated, we hailed a rickshaw back home. 

An hour and a half later, we got there, after a frankly hysterical ride around the same four streets with a driver who swore he knew where he was going.  It was so frustrating it was funny.  I thanked him heartily at the end.  For a minute there I had almost thought I was somewhere normal…