A birthday outing

Saturday being Jenny's birthday, we went into the next big town with a couple of friends. We visited several cloth shops to get Jenny some "birthday suits". The shopkeeper-to-customer work ratio is definitely the right way round: you sit on a comfy sofa and point at what you want to see, and the guy gets them out and unrolls them for you. Then if you don't want them, they do all the putting away. Also, since you take them to the tailor to get made for you, they're more-or-less guaranteed to fit you. Bonus!

Jenny (under the tablecloth (or chaddor)) at the cloth counter.

Trying on a dupatta.

About 1/20th of the selection in one of the half-dozen cloth shops we visited. I like the swirly one in the bottom row. It's a shame the men's fashions are so much drabber - you could make some cracking hawaiian shirts out of some of these...

A visit to the nut man. Nuts and dried fruit are good, but a lot of hard work: you have to remove all the stalks/stones/dust, wash them in a mild detergent solution, rinse, and finally bake them in the oven for 10 mins before they're safe to eat!

A view down one of the bazaar streets.

Our driver purchasing some freshly-cooked-in-its-husk-at-the-side-of-the-road corn.

As promised, a first half-decent pic of the painted trucks. Uphill they are pursued by an impatient queue of wannabe overtakers.

Trumpeter serenades the entry of the cake.

Chocolate-y traybake-y Pakistani-flag-y goodness. Yum.