The Old Weblog

The 2004 cricket series between India and Pakistan allowed a large number of Indians to travel across the border. One such visitor has allowed me to publish his travelog on this website.

This is the first in a three part series describing his experiences spanning three eventful days in Pakistan.

Day 1

As we crossed into the Pakistan from a bird’s eye view, one could see Moga, Kartarpur, Amritsar & Lahore in one sweep which was quite fascinating. There is a lighted boundary wall, which is clearly visible as you approach Lahore. We flew over the city before landing at the airport. Lahore is not such a big city would be possibly not more than 20 kms from one end to another.

Incidentally, the aircraft was Vintage airbus 300 being piloted by Captain Singh alongwith the pilot who was in the airbus, that was high jacked to Kandhar IC 814 couple of years back. The airport is newly built quite neat & clean but its nothing much to talk about.

The first interaction was with the immigration staff, incidentally women, who were ‘manning’ the counter. As in India, there were ’sifarashi’ guys trying to beat the system by giving 5-6 passports from the side while everyone else stood in the queue.

Customs was quite efficient. Each piece of luggage was x-rayed basically sniffing for liquor, which is banned in Pakistan. We were out from the airport in about half an hour. Our host (who is a partner in leading Law firm was there at the airport and we were happily sitting in his Toyota Pyrado. In 1st impression of Lahore are of open boulevards sparse traffic and tree lined roads and a neat and clean city.

The ride to the hotel took about 25 minutes we were staying at the Pearl Continental which is where both the Indian and Pakistani teams were staying apart from a host of VIPs/actors, actresses etc. etc. The normal tariff of the hotel is about Rs. 4000/- for a night, which was jacked up to the Rs.14,000/-(that is Pakistans’ hospitality).