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...

Leh to Amritsar

A gompa is a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, and a very spiritual place. We camped nearby one in Hemis, and made the short journey up a hill and into a gorge to find a colourful, quiet and very pretty gompa. A walk through the museum soon unearthed human skulls, massive old conch shells which had been made into trumpets and brilliant gold painted offering plates and jugs. From there we drove the final 45kms to Leh. Set in a valley where snow capped mountains were juxtaposed with barren, dusty ones, we were not sure really what to expect of Leh.
It was quite touristy, with every second shop selling carpets. Silk or wool, that is the question. The owners of the "Silver Cloud" guest house were lovely and they had good parking. We bought a few more gifts and caught up with some locals who we'd met working in Goa 3 months ago. There is a road just north of Leh, at the entrance of the Nubra Valley, which claims to be the 'Highest motorable Pass in the world'. Obviously we had to drive up this road too, but first we needed to get a permit from the Deputy Commissioner. Entering the DP's office we were confidently told 'You'll get a permit, no problem'. All we needed to do was write a short letter requesting permission. Andrew dictated, I scribbled and we handed it to a man behind a desk who immediately said 'No'. Apparently you need to be in a group of four and apply through a tourist agency. Back in to town we approached an agent who gladly added us to a permit with a couple of Israelis who were heading in a completely different direction. The road out of Leh wound higher and higher as the temperature dropped lower, bringing us to rocky mountain slopes housing rather large 'rats' as the locals called them. These amusing animals were quite different to anything we'd seen before - like furry beavers with flat tails they'd thump on the ground.

The highest point of the drive was a little unremarkable at 5380m, so we bought a souvenir shirt, took some photos and headed down the north side, and into the very impressive Nubra Valley.
Small villages have managed to make a living where the snow melt allows streams to flow, and the green grass and trees look fluid as they appear to seep down from the mountain sides. It was surprising just how much land could be used for farming, even when around us it appeared infertile. Even the steep sides of the mountains served a purpose, being cut into and flattened out.

After a bit of mucking around, trying to follow local directions and getting to know the area, we found a suitable and lovely camp site by a running, silt filled river. We spent the night there before heading back towards Leh.
Many nomadic farmers herd their yaks and other cattle into the greener areas as the snow melts.
Apparently there are not so many yaks around these days, even though their wool makes good carpets and shawls.
Back up through the snowy pass, we drove straight to Leh and prepared ourselves for the drive to Srinagar. The Manali-Leh road had been such a talked-about route that we were not expecting so much from the next section of our drive. Heading away from Leh, we looked our over the mountains ahead and sighed - the landcruiser was not going to be breaking any speed records up hill - this could take some time.
The road led us into luscious green villages, and then up over barren, dusty hills. Cattle were herded, prayer drums were spun and we found a bush camp that was not so much bush as a dry river bed. Goats were being herded home for the evening across the valley sides in the distance.
The military presence increased as we neared Kargil, including road signs and many army camps. The locals are relatively oblivious to this and carry on with life despite the guns, trucks and road barricades. The road follows the 'line of control' or 'ceasefire line' delineating Indian and Pakistan controlled Kashmir. It wasn't that long ago in 1999 that the Pakistanis briefly took the mountains above Kargil, under the leadership of the then military chief Musharraf.
As the road headed south we found ourselves in a wide valley, and although the sun shone brightly, there was not quite enough heat to completely melt the frozen river or waterfalls.
Trucks slowly negotiated the narrow washed-out roads and we had to stop a various checkpoints to fill out forms.
Eventually the road rounded a corner in a narrow gorge and before us was the magnificent, green Kashmir Valley - a spectacular contrast from bare cliffs to verdant, alpine slopes.
The narrow road wound its way down to the valley below, round a number of impressive hairpin turns on the cliff edge. Fortunately the landcruiser's brakes were actually working quite well.
Driving along the forested valley, we entered Sonnomarg. The town is home to a military base, but is not unlike a Swiss Village with its wooden windows and surrounding snow capped mountains, and is home to the 'Bradley bear' bins.Horses grazed on the steep slopes, some ready for tourists (Indian mostly) who would ride along the icy river.
A full day driving, after aloo paratha for breakfast, was only broken up by stops for photos, saffron and the toilet. Droves of Horses are often seen, accompanied by the families who run them to transport goods across the mountains.
As we travelled we noticed the obvious change from Buddhism to Muslim and then to Hindu, which in turn changed to Sikh. People's faces changed, clothes and head dress changed and as we approached Srinagar the land changed again too. We saw rice paddy fields again and temperature rose accordingly.
There were a lot of goats, everywhere.
The military presence over the past few days had been phenomenal. Trucks with mounted heavy machine-guns, armed checkpoints, police buses moving hundreds of troops, and soldiers patrolling the road side looking for bombs were all becoming to seem normal.
We were forced to stop for the night in one of the worst hotels we've stayed in yet, however this was more than made up for by the lovely Sikh couple staying in the room next door. Up early, 8 hours in the car (though not boring ones as the Indian decoration on trucks still kept us amused), temperatures over 45 degrees, and we had reached our final Indian destination - Amritsar.

Mrs Bandari's guest house, with a swimming pool, excellent (if expensive) food and loads of great people to chat with, including some Terangian's from Amelia's home town!