The Salt Range

The aforementioned Salt Range: this may be of more interest to you engineers and other geeks, but it has some nice scenery too!

Once you get down to Islamabad from where we are, the journey is amazingly flat for several hundred kilometres. So after all that flatness, it's intriguing to encounter a succession of increasingly urgent-sounding signs...





























































...before heading onto a 10km-long, 50kph-limited, 7%-inclined series of double bends, cuttings and bridges that looks something like this...



















...complete with escape roads for those whose brakes aren't up to it (looks like it's been used a few times too!):
















In this one you can see where they've obviously had to swerve the road inwards a bit from the edge after it got too precarious:



















Some striking scenery - all of these were taken on the return journey - on the way there it was so hazy you couldn't see much beyond the road itself:



















While the speed limit for those double bends is mostly 50kph, the trucks have to settle for less than a 10th of that as they settle down into hill-climbing gear for the long haul upwards:



















In our area there are plenty of twisty little mountain roads that snake along the sides of valleys in improbable ways, but to do it with a 6-lane motorway is pretty darn impressive.

Orientation conference

We've been back for a few days now, but hadn't quite got round to updating you on our orientation conference in Lahore. When we tried to book our Daewoo (that's the coach company here - connected to the car company of the same name) tickets we weren't too disappointed to learn that one of the colleges had booked the entire 6.30am bus, meaning we'd have to get the 11.30am instead. What a shame.

The Daewoo bus is fairly special: the overall experience is closer to travelling on an airline than a bus (but with more legroom), with baggage checks, luggage tags, and a hostess who brings round newspapers and refreshments. And the equivalent of £8 gets you a 7.5 hour journey. Unfortunately ours picked up a puncture on one of its inner rear tyres, which added another 90 minutes.



















Especially for Laurence, I should point out that the full writing on the green rickshaw reads "MASTER PANTHER".

The journey includes one rather special stretch through the Salt Range, including what I think is the craziest piece of motorway engineering I've ever experienced, which I shall save for a post of its own in full geekish glory.

A friendly chap I met on the bus (and even bought us chicken at one of the stops) helped find us a taxi who wouldn't overcharge us. The journey to the college campus at which the conference was taking place was straightforward enough, but actually finding where to go once we were inside the vast maze of buildings, gardens and arches (in the dark) took so long that we decided to tip him a little extra. The campus was very nice indeed. Here are some of us watching the ubiquitous cricket match.



















The conference itself was great, mainly just for the chance to meet a few other folk in a similar boat. There were 25 or so of us from locations all over the country. We had some fascinating talks on culture, religion, politics and local church history, interviews with local church leaders, and even a cooking lesson ("make sure you don't waste any of the oil!" - we can see why so many of the more affluent people here struggle to keep their weight down!).

On the last day we had an outing to the Wagah Border ceremony (detailed post with pics to follow), before a lovely meal out with one of the other couples (at a buffet restaurant - endless variety of curries being made in front of you, live music, pretty swish - not the kind of thing we'd frequent, but great for a rare treat).

On the journey back we broke the journey at the house of a couple of our new friends, then got a couple of minibuses back up from Pindi. The last one waited until it was full, then set off. Then stopped to pick up just one more passenger to be squeezed in wherever possible. Then again for one more. And again. And one more time, this time for a family of three, prompting a complete re-shuffle so that no women were sitting next to unrelated men. Wouldn't like to do that for more than a short ride!

Oh, and when we got back, it was cold! Apparently there was a big hailstorm soon after we left, and it's been triple-layer temperature ever since - bit of a shock to the system!

Lepidoptery 3 - Striped Tiger

Squeegie merchant!

Today I went down to 'Pindi with the workshop boss to get the first batch of supplies for our prototype solar water heater. Here's the edited highlights of the day, complete with random hotchpotch of sights, observations and random impressions:

Mobile Goat Bouncers. For a while on the drive down we were stuck behind a small truck chock-a-block full of goats. There were also two guys in the back with the goats, whose job seemingly was to clamber about the place disciplining their charges if they misbehaved. All while barreling down a bumpy hill, swerving around the other traffic. Can't say I particularly envied them their job.

First stop - the metal merchant:




















After purchasing our copper pipe and aluminium sheet, we headed to a little shop where we were presented with an ever-growing pile of different pipe fittings and valves. Here the language barrier didn't help general communication - after about 20 minutes I drew the chap a quick diagram and he said "Ah, for this you need 3/4" to 1/2" reducing tees." Which I could have told him right at the start! Or rather I could, had I been able to follow any of the conversation, or known how to say any of that in Urdu.

