Step 8: Visit some local landmarks

Now that Michelle has gone home, I'm behaving like a proper Pakistani woman and staying in the house all day. It's not generally accepted for women to be seen on the street alone in Lahore. This serves a double function for me as it means that, firstly, I won't get robbed and secondly I won't get mobbed. Generally the latter is not a problem but, unlike India, Pakistan is not the most popular of holiday resorts and thus I am the only white face for miles.

Staying indoors is a joy if you are living in a house like the one in which I'm staying: spacious, airy, full of beautiful artworks and books, with outside mosaiced terraces and a manicured garden. If the trade-off for being holed up is that someone brings me tea and toast in the morning, makes my bed, rings a bell for me to come down to lunch and dinner, and brings me chai every couple of hours then it's one I'm willing to shake on.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of people in the country do not live like this.

But here, the wives of the jet set are taken by their drivers - who are available at all hours of the day and night - to each other's houses or to spas or shops. Or they call each other and arrange to meet at one another's houses so that they venture out in groups, which in a liberal city like Lahore is acceptable. It's a little frustrating relying on the availability of friends, but few here seem to plan their weeks in advance.

I was invited to a photo shoot yesterday at twilight at a haveli in a walled part of Lahore known as the Old City. The mansion was owned by a Pakistani entrepreneur, and was tucked behind the cinema he owns in a little winding street dotted with cigarette and paan stalls and hazardous with rickety bicycles and motorbikes that zoomed by in the darkness.

A haveli is an "enclosed place": a piece of the outside world captured by walls. This one was 300 years old and lit gently by spotlights so that the scarlets and aquamarines of its brickwork, arches and mosaiced courtyards stood stark against the purple sky. Each room was like a little cave, full of trinkets and paintings, Mughal swords and Persian rugs. I felt like I should have had a guidebook and paid 300 rupees to get in. If I was going to be shut in all day, I would be shut in here.

And here the social scene gathered - the dregs of fashion week journos, photographers and models, and the permanent fixtures of Lahore: the social butterflies. Like kids in a sweetshop, photographers grabbed their SLRs and dashed off to explore all corners of the place. Others sat on the rugs or reclined on scarlet couches drinking tea and chain smoking.

The next mansion we went to that evening was of quite a different architectural style. Marbled floors and winding glass staircases, huge modern artworks hanging on the walls, enormous sculptures and vases, a glass wall looking out on a vast manicured lawn, complete with swimming pool, giant granite boulders, and a copse of imported eucalyptus trees coloured ivory in the uplighting. Downstairs was an oak-panelled library complete with wooden globe and antique leather armchairs, which I'm sure had been professionally infused with the smell of academia. Upstairs, a huge white art gallery that wouldn't look out of place in Shoreditch. Bathrooms the size of tennis courts with green room mirrors and showers that could fit a whole football team at once. Great if you like to dance under the faucet. Everywhere, bowls were full of fresh flowers and gas fires burned over pebbles. Indoor water features bubbled, plasma TVs hummed and music tinkled gently in the background as Pakistan's TV stars, politicians, philanthropists, businessmen, designers and journalists clinked glasses, airkissed, and talked about current affairs.

The idea of moving in with the in-laws is anathema to most women. But when you live in a mansion such as this, you could spend a week without even seeing them. The usefulness of having the grandparents around as full-time babysitters is not to be sniffed at, not least when it means that the working women, of which there are increasing numbers, don't have to worry about arranging childcare. Though in some ways women are closeted, in others they are freer than those in London.

There are no clubs in Lahore. Instead, people throw parties in their homes which is perfect for those who want to show off, but also for those who fancy the odd illicit tipple. Pakistan is officially a dry country, and alcohol is taboo for Muslims. Buying alcohol can land you with a stretch in the clinker, and I'm not talking about tumblers and ice. But in a realistic world, there's a thriving black market for wine and whisky among the wealthy and well-connected.

Shut me in this Lahore compound with a library and a well-stocked bar and I'll be just fine.