Recognizing the comfort of my own city

by Ali Sher Durrani (Pakistan)

Making a local connection Pakistan

A sudden plan is what I experienced on the day, when one of my friend convinced me to go with one of our friend circle to a part of northern areas of Pakistan which is Quetta and Ziarat at the province of Baluchistan. The aim of going for this trip was to see the snowfall which was predicted on our day of visits. I didn't wanted to go on this trip because I already had a made up schedule on the days of trip as I paid for a MUN (model united nation) which is a confernce, and I couldn't let this expense of mine wasted, so I agreed to go only if we would be able to come back from the trip earlier and would also be able to attend the conference and if in any case we wouldn't be able to return soon then I would be paid for the expenses for my conference. We travelled by train to Quetta but the expectation that we had of the train was a lot better the the actuality, with the cabin we booked had no door and the train was moving much slower with consistent interval breaks. Even the sound of movement of the train was a bit loud. The train travelled through a whole province of Sindh before going to Balochistan, we realized that we've entered Balochistan when the view changed from fields of crops to a bit mountainous. What we thought to be a 10 hours journey turned out to be 25 hours long to reach at Quetta station which was the last station of the train, during traveling at train the most of the time 4 of us spent in these 25 hours was talking, playing uno, watching movie, and sleeping. We reached Quetta at night , I was feeling chilled and joyous as in Karachi you don't experience breath vapour as it's not that chilled in Karachi so it was something new for us. We needed a place to stay at night, so we were aided by a passenger who we met during our travelling on train, who told us where we can find cheap rooms to spend the night at. We took a rickshaw and when to a street which was full of motels The street was not much crowded but people were there mostly at dhaba (a small hotel which is mostly prefered for snacks and tea). Our rickshaw stopped at motel and the driver took us inside to show us the rooms while 3 of my friends went to check the rooms I was waiting outside to lookover the bags. By this time as it was getting darker, the cold breeze also started to increase. My friends came, and we carried the bags to the room that they selected, the room consisted of 3 beds, a tv, a washroom which was tidy and the room's space was enough for 4 of us. After changing and putting on some more clothes and get freshed up, all of us went to restaurant, which was well known in Quetta. We all went by feet as it was on walking distance, we're walking through a whole large market, and it was just 8 pm and there were barely any people in the market and some shops were even closing, which was surprising to us as in Karachi, streets are well crowded till 12 too, the streets were also clean. After walking we all arrived at the restaurant, which had well heated system which was comfortable for us. We order a chicken karahi, which was chicken in thick liquid mixed with spices dish and mutton sachi whicb is like a cooked dry mutton, the food was served us with raita and 4 large oval shaped naams, which was enough for per person. The karachi was tasty, while we felt the mutton was a bit taste less. After doing dinner we walked back to our motel, by now it was colder then before we were starting to freeze, we started to jog to our way at motel so that we can keep our body warm, while going we also purchased hot peanuts from a dry fruit cart to eat while we reach our room.