The taxis in Pindi are almost as finely decorated as the trucks in the rest of the country. The very best ones, which unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to snap, had a large painting of an animal on the side in addition to all the other paraphernalia: tigers were popular, as were white horses, as (for some reason) were eagles fighting cobras. But the BJW award of geniusness has to go to the one proudly displaying an intricately painted 3-foot lobster.
















The drivers here also have their own equivalent of the UK's once-ubiquitous "My other car is a Porsche" stickers - writing on the back of a tiny Suzuki pick-up said, I'm reliably informed: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a truck".

Taxi race:
















Members of the Wilson clan will no doubt be thrilled to hear that we also went to a genuine Pakistani squeegie merchant. Need a plunger (or ten?), any kind of brush, or a random basket-y thing? He's got them too!

Some of the trucks have proper pictures on as well as random patterns. I'm a fan of the somewhat bewildered expression on the tiger.




















A final thought: watching a suzuki with 8 men clinging onto the back of it go over a speed-bump is, for some reason, really rather amusing.

New clothes

So, you may remember a little while ago that I was shopping for some cloth for some new clothes for my birthday. Well, today, a month later I finally have my new suits, (after 2 visits to the ribbon shop, 2 visits to the tailor and 1 visit to my language teacher's talented sewing sister!).

I'm very pleased with the results and you should know that the green suit is in the very latest style! I don't think my friends would describe me as an avid follower of fashion, but there are so many beautiful fabrics and colours and shiny things here I'm getting quite into it. It's a good job they're not too expensive...

Turns of phrase

While Urdu is mostly reasonably straight-forward to translate once you get your head around it, today's lessons produced some rather... well... unwieldy sentence constructions.

We were doing an activity on seeing and hearing things (actual physical things, not hallucinations), and I wanted to say we could hear a bird's footsteps on the corrugated iron roof. Which ended up being:

"We, above the room, on the roof, the voice of the walking of the bird can hear."

Similarly, 'I can hear the dog barking' became:

"I, outside, the loud barking voice of the dog can hear."

Phew.

The thought crossed my mind earlier today that doing live interpretation of Urdu to English must be made incredibly difficult by the differences in word order; if it was a long sentence, you'd have to memorise it all until you finally got to the verb at the end of the sentence before you could translate it, by which time the speaker would be well on the way through their next sentence...

Lepidoptery 2

It's high time Herbert was demoted from the top of the blog in favour of more beautiful creatures...

(click the images to see larger versions)

This one's an Indian Cabbage White - there are loads of these.

And this fine fellow is an Indian Fritillary.

EDIT: Actually, no he's not; she's a Painted Lady. (Mistook page 31 for fig. 31 in my book. Oops.)

I'm much better pleased with these pictures than my previous attempts; partly aided by the fact that these ones do occasionally pause (and actually land rather than hover), partly by better light, but mostly because I finally found the manual focus mode on my camera. Its macro mode has an unfortunate habit of focussing on entirely the wrong part of the picture, so while manual can be slightly more hit-or-miss, it's worth it when they come out right. I think I need a proper SLR.

I love the way you can see her tongue going right down into the depths of the flower. Which brings us to what I think is my favourite of all my photos from this trip so far:

Also, the other day we saw a large dark one, similar in shape and size to the Common Peacocks, but entirely black, and I think with slightly different shaped wings. I haven't managed to track down his identity anywhere. Maybe he's some kind of nefarious butterfly anti-hero.

"Do we have poisonous spiders here?"

So, this morning's drama:

I found this beastie beside our bed. Let's call him Herbert. What fun.

Apparently it was my turn, Jenny having captured the other week's hornet-y thing. After deciding against the bowl-and-card-capture (couldn't find any un-floppy card), I reluctantly approached Herbert with the bug spray. (I'm not a screaming heebie-jeebies arachnophobe, but neither am I Gavin, so much as I'd like to present this as a thrilling and courageous pursuit of great and triumphant daring, I feel that would be less than truthful...)

I finally got him, after expending half a bottle of the stuff, and chasing him around our bedroom, under the bed, moving suitcases out of the way, and generally shuddering. Herbert is fast. Oh, and don't forget the part where I felt a nip on the back of my knee, and shook out my trousers while Jenny made some slightly hysterical noises.

I don't think we do have any poisonous spiders here. I think I would have noticed by now.

Urgh.

