Benazir Bhutto Assassinated, Pakistan in chaos

Yesterday evening, the tragic event occurred and the supporter of the Pakistan People Party (PPP) supporters went crazy with the event.

Yesterday night most of the cities were in chaos situation with people were protesting on roads and due to that, most of the transport mechanisms were not functioning properly.

In our guest house also, there were many people staying for yesterday night because they cannot leave for their towns from Islamabad. Today morning news said that flights flying out of Karachi airport will be postponed (or cancelled?). It seems like the internal flights are not working properly.

We were expecting seats in Sri Lankan Air flight from Karachi to Colombo today. But, still nobody is certain about the travel schedules with new situation yet.

Our returning date is postponing due to one reason or another from last two weekes. It seems like we may not able to return before 2008.

Murree, Hill resort city

Last weekend was a long holiday with Thursday and Friday were Eid holidays in Pakistan. We planned a visit to Murree hill city to get rid of boring feeling of staying whole weekend in guest house.

Murree is nearly 40 Kms from Islamabad and it takes around one hour for a car to get down there. Snowy mountain tops in Kashmir range are visible to Muree and that a marvelous view to see.

We went to a place with chair lifts and cable cars to take us to higher mountain top in the region.

It was not snowing (infact, it was a sunny day). But there were remaining snow from previous days’ snow. That was a real good experience for all of us.

From left to right-Me, Amila(our photographer for the tour) and Hemantha

Travelling Across Pakistan

In our current visit to Pakistan, we are implementing a distributed sales information system across the country for one of our client. The first part of the implementation was completed with a successful boot camp and a proof of concept. For the second part, our team had to travel to the four major cities in Pakistan.

First region of implementation took place in Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi is a very much crowded and busy city adjacent to Islamabad, capital of Pakistan. I really don't like Rawalpindi very much.

After completing the Rawalpindi region within one week, we flew to Karachi. Karachi is too crowded and dusty city with population around 16 million. Good thing about Karachi is the variety of foods available. Once we went to a very good BBQ place with regional office staff one day and food was really very good, so we alone went to that place again to taste the BBQ.

Next region was Multan. Just after landing in Multan, we felt the difference. Multan is a very old and small city. It attracts people for it’s charm and calm. Also the people are very much friendly. On the very first day we have landed on Multan, we went to see remaining of Multan fort, few very old tombs and drive through the older section of city. Even we walked in mid night to shopping malls. Walking night is a rare commodity in most of cities we visited. We managed to finish our implementation within the week days and the Saturday was a rest day for us. Multan regional office staff was very helpful for us in arranging a visit to Rohi desert.

Transport in Rural Areas	Derawar Fort

From Multan we traveled to Bahawalpur and then turned to a road leading to Derawar Fort located in Rohi desert. Even though I was suffering from cold, we all enjoyed the trip very much. One thing I must mention about the Pakistani farmers is they are very hard working and they have cultivated lands very next to the desert also. Mainly in Punjab area each inch is covered with cultivations and it is a very pleasant view to see.


On Sunday, we flew to Lahore. Lahore was getting in to winter with colder weather and I was facing my first winter season. In Lahore we mainly concerned about the implementation and finished it within week days. Even though we had a chance to visit Kasur on Saturday, we thought to return back to Islamabad and have a good rest. Best thing about Pakistan is their road network, especially motorways. We traveled on M2 motor way from Lahore to Islamabad and returned to our usual guest house.

Lahore International Airport	M2 Motorway near Kalar Kahar mountainous region

Islamabad is very cold these days and unfortunately our stay got extended for one more week. Finally I had to buy few winter cloths to survive in Islamabad winter. Again, we are in a long holiday season and it is very much boring for us.

During the weekend we are planning to go to Muree, very beautiful hill town north of Islamabad. One colleague who traveled to Muree on last weekend said it was snowing. So we are willing to see snow there. But it will be dead cold for sure.

Pir Sohawa: First time out of house arrest

Pir Sohawa is a mountain top overlooking Islamabad city. Pir Sohawa resides in the Margalla mountain range and it attracts lot of local and foreign visitors daily.

During the last weekend we had a chance to visit Pit Sohawa. Three of us came from Sri Lanka: Hemantha, Amila and me joined the trip. We had our friend Shoheib also, he helped us to make our life easier specially when communicating with people.

It’s really a good place to visit with nice landscapes in 360 view and good restaurants for foods. We went there by car, but there are several treks to climb there through mountains. Especially we are thinking of climbing it from trek starting from F-6/3.

That was our first outing after arriving to Islamabad on 23rd September. Due to security and various other situations, for past period we traveled between guest house and office only. So, that was a good difference for our minds after being in a kind of house arrest.

Amila, Me and Hematha

I have lost my Sony Cybershot S-90 camera, so all the photos in this post and here after are coming from Amila's camera.

Prison Break, Good, But too long

I am obsessed with movies. Usually I watch at least 3 movies in a week. I think it is little more than for me, with the type of job I am doing, software development. It seems like I am getting addicted to movies, but can’t help myself.

In movies, movie director unfolds the story in a way that keeps the observer in the movie world for a while. Since the movie goes from 1 hour to 3 hour max, spectator only need to be in the movie world for a reasonable time but experience of being in the movies is awesome.

But in TV series, it goes to week by week and if someone is following the series, he may have to wait till the next week to grab the next episode or if it is in a DVD, have to watch whole night to unearth the sequel. TV series always keep the end of episode unclear till the next episode. Every time, spectator ends up in mist of uncertainty and observer has to wait anxiously to see the next episode.

Prison Break, much hyped TV series on a unique story and it is unfolding in a unique method. The director and his crowd keeps spectator's eyes open till the end. Thumb up for the director and crew for unfolding such a sequel.

Yesterday I have watched 6 episodes during the night and today I feel very sleepy. Yeah that happens. Since I have lived with movies a lot, I felt very difficult to digest the episodes; those episodes were never ending, every time that keeps the end to the next episode. I really got fed up with that. May be it’s due to my lack of enthusiasm on TV series. May be I will get used to it.
But, so far I am struggling with the TV series.

Anyway, it’s a great story to listen; I will follow Prison Break, just for this series only. Not for any other TV series here after.

Working in Islamabad

My current work engagement is with Kandysoft New Zealand (Pvt) Ltd. Kandysoft is a software development company which has products in logistic management and business intelligence. The company also works on bespoke software depending on the customer requirements. It’s a medium scale development house with more than 2 years operating history.

We are serving to a customer in Pakistan and these days my work allocation is with them, in Pakistan, staying in Islamabad. We have a three people team from Sri Lanka to help them in their sales and distribution system.



We are staying in a guest house called ‘Grand Mansion’. Small guest house with around 10 rooms.

Islamabad is a well planned city with overwhelming calmness across the area. A set of super markets or shopping areas such as Jinna super, F-6 Markez etc remains the main attractions for people in the city.

For us, these days are too boring with city is deserted because people are celebrating Eid holidays, from 13th Oct to 16th Oct. We have to stay whole days in the guest house. I must say that it is very hard to kill time without any proper work to concern on. Our hope is from 17th we all have to work hard to cover the milestones we have planned earlier. With the work we will not feel the days passing and it will reach fast to the day we get back to Sri Lanka.

First Post

Hi All,

Start of my blog. Actually it is restart of my blog. From this post, planning to be regular with posts with different variation in contents.