Sights of Lahore and the border closing

Sights of Lahore

We had three hour sleep from 0330 to 0630 when the sun was already strong where we were sleeping on the rooftop. It was worth it to witness the Sufi drumming and whirling. Governmental advice is to avoid religious sites, being out late at night, crowded places, markets etc. I think we’ve done all of that … ooops!

We had discussed a morning of sightseeing with the hostel manager but didn’t firm it up. We discussed it briefly last night with the driver last night and he said to meet us downstairs at 0900. I had a feeling that he wanted to do it without the manager’s cut. It also opens up the possibility of price-gouging.

When we met him at 0900, his price was on the high side and we tried to bring him down. Marie didn’t have the patience and agreed to a price of PKR700 which is probably more than double the going rate. We went to Lahore Fort, the Badshahi Mosque and Zamzama (Kim’s Gun).

• Lahore Fort looked so much like the Delhi one. It had a Delhi Gate while the Delhi one had a Lahore Gate; I guess the two were meant to be joined by an intercity road.
• The Badshahi Mosque had beautiful Jaipur pink sandstone.
• As for Zamzama, I didn’t read Kipling’s book “Kim” and don’t really know how the gun features in it.

The driver accompanied us into the sights and showed us around, which was quite nice. At the end of the excursion, as I was paying the driver, the manager just happened to come back … face-to-face with the driver he said it was OK but told me later that we had indeed been overcharged. The difference was only about USD3 which I had intended to give to the driver at the end as a tip for three excursions anyway.

We had a brief rest at the hotel; the favourite social activity is crowding around the air-cooler. Fortunately the hostel has an uninterruptable power supply to keep it going during the frequent outages but sometimes the UPS doesn’t last long enough. Really, a generator was essential.

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Border Closing Ceremony

At about 1530 we went to the border closing ceremony at Wagah. Our tuktuk driver had worked there before and got very good front seats and escaped buying the tickets too. The grandstand on the Indian side was filled up while on our side the crowd was pitiful. However it did fill up to the brim later.

The atmosphere was supercharged with patriotism. While it was all very exciting, strong sentiment like that can turn awry with the wrong flashpoints  … as we have seen with events all over the world through history.

As Pakistanis have been so hospitable, I found myself cheering and chanting for Pakistan. I don’t recall cheering for Hindustan when I was over that side; I was more bemused by the Christian nun on the Indian side who was chanting “Hindustan, Hindustan”, in essence favouring a country founded on a rather different religion with multiple deities rather than Pakistan which shares her God.

Both sides try to outdo each other by having the tallest guards that can kick up so that their legs (shins) hit their forehead. A bit of cheating by curving their backs though; and I thought India would do better because they have yoga, right? LOL!

Finally, the two flags at the border gate are lowered simultaneously with the flags on each country’s archway. I really enjoyed the atmosphere even though I had seen it before from the Indian side.

When we got back to the hostel, they announced that they had installed air-con. But the workmen were still working at it. And it continued till way past my bedtime (due to last night’s deprivation). So I slept on the rooftop again; the wind had picked up and it was much cooler (but dustier) tonight. No sweating for a change but it was still warm.