FLEETING IMAGES OF LAHORE

I only spent a week in Lahore, but during those seven days I covered a lot of ground. For that reason, I was not able to spend as much time at certain sites as I would have liked to, so I am compiling them all here.

These next three images were all taken at different shopping areas around Lahore. To me, the really illustrate the hustle and bustle that makes the city so vibrant at times.







But Lahore is not all traffic and confusion. It has a reputation as a very green city, with many peaceful parks. This one is called Racecourse Park and it is home to a polo field (one of Pakistan's more popular sports).



Shalimar Gardens was conceived by Shah Jahan in the 1600s and is the only surviving Mughal garden/park in Lahore. It is fairly large and contains a lot of impressive buildings, pools and fountains. The current King and Queen of Thailand visited Shalimar Gardens in the early 1960s.











The Old City is considered to be the heart of Lahore. It is surrounded by a wall with thirteen gates. The Lahore Fort and Badshahi Mosque are part of the Old City, but there is also a thriving shopping district with winding streets where one could really get lost.





There are a bunch of other mosques in the Old City as well:





Getting around Lahore is easy if you have the patience to deal with congested traffic jams at various times of the day. The city streets are places where cars, trucks, carts drawn by horses and mules, bicycles and motorcycles converge to create chaos and disorder.

Another form of city transportation is the auto-rickshaw. People familiar with Bangkok will recognize these three-wheelers as "tuk tuks."



Buses in Lahore are canvases for artists to express themselves through wild and colorful designs. This one reminded me of the bus the Beatles drove in "Magical Mystery Tour."



The Minar-i-Pakistan (aka Pakistan's Tower) is often referred to by locals as Pakistan's Eiffel Tower, although it's not nearly as large. It was built in 1960 on the same spot where the Pakistan Resolution was signed twenty years earlier.





One could spend a few half a day at the Lahore Museum if they had the time to examine each and every article it contains.



Like any worthwhile museum, Lahore's has plenty of historical artifacts:





And not everything here focuses on Muslim culture. There is a Hindu section and this statue of the fasting Buddha is a famed image around the world:



Art both old and new also has a home at the Lahore museum:





On the outskirts of Lahore along a dried out river is what was explained to me as a "gypsy village." I had never seen one of those before.



And while Lahore may be the cultural hub of Pakistan, I'm not sure if the latest James Bond film "Casino Royale" has made it there yet, but in case it hasn't it's nice to know that Pappo Gujjar is around to save the day.