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Himalaya
Day 2: Peshawar
The Khyber Railway meets the hard rock of the North-West Frontier, and shows why 34 tunnels were needed for a 27-mile stretch.
It's 7.30 in the morning and the throng of humanity I saw at the refugee camps last night is reproduced on the streets of Peshawar. Beside the Grand Trunk Road is the Bala Hisar, a huge and sprawling pink brick fortress that seems to have squeezed civilian life into a crush of nearby side streets.Zahoor tells me that most of the people here are small-farmers in town for the day to buy and sell. This is peasant capitalism, with no co-operatives or supermarket chains getting in the way as individuals set up stalls or simply open bundles of whatever they have, wherever they want.
There is a loose sort of organization. Chargan Mandi is the chicken market, Sabzi Mandi is the vegetable market and Chour Bazaar is basically Things Fallen Off The Back Of A Lorry market.
Zahoor advises us to remove all BBC stickers from our vehicles.
Choose another day from Himalaya
PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Himalaya
- Chapter: Day 2: Peshawar
- Country/sea: Pakistan
- Place: Peshawar
- Book page no: 14
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