Ali Sinan
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All at sea: A trip along Pakistan's coastline
Kohi Marri
Published about 15 hours ago
A makeshift fishermen’s outpost along the coast near Keti Bandar | Kohi Marri
Very few of us have explored the country we live in; our knowledge of the world outside our hometowns is usually limited to places where the top 10 hotels are situated. What lies out there beyond the reach of modern amenities is largely unexplored. Ensconced within the confines of our homes, we also tend to see almost everything outside as being hostile.
My travel to Gharo, to the east of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast, in the middle of June 2016 was instructive on both counts.
Also read: Is there a nexus between fishing and terror financing?
The road to Gharo was anything but smooth. By the time I reached there, I felt like I had been rolled down Mount Everest in a barrel. The wind was so intense on the way that at times it felt like there was someone about to flip over my car. If I could put a sail on the car, I could have flown across the coast. That would have been a far better option than have my innards all shaken by the uneven road.
The view from a bridge a few kilometres from Gharo, Sindh | Kohi Marri
You know you are moving towards the coast when the residential buildings start changing from concrete blocks to adobe straw huts. The landscape changed along with it – from lush green to bone dry – till it got drowned into the sea.
The day ended abruptly in Gharo; there was no evening, no sunset. It was day one moment and then in the next it was night, probably because the sky was overcast. Yet it was not all dark. Everything – people, objects and places – had a soft glow around it.
Also read: The coast is clear- The vanishing mangrove forest of Karachi
And the local residents were friendly and courteous, not hostile.
It was almost the middle of the fasting month of Ramzan but many people in and around Gharo did not seem to be fasting. The eateries were open and it was business as usual for food vendors. Most people I met offered me tea and asked me to partake in their meals, mostly made with the catch of the day. Some asked me if I wanted to travel out to the sea with them.
A sandstorm makes its way up to the mountains at the beginning of Hingol National Park | Kohi Marri
There was a sense of openness, of freedom — something the cities laden with concrete and asphalt don’t seem to have. How long will this last? Dirt roads are being paved slowly and someone will soon realise how close the area is to Karachi, making it lucrative real estate to be sold for extending the cities laden with concrete and asphalt to these rather unspoiled natural environs.
The second day was darker. It looked like the clouds could crack any minute and send down a heavy downpour. And while I was thinking of rain, it seemed as if someone flipped a switch and suddenly the sun was out with all its blazing glory.
A lone camel herder appears out of a sandstorm on the edge of Marho Kotri Wildlife Sanctuary on the Sindh coast | Kohi Marri
In Makli, the city of ancient tombs just outside Karachi, there seemed to be a macabre fascination with enshrining and exalting those who had passed away long ago. People here go to ask the dead for favours most likely because the living have let them down repeatedly.
Back to the trek. The other major pit stops to the east of Karachi are Sujawal, a densely populated, overcrowded town, and Chuhar Jamali, a big trade town, with a lot of vans transporting passengers and/or goods.
A carpenter and his apprentice at work on a boat close to the Pakistan-India border near Shah Bandar | Kohi Marri
It was exciting to arrive at the Keti Bandar wildlife sanctuary after having visited ill-planned and ill-kempt old and new human settlements along the coast, but the reserve turned out to be too vast to cover in half a day. It was also jealously guarded by the protectors of our naval borders.
Don’t you wish you could just keep travelling forever, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, not bothering about security, not worrying about comfort zones — just living and experiencing the world? No borders, no boundaries. Where you come from and who you are stop mattering and the only thing to think about is where you are going next.
Also read: Train to Balochistan-Following the railway tracks in Southern Pakistan
I knew where I was headed next. Having driven along the coastal areas east of Karachi, I was going to take a long drive along the ones lying west of the metropolis.
A labourer works under the harsh morning sun, slicing ships into little pieces at Gadani, Balochistan | Kohi Marri
At the beginning of the third day of my exploration, I saw a crow pick at the remains of a cat’s carcass on the side of a road leading out of Karachi. A few feet away, traffic police had rounded up several bikers and there was an argument going on between the two sides. Smoke rose from a pile of garbage a little further ahead. This was Rais Goth, a semi-urban locality situated on the road that links Karachi with Balochistan’s industrial town of Hub with Gadani, a village that houses ship-breaking yards.
Gwadar has expanded a lot in recent times. Yet, fortunately, so far it is nothing like the knock-off version of Dubai that it is projected to become in the near future
In Gadani, too, a woeful lack of civic amenities was creating huge public resentment. Local residents were on the streets, protesting against the absence of electricity. Half of the town, where workers from the shipyards live, had been without electricity since the beginning of Ramzan. There, however, were other signs of progress. A huge construction site could be seen along the highway as I left Gadani for the coastal towns further west. The signboard said a cement factory was being built there. Industry seems to be spreading along Balochistan’s coast. There are more walled compounds with barbed wire fences and guard posts here than there are on the eastern part of the coast.
