Departing dinner

We decided to invite a lot of friends for a Thai dinner before we departed. It was our way of saying thank you to so many people and have them all together to meet each other as well. I've added a few photos from the video I took, and if your not in them and should have been, well, next time. Again thanks to you all for making our initial stay in Karachi such a fun one. See you!!

Tek Tek

Having had our day out in Clifton Beach we made a point of collecting some shells. I do not know their name but they look like the ones you see on the shell petrol station signs.
We collected about 20 kilos of them straight off the beach. They were literally rolling up the beach by the wave action. Really amazing to see. (got it on video!!). Everyone watching us to see what we were doing. Everyone seems interested when we got out some plastic bags and started collecting the shells. Only the live ones of course. Some of the young boys and girls got into the action and helped us. We did not need to dig, just pick them up of the sand.


Got them home and cleaned them up to get the sand and dirt off them. Then Wanna boiled most of them and also put a few aside and we cooked them on a griddle plate.
This morning I cleaned up the shells and made a fair curry even if I say so myself! Wanna followed it up this afternoon with a tip top Thai Yam. All washed down with a few beers. Excellent. I did not have time to take a good photo of the finished curry. We had eaten most of it before I remembered to take a snap. So trust me it might not look like a food book photo by it tasted great.

Clifton Beach

Amazing finally managed to make a few snaps from the movies. Clifton Beach is amazing. Thousands of people every where. Most are enjoying walking along the beach and getting their feet wet. No swimming costumes here. As you can see two ladies are in the full 'Guinness bottle kit'. Everyone who has a chance is busy selling stuff. They charge you for parking and then again for entrance to the beach. Could not quite work it out. More amusing was the guy offering to look after your shoes. Check out the photo. He has a collection of old fruit boxes. Dread to think what state/smell the shoes are in after being there all day. We did not take advantage of the service and chose to keep our shoes on. Good idea as it turned out. Not the cleanest beach but it was just good fun. Looking round I am sure I was the only Brit within miles. Seems that was on a lot of peoples minds as well when they saw me. Everyone was so friendly, selling cakes, sweets, cigarettes and one chap wandered past selling toast. Yes toast. He has a smallish tin with hot charcoals in topped off with toast. Not my idea of a beach snack!!
Add in the guys offering horse and camel rides and put it all together and the picture is complete. Great fun and we plan to be back again tomorrow for shell collecting. No doubt again I'll be the subject of great interest!!

Clifton Beach...?

Time is running short and we are due to leave Karachi this coming Friday. Lots to do before then, apart from packing, including closing out several things we promised ourselves we would do. These are last minute restaurant meals, visits to places, trips in and around Karachi, saying good bye to numerous people etc.
Well times almost up, and yesterday we managed one item on our list, our last a trip to the Clifton Beach. We were joined as far as I could tell by the rest of the Karachi population who seem to descent onto the beach on Saturdays and Sundays. I don't think for one moment they were there to say good bye to us but it was good to see such a crowd. Well we, that's Wanna and I plus a few of her Thai friends went down to the sea last evening to have a good look round and also to collect a lot of shells which we had heard were in abundance. Made for a very interesting trip, but ... and I mean but, before I go into the details I need to tell you something......
Unknown to you readers, earlier yesterday we became the proud owners of a new Sony Handycam. I know I can hear you all already, "not more crap video footage. ..please spare us!!", well I would if I could, but, I've got this compelling urge to Blog most of my trivia!!! So stick with it please. In amongst the hours and hours of footage, there might, just might, be lurking a master piece. (Emphasis on 'might').
Maybe from here on in it will be different. How so ? I plan to use the camcorder for most recordings as it comes complete with every conceivable goody including single picture capability. Its a Sony HDR-SR12E. To you and me that simple put means I've put down a lot of money for a very small black plastic box with glass sticking out one end and an array of buttons the other. Yes lots of money for a very small box!!!
For you it means putting up with some frustrating times ahead. Having to read my sorted/edited video footage. These frustrations that I am sure to encounter during the editing process will be happily shared with you. No expense spared! So Clifton Beach Blog/post is in the editing room! All to follow after several more sessions with my new black box. Till next post. Tomorrow?...

