Somewhere Bad But Safe

Now ths should of been the first of the blogs from England, whereby i would be starting to take the riotous preverbial out of the Pom's however in my quest to visit every hotel rooftop on the planet I am sitting here watching the sunset and burning tyres in the distance over Karachi in Pakistan.

The not so gentle drone of the hotels air conditioner plant mingles with the effusive smells coming up from the kitchen vents.




I arrived in the bureau in London two days ago and within twenty minutes, Benazir Bhutto was dead, Pakistan launched itself into riots and I was packing equipment I had never seen or used before.

Luckily my trusty Pakistan Airlines Frequent Flyer card was in my Passport holder and hours later we were on PK 788 direct from London to Karachi flying overnight. Now Business lounges around the world can be graded according to which other airlines share the same lounge, and you know you are in for a treat when waking to the door of the PIA lounge we noted that two other great airlines also shared the lounge facilities those being Turmenistan and Uzbekistan Airlines.

Arriving in Karachi a city of 15 million people, twice the amount of New York City it was as they say in the movies like a ghost town or as Greg Palkot put into prose "An unerry quiet" . The streets are deserted, all shops are closed, buses are burnt and shops banks in some parts of the city are trashed.

Karachi is not a city for the feint hearted and trying to film rioting is to be honest bloody dangerous and driving to the edge of the suburbs with smoke on the horizon, the nerves were tingling, we made it about half a mile into the city before he crowds were drawing in and the mood of the mob ensured that we did a rapid U turn and got the hell out of dodge.

So Somewhere bad we managed to get too , somewhere safe NOT