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Published: July 28th 2009
This has been a long time coming, I know I'm a long way behind but bear with me....
Arriving into Mumbai on the night of the 22nd of June I was struck by the immense humidity for that time at night and also extremely amused by the "swine flu screening area" at CST Airport. Sign a bit of paper saying you don't have any fluey symptoms, pass it to a very serious looking Indian man in a surgical mask and off you go. Met a nice English bloke from Bolton called Pete coming off the flight and as he had nowhere booked for the night too we decided to share a taxi down to Colaba and split the cost of a room. The taxi ride was pretty crazy, firstly as it was surreal to be back in Mumbai so soon, and secondly because it had started to rain and the car seemed to have very little grip. But we got there and found a pretty grimey room for the night. The monsoon had been late in Mumbai this year but seemed to have arrived in force the next day. This didn't stop us going for a wander though and we
saw kids playing in the massive waves crashing over the sea wall by the gateway monument and rode the commuter train up to chowpatty beach. Here we came across some nice taxi drivers, holidaying from Nagpur. Although our conversation was limited they bought us a cup of tea each and disappeared with a smile. I'd missed proper sweet Indian chai and my first since arriving didn't disappoint! The rain continued to crash down, taking the heat off the day and we wandered back to Colaba to get some food at Leopold's. It was very sad to see the bullet riddled walls and windows, preserved since the Mumbai attacks, hard to imagine how horrible it must have been. Moving to the upstairs bar I asked one of the waiters about the night, he said he'd been here and they fired randomly for around 4 minutes before leaving. Less foreigners were coming to Leopold's, he said, but more Indians. We sat and had a few beers before I grabbed my things from the hotel, said goodbye to Pete (and organised a session back here at the end of August, as strangely we both leave the same day too) and grabbed a taxi
to Mumbai Central Station for my 32 hour slog to Amritsar... for which I was still only waitlisted.
The standard Indian station madness greeted me at Mumbai Central, I'd missed it! The man at the reservation window explained to me that I was on the train, but I didn't have a sleeping berth, I'd be sharing one with someone else. The someone else turned out to be a nice sikh bloke who I had some good chats with, before somehow managing to negotiate ourselves so we could both get to sleep. The 32 hours really wasn't that bad and my fellow passengers were great for a good chat. One old lady came and sat with me and asked me about my relgion, to which I said I was agnostic. She spent the next half hour trying to make a sikh out of me before offering to share her food. Bless her! Arrived into the ridiculous heat of Amritsar at 5am the next morning and grabbed the free bus available from the station to the Golden Temple - Sikhism's holiest sight. I checked into one of the dorms available for people to stay for free and went for a wander
around. It was a truely beautiful place but the oppressive heat made it pretty difficult to enjoy. It was pushing about 45 degrees so I sat in the shade and people watched for a while. The heat didn't subside too much at night either, but a nice Australian girl and a swedish guy joined me checking out the temple at night. It was stunning, reflected in the pool of holy water, and we were lucky enough to catch the night time ceremony of taking the holy book (considered one of the sikh gurus) and literally putting it to bed for the night. I had a pretty sticky nights sleep thanking God for the fan and planning to cross to Pakistan the next day.
Before leaving for the border I went for some food at the temple with all the other pilgrims who were there. Everyone sits on the floor of the big dining hall and can eat as much as they like. No matter what religion, caste, race, gender or age, everyone is welcome to sit together and eat. It was an amazing place. I headed out into the furnace of the day and grabbed a rickshaw to the
bus station and jumped on the next little battered old bus, heading for the village of Attari, on the border with Pakistan. I stamped out of India, walked across no mans land sweating profusely in the afternoon sun, through a grand gateway marked 'India' and through a similiar one marked 'Pakistan'. The power was out in the Pakistani immigration office so I waited (and sweated) for a while and chatted to the guys who worked there who were hilarious. Finally I was through and grabbed a taxi on the other side to Regale Internet Inn, pretty much the only budget place available in Lahore, around 40 minutes drive away. The heat was even more intense here if possible, and my first impressions of Pakistan were the sudden disappearance of women, all the men in Shalwar Kameez (long shirt over baggy trousers), and the dust on the road to Lahore. Checked into regale and lay under the fan in the dorm trying to stay hydrated! I decided I would see Lahore on my way back to India but for now the heat was too much, so I'd push on north the next day. I had a subway (guilty) and sat on
the roof listening to a man play traditonal flute before going to bed. That night, the power went off multiple times which meant no fan. It was one of the worst nights sleep I've had, I had about 5 showers to try and stay cool! It was meant to be 50 degrees the next day...
