Karachi Day Three Sunday 21st August - Eid Milad Un Nabi

My journal says that the sky was clouded over first thing that morning and that it was once again cool and breezy. I decided to go over to the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station to see if people were celebrating the Prophet's birthday. Nothing different appeared to be happening on the streets so I went up on the railway bridge to look over the tracks. Some local lads got talking to me but my journal does not say more about that.

I could see a train was in and the red-jacketed porters were easily recognisable even from up there on the bridge. A little later on I wandered round to the front of the station and saw a minibus full of women pull up. The sight of so many women all together caused libidinous male eyes to wander - so my journal tells me!

I was in need of a pee, so I found a hole in a wall and nipped over a railway siding which people were using as a thoroughfare just as they routinely did in Sri Lanka. I spotted three little, dirty boys playing in the mud some distance away. Thankfully I located a suitable area of bushes in which to go to the toilet unseen.

I appear to have walked back to the Empress Market. I was apparently struck by the abject poverty of the masses. I had seen filthy, insanitary meat stalls before in other countries but nothing on the scale as I witnessed around the Empress Market. Since we were at the height of the monsoon, flies were literally everywhere on exposed raw meat being offered for sale as well as eating away at rotting fruit also for sale.

Many live birds (for consumption) were beig sold too. I noted 10 chickens with feet tied together on top of a bamboo basket. Thousands of men thronged the streets which, once more, were still partially flooded from the torrential rains. All manner of traffic was attempting to move forward. Confusion and constant use of the horn were the order of the days, says my journal.

Then, at last, I noticed the clouds were thinning and the sun came out with a consequent rise in temperature. The time was 1.15pm and I had just had tea and French pastries. It was time to leave Karachi and I had arranged a transfer to the airport for 2.00pm.