Lahore

Introduction

Lahore is the second largest city in Pakistan, with a population close to 10 million, and is located near the Ravi River, close to the India border. The city has long tradition and has many wonderful ancient buildings to see.

Sights and Activities

• Bahd Shah Masjid
• Lahore Fort
• Badshahi Mosque was built in 1673 and is great example of Mughal Architecture
• Cathedral Church of Resurrection was built in a Neo-Gothic style in 1887 and serves the local Christian community to this day.
• Lahore Gate
• Ali Hujwiri
• Shalimar Gardens
• Minar-e-Pakistan is where the Declaration of Independence of India and Pakistan Resolution was passed and an impressive monument sits on that spot.
• Colonial Architecture can but found such as the Lahore High Court, General Post Office and many older universities left over by the British.

Mausoleums

• Maharajo Ranjit Singh was a Sikh emperor of Lahore and built an amazing mausoleum
• Jehangir
• Nur Jehan

Events and Festivals

• Mela Chiraghan or Festival of Lamps is an important and popular local event. It is celebrated every year on the last friday of March outside of the Shalimar Gardens.
• National Horse and Cattle Show is help every spring in the Fortress Stadium. This week long festival includes livestock displays, horse and camel dances, tent pegging, folk dancing from all over Pakistan, live music and tattoo shows.
• Basant - One of the most popular festivals in the country is Basant, the annual kite festival. Held in March in Lahore, the festival takes place to welcome the arrival of spring and wave goodbye to the winter. The skies are filled with amazingly colorful kites and both adults and children have a wonderful time.
• Lahore Fashion Week - Lahore is the country’s fashion capital which is why it makes sense that the annual Fashion Week is held here. Taking place every October and organized by the Pakistan Fashion Design Council, the event is well-known world wide. The festival has also garnered great attention, mainly as a result of the threats made by extremists who are opposed to it because of the skimpy clothing worn by many models.

Weather

Lahore has three season. From November to February temperatures are pleasantly warm, between 15 and 25 degrees Celcius during the day and possible frost at night. Then the heat gets worse and worse and temperatures in June and July are very high, averaging 40 degrees but records of 48 degrees have been recorded. Humidity is high as well and July and August is the top of the rainy season, after which both temperatures and humidity are lowered again until December.

Getting There

Lahore Airport Highway

© rayoujo

By Train

On Mondays and Thursdays the Samjhota Express leaves Amritsar in India at 7 in the morning, scheduled to arrive in Lahore just after 2pm. In the other direction, trains leave Lahore on Tuesdays and Fridays at 8.30am to the Indian town of Atari, from where there are connections to Amritsar, arriving at 3pm.

Sleep

Upscale

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Keep Connected

Internet

Cybercafes can be found on virtually every street corner and the rates are as low as Rs 15-20 per hour. They usually don't have a very fast operating system so don't be too impatient. They usually use 14 inch monitors with Windows 2000, Windows 98 or Windows XP usually installed. Most of the cafes have a decent speed internet connection.

Internet Access can be obtained easily on notebook computers with the help of GPRS enabled mobile connections, supported by almost all of the five mobile operators. Mobilink provides EDGE based connection in very limited areas of Karachi, but Telenor's coverage of EDGE is wider. The standard price of GPRS/EDGE usage is Rs 10-18 per MB of data transferred but Zong offers Rs 15/h. If you wish to download much more, you may want to use unlimited packages, provided only by Warid, Mobilink and Telenor at this time. World Call and Ufone also offers USB Modem.3G and 4G based connections are also available from all the mobile service providers, rates are nearly same as EDGE.

There are Wi-Fi hotspots all over Pakistan, in hotels, malls, and cafes/restaurants.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The country code for Pakistan is +92 if you are calling from outside the country.

Major providers of mobile phone service (GSM) are Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone, Warid and Zong - China Mobile. One very convenient feature is that all Pakistani cellular operators use the GSM platform, so that cellular handsets nationwide are freely interchangeable between providers.
There are various service providers offering a huge variety of plans. Among them are Mobilink, Warid Telecom, Telenor, Ufone & Zong (China Mobile). It's not a bad idea to buy a cell phone and use a prepaid plan to get yourself connected while you are in the country. The mobile phones and the prepaid plans are very cheap; you can usually get a new cheap cell phone just for Rs 2,000 and a prepaid connection for Rs 150-400.

Due to security threats, in order to purchase a SIM card you will need to provide formal identification such as Visas, resident permits, residing address in Pakistan along with a written declaration that you will not use the provided phone number for any illegal activity. Starting March 2015, possesion of unverified SIM will be considered a serious and punishable crime.

Public Call Offices can be found all over the country. You will find a PCO in nearly 50% of the general stores where there is usually someone who operates the phone and fax. Fees will be charged according to the time spent, and you will pay when you have finished your call.

Post

The Pakistan postal service works well. But be aware you are not allowed to send CD's or DVD's out of the country. This includes your photo's on CD. This is due to the high number of software and media trafficking in Pakistan.