South Asia
Trip Start
Jan 01, 1974
1
16
19
Trip End
Dec 30, 1974
Peshawar, Pakistan
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Questions
These paths, these lengthy paths!
Where do they lead to?
To some very ancient palaces,
Where some lost friends meet?
Perhaps, to the dense forests,
To scare us, like a vicious beast?
Or, after a round of aimless wandering,
Just bring us back to where we started!
by Munir Niazi
PAKISTAN
As night fell we left the Kyber Pass, reached relatively flat terrain and passed into Pakistan. At 7:30 pm we arrived in Peshawar in North West Frontier Province which had the reputation of being a very wild town. This was the place where guns could be bought and sold and also the shipping point for drugs out of the lawless regions of Afghanistan. Peshawar was once called Gandhara and under the Kushans was a centre for Buddhist study and pilgrimage. But prior to that era in 327BC Alexander the Great crossed the Hindu Kush mountains entering south Asia after conquering the Persian Empire and establishing the Silk Route of trade between China, India and Rome. In the 4th century the Kushans were over run by a series of dynasties until the Moghuls took power in 17th century. This brought Islam to supremacy in the south Asia region. The fate of Pakistan was set when in 1799 a Sikh named Ranjit Singh was made governor of Lahore. His Sikh followers were formidable warriors and formed a treaty with Britain to stay out of each other's territories. This agreement lasted until his death in1839 and then followed two wars over the annexing of Kashmir by Britain. In 1949 partition of India and Pakistan took place creating a huge displacement of the populace. Since that time Pakistan has not experienced long periods of stable government with a series of military rulers doing what they thought was best for Pakistan. After the experience with the English girl's passport being lost in Afghanistan and not being used to the constant crowding we thought it wise to take the next available bus to the larger town of Lahore. The larger city we hoped would offer us more choices and some of the little luxuries like clean food we had been missing. The bus we took was packed and fortunately we four were given the back seat. That would have been relatively comfortable but the bus conductor kept trying to cram a couple of extra people into that space and naturally we kept complaining. The eventual solution was for the extras to sit on their luggage in the aisle. There was a fair bit of ill feeling about the whole issue and during the length of the journey other young passengers spitefully kept waking us by prodding when we tried to catch some much needed sleep. This further irritated Eric as intended and he wanted to start a fight with the main culprits, a group of teenaged boys. We had to console him by assuring that the trip would not last for ever and that we could eventually leave Pakistan whereas the culprits were destined to live there. We arrived in Lahore and the now 5 of us checked into the YMCA. Although simple this hotel had everything that we needed. Clean sheets on slightly over firm beds, a private shower/bathroom, clothes washing facilities and a small restaurant serving breakfast. All this for 7.50 rupee (A$1 = 12.3 Pakistan Rupee). I finally had the feeling we were now in Asia proper where it was understood what were the basic requirements of a traveller. The Arabic countries we had passed through badly lacked that type of consideration. Without bringing up the topic of race the real difference for us was that we were now in an ex British colony. The management of hotels and certainly the YMCA system of service were some of the cultural aspects that the Pakistanis had learned from their ex colonial masters. Now that I was comfortable I could look back with some nostalgia at the last few weeks of travel. I rued the fact that I had not spent more time to relax in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan and maybe I would have enjoyed the places more but in my heart I also doubted that I could have relaxed there anyway. The rushing to get through the uncomfortable areas was partly instigated by the two lads John and Eric and admittedly I was too tolerant of their dislike of all things non English. However if I had travelled by myself through this region I still would have moved quickly to reach the places where I knew I would be more comfortable and probably safer. I did not attempt to entertain the prospect of how things would have been if Penny had been travelling with me. Lahore which was Pakistan's second largest city and cultural centre had not only conventional black and yellow taxis plying the streets but also horse drawn taxis. They were a horse and buggy affair and seemed to be popular with the locals. Obviously they were cheaper than the motorised form of taxi. One thing that made travel here more simple was the common use of English in signs although as this was Punjab Province the common languages were Urdu and Punjabi. The other noticeable thing was the number of Brahman cattle wandering around the streets. This surprised us as it was not India where Hindus believe that cattle are sacred. Lahore was home to an ancient mosque called Badshahi Mosque. This was built in the 1670's in the time of Aurangzeb one of the Moghul rulers. The weather was very hot on our arrival and we were feeling very lethagic. We were even too lazy to eat but at night we had our first curry at the YMCA restaurant. There was no beer, which would have been our first choice of refreshment, available in Muslim Pakistan but we had iced water provided with the meal. We were still wary of drinking the water, especially ice and had a lot of fun slipping water purifying chlorine tablets into the bottles on the table without the ever present waiter noticing. The waiter did not have a sense of humour and when we did not tip him he asked us for a tip. I don't have to record the response he got from the outspoken John and Eric. The rest of us pitched in to pool some change for him eventually. Lahore was a walled city, which reflected its military past but it had a modern reputation as an educational and artistic centre being the home to a number of universities and also a number of Moghul designed buildings and gardens.
From Lahore we took a taxi through small towns and small scale farming activities to the border town of Wagha. Here we commenced the immigration procedure required to leave Pakistan and enter India. As the border was not officially open due to the ongoing disagreement between the two neighbours we had to physically walk across. Once we had done the filling of a myriad of forms we joined dozens of other mostly locals on the 150 metre walk. Also walking were dozens if not hundreds of porters. They were mostly involved in hand carrying goods from lorries on the Pakistan side to lorries on the Indian side of the border. There were two distinct groups with the Pakistan workers in faded green shirts and the Indian porters in faded red shirts and it was novel to watch the two columns maintaining a respectable distance from each other as they loaded and unloaded every shape and size of box and bundle. This activity created employment for local probably underemployed villagers and would have been very popular with them. With this much employment at stake neither side would see the need to be in frontier agreement with the other side.
