Pak Swiss Photos

Finally, here are some photographs from our trip to Pakistan in December/January.

The first two photos are of Murree Road in Rawalpindi which is the main road for the city. The next one of the garbage is unfortunately a common sight in Pakistan. The building you see is actually part of a mosque. The last two show the Margalla hills from my parents’ place. On a clear day, you can see a lot of details since they are fairly close. But usually the pollution doesn’t let you do that.

Murree Road, Rawalpindi
Murree Road, Rawalpindi
Garbage
View from my parents' house
Margalla Hills, Islamabad
 

We stayed in Zurich for only a day. And even then Michelle was tired and in a really bad mood. So we didn’t do much beyond going to the downtown. And getting lots of chocolate.

Zurich, Switzerland
Downtown Zurich
Zurich
Hauptbahnhof, Zurich
 

I have more photographs from Pakistan which I might post later.

By Zack

Dad, gadget guy, bookworm, political animal, global nomad, cyclist, hiker, tennis player, photographer

4 comments

  1. I see a good deal of recyclable plastic in that refuse pile…

    With regard to the haze, what is Pakistan’s primary form of electricity generation? And, how bad is the traffic? If the primary source of electricity is coal-fired power stations, the nation should consider wind. Those hills and mountains may offer some great sights for clean, though not always reliable, wind turbines. If the traffic is bad, it might be cheaper to develop (or expand) a mass transit system than provide pollution control technologies for every vehicle. Platinum for catalytic converters is expensive!

  2. Captain Arrrgh

    you are very right. Perhaps you noticed that there is a garbage bin in the open land being our house which I can see sitting right in front of the computer where I am at the moment. This bin always spoils my joy of looking at the Margalla Hills. I wish I had enough money and the knowhow to take over and process all the rubish from the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It is a paying business.

  3. There used to be sites like that garbage pile in Tehran until about 15 years ago. But then a creative mayor came and placed plenty of garbage bins in each neighborhood, and published an interesting newspaper (at the time), and in that newspaper as well as on TV he promoted the slogan of “our city, our home”. The result was impressive and at least, based on my observation, those scene were wiped out of middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods.

    Later, the the mayor was put in jail. The municipal was occupied by hardliner and the newspaper, Hamshahri, turned to a radical one, which has run a contest for Holocaust cartoons!! Sad story.

  4. Captain Arrrgh:

    I see a good deal of recyclable plastic in that refuse pile

    Yes, that’s true for most garbage piles I have seen in Pakistan. There is no real recycling effort, though the poor do collect such stuff from these piles at times.

    what is Pakistan’s primary form of electricity generation?

    63% fossil fuel (not sure about the division between oil and coal), 36% hydro.

    how bad is the traffic?

    Not that bad. According to the DoE,

    the number of vehicles in Pakistan has swelled in recent years—from 680,000 in 1980 to 5 million in 2003. The 1992 National Conservation Strategy Report claims that the average Pakistani vehicle emits 25 times as much carbon dioxide as the average U.S. vehicle, as well as 20 times as many hydrocarbons and more than 3.5 times as many nitrous oxides in grams per kilometer.

    Cars are the leading source of air pollution that adversely affects Pakistan’s economy and population.

    Also, they sell leaded gas in Pakistan.

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