Kohi Marri
Published about 15 hours ago
A makeshift fishermen’s outpost along the coast near Keti Bandar | Kohi Marri
Very few of us have explored the country we live in; our knowledge of the world outside our hometowns is usually limited to places where the top 10 hotels are situated. What lies out there beyond the reach of modern amenities is largely unexplored. Ensconced within the confines of our homes, we also tend to see almost everything outside as being hostile.
My travel to Gharo, to the east of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast, in the middle of June 2016 was instructive on both counts.
Also read: Is there a nexus between fishing and terror financing?
The road to Gharo was anything but smooth. By the time I reached there, I felt like I had been rolled down Mount Everest in a barrel. The wind was so intense on the way that at times it felt like there was someone about to flip over my car. If I could put a sail on the car, I could have flown across the coast. That would have been a far better option than have my innards all shaken by the uneven road.
The view from a bridge a few kilometres from Gharo, Sindh | Kohi Marri
You know you are moving towards the coast when the residential buildings start changing from concrete blocks to adobe straw huts. The landscape changed along with it – from lush green to bone dry – till it got drowned into the sea.
The day ended abruptly in Gharo; there was no evening, no sunset. It was day one moment and then in the next it was night, probably because the sky was overcast. Yet it was not all dark. Everything – people, objects and places – had a soft glow around it.
Also read: The coast is clear- The vanishing mangrove forest of Karachi
And the local residents were friendly and courteous, not hostile.
It was almost the middle of the fasting month of Ramzan but many people in and around Gharo did not seem to be fasting. The eateries were open and it was business as usual for food vendors. Most people I met offered me tea and asked me to partake in their meals, mostly made with the catch of the day. Some asked me if I wanted to travel out to the sea with them.
A sandstorm makes its way up to the mountains at the beginning of Hingol National Park | Kohi Marri
There was a sense of openness, of freedom — something the cities laden with concrete and asphalt don’t seem to have. How long will this last? Dirt roads are being paved slowly and someone will soon realise how close the area is to Karachi, making it lucrative real estate to be sold for extending the cities laden with concrete and asphalt to these rather unspoiled natural environs.
The second day was darker. It looked like the clouds could crack any minute and send down a heavy downpour. And while I was thinking of rain, it seemed as if someone flipped a switch and suddenly the sun was out with all its blazing glory.
A lone camel herder appears out of a sandstorm on the edge of Marho Kotri Wildlife Sanctuary on the Sindh coast | Kohi Marri
In Makli, the city of ancient tombs just outside Karachi, there seemed to be a macabre fascination with enshrining and exalting those who had passed away long ago. People here go to ask the dead for favours most likely because the living have let them down repeatedly.
Back to the trek. The other major pit stops to the east of Karachi are Sujawal, a densely populated, overcrowded town, and Chuhar Jamali, a big trade town, with a lot of vans transporting passengers and/or goods.
A carpenter and his apprentice at work on a boat close to the Pakistan-India border near Shah Bandar | Kohi Marri
It was exciting to arrive at the Keti Bandar wildlife sanctuary after having visited ill-planned and ill-kempt old and new human settlements along the coast, but the reserve turned out to be too vast to cover in half a day. It was also jealously guarded by the protectors of our naval borders.
Don’t you wish you could just keep travelling forever, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, not bothering about security, not worrying about comfort zones — just living and experiencing the world? No borders, no boundaries. Where you come from and who you are stop mattering and the only thing to think about is where you are going next.
Also read: Train to Balochistan-Following the railway tracks in Southern Pakistan
I knew where I was headed next. Having driven along the coastal areas east of Karachi, I was going to take a long drive along the ones lying west of the metropolis.
A labourer works under the harsh morning sun, slicing ships into little pieces at Gadani, Balochistan | Kohi Marri
At the beginning of the third day of my exploration, I saw a crow pick at the remains of a cat’s carcass on the side of a road leading out of Karachi. A few feet away, traffic police had rounded up several bikers and there was an argument going on between the two sides. Smoke rose from a pile of garbage a little further ahead. This was Rais Goth, a semi-urban locality situated on the road that links Karachi with Balochistan’s industrial town of Hub with Gadani, a village that houses ship-breaking yards.
Gwadar has expanded a lot in recent times. Yet, fortunately, so far it is nothing like the knock-off version of Dubai that it is projected to become in the near future
In Gadani, too, a woeful lack of civic amenities was creating huge public resentment. Local residents were on the streets, protesting against the absence of electricity. Half of the town, where workers from the shipyards live, had been without electricity since the beginning of Ramzan. There, however, were other signs of progress. A huge construction site could be seen along the highway as I left Gadani for the coastal towns further west. The signboard said a cement factory was being built there. Industry seems to be spreading along Balochistan’s coast. There are more walled compounds with barbed wire fences and guard posts here than there are on the eastern part of the coast.