THE LOST CITY & FLOATING VILLAGE S03 EP. 05 | Mohenjo-Daro | Manchar Lake | Pakistan Motorcycle Tour
O God .. Looks like the whole village has gathered here. Assalam Alekum and Good Morning Everyone from Larkana. It's 8.30 in the morning and I have just finished my breakfast. All geared up to start the day.
The first thing to do today is to visit Mohenjo-daro. It is about 35 km from Larkana. And then we'll head to the Manchar Lake, which is about 190 km away. I'll go that way via Dadu.
My best efforts will be to have a memorable sunset at Manchar Lake. So we'll leave for the lake as soon as we have visited Mohenjo-daro. Right next to that is Sehwan Shareef.
I am thinking about going to Sehwan after sunset and find a hotel for the night. I may spend the night at the lake if I find some suitable space there. Otherwise I'll go to Sehwan. That's the plan for the day.
Getting to Mohenjo-daro from here is gonna take 40 minutes. Let's get going. Bismillah ... In the name of Allah * Prayer for the journey * May Allah makes this a safe day for us. Leaving from Larkana now.
I spent the previous night in the commercial area of Larkana city center. I got rather late in the night because of rush hour traffic. It's almost 9 am now.
You can clearly see how empty the markets look at the moment. There isn't much traffic and most of the shops are still closed. We'll pass through the area as smoothly as it gets.
This is the main city of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. I think this square is Bhutto square. There were pictures of these political figures in that square. Just when I thought that I'll sneak out of the city easily ...
traffic has suddenly started erupting from all places. There wasn't much traffic behind. Actually there are so many rickshaws here.
Especially motorcycles and rickshaws. Other than that, I couldn't find many cars in this area. On the motorcycle in front of me, is the president of Larkana Bikers' Club. He's gonna take me to Mohenjo-daro today.
Beyond that, I'll be on my own. These street vendors have indeed occupied half of this road. Let me show you something fun. They have literally blocked the road for their crop. Live like there's no tomorrow. I already saw this same thing a couple of times.
Hope to see more people blocking the road for their personal work. There's one more over there. We are the main gate of Mohenjo-daro. Guys, we are in now. Looking for a place to park the motorcycle, before we go exploring.
Mohenjo-daro is the biggest and best preserved ancient city of the Indus valley. This place is almost 5000 years old and 2000 years older than the Egyptian pyramids. It spans over an area of 550 acres.
You can have an idea about its by the fact that it's almost 5 times the size of Vatican city. There weren't many cities of this size 5 millennia ago. Excavation work started here in 1911 and finished in 1928. It's a part of the UNESCO World Heritage. It has two districts; the upper district or citadel and the lower district. Let's start exploring this amazing city from the upper district.
Numerous monuments and souvenirs have been found in the upper district. Perhaps the most important of them can be seen behind me right now. That's the ancient water tank which is also known as the Great Bath. It was used for religious rituals. It has a layer of tar at its bottom to prevent water wastage.
And it had an outlet on the other side for contaminated water. It was filled with 710 water wells situated across the city. There were toilets in every house. The city had a remarkable sewage system. And waste bins were found in the streets.
Says a lot about how civilized this city used to be. However, no palace, graveyard or temple were found. The huge stupa behind me has nothing to do with Mohenjo-daro. Rather, it belongs to 2nd century AD.
Excavating beneath this stupa may reveal more interesting places. But it hasn't been done yet. A college (or education center) was also found during the excavations. The tablets found here are placed in the Mohenjo-daro museum. Mohenjo-daro had its own script, known as the Indus script. It's a picto-graphic script and almost 417 symbols were found.
Experts are still not able to decipher it. Lets hope it will be done really soon and we'll be able to know more about Mohenjo-daro. We are in lower district now and it's also known as DK area. It was a residential area, housing around 60 thousand people. And it was a very well planned city.
It has a grid of well defined blocks, much like today. The street where I am standing right now, goes straight to the city area. Mesopotamian from Iraq and locals of Mohenjo-daro apparently had a connection. Some of the artifacts found here were very similar to the ones found there.
The city existed for almost 6 centuries. Nobody knows the reason it got deserted. Could be some cultural issue.
Or it could have been the river that changed its direction. And a city without water is hard to imagine. This brings us to the end of the Mohenjo-daro section. Time to head towards Manchar Lake.
Just had a cup of tea here. Let me share some useful info with you in case you are planning to visit. There's a nice guest here where you can spend a night comfortably. I have Javed with me, who has guided me and helped me with this tour. Thank you very much Javed. And sitting with him is Adeel, who has brought me here from Larkana.
Let's get going now. Okay. Allah Hafiz. Bismillah ... In the name of Allah. Time to part ways.
Thank you very much Adeel. I've turned on the navigation and hopefully it'll be good enough. Okay. Bye.
