Last night, around 2:30 in the morning, I was texting with our friend Sufian who cracked the joke to pick us up at 7:15am (on a Saturday!) to go for breakfast. Turns out it wasn’t a joke.
At least we could convince him to pick us up half an hour later, but the place at boat basin which we went to for traditional Halwa Puri and tea, was indeed packed considering the day/time; probably because the food there is delicious!
Afterwards we went straight to Seaview again, which was way emptier now.
Camel riding had been on our bucket list for a week now (since we knew you could do it at Seaview) so this was our chance!
Faria had told us a funny Story about the former intern Jose who went to Seaview on his own to ride on a camel and, though easily identifiable as a tourist, through bargaining ended up paying Rs. 1000 instead of Rs. 3000… which was still 10 times the usual price.
But we don’t just want to be tourists – we try to adapt, as you can see on the picture below. (Selfie time!!!)
It was a beautiful scenery, weather and temperature were perfect and we stayed at the beach until it got too hot around 11am/12pm.
The poor boys had to walk all the way, while we were comfortably chauffeured by the camel. Ok, it might not have been as comfortable as a couch, but I’m sure the smooth back and forth was good for digestion after such a heavy breakfast.
The boys, though, are just not used to walking. In Karachi you don’t walk – at all. If you can afford it, you go everywhere by car, and you always park it as close as possible – mainly out of security reasons; this includes being shuttled by your driver and given a lift by family or friends. Yes, it is not uncommon here to have a driver. From what I’ve seen, the guys usually drive themselves, however, while girls don’t.
So, one moment we’re on this beautiful ride, the camel wading through the water, and the next moment it goes down.
Ooohh, so that’s what the camel owner had just said in Urdu… yeah, thanks for the warning.
But we had fun!
Peace of advice: always take your native friends, if you want to get the local’s price!
We didn’t even understand a word of their urdu bargaining/conversation…
By the way: do you see the camel’s nose pierce?
The camel looks so peaceful and prettily decorated, and his nose piercing might somehow appear stylish, but I don’t imagine it to be a very nice way to be controlled by the owner. It’s always the same with tourist attractions: where there’s pretty for some, there’s ugly for others. I would have liked to ask the camel itself, though, I always wonder how these animals feel and whether they are loved and taken good care of by their owners and whether they like their “job”.
Now here comes a simple “yeay, I’m at the beach and it’s wonderful!” photo session, jumping pictures included. No further captions required. (Plus I need a new facebook cover picture anyway.)
Yes, my jeans got wet up to the tights, but I didn’t mind as it was so hot.
As you might recall from an earlier post, Seaview is the commercialised area of Clifton beach, so you can also rent these adorable beach buggies.
They were a bit disappointing, in my opinion, when it came to speeding, but I’m pretty sure my friends/co-drivers from both rounds didn’t mind too much, we still had a lot of fun!
Slowly, it was getting too hot out there in the sun, so we went for some refreshing Lassi and then to Mohatta Palace. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told that they had some constructions and preparations for an exhibition going on or something, so we would have to come back some other time on a weekday.
From there we went to Dolmen Mall; to Sinbad’s, to be exact, which is kind of a gaming/playing hall where we played basketball, bike races, flipper and a shooting game, but in total we won only 4 of those reward tickets – another 496 and we might have left with a nice price.
Getting exhausted from all the action after such a short night, we decided going home, where a pile of dirty clothes was waiting to be washed. Usually, the maid washes all the clothes in a household, but Vivian and I thought we’d rather quickly do it ourselves.
Forget quickly, we had to ask Faria’s mum to help us through every single step of the washing process, in the end.
They do have fully automatic washing machines in Pakistan, however in some parts of Karachi there is a water shortage and people prefer using a semi-automatic washing machine which allows you to fully controll the amount of water used:
First, you fill the machine with your clothes, water and some washing powder, you let the machine work (as in wash) for some time, wring the pieces of clothes out one by one, to then rinse them with clean water by hand, and again wring them out very thoroughly before hanging them on the washing line. I really didn’t mind it, I even kind of liked the process, but my hands didn’t, after wringing out the fourth pair of jeans…
InFamous Karachi 