Just before we left NZ the people we’d organised our border pick up and trip to Islamabad with had contacted us to say they had 2 Dutch guys taking a car with driver on a 2 day journey up to Gilgit (the main city on the Karakoram Highway in the mountains) and did we want to share the cost. We’d been talking to them about hiring a 4WD and driver for a side trip from Gilgit so they knew on our rough thinking on dates were close to aligning. It’s a long journey up, even broken into 2 and the heat was going to make it tougher, so we accepted. The original plan was to depart the day after we got to Islamabad but the Dutch guys needed to delay a day and while keen to ... read more

Every evening since 1959 (except for a brief period when they were at war) India and Pakistan have undertaken a nightly border closing ceremony at the Wagah crossing. It has become infamous for being a strange spectacle of overt nationalism, and involving very tall men from the Border Security Force on the Indian side and the Pakistan Rangers on the other, doing some serious goose stepping. It was wickedly hot as we left the hotel and negotiated with an auto-rickshaw driver to take us on the 50 minutes journey. When we arrived at 3:30pm the queues were massive. Everything we’d read said there are thousands that attend on the India side but only hundreds on the Pakistani side. We’d gone on a Sunday, and this definitely wasn’t the case. We joined the women’s queue and made ... read more

Border crossing days aka clean top days (it always helps to look half presentable when asking to enter a country) are always a mix of excitement and nerves about the unknown. We love crossing borders, nothing beats walking into a new country with the locals. Despite having a lot in common, India and Pakistan’s relations have been difficult since partition. When the two divided they did so along religious lines; Hindus went to India and Muslims to Pakistan. It was one of the largest human migrations ever seen, and sparked riots and violence across the region. This was followed by the Kashmir conflict and numerous other military conflicts fought between the two. They still regularly take pot shots at each other over the border. Overall their relationship has been plagued by hostility and suspicion. Since their ... read more

Having opted for the 6:40am train to again fit the most possible into the day again we were up at 5:30. Sassi had found another tuk tuk driver willing to take us to the station. Just a short hop it wasn’t worth getting out of bed for, so it was a job for an early riser. We’d met the guy, he seemed nice but when he said he’d pick us at 6am we weren’t entirely convinced he’d show. We waited until 6:05am then not prepared to miss the train and to have got up that early for nothing, we started walking to the road. A 5 minute walk up the dirt road proved our gut feel right as he still hadn’t passed us. The main road was pretty quiet but it still only took a few ... read more

The key part of our Sri Lanka plan was to visit the ancient cities in the centre of the island. Polonnaruwa was the capital in the 11th to 13th centuries. The ruins are now part of an archaeological park which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Our plan for the day was to see the park and then head out of town to Sigiriya. This meant another early start, both to fit everything in and to beat the forecast 36C heat. A lot of people hire bicycles as the park is free from cars but it’s only a few kilometres in length so we agreed on our guest house’s recommendation to be dropped by tuk-tuk at the far end and walk back through it. We had breakfast at 7am and then headed out when the ticket ... read more