Assalam Alekum Where are you going? Manchar. Can we see you ID card? That was the point where Larkana touches Dadu. So the Policemen at the check post stop me for the mandatory registration. That needs to be done here when you are entering a new district.
Hopefully, nobody is gonna stop us like that again in Dadu. And we'll keep moving towards our destination. Need to keep an eye on the navigation. I think we need to turn from here. We need to find the canal. That's where we are gonna find the highway. This is the small rural road. Refueling time.
Quality Fuels ... Diesel ... Diesel ... Super ... Fill the tank please. Can you turn it off please ...?
No problem, man. Just a camera ... This is the Manchar village. We are gonna look for boats that will take us to the lake. It's this way I think.
Let's see. Let's ask someone here. Assalam Alekum Wa Alekum Salam Where can I get boat to see the lake? It's just there. We do have them. It's right here.
Okay. Good. Can I leave my motorcycle here? Leave it anywhere you like. No problem. Where I like ...? Take care of your luggage and leave the motorcycle anywhere you like.
Thank you If you ll park it here, it will be in front of our eyes. Okay, I'll park it here. O God .. Looks like the whole village has gathered here. There are so many kids here. You need to go over there. Over there? Okay.
He just said that there are a lot of kids here now. And he's right. It seems as if a festival has begun here. Or a circus may be ... Wow .. The lake looks really great.
I thought I would find a boat here. Actually the boats here are the ones for tourists. But I am looking for a boat that is used by locals, to have a more realistic experience. Because there are boats here where people live as their homes.
So, I am told that I may find one a few kilometers ahead. But it's not certain that they will let you in their boats. Some people do allow you. Since most of them are from rural background, they don't like to be filmed.
Let's get there and try our luck. We may have to take the normal boat and make do with it. Well, I can see a village in the water from here.
Are they going there on foot? I don't know if they are swimming to there. Or maybe just walking. Assalam Alekum. Do you speak Urdu? No. Can you call someone? I want to explore the area. Man ....
What are you saying ...? I don't understand your language. Please call someone who speaks Urdu.
Nobody speaks Urdu here? Call your father. No one's here? Who's the in-charge? Let's see if anyone comes. I'm at Manchar Lake, guys and I have finally found a boat.
This is one of the boats where the whole family lives. Every boat has at least 7 to 8 people living on it. This lake village on the Manchar lake comprises of almost 45 boat houses. The owners of this boat have shifted their women to the other boat before letting me in.
They don't want the tourists to interact with their women and make their videos. Lemme give you a boat trip. And there are a handful of kids on this boat and we are gonna make their videos.
I'm actually waiting for the sunset to get some cool footage. Manchar lake is Pakistan's biggest fresh water lake. People living here, have been living here for generations. They get everything they need from the lake. They would even get vegetables from the lake during the low water level times.
But for some time now, the water of this lake has turned toxic. It's quite hard to even find a fish here. The only fish they find is very small and not suitable for eating. The locals told me that recent flood brought a lot of water and fish with it. But it also brought poisonous chemicals from pesticides used by farmers.
And that killed all the fish. Unfortunately the lake is no more a provider for these people now. Now they earn their bread by sending someone to the city who works there. Other than that, living on the lake is next to impossible.
Only some of the kids go here to nearby school. I was told that only 3 kids from the village go to a nearby private school. Unfortunately, most of the kids here, all of the ones behind me, don't go to school. Lets hope for some change in the days to come. I have just reached Sehwan and I need to find a hotel now. To spend my night.
So I am keeping an eye out for the hotel. Google did show me a couple of hotels. Lets see if I can find a good hotel soon. Looking for a room, Sir? Looks like they are selling the rooms in open. Let me see if I can spot one. It's really crowded even at this hour.
I have finally found a decent looking hotel. I have got myself a room in Lal Shahbaz Motel. It's a recently opened hotel and is quite close to the shrine.
But the best thing is that it's really clean. The bed sheets are freshly laid. And it has an air conditioner too. The temperature here was around 37 C today. It has been a really hot day and sleeping without AC would have been tough.
There are a number of restaurants right across the street. Let's go and have our dinner from some nice place. Everything else can wait. Back to my room after having dinner. Honestly I wasn't expecting to find such a delicious meal. It was like a road side restaurant.
But they had nice people and served tasty food. Let's finish this vlog at this point. I had a really great day today. Quite up to my expectations.
But there were only a couple of minor issues. The first one being the heat as it was around 38 degrees. But anyway, I hope you must have liked this vlog.
If you did, then don't forget to hit the LIKE button ... Like always. Please SUBSCRIBE if you are not already a subscriber. Thank you so much for watching. See you in the next one. Allah Hafiz.
2021-07-22 10:29
