An Aqua in Pakistan: A Monthly Diary

What This is All About, When You Get Down To It, I Mean Really

Here's the thing; I like writing. I do have a talent for writing. Words flow easily for me, which paradoxically makes it difficult for me to earn a living writing, because I don't know how to work hard enough at it to do it professionally. But I do enjoy writing, and my head will fill with words until I need to let them out. And for the past several months, my head has been filled with cars, as we'd been trying to find a car forever before finding our Aqua.

So, this is going to be an ongoing posting of my experiences driving the Aqua. The first few posts will try to provide context to our car, i.e. where we're driving, who we are, and what our search was like for a new car, and what led us to the Aqua. There's a lot that I want to say, and I hope that I can get it out in a way that's entertaining.

Setting the Scene: Welcome to Pakistan

Welcome to Pakistan, and the capital, Islamabad! Islamabad is a relatively young city, perhaps the first and only city in Pakistan that was planned, rather than springing up around the most convenient goat tracks. The city's still pretty small; it was laid out in the 1970s, and I think you could still cross the entire city in half-an-hour if you were doing 60-70 mph (if you were able to, that is). It will, I think, in the next five years, entirely surround and then absorb the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan is predominantly Muslim, which doesn't really figure into road behaviour. There's none of the fatalism that you see from across the border. Being Muslim does lend a zest to swearing, because being called a "pig" has very different connotations. And you will, on occasion, have unwashed, bearded crazies out to block the road because of something that someone said, or didn't say; it's difficult to keep up, because I don't speak "religious moron".

Islamabad used to be green, and now it isn't. A lot of the greenery has been uprooted and replaced with roads. My wife complains about it whenever we go to the city, but frankly, I like not being stuck in traffic for 2 hours, and not having to deal with lights and intersections.

Islamabad is built on a plateau, the site chosen because it was in the intersection of three provinces (KPK, Punjab and Kashmir), at the very foot of the Margalla Hills, which are the South-Western most edge of the Himalayas. It's cool in the winters (there have been winters when the temperature dropped to -1 C, but not snow), and it's warm in the summers (thought the past few summers have transitioned to "seriously hot" thanks to Global Warming, or its more PC name "Climate Change"). We get rains all year long, in the winter from the Western Depression that comes in from the North, and in the summer from the monsoons from the South.

Month 1: January 2019

Distance Travelled: 1144.6 km (711.2 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 26.2 km/l (61 mpg)

Aside from the first drive from the dealer to our home, I've been driving the car almost exclusively. Make no mistake, it is my wife's car. She paid for it, it's in her name, but she says it's "our car", and since I have the longest (and most regular) commute, I should be driving it. It'll save money, she says, and hey, I get to drive a nice car.

I've spent a fair bit of money on the car already. I got the dealer to pay for its first transmission fluid change (because it'd done "50,000km"), but I did need to get it checked out. I had the battery checked, the brake fluids, the coolant, the spark-plugs, everything. We didn't get the tyres changed because they'd been installed in 2017, and they looked okay. The car didn't skid or anything, so that's okay. I did (against my better judgement) take it to another guy to have it lifted slightly. I do worry what this will do to the chassis and the suspension in the long-term, but in the short-term, at least the car doesn't make that horrible scraping and bumping noise every time I go over those little hills that are laughingly called "speed-breakers" around here.

There were two weeks this month in which we weren't at home; we were attending a wedding in another city. We went by train, so the car was at home. I asked my father to start the car every few days so that the battery wouldn't go flat. It's January, so the ICE would come on almost immediately, so that may have been a good thing? I don't know, but none of the batteries had gone flat by the time we got back, so I think we did it right.

My wife had my father pick us up from the train station in the Aqua. One of the kids was sick, so hey, at least the car isn't new anymore. But it did prove that the Aqua has at least as much interior space as a Toyota Corolla (which was the hire-car we took to the train station), so that's pretty awesome. The vomit, not so much. I think I got it all out, because the car doesn't smell any worse (or better).

On the first (or perhaps the second) day that I brought it to work, I had some spare keys made for the car (the deal says that he had only the one, which apparently happens with these imported cars), and bought a cover for it. I haven't got a pass to park the car in the underground parking lot (and I might not, as our office doesn't have any slots free), so at least I can give the car some protection from the sun.

I've been driving pretty carefully, all told. I'd gotten into the habit of doing some hyper-miling already. I was driving between 70 and 80 kph (30 and 40 mph), which is the most you can do anyway on most roads, unless you drive really aggressively and make an nice person of yourself. I'd try and coast to a halt as much as possible, and just try not to attack the road. With my father's car, which ordinarily does 10 km/l (24 mpg), I was getting close to 13 km/l (30 mpg). With the Aqua, the indicated mileage for the first tank was 24 km/l (56 mpg), while the actual calculated mileage was 21 km/l (49 mpg), which is pretty amazing.

I have gotten a lot more comfortable though. For the first couple of weeks, I was trying to coax those numbers pretty high. I'd try to hold the throttle near the first third of the bar so it'd stick to EV mode. But the more I drive it, the more I realize that I don't need to. I'll get decent mileage, possibly even as much as if I was trying to "game" the system, if I just drive the way I do naturally. It's very liberating. We'll see how February goes.

New Things I've Learnt:

1. If I'm driving fast in the rain, the drops will go up the windshield towards the back of the car. I've never had that happen before in a car!
2. The bonnet (or hood) is really long. I've had to find markers in our driveway so that I can park the car far ahead enough so that I can close the gate behind it, without hitting the wall in front of me.
3. The school run is a really terrible route in terms of mileage (only 6 km each way), over rough roads, and over a ton of speedbumps. But I still get an indicated mileage of 19 km/l!
4. You get more of a boost when the battery's charged.
5. A CVT is impossibly smooth. It'll be really difficult for me to go back to driving a manual, let alone the usual dim-witted automatic.

 

Thanks, all!

Umm... okay, let me translate it into dollars and gallons...

In December, it was $2.62 per gallon (US). By now, it's dropped a bit, so it's $2.46 per gallon (US).

I saw a video on YouTube in which there was a mechanic guy who was recommending that people not buy the Nissan Altima because its CVT isn't reliable. He mentioned that it was the company that built it, Jatco, that was to blame. Though on the other hand, the Nissan CVT is closer to the true definition of a CVT (with belts and things). The Toyota eCVT is actually a planetary gear system; mechanical. It acts like a CVT but... it isn't.

I was in the US back in 2001 - 2003 (great timing, by the way), so I kinda get where you're coming from. Part of it might be how your towns (and cities) are laid out? So, there will be a downtown, and an uptown, and suburbs, and most places are connected using a highway system. So, it's easy for y'all to just pop over to the next town for a day trip. And often, there's this feeling of space. Maybe it has to do with how individualism is emphasized over all else, so everyone (and everything) has to have space in between.

Here, not so much, and I think I'll get into it when I talk about road sense in Pakistan. But essentially, our towns and roads tend to be a bit more dense. Houses will be packed together, people will squeeze their cars between lanes to overtake, and we will, on a regular basis, try to fit in as many people as possible into our modes of transport. And the same applies to city planning.