Village Restaurant

Ian's leaving us on Monday. Hes been here about 13 months working with KICT. He has been a strong part of our team and so much so that the lads in the office decided to take him for lunch. In fact we all went. Village Restaurant is situated on the beach front on Clifton. It offers basically a buffet type range of foods. A really fantastic and amazing range of Pakistani foods. Curries, kebabs, grills sea foods, some local dishes which we will never see in UK. The sweets, I can't call them deserts (way to much sugar in all of them) are just so good. Now time back at the office for a coffee and a doze.

Empress Market Part 5

Nearly there. We've completed the shooting including the coffee scenes for the 'before and after' the market shoots. Poor Fahim! It is now down to him to complete the editing. He is going to try and get it done this coming week. We should have one more meeting together and then hopefully close it out and submit to Dawn Newspaper. Now, I'm not to concerned if we win or just get an acknowledgement that we participated in their competition. Its been fun and we can do some more films over the coming months. Today we had Fahim, Wanna, Qaiser and myself all geared up for these final shots. Went well. Emad, Khalids son also joined in.
Today we had two cameras so there was scope for some more sophisticated filming. Well that was the plan at least. Having two cameras we then needed two camera operators. , Both are in the photos below. Emad in the blue jeans and Ahmad, one of the waiters. All good fun. Good luck Fahim! See you next Thursday/Friday.

Gas Bikes.

Just when you think you've seen it all going back and forth to work daily on the same road seeing the same cars and the same bikes... Boring.

Then out of nowhere its there, a gas powered bike. Quietly cruising by me as we are going bumper to bumper and he floats by. Ingenious. Only had a few seconds, just enough to register what I was looking at and click a single photo. All he had done was strap on a small gas cylinder and link it to the engine.

I checked it out after seeing this. Seems all you need is any old gas cylinder and a piece of plastic pipe. Also some sort of regulator similar to any other gas burner. Link it to the carburetor and your powered up. That's it. Done, sorted! Then 'on your bike'.

I'm going to have to look more closely into this next time and for now he was gone off into the distance while we, yes that's right you guessed, we were still bumper to bumper! It just seems too simple. Whatever next. Maybe my Honda accord could do with a make over.

Waiting for the Train

It's been a quiet week on the reporting front. In fact a quiet month. I did go to a music night with Khalid last Saturday, but, took such lousy photos they did not warrent posting.
Today work has also been quiet, and so I took time out to sort through a few files and came across some movie clips. This one seems just so typical of Karachi.

Empress Market Part 4

Becoming a bit of a series. Empress 1 through 4....
Anyway Fahim, Wanna and I finally got our first day at the market and it went well. We had a good idea of what we wanted. But the usual thing, once there things seemed to be a little different. Fahim placed the first section on the uTube.

Fahim does Empress Market

Wanna's collection of clips

The best part was chatting to everyone and Fahim speaking Urdu made such a difference. I am sure we will end up with some good stuff. Will try and do some more this week.
The Dawn new paper competition ends shortly. We want in.
So constructive comments to make it all better ....please and more please..................

Empress Market Part 3

The short video is slowly, I mean slowly moving forward. Check earlier Empress Market entries. I went down to the market this morning and took a few site shots. It was about 09.00am and things were just starting up. Fabulous array of traders and rickshaw drivers etc getting organised for the day. Here in this posting you have some fabulous shots of the good side of Empress Market. I know it is easy to write about these places and make it all sound so 'pretty' and so forth. However a friend chatted with me today (thanks Mac) and suggested/requested I try and portray more of the real feelings about visiting and being in such places. He's got a good point and I've decided therefore to add a bit more to this posting and try to explain what he meant. When you look at these pictures you all see an array of colours and a generally smiling and happy set of people going about their daily business with little or no mention by me of the dirt, squaller, rancid smells, piles of shit etc which you have to step over to get anywhere, and far less, any comment by me, on the generally poor live style of so many of them ( life style being an exaggeration by any stretch of the definition). You can be forgiven therefore after reading my Blogs for assuming life in Karachi is not so bad. Well for some like me it's great, but it is not so good for most, and for a vast majority of souls working in and around the market area its tough, uncompromising and I imagine downright depressing.
So during the next few posting I think I will make a determined departure from my usual topics and put in an effort and concentrate on a few of the environmental and social aspects to life in Karachi. A sort of 'these are the bad side of things'. I'll be going back to Empress market as a starter, and will try in a very realistic fashion to capture the 'other side' of it all. Hygiene or lack thereof will be a predominant feature. Could be I do a 'nice' video of Empress Market and maybe a second one as if to say there are several sides to Karachi. Good and definitely not so good. I've stayed away from it thinking readers don't want to know, and I've been happy to write about good stuff as well, but, now maybe it's time to look at the 'dark side'.
What do you think? Do you agree? If you've managed to read this far please give me some feed back on this aspect. Thanks.(p.s. that's what the comments box is for!!!). Look forward to hearing from you.

