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I walked across the
border a few hours ago at Wagah, through this incredible no man's land
between the two countries. Since no trucks are allowed to pass through,
there's a line of porters dressed in gray on one side, and a line of porters
dressed in blue on the other, and they carry these huge burlap-wrapped
boxes on their heads, sometimes 3 at a time, and walk to the exact point
of the border and hand it off to a guy on the other side. So every box
is handed off from a Pakistani to an Indian or vice versa, but they never
actually step across the border. Thousands of boxes. Both countries have
also set up bleachers along the border, which in more tense times were
used for the evening ritual of closing the gates, where goose-stepping
platoons of soldiers on both sides would march to the border and slam
the gates shut, to the cheers of thousands of spectators on either side.
Funny countries.
Word
on the street is that Osama's on the other side of the country, so no
worries about me collecting the 50 million dollar door prize. NPR and
the Boston Globe have given M. several assignments here. As for me, it's
more of an exploratory mission, to get ideas for next time, as I've never
been here before and this is M's 4th time. In fact, she's due to arrive
in a few hours, as she jadedly opted for the one hour flight and I insisted
on the 7 hour train-taxi combo so I could walk across the border on foot.
I met two Brazilians, two Belgians and a Dutch guy who were trying to
convince the authorities to let them cross the border with their motorcycles
without a carnet de passage ( a sort of motorcycle visa), as they were
heading overland to Europe via Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania,
etc. etc. They were going to take two months to do it, though if you went
all out you could probably make it in two weeks.
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OTR Dispatches - June, 2004