As an example, in a 3-mile radius to my home, I have a commercial area (where there is a hodge-podge of grocers, bakeries, petrol stations, the equivalent of dollar-stores, general stores, hardware stores and several estate agents), multiple residential areas, schools and two mosques. If I extend that radius to 6 miles, I'm easily within range of the major commercial areas of Islamabad and its twin city, Rawalpindi.

The drawback, however, means that the roads are cramped, even the "Expressway" (which the previous government spent a lot of time and effort in expanding, and removing signals from), and traffic is... difficult.

I've estimated that I'll do close to 60 km per day. It's 12 km dropping the kids off at school, 40 km to and back from office, and an indefinite distance if I have to travel around the city (meetings, chores). And on weekends, sometimes we go out, and sometimes we don't, so it averages out. In January, we did a lot less, but that's because we weren't at home for a couple of weeks. In February...? We'll see.

I am keeping the two trip meters running; one is for fill-ups, and the other is for a month-by-month.

Do we have private messages here? Drop me a line, I'll ask my wife. We've lived in Islamabad our entire lives, so we wind up eating a mix of foods from all over the country (Pathan, Punjabi, Sindhi and so on). Comes down to what you want, whether it's simple things like rice or lentils, or if it's something like Chicken Achari or Haleem or Nihari....

Just don't ask me about Biryani, though. I know it's very fashionable nowadays, but I've never liked it. I have this thing against eating raw and half-cooked spices...

 

Stuff You Can't Get Elsewhere

So, here I am in Karachi, pestering travel agents and the Civil Aviation Authority because a bunch of politicians can't keep it in their pants. Modi wants to win the next election by distracting people from the promises he made to farmers (and couldn't keep), and Imran Khan doesn't want people to realize that now he's been made Prime Minister, he has no idea what he's doing. People die, lives are disrupted, when the powerful play their game of thrones.

Setting the Scene: What the Car Scene Says

The most common car on the road is the Toyota Corolla. I wouldn't be wrong in saying that every fourth car is a Toyota Corolla. They are the yardstick against which other cars are measured. A Toyota Corolla will hold its value better than any other car. And you can get them in a variety of trims, from the basic XLi (which has a 1.3L engine, power steering, air-conditioner and stereo, but no electric mirrors or windows), to the Grande, which has a 1.8L engine, a CVT, and all of the bells and whistles you'd expect in a basic Japanese car. I personally dislike the Corolla, but only because you see so many of them. I'll tell my family that behind every traffic problem, there is a Corolla, though that isn't the fault of the Corolla, it's just statistically more likely considering how common it is.

The Corolla was made for Pakistan, much as Pakistan was made for the Corolla. It has enough clearance to get over the highest speedhump, tough enough to survive every broken road. Any mechanic in the country could tear it apart and put it back together with their eyes closed. And you will never lose money on it, because there's always a demand for it. Toyota hasn't offered any other cars to the local market (aside from the Hilux pickup, and the Hiace van, but those are different categories altogether), because they fear what effect that might have on their dominance.

But the true petrolheads (or gearheads, if you prefer) know that the better car is the Honda Civic (which is also domestically produced). But the Honda is expensive to buy, and expensive to run, so most people will buy the cheaper Honda City, which is actually pretty terrible. The Honda City was on our Shortlist (more on that in another post), but was pushed off after I drove one.

The hatchback market is dominated by Suzuki, who make the worst cars in Pakistan. It isn't just that the cars are terrible, it's that the finish and the quality control are awful. My sister bought a Suzuki Cultus a few years ago on leasing, and I kid you not, inside of a week, the door lining came off. And she isn't the only one that's happened to.

The cheapest car in Suzuki's portfolio is called the Mehran. This is a car that has the shape of a 10 year-old Alto. It's made out of the waste material after smelters have carted off the good metal, and even the not-so-good metal to make other cars. But it isn't just cheaply made, it's cheaply equipped. It offers, and I am not joking, passenger side wing mirrors as an optional extra. Front-side seat-belts are an optional extra. Air conditioning is an optional extra. A basic radio (without a cassette player) is an optional extra. The list of things you don't get in the car is staggering. It might be quicker to just list what you do get in the car. A body, windshield (front and rear), manual windows (all four doors), four tyres and a spare, a jack, driver's side wing mirror, an 800cc engine (not injected), seats (if you could call them that), headlights, which might well be torches that have been attached using tape, and a 4-speed manual gearbox. It is a truly nasty car, and Suzuki know it. That's why there's no badge at the back, and the name is picked out using only the finest sticker, which usually comes off when you wash it. Except, why would you? Ever?

Imported cars are now becoming very common. Back in the old days, you only ever saw big, expensive cars being imported, Land Cruisers, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and the occasional Camry. And sometimes sports cars or supercars, but that would be a once-in-a-year occurrence (though those are rare, even now). But starting about 10 years ago, people started importing smaller sedans, and hybrids, and kei cars from Japan. And now you'll see the Toyota Vitz (Yaris), Passo, Honda Fit (Jazz), Insight, and a host of 660cc wonders. I'd say that nearly half of the cars I see on the road are imports rather than domestic. I see Aquas all of the time on the road, so at least I can be certain that I'll always be able to find spares, and people to maintain the car.

Month 2: February 2019

Distance Travelled: 1383.1 km (859.4 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 27.5 km/l (64.7 mpg)

It's been raining fairly regularly this February. It's rained nearly every week. It'll rain a couple of days, remain overcast, the sun will come out for a single day, and then it'll start raining again. It's been annoying.

Now, I love the rain. Always have. I don't mind getting wet. When you've lived in a hot country your entire life, you love the rain, and the smell that immediately precedes it. What I don't love is the traffic, because you'll either get people driving far too slowly (and holding up traffic), or the usual yobbo who'll come up behind you and start wailing on his horn, even if you can't change lanes to let him by. And now, rain means that I can't keep the car clean. I did get it serviced once (and saw clean wheel-wells for the first and only time!), and did get it washed a couple of other times, but it just won't stay clean. So, I still haven't put in new mats or seat-covers, because the car's perpetually covered in mud all of the time.

I have started driving the car more naturally. I'm no longer nursing the throttle, trying to maintain EV mode for as long as possible. I'm no longer coasting and gliding. And yet, I've noticed that my mileage is better this month than it was last month. I've had two fuel-ups this month, and they've both been above 25 km/l (58 mpg). I can very easily get more than 37 km/l (87 mpg) on the way home, without resorting to any sort of hypermiling tricks.

The only real rule that you need to follow is, "Don't drive like a yobbo." Don't accelerate too hard. Don't brake too hard. Drive deliberately. You can drive fast if you want, but there's no need to redline it all of the time. Get to the speed you need to, and then maintain. That's it. Dive politely, and getting big numbers out of your fuel economy is a doddle.

Now, I'm not very big on conservation. I kinda-sorta believed in the "environment" and "saving the whales" back in school, but college and work has burned that out of me. I mean, I know that climate change and global warming are real; I just don't believe that I, as an individual, or we, as mankind, can remove our heads from our bottoms long enough to do anything about it. So, while I don't really care how "green" the Aqua is, I love how efficient it is.

