Day 61 - 01 October 2009; Amritsar

In morning, I enjoy more swimming. Meg, Dave and Joost are also in the pool, and they build a single column pyramid of bodies with Joost at the bottom and Meg at the top. This collapses resulting in Joost having a cricked neck and Meg is just grateful that she isn’t a man as the incident might have put paid to any future possibility of parenthood.

In the afternoon, Meg, Dave and I go to the Golden Temple. This is spectacular and yet not too touristy as it retains its use as an active Sikh temple with people ceremonially bathing in its waters. The water from the pool which encompasses most of the courtyard area of the temple overflows onto the walkway. Meg slips and breaks her not inexpensive camera lens. 

photo Lu G

no shoes allowed inside

...and covered heads required and Meg mourning her lens (Dave J photo)

photo Dave J

We then go to a bar in a hotel dubbed the JB007 (James Bond) bar for cocktails with John and Tracy. Afterwards we have some beers at the guesthouse, though Mrs Bandiran’s daughter, who now runs the guesthouse in the absence of the late Mrs Bandiran, does mention that she would appreciate an earlier bedtime tonight.

Amongst the guesthouse buildings I discover a compound where some buffalo are kept, so I go to pet them, though they seem disinterested.

Day 60 - 30 September 2009; Lahore, and into India

We stop in Lahore for about an hour to have a quick look around. Myself and Jen walk around Iqbar Park, which dominated by a 60 metre tower built to commemorate the ‘Lahore Resolution’ of 1940 which called for greater Muslim autonomy in British India. Next to the park is a cricket ground where we discover a practicing school cricket team who boast to us that they are Pakistan under 16 champions. Both Jen and I have a go at batting on a practice wicket, which results in the boy bowler telling me that Jen is the better of the two of us.

Jen going for the slog

displaying my superior technique

Afterwards we walk around Lahore Fort, built during the reign of Akbar (1555-1605).

Joost and I get into a rickshaw, which escorts the truck to the Grand Truck Road to the border.

We cross the border at Wagah, near Amritsar in India. This is where they hold the famous ‘retreat’ ceremony between Pakistani and Indian guards each evening and it strange to see a border control that includes a stadium of sorts.

By now, we are used to elongated border crossings, so the four hours or so it takes us passes relatively quickly, especially as we are able to buy duty free beer.

We then wait for a couple of hours for the ceremony to begin.

When we cross into India to park the truck, we are mobbed like pop stars. In Pakistan people just tended to stare.

They practice a kind of reverse racism for the border control ceremony as us whiteys are escorted to front row seats in the stadium. There is a real football match atmosphere as rival ‘fans’ chant in support of their country. India is definitely the home side though, with the stands on this side being full with a few thousand people, while on the Pakistan side it appears that is just the soldiers’ mothers and some bystanders.

There is a troop of Indian women soldiers in camouflage gear. This may be to taunt to Pakistan contingent further. One of them, a stern but elegant looking one catches my eye. She firmly tells me to sit down when I ask to have a photo taken with her. Grrrr, I am smitten. Meanwhile a be-whiskered Sikh guard who seems to be leading the proceedings from the Indian side, wearing a more traditional looking beige uniform and ceremonial marching boots, catches Meg’s eye.

Essex Sam: I'm glad they've finally redone this place, but they've given me tickets in the Layer Road end*

grrrr

The road on the Indian side of the border is lined with tented restaurants and souvenir touts, some of whom are no more than 7 years old. I have 4 large samosas and 3 large beers at one of the restaurants and sleep most of the way to Amritsar.

We camp at Mrs Bandiran’s Guesthouse, a pleasant, rustic and friendly set up just outside of central Amritsar. It even has a swimming pool. I am one of a party who stay up drinking and swimming until 5am.

*away fans end at Colchester United's Layer Road stadium

Day 59 - 29 September 2009; Lahore outskirts

Today should have been a relatively short journey into Lahore. However, our police escort abandons us just outside of Lahore when we had expected an escort to another compound before crossing the border the next day.

We stop in a lay-by to ask some traffic police for an escort. An hour or two of waiting later, and with people starting to get hot and testy, it emerges that the traffic police say it is too dangerous to go unescorted, but that they can’t escort us without a police conference. This won’t be until 9pm – it is about 4:30. Eventually, a friendly face emerges who escorts us to a hotel, though why this is ok with police, I am not really sure.

Outside the hotel, we hang around for an hour or two before we find out if they have enough room for us. A few guys on motorbikes arrive and briefly chat, but then stand around talking amongst themselves. They are just using as for their own conversation piece it would seem. Meg and I pretend to go shoe shopping so we can take advantage of the shops air conditioning.

Dinner is at a KFC. Joost blags a ride with a guy with a horse and cart, but he doesn't go any faster than walking speed anyway. I would guess that not many KFCs in the world have a guard armed with a pump action shotgun, but the things I am finding in KFCs on this trip can be intriguing, e.g. ‘erotic massage’ calling cards in Bucharest.

Day 58 - 28 September 2009; to Multan

spreading the love. BY FORCE

Today I sit in the cab with JC / James, our driver. I am not sure this is particularly wise of me, because this is where the first bullets would go if any incident were to occur.

We are a tired group on the truck, the humidity detracting from the soundness of our sleeping.

