Staycation at Bahria Town
I wasn’t entirely sure about writing this one since it breaks away from what I usually write about however, since I had such a brilliant time these past two days, when I sat down to write this afternoon the only topic that I really wanted to share about was the past two days spent at Bahria Town.
As parents of a two-year-old, traveling anywhere out of the city by air quite often becomes more hassle than leisure. Not saying, that we don’t know friends who travel all the time with their toddlers but my wife and I gave it a shot once and we came back home more tired than rested. So we sort of have an unspoken agreement that the next time we travel by air would be when our son is old enough to not require constant supervision.
It had been a year and a half and while we have a pretty intense and fun life even within the city of Karachi, a break is much needed to break the monotony of everyday life. In the past, I would go spend a day/night at the beach or go to a friend’s farmhouse. Both these options are amazing yet, the only downside is that they both require you to rough it up a little bit and sometimes all you are looking for is to just chill out.
Enter AirBnb in Bahria Town Karachi. I booked a villa for my family and invited a couple of other close family members to join us over the weekend. For those not familiar with Karachi, Bahria town is a suburban housing society (going on a mini city) in the outskirts which offers amazing living standards which would be considered basic amenities in high-income countries but are seen as luxuries in our city. Things such as security, no shortage of water, green avenues, well-paved and well-lit streets, in short a functional and efficient living space.
Booked an amazing Airbnb, and reached there after a manic 1.5 hr drive on the Karachi-Hyderabad highway. Settled down our luggage and then left for dinner on the highway at the delectable Madina restaurant. Had a delicious meal of chicken Karachi and mutton. The next day we had a chilled-out morning and a visit to Bahria Adventure Land with the family. We had aimed to spend about 4–5 hours there. A couple of tips for the future. One — if you love the rides then it’s worth getting the more expensive express pass ticket. Waiting times on some of the popular rides such as the roller coaster and such could stretch up to over an hour on busy days. Secondly, I think going in with a plan is helpful, I think one can cover more by first planning what part of the park you would like to go to. Third, there are many amazing rides in there but because not all of them look as impressive as some of the popular attractions they are less crowded. However, objectively speaking just because they are small doesn’t make them any less fun. Size doesn’t matter or does it? Different strokes for different folks
We closed that evening with a dinner at a crowded KFC in the park. Surprisingly, the food quality was top notch too. We reached our AirBnb again on the second night around 11 30 pm. My wife who had been under the weather these past 12 hours was feeling even more queasy. Around midnight, we made a trip to the hospital in Bahria Town. Again, thoroughly impressed with how smoothly the whole operation was being run there. We were in the ER and got the attention of the doctor and the nurse within 5 minutes of reaching. The medicines available in the pharmacy were all top quality and the orders were followed right away by the clinical team. We were in and out of the ER in 2 hours including an IV. The total cost of the exercise was hardly Rs 4000. This experience just blew me away and I kind of grew to believe in the vision and delivery of those who are executing BTK.
Earlier today after catching a few hours of sleep we left our AirBnb at 10 50 and were at our home in DHA by 12 pm.
All in all, this was a perfect trip. Cost us approximately 45k including hosting 4 other family members besides us and served as a wonderful break from the monotony of life. I intend to do this more often with friends and family. Sometimes you don’t need to fly away to disconnect, all you need to do is book an AirBnb and just go.
A few people to thank and links for your use
- I watched a vlog by Salman Imdad which triggered the idea for me
- I booked an Airbnb at this link — the place is well maintained, a bit deep into Bahria town but that also meant that it was very peaceful
