We made it to India!!

Guard at Golden Temple
Originally uploaded by rtw2007.

We successfully collected our Indian visas from the Embassy in Islamabad, which gave us the green light to head off towards India (via a perfect, three lane, almost entirely empty motorway) to Lahore to pick up my mum. She arrived in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by a large crowd of men in shalwar kameez, plus the two of us standing out like sore thumbs with a big glittery welcome banner. After many hugs we headed to the sanctuary of an air conditioned hotel: the heat in Lahore is oppressive even at two o’clock in the morning.

The next couple of days were spent looking around the city, which is big, hot, dirty, smelly and rammed with traffic, but somehow despite all of that still manages to be interesting. We visited the huge Badshahi mosque to see evening prayers in front of the impressive domes and then enjoyed dinner on the roof terrace at a fantastic restaurant in the red light district (!) with great views over the illuminated mosque itself. We also visited some of the beautiful sandstone buildings that were built by the British, which are dotted along the Mall and the surrounding areas. Many of the sights were visited via auto-rickshaw, which was an experience given that they are too small for two people really, but we were three – so we ended up cramped in the back, holding on for dear life as we picked our way through the crowds, mopeds, cows and cars, all accompanied by blazing heat and a lung-full of fumes.

Perhaps the highlight of our trip to Lahore was a visit to Wagah border (between Pakistan and India) for the closing ceremony. Every day, the Indian and Pakistani soldiers face-off against each other, wearing big hats topped with odd looking fans; gazing patriotically at their own flag; glaring angrily at the other side; and doing some very silly walks and foot stomping. All of this is accompanied by loud cheers of “Allah”, “Jinnah” and “Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan” from the crowd (including my mum, who was singing and dancing away with the best of them). Two days later we saw the same ceremony from the other side of the border, where the crowds were much bigger and there was a lot of dancing and cheering throughout. Somehow, though, the Pakistani side was much better, with more pomp, ceremony and aggression than the Indians could muster.

The next day we returned to Wagah border to cross over into India. This was painless (with only one request for a bribe), mainly thanks to our magic Carnet de Passage. Woe betide anyone who doesn’t have a Carnet around here – an expensive looking Irish Land Rover Discovery has been parked outside customs for well over a year, abandoned because it doesn’t have the right papers, and there are now some Austrian and Slovakian vehicles to keep it company. The ease of our crossing meant that we had plenty of time to watch the spectacle of the border porters at work. Pakistani lorries aren’t allowed into India, and vice versa, so teams of porters walk just as far as the border line with boxes piled on their heads and then transfer them across the line onto the heads of their Indian counterparts. The whole thing is really colourful, with all the porters on the India side wearing blue shalwar kameez and coloured turbans, and all the porters on the Pakistani side wearing green or orange (which seems rather odd given that they are the colours of the Indian flag). Whatever colour their shalwar kameez, the porters were united in absolutely dripping in sweat as they carried heavy boxes backwards and forwards at pace, in the heat.

After celebrating making it to India, which is as far as we have planned this trip and which at times has seemed like a totally unrealistic pipe-dream, we headed into Amritsar. The highlight of this Sikh town is the amazing Golden Temple. The whole temple complex is stunning, but the Golden Temple itself is the star of the show, perched on an island in the middle of a grand square lake. The locals were all very friendly and again very colourful with their turbans for men or bright saris / salwar kameez for women. Yes, there are actually women here, and they even look happy!!! We had forgotten that this was possible at times in parts of Pakistan… The whole scene is accompanied by Punjabi chanting from the priests reading from the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh Holy Book) over loud speakers, which really adds to a fantastic and strangely serene atmosphere. In the end, we visited three times, the best of which was in the evening when the whole complex is lit up, with stunning reflections of the temple in the water.

We are now up in the mountains, which we approached via a horrendous winding road. In addition to the appalling road surface, lots of dodgy Indian driving and endless roaming cows, we had to ford a major river where the road was completely washed away. At times the water was well above where it safely should be on the van (in fact we could have done with a snorkel). With much help from the locals, we made it through in one piece, bar the fact that mum looked like she had aged about five years in two hours. I think that she might define a holiday as something quite relaxing and she is now discovering that this trip doesn’t always quite manage that…

We are staying at McLeod Ganj, a ex-colonial hill station which is the home of the Tibetan Government in Exile (including the Dalai Lama, hoards of Tibetan monks and lots of refugees). So far, mum has been charming almost all the Pakistani and Indian men she has met. She was invited to someone’s house for dinner before she even landed in Lahore and that has continued ever since. So now we are hoping that we might spot the Dalai Lama and she can secure us an invite back to his place… or perhaps he might fancy a ride in the Van of Dreams?