Here's the thing: they haven't introduced any new form of adding energy to the car. It still gets energy through combustion. I don't plug it into the mains to charge the batteries, there's no solar cells, nothing. All of the power in the system comes from either the car's combustion engine, or its motion (which is aided by the combustion engine anyway). What it's doing, is to minimize waste. When you brake, you're wasting energy, so it recaptures that. When you're going downhill, it turns off the engine, and recaptures that gravitational potential energy. When you're stopped, it turns off the engine (which apparently wastes a lot of fuel, the longer you're stuck). When you're in slow traffic, it turns off the ICU and switches to the more efficient electrical motor to keep you moving. At every step of the way, it tries to recapture energy that other cars would waste. Sufficiently advanced science has a magic all of its own.

New Things I've Learnt:

1. If the batteries aren't fully charged, it feels as though the car "spools up" boost before it really starts accelerating. Which, I suppose, it is doing, seeing as how the CVT is set-up (being a planetary gear system rather than the usual belt system).
2. I can never go back to conventional domestic cars. They feel like junk. I had to drive my sister's car briefly, and after I got out, I told my wife it felt like it was made out of tin. Its engine sounds like it's out of a tractor. It rattles and shakes like a skeleton doing the disco. And the doors are flimsy.
3. Speaking of engine noises, one of my father's friends bought a top-of-the-line Vitz (Yaris); reversing camera, push-button start, the works. My father sat in it, and while it was well-equipped, he complained that it was really noisy.

 

All That's Weird and Funny (But Not in a Funny Way)

March has been a bit mad.

It started out with everyone kinda-sorta worried about war, but not really, because we know that the jerks across the border just want to start trouble because of their elections (and they've done it once before). The airspace remained closed on Friday (when I made my last post), so I had to take a train to Lahore, and then hire a car the rest of the way home in Islamabad. It took 23 hours, and I made the entire trip sitting down, which was not fun.

Ironically, March is also when we celebrate Pakistan Day, with a big ol' parade, with everyone acting all muscular, which meant that the airspace around Islamabad was closed again. And they blocked the roads on half of the days for rehearsals. I did get to see part of the air show while they were practising, including the demonstration by the Chinese Air Force. It wasn't bad. But the actual parade is invitation only, and I wouldn't know the first thing about whom to ask for tickets.

March was also when there was the terrorist attack in New Zealand, for once, not by a Muslim, but against Muslims. It certainly threw me for a loop. Usually when there's a terrorist attack, I worry about reading up on them, in case it turns out that it was a Pakistani who was responsible. I'm very conflicted about Muslims (including Pakistanis) being victims rather than perpetrators. On the one hand, there's a sense of relief, that "Yay, we didn't do it!". On the other hand, well, you know, people dead, families devastated, that sort of kidney.

Setting the Scene: How People Treat Their Cars

Jeremy Clarkson described Indians as "fatalists", to explain their dangerous roads. Being Jeremy Clarkson, he tied it into Hinduism and their belief in pre-destiny, though of course, the real reasons are far more complicated. Pakistani roads are dangerous too, but perhaps not to the extent as we're told across the border.

If I had to define Pakistani drivers in a word, I'd call them "cynics". You need to protect your own car. When you're on the road, you drive defensively. Getting ahead of others is a high-stakes game of chicken. If you blink, if you are suddenly overwhelmed by fear for your car (or your life), you'll pull away, and won't get ahead, and will be banished to the Loser Lane. But if you remain strong, and determined, you can overtake the other guy, and... I do not know. It's like winning a really small raffle. Coming from a video game culture, I'd feel better about it if I got points, or unlocked achievements, but after you've overtook one person, you'll need to overtake someone else. And if you're in the fast lane, there will inevitably be someone that you can't outrun.

I used to play the game when we had the Santro, but since I've been with the Baleno (which is sluggish) and the Aqua (which I'm trying to be careful with), I've noticed that driving aggressively doesn't get me anywhere faster, it just increases my blood pressure. You need to drive close to the guy ahead of you to make sure that no-one tries to nose their way in. You have to ignore the guy tailgating you, whose honking his horn and flashing his headlights at you. It's far too stressful, and it's really not worth it.

I don't think there's necessarily a hierarchy of vehicles on the road. Every driver in Pakistan is a supreme egotist, believing himself to be the best driver in the world. Drivers of small cars don't fear trucks or buses. Motorbikes will brazenly dart this way and that through traffic. My wife once honked a truck out of her way. I once saw a person in a tiny hatchback force a minibus off the road so that he could get out and shout at the driver for cutting him off in traffic. But pedestrians are at the bottom of every driver's priority. People are cheap (and plentiful), but cars cost money.

As a consequence of this, people will try and keep their cars spotless, inside and out. This was what had shocked me when I'd been in the US; the amount of trash people will leave in their cars (drive-through food, coffee cups). In Pakistan, people will never leave trash in their cars. Why leave trash in your car, when there are perfectly acceptable roads everywhere to toss your litter on? You don't have to keep the roads clean, I'm sure there are people for that. But if you trash your car, you're the one who'll have to clean it, and that would be unacceptable.

Month 3: March 2019

Distance Travelled: 1617.2 km (1004.9 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 26.7 km/l (62.8 mpg US)

The wife's started teaching, so she's added to the commute. The mileage this month, though, is lower than it could have been because of how many days I've been working from home. I'm pretty sure it's going to go up in April.

Because I haven't been going to office, the car's mostly been driven locally, along streets and single carriageway roads, with tons of speed breakers. That, as anyone will tell you, is the worst-case scenario for improving your mileage. It really says something that we're disappointed when we "only" get 20 km/l over a trip.

Speaking of which, the indicated mileage is still a couple of points higher than what the actual mileage is. It's not terrible, honestly, but it's a data point. At least I know that the mileage-o-metre is accurate enough for me to brag about a particular trip. And I can use the Fuelly app to keep track of my actual mileage, so I know how I'm doing, fill-up to fill-up.

We've finally gotten the registration card for the car. It used to be a book, back in the day, but now it's a smart card. We have smart cards for national IDs, smart cards for drivers' licenses and now smart cards for the car registration, but there's no infrastructure for it. Even the annual tax rate is written incorrectly. And paying the annual tax is going to be a headache. With the books, you'd just go to the post office, and they'd stick a stamp into it. Now, you have to wander around half the city, get a letter from one place, get a form printed out from another, pay the tax at a bank, then submit the completed receipt and form to yet another office... it is stupid, and convoluted, and you would think that the government would want to make it easier for them to get their grubby paws on my hard-earned cash.

Now, I've seen a few videos of professional reviewers driving the Prius C. Well, I saw "professional", but y'know, people on TV or on YouTube, which might pass for the same thing. They get paid for it, and they drive a lot of cars. You know what I mean. Let me start over...

I watched a couple of video reviews of the Prius C. The main complaint has always been that the car is sluggish, and that it's slow. They hate the CVT, they say it's not very responsive. And that misses the point. This isn't meant to be a fast car. This is a car that's about economy. It's not for young people to drag race with. It's not designed to go around corners very quickly. It's a very fuel-efficient car that's really easy to park, and doesn't look as strange as the lift-back Prius.

