Jehangir's Tomb...and my jeans...just got served

 

Today was the day we needed to see all the major sites of Lahore other than the Badshahi Mosque. Beginning with a relatively early morning at 11am, we set off for the massive city-sized Lahore Fort:

 

 

The first major part that you’ll come upon entering Lahore Fort is the Shish Mahal, a palace of mirrors.

 

 

Walk anywhere along the edge of the fort you’ll get stupendous views of Lahore itself:

 

 

After the fort, we walked north to find the hidden Begum Shah Mosque, one of the oldest in Lahore.

 

To find Begum Shah Mosque, walk through a seemingly deserted and sketchy part of the red light district by the Fort:

 

 

After visiting Begum Shah, we drove northwest towards Jehangir’s Tomb (tomb of the famous 4th Mughal Emperor), coming upon a road being torn apart to install a new sewage system. That didn’t stop our driver from driving through it anyway:

 

 

Jehangir’s Tomb is immense, and a great place to stroll around and people-watch, or rather constantly being watched by dumbfounded locals who rarely see any foreigners here. 

Mariam informed me I ruined a few cricket matches simply because I was walking by.

 

They interview her for a documentary on Pakistan

Walking towards the tomb:

 

 

By the entrance to the tomb, you can pay a guard 100-200 rupees to let you in an adjacent door that opens to a staircase leading to the top of the minarets, where you can get great views of the area and Lahore:

 


Leaving the tomb site, we headed back southeast towards the inner city (or Old City) for the last stop of the day: the deserted and exquisite Wazir Khan Mosque:


 

To get to Wazir Khan, I would recommend that you stop your car outside the gate of the inner city and walk by foot to the mosque:

 

 

Wazir Khan Mosque, the namesake of the governor of Sirhind. Unlike The Badshahi Mosque and its epic scope, the beauty at Wazir Mosque lies in the details of the walls and the buildings themselves, as well as that deserted feeling you get just by being here. 

You might find yourself totally alone at Wazir Khan, and that’s what we loved the most about making this our last stop in Lahore.

 

 

And with that, we bid a sorrowful goodbye to Pakistan and the wonderful people we met here. I always say I don’t really travel for the sights, the parties, or for the location itself; rather, it’s always the people that become the reason why I travel.

That could not be any more true with the people and family I got to know here in Pakistan.

On a daily basis the media compels us to think twice about traveling to a certain place, but Pakistan is one where I wouldn’t think twice about coming back to again, simply because of the family that took me in and made me feel like I was one of them.

With the weddings, outings, family functions, and the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of a crowd of hundreds of strangers, I was given an insight to a part of a country and culture I would never have been able to access or understand on my own. I will forever be grateful for showing me what hospitality, love, and kinship truly means.

 

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- At time of posting in Lahore Airport, it was 11 °C - Humidity: 62% | Wind Speed: 3km/hr | Cloud Cover: nil significant cloud

 

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