After a late wake-up on Sunday (alarm didn't ring and poor Manu who had just arrived early morning from Dubai was alone at breakfast...), we called Abbas and drove directly to Taxila. Taxila is a town some 40mn away, with an archeological museum and half a dozen archeological sites to explore on your own.
Taxila was the ancient capital of the western Punjab, the country between the rivers Indus and Hydaspes. It is probably the most important archaeological site in Pakistan. The site consists of several parts:
- Bhir mound, the oldest part, probably belonging to the Achaemenid period;
- Sirkap, a Buddhist city, founded by Greeks from Bactria; together with the Zoroastrian shrine at Jandial;
- Sirsukh, a large square fortress founded by the Kushans, to which the Buddhists added monasteries like Jaulian and Mohra Moradu.
We started at the museum where we were the only 2 foreigners. Therefore many guys & guards kept on asking us "Where do you come from?"... Many sculptures. Biggest surprise for us was to learn that Taxila had been a Greek town in the old times. After the museum we went to the Sirkap Ruins. It was one of the 3 towns in Taxila but nearly nothing remains... A bit disappointing.
Next ruins (Jaulian) we visited were a lot better. This site consists of a monastery for 58 Buddhism monks and of their living quarters. There were splendid Buddha carvings on many stupas. The main building was 2 floors high and there is still one whole floor standing. Really worth a visit, though there is always a small uncomfortable moment at the end when you have to pay the guide: what ever you offer they always want the double...
To finish the day we went to Rawalpindi, town next to Islamabad in order to have a lunch (2 rooms in the restaurant: one for the men and one for the families only) and visit a few handicrafts shops. Rawalpindi is a bit messy town, full of traffic in narrow streets. Unfortunately there was no bazaar to visit as it was Sunday...
Finally we "released" Abbas at 6pm and went for a cooling swim at the hotel... That was a long and nice Sunday. :-)
