Welcom to Pakistan, Dear Dean Martinello and Sally Clark, The Land of Lovely and Lively People, We all Pakistanis Welcome You with the Core of Our Hearts!
Tomorrow we’re joining another 50 bikers on a ride out through the country, a nights camping and then back to Lahore next day.
Really looking forward to it, even given the 6am start 🙂
The border crossing today went ok, a bit slow on the Indian side, but faster on the Pakistan side. Everyone was super friendly, welcoming and generally in good moods, which for a border post is really rare!
So far Pakistan looks much the same as India, albeit with some big differences. Fristly, there are almost no car or truck horns. Ahhhh the sweet sound of silence… or at least, the chaos of a busy street without the noise of horns. Unbelievable, only 30km from here, people are unable to drive 25m without blasting the horn at someone or something, but here, nothing. Thanks be to Allah!
Next, there are no cows, and hence no cow shit on the roads, which has taken one of our more common phrases out of circulation, “Careful – Shit Foot!!”
We’re only 30km over the border, so not far really, but the friendliness we’ve heard about is already visible. Lots of big smiles, thumbs ups, and waves as we made our way to central lahore, and then the welcome from Adil was quite unexpected, really cool.
On the down side, after more than 2 months in India, drinking the water, eating the ice and generally doing everything wrong, on the very last day, Sal has gotten a bit sick, nothing serious but disappointing to get bitten on the last day there.
And finally, last night we were invited into the home of a gentleman running the local pharmacy in Amritsar, it was a 10pm invitation for a beer and dinner, we refused the food as we’d just eaten, but was really nice to spend some time in peoples home talking about life in India. A very nice way to finish our travels there 🙂