Pattika and driving

Having deposited the GBPs in the bank, we now have to wait until Tuesday before it’s available in rupees. Shame – holiday until then ;-) We decided to go to one of the villages where Nisara had done some recent work teaching women how to grow vegetables for their own purposes and for income. The road to Pattika was winding and earthquake damaged meaning that the ~20km trip took about 1.5hours. The whole journey tracked the Neelum river and the landscape was amazing, with mountains everywhere, including snow-capped ones in the not-so-distant backdrop. Seeing such a snowy view seemed odd because I was slowly roasting in the car. But, that just shows how mountainous the area is and I guess, why it’s an earthquake-prone area. Pattika is more of a small town than a village and is really pretty, set on the rising slopes of the Neelum river. The houses were mostly multi-coloured and bright, and earthquake damage seemed less obvious here.

We ate lunch at the Marco Polo restaurant which is apparently Pattika’s finest. Now, one must remember than this is Pakistan so what is meant by “finest” is not quite the same as what we would imagine it to look like back home in the UK. The restaurant resembled something of a tin shack with what probably was meant to be the gardens. There were plastic chairs and tables everywhere and groups of men sitting around them. We went around to the back of the establishment to the ‘veranda garden’ which has the sorriest and unsafest looking children’s play area you will ever see and which led onto the incredibly fast-flowing Neelum river. As you can imagine, I wasn’t holding out much hope for the food given this setting. We ordered the ‘desi’ menu which consisted of 3 curries made from leaves of the spinach family, and fried and plain corn chapattis. Oh my goodness! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was the most lovely food I’d tasted in a very long time. It wasn’t too greasy and it was all vegetarian which is the complete opposite to most Pakistani food. Lush, lush, lush!

After eating far too much that lunch time, we then climbed onto the rocks and boulders beside the river – it was very pleasant indeed, though somewhat strange given that we were dressed in traditional Pakistani clothes with completely inappropriate footwear over a very deep, choppy river where only 1 of us (me!) could actually swim. I’m beginning to think that poor safety is the theme of the trip :-o

And just to top it all off, I asked if I could drive the car back home, which I was obliged and when we reached the city, I tried to drive like a Pakistani and I got the car almost crushed between one of their rather large decorated trucks and a line of cars!? I screamed like a crazy woman at which point Nisara told me to stop being an idiot (for the screaming, not the driving, would you believe!) I pulled up shortly after this incident and handed the car back to the driver. In spite of all this, I somehow doubt that this will be the last time I try driving in Pakistan this trip.