Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
The featured image’s young boys were zipping along a typically-narrow, lively street.
I was standing just-inside the “Royal Baths” – a meticulously restored building which is one of the walled city’s greatest treasures. (eventually, this series will “explore” the Shahi Hammam)
Presumably, “minimum legal driving age” rules are not rigorously enforced in Lahore!
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Above, you are looking at the meticulously restored/refreshed Gali Surjan Singh, which is now one of the most “upmarket” streets in the Walled City of Lahore.
This is a street where dining and shopping options are abundant.
For obvious reasons, the same is not true of nearby Patli Gali, pictured below.
Nonetheless, precisely because it is allegedly the narrowest “visitor-friendly” street in Lahore’s entire megacity, Patli Gali is a “must see” for visitors to Lahore’s walled city.
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As we enjoyed our drum-driven welcome, we visitors/tourists had a little “forest” of our phone-cameras, blazing. (& yours truly’s camera-as-such)
Also blazing were at least as many phone-cameras in local residents’ hands.
Mutual curiosity and bonhomie were abundantly evident.
This little “event” proved enjoyable to all persons present, including those who were not photographing it.
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(The musical bonus features a man who was very possibly the greatest tabla player in recorded history. It is hard to imagine that there has ever been a more prodigiously gifted player of any drum. I am around 99% certain that you have never heard of him, let alone heard him. For the final 49 of his 66 years he lived in Lahore)
Immediately after our more “formal” welcome, we were made even more welcome, more personally, in a courtyard adjacent to Delhi Gate.
Drums and garlands were involved.
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Over the course of seven fascinating hours, we saw a great many people in Lahore’s “walled city”.
Fellow members of our own group aside, not one of them was another “Western” tourist.
For the foreseeable future, I imagine, very few Westerners are likely to walk through Delhi Gate, and then experience one of the world’s most interesting urban precincts.
Presumably, that explains why our arrival was treated as one deserving of a “formal”, official welcoming ceremony!
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“Old Delhi” is renowned worldwide; arguably, it is the most “happening” urban place on “our” planet.
My beloved and I are among many millions of Westerners who have experienced Old Delhi, directly. (more than once)
Very few 21st century Westerners have visited the Walled City of Lahore.
Also known as “old Lahore”, or as the “old city”, it is rather less frenetic than Old Delhi.
It is, however, very much richer in architectural/artistic splendour than is Old Delhi.
We begin this series at Lahore’s Delhi Gate. (not coincidentally, Old Delhi has a Lahore Gate)
An old Punjabi saying about Lahore is akin to a declaration made by at least two proud Italian cities: that one should see Naples/Venice, then die.
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Arguably, India’s Taj Mahal is the most world’s most sublime building.
However, Agra is not the global hotspot for prime examples of Mughal architecture and its decoration.
Lahore – Pakistan’s second largest city – has the largest number of bona fide “jaw-dropping” Mughal constructions.
(I think Lahore is also a much more generally-rewarding/likeable destination than is Agra)
The last Mughal mosque – the world’s largest mosque, when constructed in 1671-73 – is in Lahore.
Lahore’s Old City is much less frenetic than Old Delhi, but the former is much the richer, architecturally.
Agra’s Red Fort is stupendous, but Lahore Fort is even more so.
Above, you are looking at merely a small section of Lahore Fort’s picture wall.
The world’s biggest such “mural” occupies circa 6,600 square metres of the fort’s exterior.
Comments closedAlmost any “educated” Australian could easily locate the United Kingdom’s largest metropolis on a globe or a map of the world, sans-index.
Many, however, would struggle to “find” Pakistan’s second-biggest city.
Lahore houses many more humans than does London
Both cities are fascinating, sophisticated, culturally rich.
I took the photo from a UNESCO World Heritage listed “Paradise Garden” which is at least 375 years older than the commuter trains which now zip past it, every few minutes.
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