Tonight we camp in the Multan police compound, where we attract quite a crowd of policemen and their sons (not a lot of females are seen). One of the guards offers to escort Meg to a shower, but she turns down the opportunity. I enquire whether I can go in her place, but the guard ignores me. Given what some people in Pakistan (& Iran for that matter) think is the typical behaviour of western men and women, I suspect he was hoping for a shower for two. Meg has crowds around her for most of the evening.

We get an armed escort to the toilets for some reason, though they are still in the compound just about 50m from where the truck is parked. The men are allowed to wash their hands in the neighbouring mosque foot baths, though the women have to do without.

We also get an escort out of the back of the compound for those of us who want to do some quick shopping for cigarettes, etc. Again we find ourselves being scrutinized and surrounded by a running pack of kids, some asking for money but others just curious to see us and hear us speak.

There are a couple of men who insist on doing our camp cooking tonight, although I suspect they are curious about some of our ingredients.

There are a group of young men playing football on the field where we are parked. A few of us join in, but fitness levels of our group are not too great, and I am the only one who plays the whole game. I should add that I was the goalkeeper. I chat quite a lot to the central defender, who is a tall strong player, a typical English style centre back. His assurances that Pakistan is a safe country are not entirely convincing though.

Lu gets her overalls on

NO FEAR: we didn't see the policing bill for this football match

pictures from Lu and Meg

Day 57 - 27th September 2009; leaving Quetta

John, Tracy, Gaz, Rhi, Andrew, Meg, Dave and I get up at 4:30 to try to get the train to Lahore. John and Tracy already have tickets in a sleeper carriage, so are definitely going. When we walk onto the station forecourt there are numerous families who seem to have camped there overnight.

Myself and Gaz leave the others outside the doors marked ‘ticket office’ which doesn’t open until 6am to find out if there is somewhere else to get tickets from. One man starts talking to us and asks us what we are doing here. He advises us that we shouldn't be in Quetta as there is a big problem with kidnappings. He then escorts us into the ticket office which is open from the station side entrance. After a long time queuing, it turns out there are no sleeper tickets left, and we decide we don’t fancy finding out what 20 hours in a packed Pakistani economy class is like. Leaving John and Tracy, we trudge back to the hotel at dawn, fully stocked with our luggage as we had been told we could not leave anything on the truck if we were going separately.

So it is another day’s drive under armed escort, but the scenery improves as we leave the desert, and there is some good mutual people watching to be done...and camels and buffalo.

scenes from the roads of Pakistan, courtesy of Lu Galbraith

man on his way to collect his wife and mother-in-law, probably

now wouldn't buses be more popular if they looked more like this

While on the road, we catch what we suspect is John and Tracy's train trundling along on the track in the distance. They later confirm that is was when we finally meet up with them in India a few days later.

We make a petrol stop in one town and there is a gathering of intrigued locals on the station forecourt. This provokes a quite vicious response from the police, who whip the spectators with a wooden stick to beat them away even though all they are doing is staring.

We camp on a cricket ground in the police compound in Sukkur, just next to the prison cells which I might normally feel uncomfortable about. However, if there are any prisoners in them, they don't make themselves known. There would probably have been some unpleasant consequences for them if they had as there is a gathering of guards, and families, mingling amongst us, more out of curiosity than anything else I suspect.

It is now very humid and uncomfortable, and I am not looking forward to waking in a ball of sweat in the morning.

Mario and Jana, our German couple, cause a bit of a stir by choosing to camp on the roof of the truck despite there being electrical lines dangling just a couple of feet above it.

Day 56 - 26 September 2009; Quetta

I take a rickshaw ride in the morning with one of the girls to go to the post office, but the driver initially takes us to the passport office after repeatedly misunderstanding us. The guard at the passport office helps us translate.

going for a walk, looking for a gig (photo Dave J)

photo Dave J

Meanwhile, Meg and Jen are passing the time by doing some clothes shopping, but given the inadvisability of going out around the shops, they are doing it from the safety of the hotel. The hotel has arranged for a tailoress to come around to show them some clothes, but clearly she had made some unfair assumptions about the size of western women.

apparently there is a string belt to go with this - photo D Jones

Later a group of us go to the ‘five star’ Hotel Serena for a late buffet lunch, meeting some more of our group there. Unsurprisingly, I have never seen a hotel with this level of security around it. Surrounded by a tall wall, at the entrance there is an iron gate followed by ta series of rising gates for the cars. Each person driving or walking in has to go through into the gatehouse to go through a metal detector and be searched by the armed guards, if they feel the need (they don't search any of us).

At approximately £5 a head, this now seems quite expensive, but some of our party are relieved to get more familiar food, like lasagne, pizza and chocolate cake! I guess this is luxury food to the locals, the families there being clearly well off and, given our situation, it's a luxury to us too. Meg is particularly taken with the Choccy cake.

enjoying our meal

at the hotel entrance - photo Meg J

We have a meeting in the evening and it turns out, surprise surprise, that we are not going to Peshawar. Apparently it’s because there was a suicide bomb there in the morning. Maybe we would have been alright to go if the last one was a couple of weeks ago. In fact, given the frequency of bombings in Peshawar, there probably was one a couple of weeks ago, and actually we would statistically be safer going just after one went off. Belgian Sam is still arguing the case for going, but he’s on his own there....

We are now faced with a three or four day drive to Lahore, and then out of Pakistan. I am considering getting the train as are several others. John and Tracy go to book tickets for themselves, while some of us ponder.