We took the Q-Connect bus to Islamabad. This is a new development since my last visit, a fleet (numbering 2) of ultra-luxury buses going between Lahore and Islamabad twice a day and costing twice our old friend the Daewoo. Everyone assured us that it was the height of luxury, very comfortable, or so they had heard, but no one had ever travelled by it.
It did turn out to be very luxurious, if slightly old. It was all purple and gold inside, and had those soft, massive leather seats you sink into and which feel rather unclean to me, masses of legspace, and a facility whereby one could order lunch from Salt n Pepper, the famous old Lahore family restaurant, which arrived fresh at the mid-journey break at Bhera. To underscore its ultra luxury status, it had a purple quilted panel between the cabin and the bus driver, with an arched opening. This was closed when the bus started, closing off any view or light towards the front.
That, unfortunately, was what made the journey rather unpleasant for me. The bus windows were high up and pink, and also had low blinds which couldn’t be raised, so there was only a narrow strip of pink-tinged outside visible. There was no natural light, no sense of the outdoors, we could have been going to Multan for all I knew. It would have been fine for a night-time journey, and indeed very comfortable, but as it was, I felt as though the entire day had disappeared by the time we got off on the other side.
Islamabad has been as always, very pleasant. We had a lovely dinner of tacos, from one of the many small home cooks who have flourished during the pandemic. This flourishing is quite striking in Pakistan, where there appears to be an entire ecosystem of small businesses making globally desirable foods: our trip to the deli had two entire brands of homegrown kimchi, for example, a step from zero that is far, far greater than two.