Salal Ameen Shahwani
CPEC is the much-talked-about affair nowadays with Gwadar standing at the heart of it. After too many times reading, hearing and speaking about CPEC and Gwadar as a game changer, I had much earlier decided to pay a visit to Gwadar in order to observe development of the province, particularly the city of Gwadar —known as the jewel in the crown for CPEC.
After winter vacations fell, my excitement for the visit heightened. On the next day, I along with my brother-in-law planned to have a flying visit to Gwadar.
On December 23 at 8 o’clock at night we dispatched from Hub, in a Karachi-Gwadar bound bus, Jhalawan. After halting on multiple installations and being identified, frisked and questioned about reason behind visiting Gwadar, ultimately we had made our way to Gwadar before sunrise. We were sleepy at the time and instead of alighting from the bus, we slept inside the bus until sun arose.
With the sun spreading its beams from the horizon, we rushed to hire a vehicle and headed to the Zaver Pearl Continental Gwadar, a five-star hotel at the top of Koh-e-Batil Mountain, in the beautiful surroundings of Arabian Sea and crystal clear beaches. The hotel was equipped with modern facilities. It showed a scenario of long stretch of golden sunny beaches from the hotel.
After freshening up ourselves, we went to visit Gwadar city and were accompanied by a local resident who led us to a market which he named as Janat Baazr, a small market surrounded by twenty or more shops. Janat Bazar is often packed with women who mostly come to purchase household supplies. We eat Gwadari Halwa in Bazar, a famous sweet of Makhran belt. As we had to return by the same day, we had not enough time to visit other places. We told our guide to proceed to Gwadar port and GT, where fishermen port boats in order to sell fish. He took us to port on a dilapidated road passing through markets leading to port. It was an awesome scenario while standing at waterfront! Here we inspected the work on port where Chinese machinery seemed working mostly trucks and other sort of heavy machinery brought from China with Chinese flag hoisted on them. Thereupon, I talked to a fisherman Sadiq Ali, who told us about plight of fishermen, “My cousin and brother along with their fellows have been detained by Indian Navy while catching fish in sea” he asserted and we regretfully consoled him.
Finally, it was time to return to transport, where Karachi-Gwadar bound buses stand. After departing we were intercepted on every check post as bus was carrying diesel. Bus driver and deployed guards on posts smoothly struck deals and driver kept greasing the palms of the greedy guard. Bus stopped at a hotel in Ormara where we found completely unhygienic food being served to passengers, which is another monopoly of drivers headed with hotel owners.
Finally, we continued our journey and arrived in Hub, the city from where we took off, before dawn. That was our tasteless journey to one of the said developed cities of future, jewel in the crown for CPEC—Gwadar.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
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