The Wrong Way Home: London to Sydney the hard way by Peter Moore

Author:Peter Moore [Moore, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vagabond Editions
Published: 2011-02-15T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Northern India

Soundtrack: ‘Sexy, Sexy’ – from the movie Khuddar

Keith and I returned to the Tourists Inn Motel from Afghanistan like conquering heroes. Word of our journey spread throughout the complex of grubby rooms, and soon everyone wanted to speak to us and hear our stories. One Dutch guy insisted on taking our photo. Even the wonky-eyed manager welcomed us warmly. ‘Allah has smiled upon you,’ he said with a grin.

It was quite tempting to stay at the Tourists Inn Hotel for a while, dispensing wisdom and reluctantly accepting offers of dinner from travellers hoping to discover the ‘secret way’ to enter Afghanistan. But it was hot. And now that I planned to head through India and Nepal and into Tibet, I had the approaching monsoons to worry about. If I got to Nepal too late, the road to Tibet would be washed out and I’d be stranded.

Keith was flying home to Tasmania, so we exchanged addresses and said our goodbyes. After all we had been through together, our farewell was all rather low key, but I guess that’s the way we Aussies do things. Besides, I knew I would keep in contact with Keith. I had enjoyed travelling with him and, unlike a lot of people I’ve been thrown together with on the road, I could imagine having a beer with him back home. In fact, that’s exactly what I did when I ran into him, quite by chance, near Sydney Town Hall about nine months later.

From Peshawar I travelled quickly on to Islamabad, stopping only briefly to pick up my Indian visa. Part of the reason the Indian visa took so long to issue was that they telexed Australia to ‘confirm my good character’. They must have spoken to the wrong people back in Australia because my character was reported to be free of blemish and the visa was issued.

I caught a GTS flying coach from Rawalpindi to Lahore. Despite its rather exotic name, the flying coach was disappointingly ordinary, and painted a drab grey. And it didn’t fly, either. As I made my way across the top of Pakistan, I noticed that the closer I got to India, the less gaudy the buses became.

Lahore is perhaps Pakistan’s most interesting city. It is the cultural and artistic heart of the nation. First the Moguls and then the British felt compelled to leave behind reminders of their rule. From the Moguls came the beautiful gardens and palaces and tombs that dot the city. From the British, the grand Imperial monuments of The Mall, Kim’s Cannon, the Fort and, of course, the magnificent railway station. It was probably both empires that gave the people of Lahore a taste for doublecross and intrigue.

These days this manifests itself in ripping off tourists. Rather than just mugging somebody – which would seem to be the most straightforward way of availing oneself of a tourist’s money – the good folk of Lahore have come up with all kinds of scams. There are the notorious

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.