It's a point that's come up in normal conversation as well. A neighbour's son (and there's the first problem right there; don't give hybrids to teenagers) had been complaining to my father that their Aqua doesn't accelerate that fast, and that the mileage isn't as great as people say it is. To which, my reaction was, "D-uh, obviously." This isn't a car built to drive like a maniac. And if you try and drive it like a maniac, you're not going to get good mileage.

The problem is the CVT. It doesn't rev like a sporty car. We're already programmed to listen for that rising pitch as the engine revs up, then you switch gear, and then it revs up again, slightly slower. With the CVT, it's a constant sound, and yes, if you're really pushing it, it's a constant drone at the squeal-ier end of the scale. And if you accelerate more gradually, there's no feeling of speed at all, because the engine doesn't sound like it's doing anything at all.

Look, if you want a sporty car, get a sporty car. If you want a car that'll give you great mileage on your commute without any effort on your part, get a Prius.

New Things I've Learnt:

• I'd forgotten how tiring it is to change gears. We got the cars washed today (because the rains have stopped), so I had to drive my father's car home, then drive my sister's car to the service station, and it was so annoying. Accelerate, change gear, change gear, oh, need to brake for the speed breaker! Change down, change down, over and... accelerate! Change gear, change gear, oh damn, another speed breaker! It never ends, and it's so annoying. I thought manual cars were supposed to be "fun".
  
• I've noticed that sometimes, if I'm driving along, and I need to overtake someone who's being annoying, the car will growl along with me when I stomp on the pedals to get past him. It's nice that it shares my anger.
• I've finally gotten seat covers and mats for the car! And in the process of installing the new seat covers, I've finally gotten a good look at the battery compartment. Did not expect how small it is. And the 12V battery is still the original Japanese, which makes me wonder if I'll need to replace it soon.
• This is kinda not hybrid-specific, but I think I've finally understood what a carburettor does. It took an episode of Mythbusters, and a conversation with my father to pound it into my head. Did you know that petrol burns better when it's vaporized? And diesel won't burn at all as a liquid?
• Speaking of Mythbusters, I've noticed, in the old programs, that Adam and Jamie will drive around in a Prius. Funny how I'd never noticed that before.

 

A Doggerel

Allergies are here again, now that spring has sprung,
Everything tastes like s***, when anti-histamine coats my tongue.
Everyone thinks I'm a terrorist, because I wear a mask to work and back,
My kids run screaming from me, I guess I just have a knack.
My nose is full of sniffles, my nostrils full of jam,
I'm going to sit and pick my nose, I don't give a d***.
I ask my wife as we snuffle our noses, what ever am I to do,
She tells me to sit next to her, and then says "Ah-choo!"

Setting the Scene: Laws of the Lands

Now, lest you believe that Pakistani roads are a lawless wasteland, I'll have you know that we do have traffic laws. And if you gave me some time, I might even be able to remember some of them. I know they're there; I once saw a little booklet that had them, and glanced through it for about five seconds.

The problem is that no matter what the laws are, they aren't enforced. Pakistan is perhaps one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and that corruption is endemic in the very fabric of the society. When you think of corruption, you think about politicians taking money in exchange for favouring "special interest groups", but we're well past that. Nothing gets done without bribes. Nothing gets done if you don't "know someone" who "knows" someone. Equipment bought for a government department will either wind up in the homes of officers or departmental heads, or mysteriously "stolen" and sold, with the money winding up in the same place. Funds are "reallocated", and there's no accountability, because every department of every organization (government or otherwise) is run exactly the same way. You don't even notice it any more, because it's How Things Work. I expect fish don't notice water either.

Anyway, the rules of the road are much the same way. Those lines on the road? Utterly meaningless. Stop signs? Excellent places to hang up political posters. Traffic lights? If there isn't a policeman about, sneak on by. The shoulder? It's an extra lane, and you're an idiot for ignoring it. Drafting, tailgating, overtaking from either side? That's normal. At least in Islamabad, people won't drive the wrong way down a road very often, but that's about all I can say about that.

Okay, so there are a few additional laws that are enforced in Islamabad, that aren't in other cities. The driver (and maybe the front passenger) need to be wearing seatbelts, which is a problem for people in Suzukis because those are optional extras. And motorcycle riders (but not the passengers) need to wear helmets. Traffic often slows down on the entryways to Islamabad, as drivers struggle to put on their seatbelts and pull on helmets, swerving wildly in a comedic ballet of incompetence. Oh, and cellphones aren't allowed, in theory, though I've cursed out enough people who are so lost in their cellphones that they have no idea where they are, and what's around them. And that goes for cars and motorcycles.

One law that I'm glad they no longer enforce are speed limits. No-one likes speed limits, but they are particularly pointless in Pakistan. For one thing, most of our cars can't do more than 120kph (75mph) at the best of times. For another, the roads are so terrible that you can't get to 100kph (60mph) without the car shaking itself apart. And the roads that are any good have so much traffic, you're lucky if you can average 60kph (38mph).

You'll still see traffic policemen here and there around the city. You'll see them at traffic lights, either directing rush hour traffic, or taking over if there's a blackout. And there are specific locations where they'll sit and wait for people who drive around without seatbelts.

For everything else, it's just a matter of what you can get away with on the roads, if you're daring enough.

Month 3: April 2019

Distance Travelled: 2173.2 km (1350.4 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 25.8 km/l (60.7 mpg US)

This has been an exciting month, I suppose. For one thing, it's gotten warmer. The daytime temperature peaks at around 35°C (95°F), so you need the air conditioner if you're out on the road for any period of time during the day. I've got the climate control set on 24°C (75°F), and that's usually comfortable. Sometimes it feels colder, and I'll turn it off, but then the car will get stuffy... this is why I hate air conditioners for the most part, but what can you do?

A consequence of the increased heat is that people on the road start to go nuts. Part of it is because they're now in more of a rush to get wherever they're going, and part of it is because they have terrible cars that they haven't done proper maintenance on. So, you have cars with radiators overheating, weak tyres skidding, brakes not working, slamming into cars that are otherwise in better shape. I've been lucky so far, though I have had other cars hitting my wing-mirror.

I am driving a lot more comfortably now. I no longer put any thought into "gliding" or "coasting", and just drive normally. I mean, either I've gotten used to the Aqua, or the Aqua's gotten used to me, but I'm getting pretty good gas mileage without having to work for it. A 24km/l (56mpg) with the air conditioner running all of the time is incredible, especially when most of the other cars on the road would be getting 11km/l (26mpg). As one of my colleagues put it, I'm basically driving around for free.

We've driven a lot, this month. I've been going to office regularly, and my wife's been going to her classes. Usually, I'll drive to work, and then she'll take the car to the university from there. Then she'll pick me up on the way home, and I'll drive the rest of the way. Or, if she has a class later in the day, she'll take a taxi to my office, I'll give her the keys, and she'll take the car to the university. And that's the regular stuff. We've had a few extra trips, too.

