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Khanewal Through the Lens: A Sleep-Deprived Photographer's Chaotic Rumble

@Ava Morales2/13/2026blog
Khanewal Through the Lens: A Sleep-Deprived Photographer's Chaotic Rumble

i've been in khanewal for three days now and i'm still not sure if i love it or i'm just too sleep-deprived to care.

i arrived on a grimy bus from lahore, my backpack spilling lenses and spare batteries like a walking photography store. the city greeted me with a wall of heat that felt like a furnace, even though the thermometer said only 17.38°c. that's the weird part: the temperature's mild, but that 16.09°c wind chill makes my fingers numb when i'm swapping lenses. i guess that's what 35% humidity does to you - dries you out like a crisp packet left in the sun. the barometer's sitting at 1014 mb, ground pressure 998, whatever that means for my gear. i just know my camera's sensor hates the dust more than i hate the power cuts.

khanewal sits at roughly 30.3°n, 71.9333°e. i'll drop a map here so you can see the sprawl:


i found out the official geonames identifier for this place is 1174220. i know, because i geotagged every shot with it. feels like a secret handshake among data nerds. speaking of geotags, my camera's internal clock is set to utc, so that photo i took of the rickshaw driver yelling at a cow carries the timestamp 1586883649 - april 13, 2020, 11:27 pm. i have no idea why i took a photo then. maybe the light was weird, or maybe i was just that wired on too much chai.

the streets here are a symphony of rickshaw bells, motorbike exhausts, and goats bleating. i tried to capture the chaos at the main bazaar, but every time i lifted my camera, someone would strike a pose. it's flattering but also kinda invasive. i felt like a tourist paparazzo. the bazaar is a labyrinth of fabric stalls, spice mounds that look like tiny volcanoes, and bright signs that scream lahore-made. i shot with a 35mm f/1.4, hoping to freeze motion, but the dust got into the lens and gave everything a hazy glow. maybe that's a style now.

a building with a sign on it


i'm not gonna lie, the heat played tricks on me. i thought i saw a mirage of a swimming pool in the middle of the market. turned out it was just a shiny tarpaulin. the people here are surprisingly camera-shy once you get past the initial 'click me' crowd. i had to ask an old man selling mangoes if i could take his portrait. he nodded solemnly and then spent five minutes adjusting his pagri for the perfect angle. that's the kind of cooperation that makes street photography worth it, even when my back is killing me from carrying the 70-200mm f/2.8 that i barely used.

i stopped at a chai stall near the railway station. the chai wallah, a man with a beard dyed orange from tobacco stains, served the strongest tea i've ever had. his secret? he boils the milk with a clove of garlic. no, really. i heard that after dark, the place turns into a gossip hub where truck drivers swap stories about haunted sections of the Multan road. someone told me that if you listen closely, you can hear the ghosts of caravans past wailing near the old bridge. i didn't stick around to verify, but i did get a great shot of the tea pot steam rising against a tungsten bulb. the bazaar's listed on TripAdvisor as a 'must-see' but honestly, it's just a market. still, the photos i got there are insane. if you want to find the chai stall, search Yelp for 'Chai Gill' - it's got 4 stars from 12 reviews. not that i trust those numbers; i trust the taste.

a city with many buildings and trees


khanewal's got this vibe that it's stuck in time, but if you get bored, multan's an hour east and lahore's three hours north. both feel like different planets after the dusty roads here. i took a day trip to multan just to see the shrines, and the contrast was jarring - marble domes versus khanewal's unpainted concrete. i shot a roll of kodak portra there that hasn't come back yet. i'm crossing my fingers it's not all blurry from the bus ride.

back in khanewal, i found a quiet alley where kids were playing cricket with a taped-up tennis ball. i crouched low with my 50mm f/1.2, trying to catch the arc of the ball. they didn't notice me; they were too busy arguing about who bowled the last over. that's the sweet spot: when the subjects forget the camera exists. i got one frame that might be the best thing i've shot all year. of course, the light was that golden hour slant that makes everything look cinematic. that's the magic of traveling with a camera - you chase that light, and sometimes it chases you back.

i also overheard two college girls discussing their upcoming exams while waiting for a bus. one said, 'i wish i could just photograph my notes and remember them.' i laughed, then offered to give them a crash course in visual mnemonics. they smiled politely and walked away. note to self: don't try to be a photography professor on the street.

the last image i'll share here is a panoramic from the outskirts, where the city melts into fields of sugarcane and wheat. you can see the dust devils swirling like mini tornadoes. it's a reminder that this place is alive, breathing, and definitely not a postcard.

a small village nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains


if you ever decide to visit, bring a microfiber cloth for your lens, a bottle of water (the tap water tastes like rust), and an open mind. the people might stare, but if you smile first, they'll often smile back and maybe even pose. check out the official Pakistan Tourism page for the region for travel tips. and if you're a photographer, don't forget to backup your files on the road - i learned that the hard way when my memory card corrupted after a static shock near the railway tracks. that timestamped error? probably 1586883649 as well.

anyway, i'm heading out to catch the sunrise over the railway bridge. i heard there's a stray dog that likes to photobomb. let's see if i can get a clean frame before the dust storm hits. laters.

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About the author: Ava Morales

Fascinated by how things work—and why they sometimes don't.

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