Amritsar and over the border

The dusty drive to Amritsar seemed to take forever. Initially it was a pretty road, smaller mountains at a lower altitude, cool air still as we stopped for a traditional breakfast of a mixture of beans and rice. After chatting to some locals and getting some advice for a short cut, we were diverted onto a windy, dusty and very hot road. The scenery changed quite quickly and we were soon driving amongst hills which featured small fires intermittently.

Our shortcut was indeed a more direct route, but the drive still took many hours. By the time we reached Amritsar, it was late afternoon. The GPS way-point we had for the guest-house led us to the military cantonment area, and into a wide leafy street. With a warm welcome we were directed to park the landcruiser under some trees, in a huge yard, about 15 meters from a swimming pool, clean toilet and shower and a fridge with cold (unfortunately expensive) beer. Perfect.


There were also some resident water buffalos, gorgeous creatures with lovely eyes!
Mrs Bandari's Guesthouse is not cheap, costing us as much as a room in some places, just to sleep in our tent, but it was worth it. A favourite of overlanders heading to or from Pakistan, the guesthouse is only 30 minutes from the border. We met a couple of other travellers there, some German's and Henke, a Dutch bloke travelling solo in Landrover. We also had the pleasure of hanging out with Tam and her daughter Sahara who were staying for a few days.

With all our Iranian visa stress it was good to be able to chat with someone who has already driven through the country, and was on his way to Delhi to pick up his new Iranian visa for the trip home. British nationals are having trouble getting Iranian visas at present, causing us concern as alternative routes are expensive and time consuming.

We had planned to use Mrs Bandari's as a base to get some car jobs done - greasing on the handy car ramp and trips into the car market area of the city to find the elusive v-belt to fit the aux alternator. One handy thing about the lay-out of a lot of Indian and Pakistani cities is that they seem to be set up in very definite areas. Car market, fresh food market (further divided into meat, fruit & veg and then lentils etc), clothing market and the list goes on.

So it is always fairly easy for us to find the correct area of a city to get car jobs done, but then we have to negotiate the many small lanes, stalls and then shelves to find what we are after. Amritsar did not produce the right v-belt.

A couple of med students from Oxford University, who were spending time at a Delhi hospital turned up for the weekend and we attended the 'closing of the gates/lowering of the flags ceremony' at the Pakistan border

Lots of shouting, singing and general flag-waving before soldiers did their best Fawlty Towers impressions (John Clease with a Nazi walk).

It certainly was a patriotic display and there is no love lost between the two countries during the 2 hour ceremony.

We spent 7 nights at Mrs Bandari's, mostly because we were waiting to hear back from the visa agency, and partly becaue we didn't want to leave the luxury of cold drinks, clean facilities and some relief from the oppressive heat. We did consider leaving earlier when we heard that a 'tourist bus' was about to turn up.
However when the massive 6 wheel drive 26 tonne Mercedes truck conversion pulled up a really nice, eclectic bunch of people climbed down from the huge truck, including Heather and Russ Carlin from Terang, my home town! The truck was overlanding from London to Sydney.

Amritsar is famous for its Sikh Golden Temple. We visited it in the pleasantly cool evening along with Henke, Tam and Sahara.

The men donned head scarves as well, and we wandered around amongst the hundreds of Sikh worshippers.

The day the truck left for the cooler north we also left and headed to the Pakistan border. Expecting some grief in the form of a car search (we have so much stuff it would take hours), we passed through easily and quickly. Both the Indian and Pakistani officials were helpful and friendly, a nice change from other borders we've experienced. A perfect condition empty motorway led from Lahore up to Islamabad and we were there by 6pm that evening. Our first impressions of this new country are that the driving seems more calm and orderly, and there are Toyotas everywhere...