Karachi to Lahore by Road
- Umair Ahmed Shaikh
- Feb 23, 2017
- 7 min read
Although I have been to road trips from Karachi to Lahore and even beyond but this is the first time I am writing my blog on this subject. I know that many enthusiastic travelers have already taken this arduous but rewarding journey but my blog is for those who maintain their horses in perfect condition but are still reluctant to test them on the long journey.
First of all, you may ask me, "Road trip to Lahore (Or beyond Lahore)? Why? ". My answer would be "Why not!". There are many reasons that one should go for a road trip by his / her own car. If you are travelling in a group then it is the most cost-effective mode of traveling. Compare the total cost of bus fare / train with the fuel and even the overnight stay cost and you will find that it is indeed the most cost-effective mode of traveling. Also, when you have your own car on the road, you are not bound to any limitations. You can choose your own destination, you can choose your own stopovers and you will come across literally hundreds of places where you would like to stop for few minutes to enjoy the breathtaking scenery, so actually, you will be the master of your own destiny. But there are some downsides as well. It is a time consuming and arduous journey, specially if you have one driver per car. You need at least two days (with an overnight stay in RYK or Bahawalpur) just to reach Lahore. Now imagine if you are interested to travel to Gilgit / Hunza by road; How long and tiring would that journey be! But in the end, it is a worth doing experience and I would recommend every avid traveler to have a road trip at least once in his / her lifetime.
The most important thing about a long road journey is to plan your trip in advance. First of all, you need to make sure that your car is 100% fit for a long journey. Get a complete inspection of a car specially radiator, engine, gear box, tyres and lights at least 2 - 3 days before the departure date. Keep important tools in your car's trunk including stepney, toolbox, toe wire. Additional tools like battery to battery charging cable, tyre pressure gauge, tyre inflator is also recommended. Then you should book at least those hotels where you are planning for an overnight stay so that you are not forced to find the hotel at the eleventh hour when you are already tired after an exhaustive journey of several hundred kms. Moreover, you should keep first aid kit in your car for any emergency. Ready-made first aid kits can be purchased from the medicine/surgical market. Lastly, although plenty of food options are available specially on National Highway route, but it is still recommended to keep some home made items along with munching items as time will be very precious on road, so you may want to save time by having snacks while driving.
This winter, I planned a family road trip from Karachi to Lahore and beyond. I left my home at 7:30 AM in the morning and my first destination was Rahim Yar Khan (RYK) for an overnight stay. RYK is about 641 kms from Karachi and it took me about 13 hours to reach my destination (a guesthouse) at RYK. On average, it would take around 11 - 12 hours to reach RYK but I took more time because of the ongoing construction of Karachi - Hyderabad motorway as there are lots of diversions and makeshift roads, therefore, it took me almost 3.5 hours to reach Hyderabad (Now, almost 60% of the work has been completed and PM has already inaugurated the 75 KM road starting from DHA City Karachi till Nooriabad). Naturally, a break was due so I stopped at Zaib Hotel which is just before the Hyderabad toll. I like Zaib and adjacent Aljazeera restaurant as they are more of a family restaurants with reasonable facilities of toilets and meals. We already had our breakfast in the car so we just had tea and hit the road again.
Our next stopover was Moro which is 180 kms from Hyderabad and lies at exactly half of the distance between Karachi & RYK. The road from Hyderabad onwards is excellent and the drive is pleasant. After a dry and barren landscape between Karachi & Hyderabad, now one can enjoy the greener landscape as scores of fields pass through on both sides of the road. Personally, I like the fields of Banana as their large leaves of dark green color adorned the environment in a bright sunshine. We reached there around 2 PM starving and craving for extra space to stretch our legs. Although there are several options available at Moro but I prefer Al-Amin Restaurant that lies at the heart of the Moro city and Taj Restaurant that lies just after the toll. Al-Amin is recommended for a good food specially their Mix Vegetable but Taj is recommended for its huge space that hosts a lavish restaurant, a mosque, a beautiful garden and play area for kids and decently maintained petrol pump. The kids would love Taj because it gives them an opportunity to stretch their muscles on slides and swings and I also like it because of its famous Qulfi.
