Schools and dinos in the Himalayan foothills
by Salman Hameed
I'm in Pakistan (Rawalpindi) these days visiting family. Yesterday we had a chance to take an overnight trip to a small village named Malot in the Himalayan foothills (it is about 60 kms or 2 hours from Rawalpindi). It is close to Murree - one of the busiest tourist destinations in Pakistan - but thankfully, it is slightly off the beaten path. First here are two pictures of the place to give you an idea of the view from the location:
Here is a picture of the back wall of a public secondary school for girls.
There are often complaints about the ruinous state of public schools. But this one looked quite good, and so did the boy's section (I did not get a chance to take a picture of that). I discovered that the boy's school was completely destroyed in the 2005 earthquake - and it has been built again completely from scratch. I have blogged about girl's schools destroyed by the Taliban, so here is also a picture of a thriving school in the northern regions of Pakistan. And what a beautiful location!
There were also couple of unexpected things on the way. First, there was a fiber-glass shop that had models of different animals outside, including dinosaurs. It was just odd to see dinosaurs right off the main road, right next to a toll-plaza:
But a stranger thing was this statue/model of an unidentified animal right in front of a residential area:
This is a huge model. I mean this picture is taken from the highway and it still looks big. Now we have a dispute going on in our family if this is a horse, lama, or some sort of (perhaps yet undiscovered) dino. We did not take the time to stop and examine it (this picture is from a moving car). Nevertheless, we did agree that is an odd gigantic structure to be in front of a residential area. Has anyone else seen this animal model on this road and do you know what it is and why its there?
And in case you are wondering, yes, I have been eating mangoes every day here. And here is a piece of BBQ from Saturday night, and the picture of a devilish cat wanting a slice of it:
I also had a chance to visit the Pakistan Natural History Museum in Islamabad. More on that and Lok Virsa: Pakistan National Heritage Museum later.
I'm in Pakistan (Rawalpindi) these days visiting family. Yesterday we had a chance to take an overnight trip to a small village named Malot in the Himalayan foothills (it is about 60 kms or 2 hours from Rawalpindi). It is close to Murree - one of the busiest tourist destinations in Pakistan - but thankfully, it is slightly off the beaten path. First here are two pictures of the place to give you an idea of the view from the location:
Here is a picture of the back wall of a public secondary school for girls.
There are often complaints about the ruinous state of public schools. But this one looked quite good, and so did the boy's section (I did not get a chance to take a picture of that). I discovered that the boy's school was completely destroyed in the 2005 earthquake - and it has been built again completely from scratch. I have blogged about girl's schools destroyed by the Taliban, so here is also a picture of a thriving school in the northern regions of Pakistan. And what a beautiful location!
There were also couple of unexpected things on the way. First, there was a fiber-glass shop that had models of different animals outside, including dinosaurs. It was just odd to see dinosaurs right off the main road, right next to a toll-plaza:
But a stranger thing was this statue/model of an unidentified animal right in front of a residential area:
This is a huge model. I mean this picture is taken from the highway and it still looks big. Now we have a dispute going on in our family if this is a horse, lama, or some sort of (perhaps yet undiscovered) dino. We did not take the time to stop and examine it (this picture is from a moving car). Nevertheless, we did agree that is an odd gigantic structure to be in front of a residential area. Has anyone else seen this animal model on this road and do you know what it is and why its there?
And in case you are wondering, yes, I have been eating mangoes every day here. And here is a piece of BBQ from Saturday night, and the picture of a devilish cat wanting a slice of it:
I also had a chance to visit the Pakistan Natural History Museum in Islamabad. More on that and Lok Virsa: Pakistan National Heritage Museum later.
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