My Pakistan Diary: A Bus Trip Like No Other

It was Friday, the thirteenth. The alarm, which was set for 3:45AM did not go off. Fortunately, my internal alarm was still working; I woke up at 4 AM and asked my wife to get ready quickly. The bus ticket said that we must report at New Delhi’s Ambedkar terminal two hours before the departure time of 6 AM but the clerk at the ticket counter had confidently told us that it was all right if we arrived by 4:30. We did not want to bother our hosts for a drive at that ungodly hour and had arranged for a taxi to take us to the bus station. But there was no sign of the taxi either. I walked to the nearby intersection where Angrez Singh had set up a make-shift taxi stand. I found him still enjoying his well-deserved sleep after a hard day’s work and felt somewhat guilty in waking him up. But by 4:15 AM Angrez was at the gate of our house with his taxi and we were on our way to the Ambedkar terminal to board the bus to Lahore.

Delhi starts to wake up very early in the morning. The traffic lights were working even at that early hour. Fortunately, we did not hit too many red lights. Angrez was slowed down more by the Delhi fog than by the traffic lights. We were at the terminal by 4:45 AM. We now found out why we were asked to report two hours before departure time. They use the same check-in and security procedures for this bus that they do at the airports: the passports and visas were checked, the suitcases as well as hand-baggage opened and carefully inspected; even the batteries from our cameras were removed and seized. After inspection and screening, we were given boarding passes with seat numbers and sent to a “sterilized” zone and offered milky tea and cookies.

Just as for the airplanes, the boarding of the bus started 20 minutes before the departure. We all filed in a line, boarding passes in hand, while the “crew” checked us in. Having arrived last, we got seats at the back of the bus. The last to board the bus were two Kalashnikov holding commandos. One of them seated at the front of the bus and the other beside us at the back. I did not think that the bus needed such elaborate security, but if commandos were needed, I frankly would have preferred to see some more menacing types. The ones assigned us appeared too complacent and did not mind enjoying a snooze once in a while.

Suddenly, I heard loud police sirens. I wondered if I should have paid more attention to the ominous signs in the morning and postponed our departure. But my apprehensions were misplaced. The screaming sirens were from the two police jeeps assigned to precede and follow the bus.

The journey started with a pre-recorded announcement in two languages about the trip, the distance to be traveled, stops for breakfast, lunch, snacks and immigration-customs and the estimated arrival time at the destination. We were offered candies and our choice of newspaper in English or Urdu.

The bus traveled like a VIP motorcade. It was not required to obey traffic lights. In addition to the police vans escorting the bus and clearing the traffic, the police were informed of our arrival at every intersection so that more jeeps were posted beforehand to control the oncoming traffic.

Our first stop was at Pipli near Kurukshetra, a two hour drive from Delhi which took three hours because of the heavy fog along the way. The whole rest house was booked for us and no unauthorized persons were allowed to enter the premises while we were there. We had arranged for my sister-in-law and her husband to visit us from Kurukshetra but they too were denied entry. We were allowed to speak to them for a few minutes just before reboarding the bus, but only under the watchful eyes of two policemen. The same procedure was repeated at the other two scheduled stops on the Indian side at Sirhind and Kartarpur.

We reached the Atari-Wagah border at 3 PM and spent the next three hours completing the immigration-customs formalities on both sides of the border. First, porters unloaded the entire luggage from the bus and took it to the Indian side of the customs-immigration. We were asked to fill in some forms which required us to provide information most of which was already there on our passports. I gave my wife’s and my passports to a clerk who took it inside the counter where another clerk carefully compared the information on the forms with the passports and returned it to us after what seemed like a long wait. Interestingly, the officials didn’t even bother to see me or my wife –who was sitting on a chair far away from the counter– to compare the photos in the passports with their bearers. Next, we went through the customs where an inspector examined our luggage and asked us how much Indian currency we had with us; we were carrying more than we were supposed to but she told us she would overlook. Once through the customs, we were confronted by two private money changers who were doing their business with their desk in the open just outside the customs hall. They changed as many Indian rupees into Pakistani rupees as one wanted without any limit or question. We converted all our Indian currency into Pakistani rupees while keeping our dollars with us.

Once everyone on the bus had their immigration and customs clearance, porters loaded the luggage on the bus once again and it started to move slowly towards the no-man land. It was now 5 O’ clock in the evening but large crowds were marching towards the border gate to witness the flag-lowering ceremony – a major attraction for the citizens of Lahore and Amritsar. The crowd, with Indian tricolor flags in hands, waived at us with great enthusiasm. We entered Pakistan through Bab-e-Azaadi or Freedom Gate. Two Pakistani officials boarded the bus and visually inspected the passengers. Now, we were enthusiastically waived at by the crowd on the other side wielding Pakistani flags who had also assembled to witness the same ceremony from the Pakistani side. The only difference in the crowd was that, on the Pakistani side, men and women were separated in the middle.

The immigration-customs procedure was repeated on the Pakistani side, except that the Pakistanis have done away with the unnecessary form filling even for the incoming passengers. The procedure took only half as much time as on the Indian side. The emphasis on both sides of the border is on following procedures rather than a real attempt to catch any wrong person from leaving or entering. On either side of the border, we came in contact with many people and it was quite easy to slip in anything in the luggage which had been so thoroughly checked at Delhi. Indeed, some people did not even return to the bus after clearing the customs at the Wagah border and could have easily slipped in any suspicious luggage in the bus.

After completing the formalities, we were treated to some tea and snacks at a border restaurant run by the Pakistani Tourist Development Corporation. The bus was reloaded and we started the last leg of our journey. The landscape on the Pakistani side of the border is not much different than from the Indian side. The border security people and their tall watch-towers are visible on both sides as are the fields of wheat. Still, there are some differences. There are fewer women to be seen on the Pakistani side and the men are somewhat taller than on the Indian side. Men’s attire is also different, the mostly pants and shirts on the Indian side are replaced by the mostly shalwar-kameez on the Pakistani side, with a smattering of laachas (dhotis) on both sides. The store signs are mostly in Urdu on the Pakistani side while they are mostly in English and Gurmukhi on the Indian side.

Soon, we were on the outskirts of Lahore. The city was decorated like a bride in preparation for the Basant festival which was on the following Sunday. Roads on both sides of the canal were beautifully lit for the occasion. One could feel the festivity in the atmosphere.

We reached the Flatties hotel at 7 PM. It was a bus trip like no other. I doubt if the bus fare of Rs. 800 could cover the cost of meals and transportation, let alone the elaborate security measures employed for it.

Next: Lahore aaya main otthey dil chhod aaya!

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