rawalpindi: where my maps app gave up on me
rawalpindi. what can i even say about this city? it's like one big traffic jam with history attached. i've been here for what feels like forever, but it's probably only been a few days. my sense of time is completely shot. the weather's been interesting - i just checked and it's 13 degrees celsius there right now, feels like 11.32, so not too bad but definitely not what i expected when i packed all my summer clothes. hope you like that kind of thing if you're planning to visit.
this city is seriously old. like, founded in 1493 old. can you believe that? that's like before america was even a concept. it was started by some gakhar tribe people, then got destroyed by mahmud of ghazni, which doesn't sound fun at all. then the sikhs took it over in 1765, and the british made it a military center. it even used to be the capital of pakistan from 1959 to 1969, which is kind of crazy. now it's basically just overshadowed by its neighbor islamabad, which is all planned and neat while rawalpindi's just...grown. organically chaotically.
if you get bored, islamabad's just a short drive away. they call them the "twin cities" but honestly, they're more like siblings who don't really get along. islamabad's the clean, responsible one while rawalpindi's the messy, rebellious sibling. taxila's nearby too, with those ancient buddhist sites that are apparently a unesco heritage site. someone told me that the ruins are incredible but that the museum doesn't have half the stuff they found there. who knows what's true, really? i probably just talked to some guy who wanted to sell me something.
the traffic here is unreal. it's like they don't understand how roads work but they're determined to use them anyway. the city has this crazy radial layout with these tiny blocks that make no sense when you're trying to navigate. my maps app has basically given up on me at this point. someone told me that the GHQ area has some security restrictions but honestly, the whole city feels like it's run by the military in some way or another. you can't go anywhere without seeing some kind of military checkpoint or base.
we tried to visit ayub national park, which is this massive 2300-acre place. apparently it has play areas, a boating lake, an aquarium, a restaurant, an open-air theater, and even a jungle kingdom amusement area. sounded amazing, right? but we got stuck in traffic for so long we had to skip it. then we tried rawal lake, which is linked by expressway to islamabad's core. at least that one was closer. ended up just wandering around, getting lost, eating whatever street food we could find.
the food situation is weird. i was expecting something distinct, like they do in lahore or faisalabad. but no, it's just regular punjabi food. wheat-based stuff, you know. honestly, i'm not complaining, it's good food, but i was hoping for something special. someone told me that the best places are in the old city but i never found them. probably got scammed by a rickshaw driver instead.
rawalpindi's got this weird energy to it. it's pakistan's army headquarters, used to be the national capital, and now it's kind of overshadowed by its planned neighbor islamabad. but there's something raw and real about rawalpindi that you don't find in those perfectly planned cities. it's like the city itself has a story to tell, if you're willing to listen through the noise and the traffic and the general chaos.
i've heard that the literacy rate is pretty high, around 83%, which is surprising for a city this size. and it's got all these universities and colleges, so it's definitely got an educated population. but it also feels like a place where tradition and modernity are constantly fighting for space. maybe that's why i can't decide if i love it or hate it - it's too complicated for me to figure out in just a week.
anyway, that's rawalpindi for you. not the place you go for relaxation, but definitely somewhere you'll remember. for better or worse.
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