Julie's Trip to Quetta - Day 5

(if you have not read the prologue or days 1, 2, 3 and 4 scroll down the page and start from there - Julie apologises for it being so long.)

The flight to Islamabad was very easy and I was again met by a driver from Rob’s company who took me to their staff house. An unbelievably posh house with golden gates and lots of guards where I stayed the night.

Early in the morning I was off again to the airport to fly to Lahore. One of Rob’s drivers met me at the airport to take me to the border at Wagha, for one of the scariest drives of my life. We were almost killed leaving the airport and subsequently diced with death as a horse and cart did a three point turn right in front of us and then on a bridge we nearly came to a sticky end in a collision with an autorickshaw and a van. I had developed a higher level of tolerance to a “different style” of driving in New Delhi but this was way beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life. I shut my eyes and prayed.

I have to say that I was quite pleased when we finally came to a stop at the border. The car was then surrounded by eight coolies (porters) who were desperate to try and carry my bags. My driver had to stop two of them running off in different directions with my two bags. Having told the coolies that I would carry my own bags, I set off towards the seething mass of people who appeared to be attempting to cross into India.

Only a couple of years ago India and Pakistan were nearly at war with each other. Mainly over disputed territories along their border. Both countries have developed their own nuclear capability and for some time the situation here was very tense. Much of the reason for all this is that during the partitioning of the country in 1947, Mountbatten and his men had hastily drawn up a border (I think they did it in 80 days) which literally spit communities and families right down the middle. The area has been unsettled ever since.

However in the last few years the border has been opened for short periods of time and the first ever bus service between any cities in India and Pakistan started in the week of my travels (after terrorists tried to kill all the passengers who had registered for the first trip – the bus station and many buildings were burned down in the Indian city concerned).

Additionally since the 2 countries were now talking to each other, a series of one day cricket matches had been arranged to bolster the burgeoning relationship. The final one day match of the series of 6 was to take place in New Delhi on the Sunday, two day after I got back. At this point in time Pakistan was winning the series 3 games to 2. It all rested in the final match. This meant that the die hard Pakistani cricket fans were all travelling to Delhi to catch a site of their team winning against their arch rivals India.

So here I was at the border with several thousand Pakistani cricket fans. The border is only open several hours a day and I had heard stories of it taking many hours to negotiate all the formalities on both sides. Despite the fact that the authorities were very aware of the amount of people who would be crossing the border for this event, there seemed to have been no extra provision of staff, crash barriers or extra information signage.

I have never been in such a large crowd in my life and it was quite scared.

As I walked up to the back of the crowd, an elderly looking coolie came up and said that he would get me over the border for 100 rupees. You never know what to do when you are approached like this but as I was uncertain as to what the next step was, I agreed and we then began running around the crowd and across the grass to where the coolie obviously knew of a shortcut.

After a few minutes of him waving my passport and pointing out to one of the officials that I was a white woman with a British passport (God save the Queen), my passport was taken off of me through a sliding glass partition. I was somewhat concerned that this may not have been a good thing to do, as I couldn’t see where it had gone but after ten minutes it was returned to me and I was sent off in a different direction for the next part of the processing.

This involved a long hot walk in the sweltering heat to the next part of the border crossing where all the passports had to be looked at again and recorded in a large ledger by hand and you then had to sign opposite your name. This was after the officer in charge had asked all sorts of questions as to why I was in Pakistan and why I wanted to go to India. There was then another five minute walk to the actual border crossing when you then entered into the Indian processing section.

By this time the cricket fans were getting extremely excited and there were lots of people having their pictures taken as they crossed in to India, as I am sure for many, they were incorporating a trip to the cricket with an opportunity to see family that they had been split up from since partition. Lots of the Pakistanis had a huge amount of luggage with them which also made making progress very difficult. We read later that there were quite a few Pakistanis who never returned to Pakistan after the cricket. Presumably the pictures will be used to help look for them.

As I crossed into India my Pakistani coolie left me and I was a bit at a loss as to what to do. I just followed the crowd and we came to the arrivals section. A glass building that was completely full of people all shouting and pushing at the same time. As I entered the crowd I was physically lifted off my feet and moved from one side of the building to the other as people were pushing to get to the front of the queue.

I managed somehow to extricate myself and find the place to get the form for entry to India. Once I had filled this in it was simply a matter of waiting in the long hot queue. After about thirty minutes one of the women immigration officials called me over. I don’t know why she did this but she indicated that I should go into a different queue. There happened to be a couple of Indian ladies in this other queue and after they were served the immigration official took all my documents and processed them ahead of a heaving Pakistani throng. I don’t think they were particularly pleased but I have to say I was grateful for the introduction of a “Ladies Only” queue. Quite a civilised practice actually.

From here it was another walk to where the passports were again recorded in the Indian book and then to customs, where we had to wait for each item of baggage to go through the scanner. We had to fill in another form that was checked by one immigration official and then we had to line up for another official to sign it. We could then collect our bags and walk the last 300 yards to enter India through another gate where your passport was checked again. Talk about complicated!

By this time I was a sweating heaps (remember it’s around 40 deg C and I am carrying my own bags and cameras) and I was anxious to find the diver from Mrs. Bhandari’s guesthouse who we had booked to meet me. After a few minutes of looking around I saw my name on a piece of cardboard being held upside down by a very young looking boy who took me to the car.

The final price of the journey to the guesthouse in the car depended your requirement for air conditioning. I am afraid I was so hot I plumped for air conditioning (hang the cost!) and after five minutes felt considerably cooler.

Twenty minutes later I arrived at the famed guesthouse which had beautiful gardens and really was an oasis from what I had been through that morning. I had a very hot vegetable curry for lunch and a room to relax in until I was taken to the train station at Amritsar to commence the last stage of my journey, the six hour train ride to New Delhi .

The train was already waiting at the station and my name was written up on a sheet of paper on the outside of the train showing my seat number. As is usual in India, the train left on time and slowly wound its way through rural India. It was very full and everyone seemed to have a mobile phone so a great deal of the journey was spent listening to other people shouting in various languages into their phones. Oh for the rules of the Japanese trains where all mobile phones have to be switched off and peace reigns!

My ticket only cost £8.00 however it included a huge amount of catering. We were offered the following; a bottle of water, a cup of tea or coffee with a small individual flask of hot water, Pecoras and biscuits, a cup of Tomato soup and bread, a dinner of chicken curry, chapattis, curds, vegetable curry and then either ice cream or jelly. Pretty good value for money. All included in the price. The carriage was air conditioned and had comfortable seats.

I have to say I was however very glad to come to New Delhi station at 11.30 pm to find Richard and Iqbal our friendly local taxi driver waiting to meet me and take me home.

The station was the normal heaving mass of humanity. I was back to the reality I had come to know over the previous six weeks. It was reassuring to have returned to a place that I knew a bit about and where the people I knew and loved lived.