Adventures in Islamabad!

My first tourist experience in Islamabad started off at the Serena hotel. It is the premier hotel in Islamabad. Please view the pictures, because I can't do the place justice with words.

From Serena, my friend and I walked along Constitution Avenue where the diplomatic enclave is located. The first oddity was that two people were walking around in 43 degree (celcius) weather in Islamabad in the middle of the day. The guard in front of the diplomatic enclave asked if we needed to go in. Eager to see the buildings, we said, "Of course, can we go in as tourists and take pictures?" The expression on his faced changed from welcoming to "did you really ask me that stupid question." Long story short, we were not allowed in by the half-dozen guards with M-16s.

A little further down, past the Prime Minister's Secretariat, we came upon the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The building was breathtaking and we wanted to take pictures of it also. The gate was open, so we walked in and slowed down to wait for one of the guards to approach us. However, the guards just gave us a sidewards glance and returned to their converstations and cigarettes. So we strolled in and walked up the driveway to the main entrance. As we got our cameras out to take pictures of the entrance archway, a police guard came running up the driveway waving his hands and shaking his head that we couldn't do that. He asked who we were and we explained that we were just tourists. He seemed pretty upset and said, "you should ask if you could walk in?" We were escorted out of the compound and scolded that it was our fault for walking into a guarded government building. The interesting part was that they didn't own up to the responsibility that two random people can walk in without being asked about their business and checking for identification. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures... fortunately, we didn't get into any more trouble.

This evening's adventure was watching a 5 foot, 40 kilo armadillo that strolled up the driveway of our hotel and trotted into the courtyard and found a nice corner to roll up in. The hotel staff had a toughest time trying to get it out and fourty minutes later, they finally were able to wrap a rope around it and half drag, half push it out onto the road. This was my first armadillo sighting and it was exciting. The amazing part was that the armadillo was just chilling and it don't think all the stick prodding and pulling didn't bother it a bit!

till the next adventure in Kashmir...