The bus to Islamabad was luckily slightly air conditioned which helped and after 5 hours I had arrived at Pir Wadhai bus stand, in Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi and Islamabad are known as the twin cities, Rawalpindi is more populated, sprawling and like other south asian cities whilst Islamabad is the regimentally organised purpose built capital city. At the bus stand I tried to get on a bus to Gilgit, 22 hours north up the KKH (Karakoram Highway, a thin strip of tarmac through the mountains to China) where I was to meet Joe and the weather would be cooler, but sadly all the busses were full that day. I was feeling pretty exhausted from all the travelling so got myself a room in the calm of Islamabad for the night. I really liked Islamabad, I can't really describe why but there's something about it. It
is all grids, traffic lights and order which doesn't sound particularly interesting but for some reason it is. Met a nice local bloke that night who worked on the gates of the diplomatic compound and him and his mates gave me a pretty whirlwind tour of the place in their car, including the crazy modern Faisal Mosque, which looks more like a space station than a mosque. Such nice guys though, like everyone I'd met in Pakistan so far. I'd been blown away by the hospitality I'd received and the willingness of everyone to help! An urban myth is that the CIA demanded to inspect the minarets as they looked like rockets. Rejuvenated from my pretty decent room (for 3 quid) with cable tv where I managed to watch some of the Lion's tour of South Africa, I headed back to the bus stand in the local minibus the next morning. The conducter was hilarious screaming out for business as we went along the road. "Pir Wadhai! Wadhai! Pir Wahai YO!" I got myself on the 1pm bus to Gilgit and rang Joe to let him know. The journey was interesting but extremely painful! The scenery was stunning as we
wound our way up further north and higher in altitude. At one of the many food stops I was approached by a guy from one of the other busses that had stopped who said "You're English?" to which I answered that I was. "You're Luke!" he claimed, which freaked me out so much! How did this guy know who I was!? Turned out he worked at one of the guesthouses Joe had been staying at and knew I was travelling up this day from talking to Joe. Hilarious! We climbed further, passing the amazing Pakistani trucks, every inch decorated elaborately with colourful pictures, spinning flowers, neon lights and even little bells. We also passed many slightly less exciting peices of Chinese machinery. The Chinese were working on the road to improve it, landslides were common and the road was far from perfect and very bumpy. It was funny to see Chinese workers in sun hats looking very serious and pouring over documents, and their Pakistani counterparts sitting, watching and smoking. The guy next to me who I had yet to speak to, nudged me, pointed at some of the Chinese workers and went "CHING CHONG CHING CHONG CHING". It's amazing
how far stereotypes go! As we bumped our way through the night I struggled to sleep but luckily the next to be left the bus early, I was about to stretch out before a guy from the back row swooped in, sat down next to me and promptly fell asleep on my shoulder for the next 10 hours. Great.
Through the night and into the morning I had to hop out 3 times at Police checkpoints to register myself. As the sun came up it became clear how far we had come, sheer rocky mountains rose up on all sides and swollen rivers raged in valleys far below as we edged our way along the road. Snowy peaks rose above us and greenery was pretty scarce except for along the river banks. We reached Gilgit at around midday and it was so good to be off the bus, I gave Joe a ring from the little calling office and sat and waited. He rocked up ten minutes later in a Shalwar Kameez. We've seen each other in some pretty strange places over the past year or so but I think this one is the winner! We jumped on one of the local suzuki vans which run through town taking people around and hung onto the back. I was so happy to be at the end of my week long mission of a journey north! At the top of a hill we jumped off the suzuki, payed 5p for their troubles and started walking through a pretty rocky, desolate area out of town. All Joe said was "just wait, you won't believe this place until you see it". We reached a house surrounded by concrete walls and stepped through the gate inside. It was like stepping into a little oasis, stunning mountain views looking over the whole of Gilgit with the 7000m + peaks of Rakaposhi and one other nestled behind. As for the house, it was like a little spanish villa, complete with stunning garden, fruit trees, grape vines and a swimming pool! The guy who lives here is a local guy who ended up in Spain in the 70s and became a hippy. On returning home he created his own little Spanish Villa and lets passing travellers stay for 200 rupees a night (1 pound 50). Qayum was tending to his garden when we walked in and greeted me with a massive smile and a handshake, seated us down and made some tea. As far as I was concerned, all the effort in getting here was now going to be worth it.
More to Come! (Am now coming to the end of my time in Pakistan, crossing back to India possibly Saturday which will be very sad. Going to Peshawar either today or tommorow I think to chill with some Pashtuns!)
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Grandad
non-member comment
Great Journalism!
Thanks Luke I can see you are going to be another Michael Palin/or a well-respected writer of travelogues. Grandad