Photo post: a walk and a look at the local scenery

(click to see bigger versions)

Last week we had our first proper outing in the local area, and it was nice to see a bit of what surrounds where we live. We took a suzuki (taxi) up out of the village with a couple of our colleagues, then walked a few miles back down to another point on the KKH to catch another home again.

Here is a brilliant little cable car, apparently made from the top half of a suzuki suspended from a couple of cables on little wheels. We didn't have time to stop and have a go unfortunately - hopefully next time.

I generally associate cable cars with tourist attractions or ski resorts, but this is a perfectly serious everyday method of transport.

A view over part of one of the villages.

Jenny with two of our hospital colleagues. This is a typical inter-village road. Some of the main ones are tarmac-ed, others are just gravel. The landscape is very hilly, with deep sheer valleys cutting through everything, so the roads are never direct. Hence the cable car above.

The other day I went to visit one of the workshop employees houses - the hospital puts some funds into helping its employees with their house repairs/improvements now and again, so we went to see what could be done at this guy's. The journey there was quite an adventure, involving a suzuki ride (other vehicles are too big to fit) along a riverbed complete with flowing stream, tracks tilting at crazy angles above steep valleys, and a memorable uphill section which required a run-up, followed by most of us hopping out, pushing, then walking up to catch up with our driver. The chap and his family live in 3 rooms perched on the edge of a valley, one breeze-block, the other two mud-brick, with bits of old corrugated iron sheeting for a roof - quite an eye-opener.

Looking out across the main valley - the hospital is somewhere down behind and to the left of the ridge with the village on it.

My photo-stitching program (Hugin) produces some fairly excellent results, but the power lines seem to have defeated it!

Lollipop tree.

Blue pansies (the blue part's on the inside of their wings - perhaps a photo another day!). There were lots of amazing (but fast-moving) butterflies which I entirely failed to get anywhere near with the camera, and it was only when we got back to the hospital that I got the ones in the previous post.

Corn is one of the main crops, grown in fields, and wherever there's a free patch of ground. The locals will often stop to greet you and chat, but are a bit bemused by the concept of walking for pleasure or to enjoy the scenery!

Stairway to heaven? Buildings are built wherever there's a moderately flat piece of ground. Often the land is owned by absentee landlords from whom the local people rent their plots.

Looking down one of the valleys back towards the KKH.

10-foot grass.

Lepidoptery

After 5 weeks of trying to get close enough to these beauties with a camera, here's a few snaps of what may or may not be a Paris Peacock.

EDIT: On the other hand, after looking through a butterfly book someone lent me, it might be more likely to be a Common Peacock...

All of my pics are somewhat blurry, which, while slightly galling from a photography point-of-view, actually gives a good impression of how they look. Because I have yet to see one of these stop. Ever.

Also, the best view you get of them is when they stop flapping for a second or two and go into a glide, and you can see their full 5-6 inch wings in all their glory. Trouble is, they tend to move at a speed roundabout a reasonable running pace - which obviously wouldn't coincide with optimal photo-taking pace, should you be foolish enough to bother to actually run after one.

Most butterflies I've come across give the impression of flapping about in a somewhat aimless, random fashion; these, however, move with purpose, seemingly choosing the next destination from a good distance away then heading straight for it. And they seem to visit similar areas at similar times of day, which makes taking their pictures that little bit less difficult.

A visit to the capital

Yesterday we forewent our lie-in to go on a visit to the capital, leaving at 7am for the estimated 2.5hr journey. Travelling here is never boring; even apart from the excitement of negotiating the traffic, there are always plenty of interesting things to look at. Here's a view from the road as we drive down the valley:

Going through one of the towns on the way down, the traffic slowed and stopped. I should explain at this point that traffic jams here (like everything else traffic-y) are somewhat more chaotic than at home. Here's sort of how it works:

• First line (nearest the side) of traffic slows to a halt.
• A few drivers, including our own, quickly get impatient, and move out to overtake, forming a 2nd line of traffic.
• We move forward a little, then this line too slows to a halt.
• Impatience -> move out into 3rd line -> slow to a halt.
• Repeat, until there are 5 or 6 lines of traffic going our way.

Then, clearly not going anywhere, we wait a bit. Our driver hops out to chat to a few other drivers. We discover later that the story appears to be that a few lorry drivers have blocked the road over pay disputes. We gather from the gestures going on outside that there might be an alternative route around the blockage.