Earlier in the month, I drove up to the airbase in Kamra via the Motorway. The Motorway is pretty good, fairly empty, and the speed limit is 120kph (75mph). And it was the most undramatic 120kph I've ever done. The car was pretty quiet, it accelerated well when I needed to overtake, and the air conditioner didn't affect the acceleration at all. And it gave me an average of 24km/l (56mpg) indicated during the entire trip. And I've had the car long enough to know that the indicated mileage is perhaps one or two points above what the actual mileage is, so it's still incredible. I was amazed, and I wanted my wife to drive the car on the Motorway as well.

Last weekend, I decided that we should have an Adventure. We'd go out to the one-eighth acre of land we'd bought a while ago (via the Motorway), and on the way back, we'd have my wife do her first hill ascent and hill descent. The last part worked out okay, and the wife got to try out the mysterious B gear in the car. And going uphill wasn't a problem at all, even though we had 4 adults and 3 kids in the car. The first part of the Adventure, however, didn't work out as planned.

We never got to the Motorway. I was "convinced" that the direct route was better, and while it was shorter, it was also horrible. That road was my Aqua nightmare. There was dust. There were ruts. There were bumps and potholes. There were sections where there was no road. There were sections where the road was brilliant, and then it would suddenly end in a mess of potholes, that would be most painful of all. It took us an hour to get through it, and every meter was agony.

I had, at least, taken the car in for its first maintenance check-up, so I was sanguine about the various fluids and the batteries. I got the battery serviced, which was... interesting. They cleaned out the fan filters, which looked something like this:



That's a lot of dust for only four months of driving. And there are so many terminals on the HVB, all of which got opened, and cleaned.

The great thing is that the workshop has a ton of batteries lying around. They have individual cells, and they have entire batteries for all three types of the Prius cars available. So, even if the worst should happen, we'll have access to batteries at least.

New Things I've Learnt:

• While going downhill, the car will occasionally make the most horrible racket. Well, comparatively. The car's quiet most of the time, but the engine will growl sometimes even if the throttle isn't pressed.
• My mother had a surprisingly good time on our Adventure. In spite of being squeezed in the back seat with my father and my two sons, she said she was comfortable, and none of the bumps and jars made her back ache.
• My wife remains a petrol-head. She accelerates hard, and brakes late, and tries to take turns as wide as she can so that she can accelerate out of them faster.
• I keep thinking that I should learn how to use my left leg for braking. I don't know if it would add anything to my low-energy fuel-efficient driving style, but it'd give my left leg something to do.

 

It's Not the Hunger, It's the Lack of Sleep

It's the month of Ramadhan, and that means fasting from sunrise to sunset. In Islamabad, that means having to eat one meal just before 3:30 in the morning, and then having the next meal at just after 7 p.m. It's not as bad as it sounds, because I don't have a very physical job, we have air-conditioning at home and at the office, and frankly, no-one expects anything to get done during Ramadhan, so there's no real pressure.

What irritates me is having to wake up in the middle of the night, because I've always had trouble sleeping, and it's really hard to get back to sleep again. I will, every few days, crash into sleep after work, but it's not a sure thing. I've spent the month in a daze, slightly detached from reality.

On the one hand, I do like Ramadhan, because I don't have to worry about what to have for lunch. No-one bothers me about having lunch, at home or at work. At the morning meal, we'll just have whatever's at hand because there's no time, and at the evening meal, we'll have pakoras (because that's what my father likes) and a fruit salad (because that's what I like), and that's it. Done. And, because our office timing is different from official bank timing, I don't get any traffic on my commute.

On the other hand, I like sleeping, and I don't get to sleep enough. You can't go out and do anything because there's never enough time. The evening meal is this ever-present deadline, ticking away at your sanity. You have to be home so that you can break your fast. You shouldn't be out on the road near sunset because you'll get stuck on the road. If you have to go out to eat, it'll be for the evening meal, and more often than not, you'll have to put with a buffet and the inevitable elbow-in-the-ribs. You can't go out later because you'll have already eaten, and you'll want to go to sleep so you can wake up for the morning meal. And then the cycle begins again.

Setting the Scene: Genesis

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the Nissan Sunny, also known as the Datsun 120Y. For most people of my generation, the first car owned by their families was the Nissan Sunny. My father had one, and so did my mother-in-law. It was fast, it was reliable, it was comfortable, and it was a safe investment. This was the first, and last time, that you could say that about a Nissan in Pakistan.

My wife's uncle warned us against buying a Nissan. "Don't ever buy a Nissan," he told us. "You'll never be able to get rid of it." And then I read that Nissan's CVT isn't reliable, and y'know, I'm kinda glad that we didn't buy a Juke. But there was a brief shining moment when the Nissan was a contender.

I always liked the Nissan Sunny, because I thought it was named after me (my family called me Sunny because my sister had trouble saying my name). It was silver, as I recall... and that's pretty much all that I remember. And that my father flipped it.

I don't remember the accident itself, I just remember being in a dark place, and I knew it was dark because I could see motes dancing in a light source that was just beyond my reach. I was safe? I wasn't afraid, but I was alone, and it was dark. And then there were a pair of hands, reaching for me...

I didn't have a scratch on me, I'm told. Everyone else had bumps and bruises, but I was perfectly fine. I'd wound up under the seats when it happened, so that must've insulated me.

And that's how I survived my first car crash.

Month 5: May 2019

Distance Travelled: 1683.7 km (1046.2 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 24.4 km/l (57.4 mpg US)

Five months of Pakistani roads are leaving their mark on the car. There are light scratches on several panels, there's pitting on the hood, and a bit of a knock on the front bumper. There's nothing major, to be honest, but every one of them sears my soul.

It's gotten hotter now, and the rain's gone away. The air conditioners are on every night, and at random periods during the day. It was 42°C (107°F) this morning, otherwise known as "viciously hot". It's so hot you can't breath, the sun is a hammer pounding away, and the heat strips away the colour from the world... so it's a good thing I've finally gotten a slot in my office building's underground parking.

The indicated mileage is still 24 km/l (56 mpg US), but the actual mileage is a bit lower, at around 22 km/l (52 mpg US), which is still twice what we'd get with any other car. And this is going to be important moving forward, because petrol prices are going up all of the time. It was around PKR 91 per litre (USD 2.3 per gallon?) back in January. It's PKR 109 (USD 2.8 per gallon?) this month, and it's expected to go even higher in June. Our mileage might improve actually, because the kids have started their summer holidays, so we don't have to crawl through the slim roads to their school to drop them off in the morning.

So mileage and maintenance are things that I don't need to worry about. Now, if only I could do something about the electricity bill...

Randomness

• I'm still in that weird limbo between manual and automatic cars. When I have to drive one of the other cars at home, I keep wanting to shift out of neutral while pressing on the brakes. My father tells me I'm being silly. On the other hand, if I'm taking a corner at an inadvisably fast speed, I find myself reaching for the gear stick, wanting to throw the car into a lower gear so that I can take the turn.
• The rear lights bug me, slightly. They're massive, and they don't get polished when I get the car cleaned. So, while I can just wipe dirt off the rest of the car, it sticks to the lights, and I can't ever get them properly clean. It's an obsession, I know. My wife is worried about me.
• My wife, always more daring than I, decided to try left-foot braking. She didn't see much point to it.
  