We hit the road again after an hour long break and crossed the busy Ranipur city as National Highway doesn’t bypass it. As you will pass Ranipur and enter into the Khairpur district, you will be pleased by the scenes of thousands of date trees towering the sky and standing in perfect rows like a standing army. If you are interested in Date related delicacies than visiting Thehri market would be a good option as it offers a variety of food from date pickles to date sweets. Thehri market lies just 2 kms from the highway.
We reached Gulf restaurant at Rohri which is another 152 kms from Moro. It was about 5:00 PM when we reached Rohri and so far, we had covered 465 kms. If you want to drive non-stop from Hyderabad and don’t want to stop at Moro then Rohri could be next stopover as it also hosts few good restaurants and pumps with proper eating out, restrooms and praying facilities. Taj has another fine restaurant here just before the Rohri toll. We had a tea while watching the sun quickly setting down towards the west and its evening rays sparkled the Date fields.
Now from here onwards, we need to drive non-stop till RYK at it is still 176 kms from Rohri. We passed by Panu Aqil, Ghotki, Dharki, Mirpur Mathelo, Ubaro crossed the Sindh - Punjab border, passed Kot Sabzal the first town of Punjab and looked for Chowk Bahadurpur signboard which came nearly 50 kms after we checked into Punjab. If you are staying in RYK, then from here you should cross the highway, you will see the PSO Petrol Pump on your right and the road to RYK goes right behind it. It is an unusual entrance for a city like RYK but it is the shortest one as well so watch out for the signboard and the PSO pump. But hold on, RYK is still 10 kms from the highway so it will take another 20 - 30 minutes to reach your destination. RYK hosts some decent hotels and guest houses for an overnight stay, I have a personal experience of Desert Palm and Shelton Guest House, both are located in city center and easier to reach. For the eateries, there are plenty of options to choose from. Just roam around Dua Chowk and you will come across several eating outlets which remain open till midnight. Alternatively, if you don’t want to waste time in getting in an out of the city, then there are decent hotels at National Highway near Sadiqabad. By the way, South Punjab offers a variety of sightseeing options but that will be my topic for future blogs.
Next morning, we left the hotel early and we hit the highway at 8:15 AM. The drive from here onwards till Lahore is pleasant as the road is good and one passes through miles and miles of fields. It was a sugarcane season so we found hundreds of tractors loaded with tons of Sugarcane lining up near the Sugar Mills that dotted around Rahim Yar Khan and earlier near Ghotki. Your next possible stopover for tea should be near Bahawalpur as it approximately lies around 220 kms from RYK. As we approached Bahawalpur, we entered into the reign of fog which is the common phenomenon during winters and therefore, the daylight time was very important to us. We reached there around 11 and we decided to keep moving and have a short stay at Basti Malook near Multan as I need to refuel. We continued our journey on N5 towards Multan and we hopped onto newly constructed M4 Motorway from Shah Shams Tabrez Interchange. This 55 kms motorway patch is really a blessing for all those commuters who are traveling to Lahore and beyond as they want to bypass Multan. We covered the distance in less than 30 minutes and we joined the N5 again near Khanewal.
Khanewal can be a good resting and recharge point as the next major station would be Sahiwal which is another 127 kms from Khanewal. However, we have already refueled from Basti Malook and had a good 20 minutes break there, therefore , we continued our journey towards Lahore. We skipped our lunch session as we were afraid of fog and we wanted to be near Lahore in daylight. Remember, that sun sets around 5 PM in late December in Lahore so the day time is very precious. We had a stopover at Renala Khurd for Zuhr and Asr prayers and luckily, we found something to be taken in a car while driving, a home made biryani that the kids and their parents liked a lot.
Lahore is now 111 kms from Renala Khurd and as we approached the 2nd largest city of Pakistan, I remember we passed by Phool Nagar a beautiful small town that lies in Pattoki tehsil of District Qasur. The city as the name suggests is famous for its nurseries as you will find miles and miles of nurseries on the both sides of the road. These nurseries are selling variety of plants and flowers and most importantly, they beautify the environment. Fortunately, we reached the outskirts of Lahore by around 5:30 PM and fortunately, the fog that we encountered in the morning at Bahawalpur wasn’t there. Multan Road near the outskirts of Lahore is a busy road as most of the industries of Lahore are resided here and in the evening time, there is a usual flow of traffic towards Lahore. Although it took almost an hour within a city to reach to our destination in Lahore, but overall we had a pleasant ride from RYK to Lahore.
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