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Published: September 13th 2021
As we crossed the border into Pakistan, immigration and customs produced few hassles, although we lost a couple of hours with all the paperwork. However, we did regain 30 minutes in a time change at the India-Pakistan border. Plenty of eats were available from the pie shop in Amritsar before we left as well as at the Paki border (Wagha), so no one went hungry while we were going through the formalities. We reached Lahore at 2pm and made straight for the Hotel International, with the afternoon spent basically around the pool, with only half the bus participating.
The hotel put on a great chicken dinner, and I actually scored two whole meals due to one of the guys being crook. Drinks were available in the bar after dinner, but at 12Rs a beer and 9Rs for a nip of spirits, it wasn’t a heavy night. We had a most interesting discussion with a couple of locals on the problems and conflicts between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and Bangladesh.
The following morning offered us a continental breakfast of really good toast and tea – the best of the trip thus far. We four skipped the 12Rs official Lahore
tour and instead arranged our own local transport for 5Rs. We took in the Gulabi Bagh gardens (we were supposed to visit the Shalimer Gardens, but our taxi driver got lost!), and the Badshahi Masjid, which was the mosque of Wazir Khan and once the largest Muslim mosque in the world. The latter had a great courtyard and a tremendous view of Lahore from one of its minarets.
Other highlights of our morning included a crowded bus ride, accompanied by goats heads and other animal parts, and an incredible taxi ride to rival our previous worst, including a trip around a one-way roundabout going the wrong way! It was a real cover up day for the girls today after distinct disapproval was shown for their minis yesterday. We had a great lunch in town, including a delicious steak, then a swim in the pool until they emptied it at 4pm. We then took in a trip to the bazaar in the Old Town, which was interesting, but not spectacular, except for the banana smoothies at only 1.50Rs. In the evening, we had another great meal, this time a goulash, before an evening of Pakistani dancing. This didn’t light my
candle, so I left early and took the opportunity for an early night.
Our planned trip the following day to Peshawar never eventuated. Instead, our Good Friday journey came to a sudden stop after 3 hours of travel at a small village called Dina, some 50 miles short of Rawalpindi. The petrol pump on the Sundowners bus seized up and lack of knowledge about motors and no spare parts suggested a long delay. We camped under trees on the side of the road from about midday to 6pm before manually pushing the bus into the township and setting up camp for the night.
Our stop resulted in a rash of flies and onlookers, the latter needing a little ‘encouragement’ to stop them becoming too enthusiastic at eyeing off the girls. Dinner was a pretty plain fare, with banana sandwiches and biscuits, although a late-night chicken brew (with the chicken personally throttled by one of the girls from a farm in Chinchilla, Queensland!) filled up some gaps. We hit the cot about 10pm in dead still conditions, but a wind arose a little later, demolishing the tent and driving us all under a collection of sleeping bags.
The
next day was basically spent on our homemade campsite on the side of the road. There was not a lot on offer for the tourist in Dina! We spent the day being surrounded at various stages by flies, goats, camels and Pakis. While we seemed to have made our peace with the latter, we still had several ‘shooing’ sessions when they got too enthusiastic with their ogling. The highlight of the day was the discovery of the Dina Olympic Pool – the trough of the water cooler for the ice compressing plant next to the where we were camping out. Given the still very oppressive heat, almost everyone on the bus was in there at some stage of the day, in gear ranging from swimmers to full clothes to bra and panties. Many water babies, including myself, spent more time in than out, and some very red bodies were evident by sunset.
Meals were makeshift, but quite satisfying in the circumstances. We had various combinations of bananas, mandarins, bread, rolls and coca-cola. Gary arrived back from Rawalpindi late in the day, rather despondent at his inability to get parts. It seemed that we would require a local bus the
next day to get us over the border to Peshawar, and then another through to Kabul.
We had dinner that evening at the Capri Restaurant at Jhala, some 10 miles away. I hitched in with Peta, Jenny & Rose-Marie on a public carrier, much to the delight of the others, and onlookers at a railway crossing. We had an interesting conversation that evening with the owner of the restaurant, who was somewhat unique in that he had travelled overseas on a number of occasions, and also with a number of Irani students on their way home. After dinner, we moved camp to a local school on our return due to the prospect of rain.
Not surprisingly, it was a horribly sleepless night for all of us, due to the mosquitoes and the humidity, not to mention all the other restless bodies. There was no real difficulty to rise at 5am to get the local bus to the Afghan border. We finally got away at 6.30am with precious little in the stomach. After a quick and relatively comfortable trip into Rawalpindi, by 8am, we changed over buses to take us right through to the border. This next bus certainly
kept us on our toes and fully awake, as it broke all previous records in reckless driving. At one stage, not two but three bus drivers were pretending they were at Le Mans, with them all trying to overtake each other at 70mph on a narrow strip of road, which comprised potholed bitumen wide enough for one bus and dirt strips on either side of the road for the other two. To add insult to injury, a couple of cars were forced right off the road, taking bumpy detours at almost full speed. We finally made it to the border around 2pm with nerves on edge and some tempers frayed. The trip was generally through rocky, desolate countryside, with the route following the Indus River for some considerable way.
Our final hour in Pakistan was through the famed Khyber Pass, which five of us did sitting in the roof rack along with the luggage on top of the local bus, which proved quite an experience in itself. The sighting of a few graveyards, old disused forts and sentry boxes up high on the hills were testament to the tribal feuds of yesteryear, and certainly lent some atmosphere to the
trip. We were amused at the number of old Chevy taxis, containing up to about 20 people in each, slowly plodding up and down the winding road, which led us through to the Afghan border.
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John and Sylvia
John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Wallace
India/Pakistan border
When I got to this border, India and Pakistan were enjoying a war so John (my cousin) and I had to hang about in Pakistan until it either ended or a cease-fire was declared. To fill in the time, we took a bus/truck up to the Swat valley. Now a no-go area, it is a beautiful place sandwiched between high mountains but almost semi-tropical in its climate. We booked in to the only "hotel" in the valley and were just settling in when there was a loud knock on the door and two soldiers barged in. We were told we had to go with them to meet the local chief as he needed to approve our stay in the valley. We followed them with some trepidation as they had the guns and, even in the '60s, that area was pretty wild. Turned out that the chief (called the "Wallie" would you believe!) had been at Oxford University and there were so few English-speaking visitors that he just wanted to speak with us in English. We were there for two weeks and had a wonderful time (though I don't think I will ever eat goat again). Unfortunately we were already in the best (but crappy) room in the "hotel" so couldn't get upgraded. From there we travelled to Islamabad and then, when we heard a cease-fire had been declared for 24 hours, headed for Lahore. We managed to get to the border crossing in time but had to walk about 4kms through no-mans-land to get to the Indian side. We were immediately arrested by the Indian army police and interrogated about what we might have seen on the Pakistani side - which was pretty much nothing. My greatest fear was that they would discover I had illegally changed a large amount of dollars (about 30) into an even larger amount of Indian rupees which could have put me in prison for several years. Fortunately, they were more concerned with army type information, so I got away with it. (It occurs to me that I spent a lot of time getting arrested while I was travelling across Asia, through no fault of mine. Wait till you get to the Afghan/Iran border and the Italy/Yugoslav as well). Looking forward to reading more of your adventures. They are bringing back great (sometime not-so-great) memories for me.