After staying an extra day in Sukkur Adam, our driver, was well enough to continue. We set off in searing heat and a dust cloud.
The scenery is becoming more agricultural and we are see our first heard of water buffalo there are more cattle instead of goats. The roads are improving and our police escort is a lot more professional, getting us through the traffic using sirens and hand signals, to stop the traffic as we pass through, even at some of the tolls we just drive thorough, this makes us feel like celebrities as people just stare at us and wave.
We are seeing more women as we move further away from the border with Afghanistan, they are dressed more colourfully and are working out in the fields, there was even a pickup truck full of them, it looked like they were on a hen night sort of trip, as they were shouting and singing.
We notice that each town seems to have its own brick works the bricks are all hand made and delivered by donkey or camel cart to the town. Still lots of lorries and people appear to be always on the move. We stayed in a motel (after much negotiation and haggling) in a city called Bahawalpur, this place was straight of the Raj, with its little motels rooms looking like houses, grass courtyard and strange birds and bugs, the restaurant was a bit on the slow side, for some it took two hours to get their meal, and was to have consequences later on! In the morning the breakfast was like a sketch out of the two Ronnie's, the waiter! wanted to please so much every time a cup of tea was put down half drunk he removed it, even when told to leave it, we were all laughing at the time, but he did not seem to understand what he was doing wrong.
Early start as we head off towards Lahore. Did we say the roads are improving? How mistaken we were! Having been bumped and bashed for most of the journey we finally arrive in Lahore. A typical large, busy,noisy,city, people and vehicles everywhere.
There was a misunderstanding about which hotel we were staying in, as several of the group made their way up many flights of steep stairs thinking that this was the one, the truck drove off to find the original hotel that we had booked, leaving 6 of us stranded, hot and tired and trying to negotiate room for 15, when none was needed, fortunately we managed to contact the group leader, who gave us the correct hotel details and we ended up having our first ride in a tuk tuk (hair raising but fun). Our first night we went to have a look around the hotel before our evening meal and decided to eat in the hotel, as the local restaurants only sold albeit very fresh, lambs hearts, testicles, livers, eyes, brains or choose your own live chicken, we had a laugh with a few of the owners as they tried to drag us into their restaurants, but we were not having any of that. Unfortunately that was all we really saw of Lahore as we were both struck down by problems arising from dehydration and ended up in the local hospital whilst they rehydrated us. Which they did very efficiently and lectured us about rehydrating, this cost us the massive sum of twenty pounds this included the consultancy fee for the head surgeon of the hospital! We were seen straight away after being dumped at the hospital by the ambulance without any paperwork, luckily the consultant happen to walk past as we were trying to sort it out and he was the only person that spoke good English. Never would we have had such good service on the UK, still I think we were lucky.
Departure was delayed till midday the following day to give us time to recover slightly before moving off to the Indian border, as it was due to be another blistering hot day.