Travel: Down by the River
There are many travel and tourist attractions located within short driving distance from Lahore. Recently on a weekend a group of friends decided to join some die-hard camper couples for a camping and team-building expedition to an island in the River Jhelum.
The plan was to drive down to Bhera, a historical city near Sargodha, embark on a beri or wooden boat and cruise down the Jhelum to disembark on the island, and camp there overnight. We planned to spend the day in various activities, and then sail back to land and drive back home.
We flew to Lahore from Karachi and early next morning we set off on the Lahore Motorway, driving along the left bank of the Jhelum river. The well-maintained infrastructure of motorways, toll booths, and rest stops made the journey a comfortable one.
A ‘luxury’ trip through the heart of Punjab and to an island in the middle of the Jhelum
The green countryside, a blue sky and red brick buildings make a pretty colour palette. Sadly, red bricks which make the city so pretty and hide the squalor with their aesthetic appeal are made in brick kilns that smog the environment and often run on bonded and even child labour. On the brighter side, it is heartening to see that many of these buildings are functional schools.
This is the heart of Pakistan’s food basket. Irrigation canals make a shiny grid in sugarcane, mustard, spinach, radish, rice, turnip and wheat fields to name a few. Groves of orange trees bedecked like Christmas trees line the motorway and honey farms are plentiful. The water bodies, rich soil and fields attract a wide variety of birds.