• My son said that the Aqua looks similar to a Toyota Passo. I think I deserve credit for not hefting him out of the gate with just the clothes on his back.

 

Difference of traffic, I guess? Mileage depends on:

1. Average speed;
2. Length of traffic jams and start/stop traffic;
3. Length of total commute.

If you're driving at near the car's top speed, your mileage will get worse. If you're spending long periods of time in a traffic jam, or in traffic that's crawling, then your mileage will get worse. And if your commute is shorter than a certain length, your mileage will be pretty bad.

Most of my 20 km (12.4 mi) is along a straight, five-lane road. The first 6 km (4 mi) are bad because there are only two lanes, with heavy and light traffic, but after that, it's smooth sailing. There are no traffic signals, either coming or going. But, and this is the crucial bit, I am never able to exceed 80 kph (60 mph), either because the traffic doesn't allow it, or the road surface doesn't allow it.

 

That's What Passes for Wheeled Transportation

Ramadhan ended with Eid, so we made our rounds of the city, meeting with relatives. My sister was over from England, where she's been working on her PhD, so we can't really squeeze into a single car anymore. To be honest, the way that my son is growing, we'll be hard pressed to get everyone into the same car anyway. I know it's Pakistan, and getting just five people into a car at the same time is boring, but... oh, I don't know. I'll bet I'm just being a snob.

I've had various people showing interest in the car recently. A friend who works in Karachi regularly tells me that the price of this particular model has gone up significantly, and people are still interested. I've had two rather vague offers for it from people in Islamabad, especially after I put up this picture in an office chat window:



That's at the end of my regular office commute. I suppose I got lucky with the traffic, but I did have the air conditioning on the entire way. That sort of thing makes a statement. And that statement is, "What've you got, bro?"

And I have the answer to that, too. Meet the new Suzuki Alto:



That is the Suzuki Alto, the 8th Generation version of the model, which will replace the 30-year-old Suzuki Mehran (which was a 2nd Generation Alto). In a first for an Alto (in Pakistan), it'll have power-steering and air-bags (in the more expensive trims).

It also looks like a washing machine.

The bottom two trims will have a five-speed manual gearbox, out of which I expect there will be 3 forward gears, one reverse, one for regular workloads, and one for your delicates. I assume that the automatic will also have a spin-cycle.

Setting the Scene: All About Me

Well, not all. Some. A little bit.

Let's get the surface stuff out of the way then. I'm short, nerdish, I like books, and I'm good with computers. I'm a living stereotype; you look at me, and you'll know most of what you need to know.

This is the point at which I'd reveal my hidden depths, but I really don't have many. I do genuinely like reading, and I deal with computers better than I do with people. I'm terrible at small talk, and if I engage you in small talk, you will get the impression that I'm reading through a list of questions in my head (which I am).

I wasn't very interested in driving as a kid. I played racing games on my Sega and my computer, but I didn't want to drive one in real life on the roads. My father's attempts to teach me driving were mostly a disaster, because he's a reluctant teacher, and I was an unwilling student. I didn't hit anyone, but I was a menace on the few times I took the car out. My father didn't help matters by snatching at the wheel while I was driving.

My first real experience at driving was in Arizona, when my roommate decided that I should get a driver's license as an additional ID. I knew the basics of driving, so he just taught me how to parallel park (a really easy method, one that I still use). I passed the written test, as I knew I would, breezed through the parallel park, but then failed when I changed lanes incorrectly. I thought it was a bit unfair, but whatever. I was due back after 6 months, but I never bothered to try again. I had my bicycle, and that was enough for me.

I didn't really start driving until after I got married. The day after, the new bride is expected to visit her family, I expect to ensure that any bruises she has aren't very visible. I felt it'd be embarrassing for the wife to drive just after she'd been married off, so I offered to drive. So, we drove from Islamabad to Rawalpindi at about 60 kph (37mph) in the slow lane in my sister's car, with her telling me when to shift up and shift down. It was a very nervous drive.

I've gotten better about it, since then. I had my moments, when I took the car as fast as it would go. The Santro was the perfect car to teach me, because it was light and responsive and agile, and oh! It was wonderful! And it took the wife to the hospital when we had all three of our sprogs so... good and bad?

Month 6: June 2019

Distance Travelled: 1530.3 km (950.9 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 23.8 km/l (56.0 mpg US)

The indicated mileage is getting pretty close to what the actual mileage is, when I go from tank to tank. Fuel prices went up a significant amount this month, and I expected them to go even higher in July, but my father says they'll actually go lower, so I didn't fill up the car today. The mileage is holding up pretty well (I suppose), but I don't hold much hope for July. The temperatures are already rising to 45°C (113°F).

I'd like to take a moment now to say that while all of y'all in the "First World Countries" have the luxury of arguing over whether "climate change" or "global warming" are real or not, and whether it's your fault or not, we here are living with it. It's estimated that by the year 2030, this entire swath of the world will be unlivable. So, while you're having your little fights over semantics, we're dying. Y'all had your fun with the industrial revolution when you burned coal and oil to get one over on each other, and sped to your current domination over the world, but y'know, we all live here too. What're we called again, does anyone remember? Oh yes, "the rest of the world".

Anyway, I thought I'd take a bit of time to talk about what I dislike about the Toyota Aqua. I mean, I don't expect Toyota to ever pay me for saying nice things about them, so I think I should talk about what I don't like about it.

My eldest kid asked me if I liked the Aqua because it's our car, or because I really, actually like it (truth from babes, am I right?). And I do like it. I liked it the first time I saw one cutting through traffic like a shark through water. And owning one has mostly been pretty fun so far. But it's not perfect. Though, a lot of the problems I have with it are petty.

All of the Pettiness in One Place

• I'm not too sure about the front seats. I'm not sure whom they were made for, but I don't think they were made for a human spine. I expect there is one person in the entire world for whom these seats are perfectly contoured, but it isn't me. My wife sometimes complains about her back aching, but then she carries the little one around, and that certainly contributes.
• There's no heat gauge. You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to install one, but no. The first I'd find out if the car was overheating is when it's actually overheating. That can't be right. Wouldn't it be better if I could find out if there were indicators to tell me that the car is running a bit hot, and it's time to look at the filters and the radiator?
• There's something about the paint and the film on the windows, that it seems to collect scratches. There are little ones everywhere, and it seems as though the bonnet is pitting in places. There's nothing major, but it just seems as though they are everywhere.
• The fans are too noisy. Winter and spring was okay, because the fans were off, so I could listen to the music with the volume below 50%. Now, I need to crank it up to 60% to hear anything.
• Conversely, the car's too quiet when I'm driving through the parking garage. I have to keep an eye out for people having a smoke in case they step out in front of me in their drug-induced haze.
• That hollow sproing noise from the traction control system, every time I go over a bad bump (and there are plenty of those) makes me feel nauseous. I mean, I'm assuming it's the traction control. The traction control light flashes when the front wheels leave the ground, and there's a funny hollow noise that feels like "sproing", and I wonder what it's complaining about.
• Toyota owners are largely d*cks. The size of the Toyota defines how big of a d*ck they really are. So, people in Land Cruisers, Prados and Fortuners are massive d*cks. Like, huge. The ones in Corollas are your regular, everyday d*cks, the ones that you don't give a second thought to. I like to think that the Aqua, being a hatchback, makes me just d*ckish enough to be cool and likeable. And it's a hybrid, which makes me extra sexy to the conservationist chicks. I think I might be the sexiest I've ever been. And that's utterly useless to me, seeing as I'm married with kids.

