For the sake of safety we decided to leave Pakistan on the 6th day of our stay, because we only had a transit visa for 7 days and we didn't want to risk running out of time. On the second-to-last day we said goodbye to the Hong Konger guys who we met in the Regale Internet Inn. They also left for India but a day before us. But in the evening they appeared again in the inn, telling us they were rejected to cross to India through the crossing called Wagha Border. They were told they could only cross to India by train (and were no more trains on that day). Why? The relations between India and China are not shiny since the long lasting conflicts in Tibet (you can find tons of information on this on the internet in you're interested).
The next day we left too. With several changes of rickshaws and buses (each of them telling us they were taking us directly to the border - they weren't) we finally reached the border. Although the official language in Pakistan is English (along with Urdu) nobody understood what we wanted. Or more likely they didn't want to understand us.
Plus, what is good to know about Wagha Border is that it closes every day at 3PM (Pakistanian time) and a border closing ceremony takes place. Both parties represent themselves (since 1948) on the two sides of the border line. Soldiers and clashing and marching till their boots fall off between two heavily exaggerated swing of the leg. The goofy soldiers doing ballet is spectated by hundreds of people every day, also shouting, waving flags and screaming like madmen. Alas we ourselves didn't see them because we'd have had to wait for 3 hours for the party but we got several pictures from the Hong Konger guys who told us about the strange "friendly handshake" of the countries. Pakistan became independent from the British in 1947 and it has bad political relations with India.
Despite this, crossing the border from Pakistan to India was very smooth, we could even make pictures, the customs officers didn't try to look super-secret or anything. Clean, modern buildings everywhere! And it's also easy to change money.
First impressions of India:
- Oh! India is cleaner than Pakistan. (Later on our opinions changed about this)
- People wear much more colorful dresses, the women wear whole jewelry shops on their faces
- There's different food on the streets. (Our trust went away at this point, seeing the lack of hygiene)
- Incents' smell in the air
- Men wear turbans (we'll tell more about this later)
- We could see more stray dogs who somehow lost their hair
- AND THE CHAOS
