Overland to London: Peshawar to Karachi

 

Akbar's Fort on the Indus River at Attock

Day 28    Sun 22 June          PESHAWAR – LAHORE

Departure time: 6 am           Tach reading: 136,071        Distance run: 435kms

     Today’s run is over territory covered during the last few days; back across the Indus River at Attock and on through Rawalpindi and over the three Pakistani rivers of the Punjab – Jhelum, Chenab and Ravi – to Lahore once again. Hopefully we will be early enough to allow you to use the pool before it gets too late. We will again be staying at the pretty slack Hotel International.

Day 29    Mon 23 June         LAHORE – MULTAN

Departure time: 8am                   Tach reading: 136,506        Distance run: 343 kms         

    A relatively uninteresting drive down to Multan, the Punjabi city said to be the hottest in Pakistan, after Sibi in Baluchistan. The road passes near  Harappa, one of the sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation which flourished in this part of the sub-continent prior to 2500BC. Harappa, along with Mohenjo Daro, south of Sukkur, are the main sites of this civilisation that have been excavated to any great degree.

    The Harappans were highly sophisticated  for their time, rivalling the ancient settlements of Sumeria (Iraq) for advancement. The people are believed to have been the ancestors of the dark-skinned Dravidian people of South India and it is thought that the Hindu religion may have had its beginnings here. Most archaeologists seem to agree that the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation came with the movement of the Aryan people into the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia.

          At Multan we will be staying at the Hushiana Hotel. 

Day 30    Tue 24 June          MULTAN – SUKKUR

Departure time: 7am                 Tach reading: 136,849            Distance run: 431 kms

      Another long relatively uninteresting day through the hottest area of Pakistan. Not far out of Multan we cross the Chenab River which, at this point, has merged with the Jhelum and the Ravi Rivers, and some 100 miles further south we re-cross it just after its confluence with the Sutlej and shortly before it meets the Indus.

As we approach Sukkur, we come close to the Thar, or Indian, Desert of Rajasthan, in fact at this point  we are as close to Jaipur as we are to Lahore. At Sukkur we once again cross the Indus by the country’s longest irrigation barrage, built during the days of the British. Sukkur, itself, is a city with an Arab flavour about it. Arab-style dhows can been seen in the river and the town has many date-palms. Here the road branches west into Baluchistan and Quetta, which is where we would have been heading if we had been able to drive through Iran.

In Sukkur we will be staying in the Mehran Hotel in the old city. 

Day 31    Wed 25 June         SUKKUR – KARACHI

Departure time: 7am                  Tach reading: 137,280         Distance run: 478 kms

From Sukkur, we carry on south through the province of Sindh towards the coast. As we head south we skirt the Thar Desert and will see some of the desert forts. The province of Sindh, fell under Arab, and thus Moslem dominance, less than 100 years after the death of Mohammed in 632, and has remained an Islamic stronghold ever since, even though various invaders, including the British, have occupied the area since.

We follow the route down the west bank of the Indus, through the city of Larkana, hometown of the Bhutto family, and come to the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation. This is well worth a visit.

The Harappan ruins of Mohenjo Daro

Mohenjo Daro dates from around 2500BC and was abandoned, possibly due to the arrival of the Aryans around 1900BC. Archaeological evidence has showed that Mohenjo Daro was a carefully planned city on the Indus. Houses had bathrooms that drained into a sophisticated sewer system:

Recreation of a bathroom at Mohenjo Daro

“The bathrooms of Harappan houses were tightly paved with fired bricks that were waterproofed with gypsum; the run-off exited through a chute at the base of the wall and flowed into a covered drain in the street. Such innovative plumbing, which included lavatories in some dwellings, was more than a convenience: it helped reduce disease among the 40,000 or so citizens who lived together at close quarters in sweltering Mohenjo Daro.” (Time-Life - The Age of God-Kings).

          About 100 miles from Karachi, we pass by the city of Hyderabad, now (1980) the third largest city in Pakistan and former capital of Sindh until the British moved the capital to Karachi in the 19^th century. At Hyderabad we cross the Indus for the final time via the Kotri Barrage. We will be staying at Hotel Midway House near Karachi Airport.

Day 32    Thu 26 June                KARACHI

          A free day in Karachi to do as you please. The city is accessible by taxi or hire car (50 rups per hour). Karachi is, as large cities go, relatively new. At the beginning of the 19th century, Karachi was just a small settlement in a bay, surrounded by desert when the British, under General Sir Charles Napier, captured the area in 1843. Napier’s “orders had been only to put down the rebels: by conquering the whole Sindh Provice, he greatly exceeded his mandate. Napier was supposed to have despatched to his superiors the short, notable message, “Peccavi”, the Latin for “I have sinned” (which is a pun on ‘I have Sindh’). This pun appeared under the title ‘Foreign Affairs’ in Punch magazine on 18 May 1844. The true author of the pun was, however, Englishwoman Catherine Winkworth, who submitted it to Punch, which then printed it as a factual report. Later, Napier made several comments on the Sindh adventure to the effect of: “If this was a piece of rascality, it was a noble piece of rascality!” 

View over Karachi from the hotel

As the Governor of Sindh, Sir Charles Napier saw the advantage of constructing a port here and shortly afterwards, the capital of Sindh was moved to Karachi from Hyderabad. Karachi didn’t really rise to prominence until after Independence in 1947 when it became Pakistan’s first capital, which it remained until 1960 when Rawalpindi became the interim capital while Islamabad was constructed. In 1947, Karachi’s population was 360,000, now (1980) it is over the 3,000,000 mark, making it the country’s largest city.

Tomb of the Quaid-e Azam, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Karachi

Buildings in the city are modern. In particular, the Tomb of the Quaid-e Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan and 1^st Governor-General who died in 1948, is an interesting white-marble domed structure. The title of ‘Quaid-e Azam’ was bestowed on Jinnah by Mahatma Gandhi and means ;Great Leader’. Gandhi himself had already had the honorific title of Mahatma ‘Great Soul’ bestowed on him by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was born and died in Karachi.         

Day 33    Fri 27 June           KARACHI

Departure time: 11 am               Tach reading: 137,832            Distance run: 74 kms

       Late this morning we will take the coach through Karachi and out along the Arabian Sea coast to a beach resort known as Hawkes Bay. Here the surf is good, camels are available to ride, and perving, groping Pakistanis are free of charge! We will spend a couple of hours at Hawkes Bay before returning to the hotel to pack and prepare for tomorrow’s early morning flight to Athens.

Hawkes Bay beach on the Arabian Sea, Karachi

            I’d also like to thank Gopher, and wish him well on his solo drive back to Kathmandu, and hopefully we will see him in London on 18^th August.

A message from your Asian driver

      Goodbye you lot!

 It’s been fun meeting you all and getting to know some wonderful people. We’ve all had some good times together, some memories to treasure and preserve. There have also been some not so nice times, some uncomfortable times, what with heat and ‘Delhi belly’ or whatever name you put to it. I hope to meet many of you again, whether in Europe or back in your home countries.

          I hope I have not been too hard on any of you, I have not meant to be, I have had your safety and security on my mind at all times.

          So please, enjoy the remainder of the tour, as I know you will; you will have a good times together camping and many, many memories to cherish.

          I wish all of you Good Luck, Good Travelling, Good Health.

                                        Regards      John Peat    alias “Gopher”                                            

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

Instagram accounts  @dustonmyfeet     and    @antipodeanneil

My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.