while the van was being cleaned I sat down with the seller to draft a receipt. The fact that my Urdu hand writing is pathetic and he was a total illiterate didn't help so off we went to the courts to get one made out on stamp paper and notarized.
This was the smartest thing i did that whole day.
The next task was to arrange transport. We thought it would be a simple step and as soon as we were ready we'd load the van on a Shahzore truck, say our good bye's and be on our way.
We went to the spot where the trucks were parked and they thought it was their lucky day that a "Baoo' wants to hire a truck so the price went up! Jehlum is less than 100 km from Islamabad and they wanted 8000 rupees to transport the van. A deal was struck at 6000 but when the driver came to see the van he declared the van too long or his Shahzore too short so I'd have to engage a Mazda truck. Still not too bad and a Mazda truck-wala was contacted who wanted 10000 rupees and his final offer was 8500.
Now we had gone prepared to tow the vehicle if need be and it was increasingly looking that we'd have to go down that route.
With time ticking, I sent someone to fetch a piece of angle iron or a pipe. An 8 ft piece was found for Rs 450 and for another 50 two holes were made using a gas torch (it was load shedding time so no drilling possible.) Two 'U' shackles were procured and we had a dependable towing rod!
The drivers of the trucks kept telling us how we would ruin the engine and clutch of our vehicle and the steep inclines along the way but we ignored them.
The vehicle we would be towing was our Santro!
Romano and I agreed that it could be done so I crawled under the FIAT to attach one end of the tow bar to the cross member. For some reason the FIAT did not come with a tow hook!..maybe these cars are so dependable that the company decided not to bother putting one!
Anyway, the rear bumper of the Santro would surely have been buggered in the process so I took off the plastic shell and stored it in the FIAT. The whole process took less than 5 minutes! Few times you love the modern disposable cars....
The other end of the tow bar was attached to the tow hook in the Santro and we were good to go. As an added safety measure I attached the tow strap and tightened it so there was no rattle space between the two cars where the tow bar was attached.
We said our good byes and drove off...Romano and Abdullah in the Santro while yours truly in the drivers seat of the FIAT
