Written by: Amna Javed
Posted on: May 22, 2015 | 
The Badshahi Mosque and Minar-e-Pakistan
The city boasts numerous attractions for tourists and has enough sites to keep the visitors busy throughout their stay in the city. While the Mughal and Sikh legacy lives on in the Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque and the Gurdwara, the Mall Road is lined with colonial gothic-buildings reminiscent of the British Rule, and suburbs of Gulberg and Defense feature palatial mansions and modern shopping districts.
The Changa Manga Park, located at a distance of about sixty-eight kilometers form the city, is a man-made forest park and is one of the most popular picnic spots near the city. It features a lake as well as a miniature railway that winds its way through the forest. The famous Daata Darbar, shrine to Lahore’s patron saint Hazrat Data Ganj Baksh, is also an important landmark in Lahore. The famous shrine is always busy with the hustle and bustle of people who reach the darbar to pray and collect blessings. A huge charity kitchen or ‘lungar’ is also arranged at the shrine everyday to feed the poor.
On Thursdays, there is a regular gathering at the Shrine of Shah Jamal where the renowned drummer Pappu Saein and his disciples perform on the huge, two-sided dhol and enchant the devotees of the shrine who enter a trance and dance wildly as hundreds of people watch.
Another reason for Lahore’s fame is its cuisine. This is reflected in the array of restaurants that the town hosts. These restaurants provide a variety of options to food enthusiasts who can choose anything from the rich, local cuisine to continental, Thai or Chinese etc. Besides food outlets, the visitors may also be interested in visiting the Lahore Museum situated on the Mall Road. The Museum was built in 1895 and was curated by Rudyard Kipling’s father for a while.
On the economic front, Lahore is famous as the hub for hand-made carpet manufacturing in Pakistan. Currently, the hand-made carpets produced in and around Lahore constitute Pakistan’s leading export commodity and their industry forms the second-largest cottage industry in the country. Lahore has an immense contribution to the economy of Pakistan. The area provides multiple opportunities for growth as it is considered a safe place to invest in.
With its central location and easy access, Lahore will be at the heart of all trade once the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is completed. It will allow the locals to expand their businesses and also generate newer business opportunities for them in a vast number of areas.
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