Karachi Me, Karachi You

The first step to go further

A new day to celebrate, since this day is my first journey to go north a little bit further ... more closer to Santa Claus's home (north pole). But the worse thing come, the flight delayed ... the officer just told the passengers : 'until further notice, please come again 1 hour to get the last update' ... and this is cool, even the big airlines have this messages to their customer. So I just sit and relax, especially after they gave me the lunch voucher 8-) ... enjoy my mixed grilled, soup of the day, cheese cake plus ice lemon tea.

1 hour later I come back to the line and they inform the flight could be at 1535 hrs ... more than 3 hours late from the schedule (1215 hrs), so again I must always be calm and relax. Do check-in, put my baggage in there and goto immigration.

After immigration, the first thing to do is find the internet access in there ... create a blog and check my emails plus see the information about Karachi. Since my reference book, the lonely planet give some info about security issue on this city.

And the journey begin at 1645 hrs, it's delayed for 4 hours plus ... it's amazing and this will make me to prepare to walking brisk to catch the plane to Karachi in Bangkok. Come to the plane, sit nicely, close my eyes and keep wishing that everything run alright until I come back to Singapore.

Once they let the passenger to go out from the plane, I'm just walking brisk (almost run) to the transfer gate and jump to the bus that carry me to the plane. The atmosphere is suddenly changed so fast in the bus, cause only 2 people with chinese look ... me and the other passenger 8-) ... but luckly there's another chinese look in the plane & the airline set me to sit with the one of them ... Korean.

So there's a people to talk too, even with the tarzan's language ... he he he he he ... 'no', 'yes', 'ok', 'same-same' is the common words on the conversation with him ... he's a fisherman, cause he inform me that he will work for the company named 'ABC Fishing Corp.' ... cool huh 8-).

The plane arrived at 1130 hrs (almost midnight) ... check-in to immigration, get my baggage, cash-out some of my money to RS (Pakistani Rupee) and find my transport from airport to hotel ... my collague already arrange that for me. But unfortunately, I must pay for RS 1000 for service charges and RS 100 for tips ... 8-( ... so still the service like this need to pay, since from what I know the transportation is free of charge in Singapore ... even in my country.

No choice that I must pay that since on the other reference book that I read, inform to me about 'do not travel on the night from the airport, better to arrange to have a pickup from the hotel OR just stay in the airport until morning'. So it's better to pay that bloody service charges and stay in the hotel ... 8-).

Arrived at the hotel, check-in and meet my collague - JA ... and he do a short briefing first plus give me a bottle of mineral water for surviving on the night ... he tells me do not to drink a water and there's a rust inside of the water boiler ... he he he he he ... hope this is a right place to stay for a month 8-). So after he go to his room, I take a shower, take my dinner which is a mineral water only and after that count sheeps .... one sheep, two sheeps and good night Karachi .. see, you can see how tired i am ... just count two sheep only and i'm in heaven already.

Travel around on the first day

I sleep like a baby, no dream ... it's look like my body on cybernate ... all is shutdown, no activity 8-) and on 0730 hrs wake-up with all power, the battery has been re-charge and I'm ready for activity. So the plan for this day is setup my notebook so I can browsing around on the hotel lobby, buy some food & mineral water to survive in this country, OR meet God at the church ??? 8-).

The amazing scenery is a sunrise that I saw thru my windows and the flying bird like falcon in the sky ... hundreds of them flying in the sky with the heat that has been release from earth ... they flying elegant like eagle ... so i meet my friends in here, since my nick name at the office is 'cute hawk' 8-)

Breakfast will be finished at 1030 hrs, so at 1000 hrs I go down to the cafetaria in front of the lobby. Bread, prata, naan are here ... no rice ... plus some traditional food, orange juices, sweet laazy, western food & fruits ... good breakfast, but KPC mining site still giving me the best breakfast 8-).

The Clifton area is the next destination. And we realiased that Sunday in Karachi is a day for family, so almost all shops are closed ... luckily KFC, McD and some supermarket are open ... so purchase 2 botol of mineral water (@ 1.5 litre), 2 Maggie Chicken Soup, 2 Kit-Kat, 4 cup of noodles ... yup, cup of noodles and this one is import directly from my home town ... and this is a gift from God for me to survive in here 8-).

On the way from / to hotel, I found the beautiful building ... it's a gothic architecture, like a cathedral in my home town ... but the colour is different, the wall with the earth colour with the red colour on the roof ... too bad that I cannot take a picture of this building since my friend warn me not to take it cause the building in front of US embassy ... the security on this area is very tight like Fort Knox 8-).

I take the picture of that building from my room, so you can saw the beauty of that building from a distance.

One thing that you need to know in Karachi is almost every shop in here will be guard by security guard ... at least the guard will carry the shotgun like FN45 or the famous AK47 (completed with the bayonet knife, but off-course not with the combat mode 8-). My comment on this is 'when you come to the place when the people carry a gun, you cannot declare that place as the safe place' ... there's a security issue on this place.

Hope there will be a peace around the world, so everyone can see the beauty of the places without worried about security issue. Peace to the world and to every heart that living on this world.

Cheers,
Adisuria Wangsadinata - Karachi, Pakistan