It has to be the most expensive Marwat Coach in Karachi. For Rs2000 a ticket, the rickety bus takes you through a tour of the city. Excited passengers, many of whom have never travelled in a public bus before, mount the roof and get a taste of what every other workday is for most Karachiites.

Called the Super Savari, its organisers hire a Marwat Coach every Sunday and take passengers through a tour of old Karachi’s Saddar. This simple idea has been a great success for the entertainment-starved locals. Only in its 12^th week of running, the organisers are planning to introduce a bigger, better, more luxurious bus.

8:00am. Even in this sweltering May heat, a huge crowd has gathered outside Gulliver Travels, the travel agency, the starting point for the five-hour-long journey.

We make introductions. Our group of 35 consists of doctors, students, bankers, children from the UK and USA visiting family in Karachi, and a German.

Our guides, Jahanzeb and Maha, are teenagers taking a break year after their A-levels. Energetic and loud, they ask everyone to board the bus that has just arrived.

There is excitement. People hurry up to get the best seats -- on the roof of the bus.

8:30am. We drive past the Freemasons Hall which has recently been converted into the Wildlife Department. Jahanzeb tells us the government seized the property in the 1970s. Even today one can see their symbols on the walls.

The bus slows near the Hindu Gymkhana, now National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa). Recently, Bollywood stars Pooja Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt visited the Academy while they were on a trip to Karachi.

We drive past the Supreme Court building. Jahanzeb tells us that this was once called the Victoria Museum -- "It was the first public museum of the city". Even the older lot in the bus did not know this interesting fact.

9:00am: The bus stops and all the passengers get off. Jahanzeb holds a megaphone and guides the group. It is funny because the streets are otherwise quiet. Vendors who have just started business stare at the odd lot.

We are now standing at the Elphinstone Street, now Zaibunnisa Street. Most of Karachi’s jewellers have their shops here. Our guides tell us this is one of the very few streets in the city named after a woman.

Maha explains that Zaibunisa was a fearless journalist who wrote for the daily Dawn. She was banned for eight years during Zia’s time.

We walk to the Memon Masjid, an old mosque owned by the Memon community. The Memon community is known for their big businesses.

Jahanzaib points to a Victorian clock tower of Edulji Dinshaw Dispensary at the far end of the road. This was the first public dispensary of the city and, to this day, gives out free medicine.

We walk to the HJ Behram Parsi Dar-e-Meher, a place of worship for the diminishing Parsi community of the city. Here, photography is prohibited. We admire the architecture; reminisce about the days when more of the community lived in the city, and wave at an old priest who smiles at the tour group.

"Imagine a maulvi waving at women like that," laughs Ameena, a chartered accountant who had returned to Karachi after spending eight years in London.

10:00am: Everyone is hungry. So, we stop at the Jehangir Hotel, a pre-partition structure, with a high roof and low ceiling fans. We order parathas, chai and omelette.

I share a table with Fabian Laage Gaupp, a German doctor who is visiting Karachi. He tells me he loves Karachi. "It’s very different from how YouTube portrays Karachi. You should put more positive stories from the city out there."

He visited Iran a week back, and he thinks that though there is more freedom in Karachi, its people are eastern. While in Iran the government is religious, its people are westernised. "Pakistan is more like India," he observes. The people on the table nod in agreement. And we teach him how to dip parathas in sweet tea and gobble it down.

11:00am: We get back on the bus, and drive down Club Road, which now holds all the five-star hotels of the city. This road was once called the Candle Point Road and held all the important discos, we are told.

We drive past the Karachi Press Club and down to the I.I. Chundrigar Road, which is sometimes called the city’s Wall Street. Our guides show us the buildings of State Bank, Habib Bank, once the tallest building of Pakistan, and MCB, which presently is taller than Habib Bank.

We stop at the DJ Science College, a palatial sandstone building which a Hindu businessman gifted to the city.

We get off at the Empress Market. Till the 1970s, the market’s courtyard hosted a bronze statue of Queen Victoria. People squeal as they walk past the pet market. You can buy all sorts of pets here, from chicks to ducklings to baby panthers.

12:00: Our next stop is New Memon Masjid. Built on several acres, this magnificent mosque holds mass weddings and hosts the biggest naat programme in Ramzan. We all admire its architecture, the big white domes and the huge windows. Even in the 40 degree Celsius outside, temperature inside the mosque is cool.

Jahanzeb shows us two graves in the basement of the mosque. He tells us that the mosque was built in 1948 after a graveyard was razed. Interestingly, at the time of construction, the bodies inside these two graves looked fresh. "It was as if they were alive and taking a short nap. Baffled, the people decided that these two men were saints, and carved out a marble grave for them."

Next, we went to the Sobhraj Chetumal Terrace. Built in 1927, it was the first public garden for women. During the Zia era, it was renamed as the ‘Purdah Park’. Now it just lies empty and tattered.

We picnicked at this garden, before walking to the National Museum across for a quick visit.

Our next stop was the beautiful house of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Built in 1946, Jinnah barely lived in this magnificent building.

We were heading the end of our trip. We made a quick stop at Frere Hall, a Victorian structure which also has a ceiling painted by Sadequain. In the mid-19^th century, the British used it as Town Hall.

The tour ends here. We take a group selfie and head home.

The idea of the Super Savari is simple. Every city of the world offers a city tour. For Atif Arif, the brain behind Super Savari, it is an attempt to re-educate the educated class of the city. "Karachi is a mélange of different communities. This tour is to remind citizens of better times when there was inter-faith harmony."

Arif is also offering food tours where the groups will get to taste the city’s popular culinary delights. "So, if the people are having chaana chaat, they will get to know how it became famous."