 

That's Way Too Much

This has been a very expensive month. In short order, I've bought two televisions (including one smart TV), an air-conditioner, a treadmill, and paid for a trip to Lahore (which I will be refunded for by the company) and a trip to the mountains which will come later in August. All of it was necessary (for a given value of "necessary"), but it still stings. I had my year-end bonus to help, and I might have something left over after I get my credit card bill paid up (and of course, the electricity and gas bills). So, it's all good, I suppose.

My brother-in-law bought an Isuzu truck, which is huge and fabulous, but isn't exactly what you'd call economical. It gets 9 km/l (21 mpg US) in the city, and 15 km/l (35 mpg US) on the highway on diesel. That's a problem, because he's going to use it for his office commute. My wife (and her sister-in-law, privately) were laughing that he misses the big cars he used to drive in the US. I mean, I understood his reasoning (it's safe, it's new, it's being produced domestically, he got a massive rebate because Isuzu has just started selling it), but I still find it questionable. But then again, I'm not as much of a petrolhead as my wife and her family. I'm just not as passionate about having a big, powerful car.

Honda and Toyota have had to slow down production of their cars in Pakistan dramatically. Thanks to new (and higher) taxes, people can't afford new cars. So, people are making do with what they have. Not that this will dissuade the super-rich, but then, what does? Early in the month, I saw a brand-new hybrid Toyota Camry pass me by. It was absolutely beautiful, and I suspect it would've been just as wonderful to sit in.

Setting the Scene: The Search Part I

I was pretty happy with the Santro. It was the first car I'd drive regularly, and the first car I had to take care of. And it was pretty low maintenance, for the most part. My wife had bought it from her uncle, and it was in... decent shape. There's a lot that's under those ellipses. The car was fine mechanically, but there was evidence that it had been in a couple of accidents. The bumpers were held on by wire, and one of the headlights wasn't straight. These were minor things, and I addressed them eventually. Along the way, I learned a lot about how cars work, and what different bumps and sounds meant.

There weren't any electrics. It was a workout turning the wheel and rolling down the window. And all of the gear changes! I can't believe how much gear-changing we used to do. Heavy traffic was the worst, because you kept having to go between Neutral, First, and sometimes Second, and ride the clutch so you wouldn't suddenly slam into the car up front. But it was a learning experience, and it built character, and put hair on your chest. And it was a feisty car, all told. You'd get up to Fifth at about 80 kph (50 mph), and it'd still be accelerating.

In 2013, I'd just gotten some work done on the car, and I thought to myself, "Now, it's done. Now, I don't need to do anything for the next forseeable future." A day later, the car was in an accident, and it was back in the shop.

It wasn't a big accident. No-one got hurt. The boy was in the front seat, and he was fine. But the car wasn't the same again.

For the next five years, there was a persistent problem in the passenger-side front shocks, where they'd leak grease, and start squeaking. The bottle for the wiper fluid leaked constantly, and even when we replaced it, there was something with the tubes that they'd never work right. The fuse box wouldn't close at all, and was always slightly bent. The horn had fallen off of its mountings. Little problems, see? Nothing big, nothing that made the car undriveable. But small, persistent problems that rendered the car "not quite right".

The wife said, "We need a new car," and so we started looking.

Month 7: July 2019

Distance Travelled: 1771.6 km (1100.8 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 24.5 km/l (57.6 mpg US)

It's started raining, so the temperature's gone down a bit. It's a lot more humid, but the air-conditioning doesn't seem to care about that. My wife's school has also ended so that part of the commute is also over. The mileage would have been even better, but I got stuck in traffic twice this month, once on the way back from dropping my sister off at the airport. There was something political happening, so half of the roads into Islamabad were blocked.

Some of the money I spent this month was also on the car. I finally had a reversing and front-facing camera installed on the car, and in order for those to work, I also had to have the screen replaced. The screen is rather cheapish, but then, I didn't want anything too expensive. The expensive models have DVD-players (which I don't need), have Android (which I don't want), and allow you to play YouTube in the car (why would I want that?). I suppose it might be useful to have Google Maps running directly on the car screen, but I'd rather there were as few distractions for the driver as possible. The current stereo has a radio (which finally covers the entire range of frequencies we have in Pakistan), Bluetooth connectivity so I can receive calls and listen to music from my phone, and I can have the front and back cameras on it.

Maybe after six months, I'll feel different. The hard part was getting the cables from the rear bumper, and the front bumper to the interior; replacing the stereo itself should be easy.

I haven't had time to get the car serviced this month. There's a guy who cleans cars in the basement parking of where I work, and he does a decent job. He doesn't do the interiors unless I ask (and he has time), and of course he doesn't do the undercarriage. My father was complaining that the interior of the car is getting lived in; well, that's what happens when you have three kids, and one of them screams if you don't give her biscuits when she wants them.

Randomness

• We're in Lahore this week, which is why this is coming so early. I could have posted this on Monday, honestly, but I was busy. My wife first wanted us to bring the car, and then she didn't, and I decided that we should just hire a car. The drive to Lahore isn't bad, but the driving inside Lahore is awful, and I mean really awful. No-one knows how to change lanes, and frankly, I'm not sure if any of them know which is the right direction to drive down a road. I'd rather not risk my nice car on such awful roads.
• We will, however (probably) be taking it for our trip later this month to the mountains. I have it on authority that there are points where Japanese cars (with their lower suspensions) may scrape the road, but it's only a couple of places.
• The new screen does allow videos to be played, so I may have to copy cartoons on an SD card or USB for the kids to watch during the 4-5 hour drive.

 

The Outdoors Wouldn't be So Bad if There Was WiFi... and Electricity... and a Roof... and...

I've barely been to office all of this month. We started the month out in Lahore, then yes, there was an entire week with regular work, but then there was a week off for Eid, a week off to go to Naran, and then last week, I spent hopping from one hotel to another for giving presentations for company events.

We went up to Naran, which is 300-odd kilometres (186 miles) to the North, in the mountains. And by "mountains", I mean a valley in the Lower Himalayas, an elevation of 2,500 metres (nearly 8,000 feet). Even in August, it was cold enough that we had to wear jackets half of the time, and sleep in blankets at night. It was the wife's idea, because she seems to like things like mountains, and rivers, and trees and things of those description. Me, I prefer to be in places where there's internet, and electricity, and room service, so that I can lie around and play video games on a computer.

Still, the wife had been asking for a while, and we did have a bit of money still left over from my spending spree last month, and the children hadn't been, and their schools were about to reopen, and... there were a lot of reasons to go. And it turned out alright. I hadn't been there since the '90s, and my wife hadn't been there since the early 2000s, so we didn't know what to expect. The roads have improved quite a bit, and it's a lot busier now. There is a massive market in the city (mostly hotels, eateries, shops to sell nuts, warm weather clothing and shoes, and knick-knacks), and lots of little shops to sell various food items at the most popular sites around.