Sunday Lunch

After my strange lunch with it all being lost in translation (see last post). It was really good to have a sit down lunch with a bunch of Wanna's friends. We went round to Oi's house and together with her family and two other families had some noodles and fish with assorted veggies etc making a great meal. The mixture of nationalities was no real surprise being UK, Pakistan and Thai with the surprise of one Japanese. Good food and good company. Very pleasant and relaxing Sunday.

.....lost in the translation.......

I had been planning on doing a short write up on the local fishing harbour. That's after I get round to the Empress Market story.
But today I went to work as usual, realizing I needed to add a short "Alan in Karachi' feature.
Well it was a usual day in the fact that I went to work but it turned out not a completely normal day. You know that feeling when you get up in the morning and you just know that somehow things are not going to be straight forward. Well I had that feeling. You're never sure just what it is, or when that 'thing' will happen, but, when it does you know.
Well that 'thing' just happened for me. Lunch time came along and I asked for my usual "peas with chilli and nan bread"!! You know, same stuff as yesterday and the day before. "Yes Sir, no problem" said Sham Gee Sana. (right in picture). Sham, our tea boy has been buying this stuff for me on a daily basis for over a couple of months. So easy thing to do. Rizvan our office boy, who had been listening to this exchange, very quickly joined in to show off his linguistic skills. He repeated my request in Urdu so Sham was double clear what was required.

So very simple

Peas with chilli and nan bread

turned into..............

Cheese with chilli sauce and bread and nan

If you can work that out? Let me know. Time for me to go home and put my feet up and watch the TV, maybe even have a toasted cheese sandwich. There's a thought. Why didn't I think of that for lunch?

Chairs

We had a walk round the side streets of Saddar Market today looking for furniture etc. Plenty to see and an amazing display of ingenuity by a lot of industrious workers. Amazing because walking on the main road you would never suspect that behind a little entrance was a labyrinth of alleyways and hundreds of tiny shops all making a living. The products range from office chairs being recovered to mending hand operated sewing machines. And in the middle of all this was a printers. We then found the local coffee shop. Will be back again soon.

Charcoal and things that pass you by in Karachi

Went out for a drive and came across a charcoal maker. Not a fun job. seems they are a few young boys employed to cut wood and stack it up for either selling as fuel or making charcoal. Not much evidence of the charcoal but the stacking was interesting. Notice in the pictures the plain almost lack of colours. That's how it is. Very bland, somewhat dark even with the sun full out. I walked into the yard and had a chat with the young lad who was sitting down stacking small wood cuttings. A very one sided conversation, in fact I don't recall him saying anything!!!! He smiled when I walked up to him. Did not get up, no movement just looked at me. Just showed me a clear bright 'red' set of teeth and accompanied this display with the lovely vacant betel juice look in the eyes. Doubt if he even remembers I called in, much less would have had any interest in my visit anyway. However, on reflection, if I had to work there, then I'm 100 % sure I would want a vacant mind as well. Might just try the juice.

On a much lighter note there were all sorts of things to see while just driving along. So difficult to describe and just as hard to bring across in pictures. Karachi is a kaleidoscope of colours and contrasts. Just look at these contrasts and range of activities in the photos taken in a 10 minute period. And all within about 1 kilometer of each other. We've got the horse crossing the road, the Police stopping a camel truck, a couple of young lads on a bike, buses and a vibrant life going on around us. The effort that went into painting the wheel pictured below. What does it tell you? Either they are very artistic truck drivers or they have plenty of spare time!!!!

Travelling, anyway which way does not seem to be an issue. If the bus is full no worries all climb on the roof. I have often wondered if I was on top of the bus how would I tell the driver when its time to stop so I can get off ?#$%...

If your carrying reinforcement steel, as one does on such trucks, then don't be normal and sit in the cab but on the steel. Rough ride!. Wonderful afternoon on the outskirts of Karachi.