$150 Luxury Pakistan Hotel 🇵🇰

Harry’s birthday, and the day he and Mac move out of the Airbnb with the mouse in it and into a luxury hotel in central Karachi for the rest of the week.

The interesting half is not the room. It is what the staff do with a single passing remark: Mac mentions at check-in that it is Harry’s birthday, and twenty minutes later a cake, a card and a plate of fruit arrive at the door, followed by a phone call upgrading them to a suite. Later, having heard them say they wanted a sleeper train to Lahore, the general manager sent a staff member to the station to queue for hours and buy the tickets.

The other thing worth carrying out of it is the security: watchtowers, layered vehicle barriers and checks at the gate before a car reaches the entrance, which is what a luxury hotel in Pakistan looks like and why.

Obs: Harry paid for the room and then received a free upgrade, a cake and other extras during the stay, which the description calls surprises included in the stay. Under this bundle’s rule the hotel and its restaurant are not named; only the travel content is recorded.

Itinerary

Uber across the city → check-in → birthday cake and a room upgrade → a tour of the health club, pool and steam room → coffee in the lobby café → in-room dining → drones flown with the manager’s clearance → the executive lounge → dinner at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant.

Key moments

• [00:00] Uber against tuk-tuks, stated as a preference with a reason: about $2 for a ten-minute ride, similar to a tuk-tuk, but the price is fixed in the app so there is nothing to negotiate. He finds the negotiation the awkward part, not the money.
• [01:09] Still no seat belts in the back, four days in.
• [01:49] Hotel security, which he flags twice: multiple barriers, watchtowers and a serious check before you reach the door.
• [02:20] A marble lobby with independent shops inside it — carpets, a café — and a lift reserved for a cricket team staying at the hotel.
• [03:54] Harry’s birthday. A cake, a card and fruit arrive unprompted, off the back of a remark made in passing at check-in.
• [08:01] Reception rings to say they are being upgraded to a suite.
• [09:34] The health club: gym, steam room, jacuzzi and pool, opening at 6:30am.
• [12:21] Two coffees in the lobby café, 881 rupees, about $5 — which he rates reasonable for the setting.
• [16:59] A note on breakfast in a Muslim country: the sausage is not pork and he says he can tell.
• [18:30] Drones need permission. The manager gave them clearance to fly, but from a lower balcony rather than the roof.
• [19:32] The executive lounge, open to guests on the upper floors: fruit, snacks, coffee and desserts available through the day at no extra charge.
• [28:09] His verdict, and the reason for it: he calls it one of the best hotels he has stayed in and says plainly that it isn’t the bed — it is that the staff did several things nobody had asked them to do and nobody was paying them for, the train tickets above all.

Extracted pages

• Karachi
• Pakistan
• Mac