We missed most of the crowds, apparently, by waiting until after the Eid holidays were over. And most schools open by mid-August, so we were lucky there too, because Heaven only knows what it must be like when it's crowded. When I went there, we'd had to park our car in Abbottabad, and hire a jeep to take us the rest of the way. This time around, the road's pretty good (for the most part), and you only need to hire a jeep for a couple of places. We went up to Lake Saiful Muluk, Lalazar (not the one in Rawalpindi but the one in the mountains), and the wife drove up to Lulusar Lake, because no-one in her family has ever let her drive in the mountains.

And because I know people will want pictures, here are some that I took:
Lulusar Lake

Lake Saiful Muluk


Lulusar Lake


The road from Naran to Lulusar Lake (and then on to Babusar Pass; I keep wanting to forward this to Jeremy Clarkson so he can drive some fat-tired rear-wheel drive car over them, because they're that fun

Setting the Scene: The Search Part II

If we had to buy a car, I had a few rules, but honestly, they all stemmed from the same requirement; the new car has to be better than the old car. It had to be bigger (obviously, because we had more kids, and they would get bigger), it had to have a bigger engine (because the wife needs air conditioning, and a bigger engine means a more efficient air conditioner), and it had to have more extras. My problem was that if the new car was going to be the same as the old one, then why bother going through the hassle of replacing the old one?

In some ways, it simplified our search criteria, because it narrowed the field. Suzuki was right out, for obvious reasons. The various kei cars (imported and local) were also out for reasons of being too small and underpowered. Much to my wife's consternation, I also eliminated the Toyota Passo (also sold as the Daihatsu Boon, and the Subaru Justy), because I thought it was cramped, and it has a 1 litre engine, like in the Santro. My wife suggested that we not buy anything too old either, which I agreed with in principle, but still couldn't help looking at things like Camrys (the affordable models were from 2007 or older), or at Toyota Surfs (which were even older).

Getting a hybrid was always at the back of our minds, but we also suspected that we wouldn't be able to afford them. Hybrid cars aren't made domestically, and even though Japan donated a bunch of them to our police (a 1.8 litre hybrid is significantly faster and more powerful than most of the cars on the road), there didn't seem to be enough of them on the roads for us to be able to afford either the cars, or their maintenance.

Not helping matters were the rumours about the cars themselves. "Batteries are expensive," people would say, "And you need to replace them every 3 years." "Hybrid systems don't work in Pakistan." "No-one can fix the gearbox." "Even a broken headlamp will set you back a significant amount of money."

I'd read up on the hybrid systems, and try to get a feel of what was true and what wasn't. But the internet, that pit of lies and misinformation gave me nothing to work with. Sure, I could read up on the theory, and there was US-centric information on keeping the cars, but nothing about having a hybrid in Pakistan.

Buying a hybrid was always just a dream.

Month 7: July 2019

Distance Travelled: 1871.0 km (1162.6 mi)
Indicated Mileage: 21.1 km/l (49.6 mpg US)

The mileage this month has been pretty terrible, probably because the Aqua's been everywhere but to the office. And the poor thing has had a hard time of it this month.

I took the car to the workshop for its second tune-up, and this time, it was an actual tune-up. They serviced the HVB, did an oil change, serviced the air conditioner, cleaned and tuned the engine, replaced the air filters, replaced the coolant... and then they poured acid down into the catalytic converter to clean it.

Apparently, that's the accepted way of doing it in Pakistan, because of all of the dust, but I have my doubts, because that was some really strong acid. I was standing quite a few feet away from the car when they poured it in, and it still stung. And it was smoking, so this wasn't weak acid. When I got home, I looked it up, and no-one's ever suggested pouring acid into the pipes. One guy suggested driving the car around once every few months on high-octane fuel, and while that would be expensive, at least it would be less expensive than replacing the entire system because some complete idiot poured smoking hot acid into your stupid car.

... I'm angrier at myself than I am at the mechanics, because while they are idiots and don't know any better, I should, and I shouldn't have allowed them to do it. I mean, to be fair, I didn't actually know what they were planning when they said they were going to "clean up the car's engine". None of our previous cars have had catalytic converters, so I didn't know how (or if) they were serviced.

Anyway, the mechanic also told me to get the oil changed more frequently because I had waited until the car had done 10,000 km (~6,000 mi), and they said I should have done it at 5000 km (~3,000 mi), but mechanics are always saying that sort of thing because they want to sell more oil. And frankly, considering that it came after the catalytic converter, I was having severe doubts about their competence and sanity.

Eid came and went, and the Aqua was used to cart around great wodges of raw meat. I laid down newspapers in the boot, so I don't think any blood spilled into it. And then there was the trip to Naran.

Most of the roads were fine. There were patches where the road was broken, and that's to be expected when you have landslides. But I made a horrible mistake by driving the Aqua up to Shogran, which is a hill station on the way to Naran. And it was the worst 8 km (5 mi) I've ever driven the Aqua. "Rough" doesn't begin to describe the road, and frankly, neither does the word "road". And going uphill was bad enough, but downhill? I nearly cooked the brakes, and that was with B selected. It was horrible.

Here are a couple of beauty shots of the Aqua in Naran:



Aside from that, I did go through a few potholes too fast, took a few turns faster than I should have, and got frustrated by the inevitable trucks. But aside from that, it went fine. We averaged something like 20 km/l (47 mpg US) over the entire trip, which isn't bad. We filled up in Islamabad before we left, and didn't need to refuel until we were on our way back, in Abbottabad. The wife took over at that point, because I'd wanted her to drive on the Motorway. And she immediately tried to get the car up to 150 km/h (~100 mph) before I stopped her short by reminding her that she didn't have a valid driver's license.

She gave me the dirtiest look you ever saw, and sulked for the rest of the drive.

I got the car serviced when I got back, because the kids had been sick in it. And polished, because it had picked up a few scratches here and there. My father had said that the rains had ended, but this turned out to not be the case, because it rained on the very next day. And then again a couple of days after that. And the forecast says it will continue to rain this entire week.

Just in time for the schools to reopen.

Randomness

• So, I did copy a bunch of cartoons onto USBs, and TV shows onto a microSD card to watch on the new screen in the car. Turned out okay. It's a bit hard to watch during the day with the sun and all, but it keeps the kids distracted, and facing the right way so they won't throw up all of the time. Futile hopes, of course, but what can you do?
• Now that the car's been banged around a bit, I feel as though I'm driving it a lot more confidently. This Friday, I left a customer meeting just after that ridiculous "Kashmir Hour" nonsense, and the roads were deserted, and I drove at 100 km/h (~60 mph) past the old Airport, which would have been impossible a few years ago. It was fantastic.
• I've reinstalled an old racing game on my laptop, and I've realized that I've essentially been practising driving a Hybrid my entire life. We used to "glide" in racing games all of the time, because it gets you through corners a lot faster than jamming on the brakes. Funny how things work out.