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Crikey we have been on the road 4 months already!! How time has flown – although it feels to both of us as if we have been on the road for a lifetime! We have covered 5000kms on the bikes – and we are on schedule to complete the trip on time! (alas not exactly on budget!! :p)
The day after Bahawalpur, we arrived in Multan, one of the largest cities of Pakistan. Multan is in the middle of the country, and a 5 day cycle ride away from Lahore, our last point of rest in Pakistan before we enter into India.
We decided to treat ourselves to a luxury hotel room (and clean sheets), having had enough of dust and dirt and grime of the road, mossies and cheap hotel rooms! So we checked into the Holiday Inn – the swankiest hotel in town, where the England cricket team had stayed only a few days ago for the test match (in the cricket ground across the road from the hotel!!). The hotel cost a whopping 6000 rupees a night (60 GBP) – in contrast to other places we stayed at, the cheapest being 300 rupees! (3 quid!!).
Once having completed a thorough ritual cleaning session – having our clothes professionally laundered, washing our bags (for the first time since leaving London!), and of course cleaning the mud and grime of the road out of our hair and skin, we emerged once again as squeaky clean humans to have a civilised Pakistani style ‘high-tea’ in the hotel restaurant. The guys at reception were shocked at the transformation we had undergone since our check-in – we must have been a real sight with sweaty and dirty clothes (and probably pongy too!!).
The next day we visited famous historical sites of Multan – the amazing tomb of Rukn-i-Alam, an unmatched pre-Mughal masterpiece built in 1320, and the tomb of his grandfather Sheikh Bahauddin Zakaria, built in 1266. We then spent the rest of the day aimlessly wandering through the huge maze of the local bazaar – stuffing our face with local fast food and sweets (shami kebabs, amosas, barfi and halwa).