So we turn round and head back the way we've come - easier said than done as the aforementioned impatient drivers are still doing their move-outwards-another-lane thing until the whole place is fairly jammed. Another stop for directions, and we're off down this tiny side road, squeezing past tractors and the like, heading out of the town to the side. And as we head across a bit of a dip in the road, a local gestures off to one side. So we turn off again, down what is clearly...

a river bed:

It's obviously a well-used route in non-monsoon time, with turn-offs to different parts of the surrounding settlements, and we meet various other cars, trucks and motorbikes picking their way along the tracks between boulders, banks and muddy bits. Our driver is a hard-to-read (though not unfriendly) chap of few words, but I got the impression he was enjoying himself.

When we arrive 3-and-a-half hours after we left, the capital is very obviously a planned city, with wide, straight highways set out in a grid pattern; a typical address might read something like House 364, Street 28. It's not the kind of place you could easily get around on foot. We meet up with one of our hospital colleagues who has been down here for the night before, and head into town and to the various markets. We pick up our one souvenir so far - a rather beautiful little table, the top of which looks a bit like this:

The shopkeeper apparently has relatives who have been treated at the hospital, so gives us a discount, after serving refreshments while we look around. The shop is full of fascinating bits of furniture and suchlike, a couple of highlights being a rocking-camel, and a glass table which has 15 or so legs set out in a circle - but with the difference that each leg supports the tabletop at the opposite side from where it's foot touches the ground, having woven through all the other legs on its way past. The overall effect is like a cylindrical woven basket. Each leg is entirely separate from all the others, but looped around and through all the others, and the whole thing has obviously been carved from one single huge piece of wood. It's like one of those soapstone sculptures you sometimes see, but hugely more complex. I don't bother enquiring about its price...

Then we go to have a look at the Faisal mosque, a vast marble structure. You leave your shoes at the entrance, then make sure that you walk on the white marble in the sun rather than the black!

We are treated to a great lunch at an 'Italian' restaurant, then it's the bookshop (Jenny's favourite!), a quick look around a couple of other markets, back past the furniture place for something our colleague had bought when we were there earlier, a stop for water, then back on the road. The journey back is less eventful, the road having been opened once more, though driving in the darkness certainly keeps the excitement level up. (Remember, if your vehicle is at the faster end of the spectrum, any trip is basically one constant overtaking manoeuvre!)

And relax.

Solar Survey

Yesterday afternoon's work: a solar obstacle survey from the laundry roof, with a view to eventually putting in a solar water heater for the washing machines.

Step 1: determine what direction true south is. Which means first of all looking up a sundial calendar to look up the time of solar noon (as opposed to local noon, which while always at 12 o'clock, varies in relation to solar noon as we spin and move around the sun. Clear? Not sure I'm explaining this terribly well...) for our specific latitude and longitude is on this specific date. Being the 23rd, only a couple of days after the equinox, this turns out to be 11:59 and 41 seconds. So call it midday then, after all that.

So, now I know that true south is that way, the direction of the sun at 12. (Oh, alright, 11:59.41.) Happily, this is only a couple of degrees out from the way my favoured piece of roof is pointing, so I'm going to simplify things by aligning to the line of the roof instead.

Step 2: Come back after lunch and climb onto the laundry roof. Easier said than done I have to say, though one of my workshop-fellows holds the rickety made-of-odd-bits-of-wood-tied-together-with-rope ladder up for me. Health and safety is a personal option here. The roof is (this time in the afternoon, pretty toasty!) corrugated iron, which offers no handholds, but the rubber of my trainer soles proves friction-y enough. I settle onto my perch on the top of the roof and unpack my useful and hi-tech instruments.

Yup, these are my handy here's-one-I-made-earlier Azimuth Angle and Elevation Gauges. Which, yes, are made of an old cornflakes packet, some thread, and a largish nut.

Step 3: Point my hi-tech instruments at things on the skyline that might get in the way of the sun, and measure their bearings and elevation angles. Threatening thundery noises from those clouds gathering in the east: this roof would be slippery in the wet, so I hurry up a little.

Step 4: Accept the help of a couple of random loitering patient-relatives, who have been watching me quizzically for the last half-hour, in getting back down again with all my things and bones intact.

Step 5: Back at the workshop, transfer beautifully measured skyline onto a chart of where the sun is at any time over the course of the year (it's amazing what useful tools you can find on the internet these days...). Even though I knew as much, it still amazed me how little difference there is between daylight hours in summer and winter, and thus how low in the sky the sun gets.

The upshot of which is that even in winter time the sun clears that big tree at 160° that I had worried might be troublesome. It's looks like we'll get a decent long stretch of strong sunshine in the middle of the day (obviously weather-dependent) most of the year round.