Bus Tour

Yesterday Jana, Rahab, Shi Shuai, Bogdan (my foreign friends), Munib (Pakistani) and myself went to an adventurous trip around the city in a public bus.

To help you understand why I call this trip adventurous I will provide you with some facts.

1. Public buses in Pakistan are there for people from lower classes of society.

2. Some of my friends, students of good universities in Karachi, never traveled in these buses in their entire life.

3. There are no bus stops in the city. Bus doesn't stop when you put up your hand. What it does though is slows down for a while to give you a chance to quickly get in.

4. There are no schedules, nor a map of how buses go around the city. Some of them do not even have numbers, just names, which are in urdu (language of Pakistan).

5. Men and women have separate sections in a bus.

6. Junaid Ahmed, my AIESEC colleague, after having gotten to know that we're going for a bus tour, sent me the following message: "Oh my god! With who? Crazy people! Cover your head and be safe"

What's really catches attention is that local pakistani buses look very different from their peers in other countries:

I have heard that bus drivers tend to spend half of their salary on the decoration of their bus.
Like, for instance, this dude :)

If you are a guy, you have an opportunity to see the whole city from the roof of a bus. Unfortunately, women are not allowed to sit there, otherwise I would use the chance :)

Trip was very exciting by the way.

We were in the first bus for 1,5 hours, and then we stopped and took another one for another hour. We went to a place on the other side of the Clifton Bridge which divides Karachi into 2 big parts, in simple terms - rich and poor. So we got to see how is life on the "other side", and now the area where I live - Zamzama - seems much nicer than before.

At the bus changing point we - foreigners - became the news for local people. Everyone took pictures of us and talked about us.

After the bus trip, tired and hungry, we went to Boat Basin (food street) to eat karahi. With hands. Which we didn't wash before having food, pakistani style :)

Sometimes I travel with bus to the office in the morning. My colleagues are shocked. :) but I am here to experience the culture. And public bus is a way to feel the city, that I definitely can't do in the air-conditioned car :)

Money can talk

So I looked in my wallet recently and realized that I have 6 different types of currency there.

Russian ruble - I went back to my home country in January, was very glad to spend time with family and friends.

Omani Rial - visited Oman this February. Amazing country with wonderful people! And I got Starbucks coffee for free in a food court!
Euro - this is from Italy where I went for International AIESEC Conference to meet 200 most talented young people from more than 100 countries of the world
Qatar Riyal - going to Italy, I stopped in Doha (the capital of Qatar) and bought a salad at the airport. Salad was fresh and tasty, and they gave me change in Riyals.
Pakistani Rupees - I have been living in Pakistan for 8 months already. It's been a fantastic experience so far. So many challenges, so many things I have seen and done for the first time in my life, so many tears, and so much growth in who I am.
American Dollars - they are always there for a "black day" :)

Money telling stories.