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Earlier in February March More Ramblings
February 17, 2000
Oh, I know I have to get the camera going and take some more
pictures to show you all but yesterday as I was walking down
the Chadni Chowk market in Old Delhi, just about to pluck out
the old digi-cam, a bus hit me. The bus was slightly going, barely
moving, kind of readjusting itself really, so the bump felt more
like a nudge than a "whack!" and you're on your face
ten yards away. The nudge proved to wake me up a bit. The camera
has been great to haul out at certain moments. Not only is it
nice to capture some images but, with it's movie option, it's
fun to show people---people who might not have ever seen themselves
on screen---what they look like.
So after my nudge I looked around at the mob scuttling this
way and that and thought otherwise about the digi. A photographer
I met in Rajasthan said that you have to put your "self
intrusive anxieties in your pocket if you want those good shots."
I'm not sure if i agree with him, or understand him, or even
if that applies to what I'm saying right now. But, looking through
a lens closes your field of vision, and in this context, had
I been doing that I may have been flattened by the next much
quicker paced motor vehicle.
I am not a cow, not a holy cow at least, and there is a very
small chance that a bus would try to ovoid me like they do those
bovines that meander around the city eating everything from rotten
vegetables to cardboard. Even in the capital of India, where
the highest rules are handed down (the latest one of interest:
better, lower loans for payments to buy water buffalo) you can
still sit and have a cup of milk coffee and watch the phone company
car---a huge elephant---stroll by, a little repairman on its
back. Now, I wish I would have had my camera then.
February 20, 2000
As promised I took some time to
take some photos and organize some I'd shot in the past---a kind
of India wrap up, so to say. Of course these shots exclude Amaritsar
where I'm typing from. I'll see what I can fix up in the next
few days. Please go to the "pictures" link above; it
stands in as my entry for the day.
 Indian
 Pakistani
(Pakistani and Indian soldiers in their full army uniforms
at the border during the lowering of the flags ceremony. An incredible
show where each country's soldiers high stepped in choreographed
moves to bring down their individual flags. With the relations
between the two countries being less than friendly, it was a
show loaded with emotion.)
(My two travel partners, Kyle and Neil---who are
letting me grab a ride with them in their purple Holden HQ Kingswood
across the border to Lahore, Pakistan---and I waiting for the
flag ceremony.)
February 22, 2000
PAKISTAN:
Oh my,
was the only thing I could think while I walked out of the customs
office and into the bathroom of the Indian/Pakistan Border. I
washed my hands before walking back to the office, sat down and
thought, oh my. In fact, oh my was the only thing
I could think of the entire time I was being checked and rechecked,
out of India and into Pakistan. I
slept little the night before and woke up early to meet the two
travelers---an Australian and an Englishman---I met a day earlier
who were driving a purple, 1972 Holden HQ Kingswood from Australia
to England. We hopped in the Holden and jetted, weaving in and
out of cows, rickshaws, large buses and people, to the border.
I had images of the car being stripped and the boys being lead
off for cavity searches while I watched a team of Pakistanis
dismantle the laptop and digi-cam. Lost in these images, I jumped
a little when a little Indian officer asked for my passport and
asked me where I was going. "Pakistan?" I said, wondering
if it was a trick question. After that though, I wrapped my shawl
around my shoulders and let the two fellows answer the rest of
the questions. A short hour later the three of us started up
the Holden and gently cruised into Pakistan.
I could write three-hundred-million
pages on what I've seen today, and how different Pakistan is
from its neighbor India just 25km away. I'll have to keep this
short though, it being a small journal. So, as I sit here on
my bed at a mid-range hotel in Lahore, I try and think about
all I've seen today and come up with a few words that sum it
all up. (no, not oh my.) Something along the lines of:
"The best shower I've had yet was in Lahore, Pakistan with
an Australian and an Englishman." Which has nothing at all
to do with crossing over a border--an amazing experience, nor
the differences between India and Pakistan--huge and blaring.
But somehow travel goes this way. I stood under the scalding
hot, power stream water for more than a half an hour. I did not
shower together with my friends, of course, although the bathroom
is big enough. And I thought about nothing for the first time
all day; I relaxed and enjoyed the steamy, wet peace.
Tomorrow will be stressful again but
today, looking back on it, was a good one. It was one of those
days you remember: The best damned shower in the subcontinent
after crossing the border into Pakistan in a '72 Kingswood.
A chai shop owner in Lahore's old city watches amused as I
eat 3 chipati, each the size of a hubcap, in less than a minute.
The Zamzama in Lahore, the canon of Mogul and Kipling fame.
A Muslim women checks out the fabric sales in Multan's main
bazaar.
Right outside the city walls baby chicks painted bright colors
sell as children's toys for the annual kite festival in Multan.
While cruising around Lahore we spotted
a bagpipe shop. Pakistan is number one in the production of bagpipes,
Scotland coming in at a mere second. Not quite understanding
our inquiry, a few minutes after this picture was taken the bagpipe
player strapped to his chest a large drum and played us a nice
drum solo.
February 27, 2000:
A week in Pakistan and I can hardly bare the thought of another
meal. The people here have been wonderful, much deferent from
the fanatic American flag burning mobs the media portrays...
but their food. It takes a big stomach to go from the vegetarian
spice of India to the meat of Pakistan.
I'm in Multan at the moment, having ridden an extra couple
hundred miles with my border-crossing friends. In both of the
guidebooks that the three of us have it reads: "of these
four rare things Multan abounds-- heat, dust, beggars, and burial
grounds." We are all in agreement with this. And it is a
change to see elaborately (although they're not supposed to be)
decorated tomb stones in graveyards throughout the city.
When I return to Lahore tomorrow morning I'll be able to get
a better picture of life in Pakistan. For a few days I'll be
traveling near the outskirts of Lahore to various villages and
schools with a woman named Shaheen Ahmad who runs an NGO called
SHE (Self-Help Entrepreneur), an NGO for the betterment of women.
After few days in Lahore I'm off to Islamabad and the northern
town of Peshawar. I'll be tell you how the meat fares there.
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