Quetta’s air is full of smoke, much of it from the exhaust of the thousands of gaily-painted cycle rickshaws that putter around the city streets. At an elevation of 1,700 metres it has a pleasant climate, cool and sunny. After cold showers in our room, we eat some tasty mutton curry in the hotel’s restaurant before walking down to the railway station. In one of the antique offices marked Commercial Department, we get our tourist discount certificates then walk down to the station itself and go through the rigmarole of obtaining tickets.
We leave with seats on the 2:00 PM Quetta-Chiltern Express for the following day and make our way up to the crowded Liquāt Bazaar, where we negotiate the making of a shalwar kameez for Linda. The material, 4 metres of it, costs ₹240.00 and the tailoring a further ₹90.00. The tailor promises it will be ready at 6:30 PM. After changing money at a street stall, we returned to the hotel for a siesta.
In the evening we return to the bazaar and drink chai while watching the skillful hands of the tailor as he sews Linda’s outfit together. There had been a power cut during the afternoon — “load-sharing, diggy diggy” — so there was a delay while the shalwar kameez was finished. Then we take a rickshaw over to the Quetta Serena Hotel where we have drinks with Kamran and a couple of Iranians amid the genteel luxury of Prince Karim Aga Khan’s finest hotel. Back at our less well-heeled hotel, we fall gratefully into bed beneath our trusty mosquito net.
CurseOfTheTraveller 