somewhatdubious

I felt I had to see the India-Pakistan border crossing at Attari after reading the description likening the guards in it to members of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. Apparently, I read, there was a somewhat elaborate border closing ceremony involving thousands of people watching on both sides of the border. Who travels over an hour to go see a border being closed? And who builds enough seating at a border so that thousands of people can come every day to see it closed? As it turns out, me, and both India and Pakistan. 

The ceremony itself starts, naturally enough, just before sundown, so using my excellent knowledge of the sun ( OK, I asked at my hotel ) I arrive at the perfect time, maybe half an hour before the ceremony starts. This gives me just enough time to get through the security checks and also the more strenuous challenge of passing the hordes of young children selling miniature flags and DVDs of the performance I am about to observe. A guard then directs me towards the VIP seating area. At first I put this VIP status to thinking I overheard one of the guards saying I was Scrappy from Dr Rock, but I do later notice that possibly all non-Indian people were placed in this area.

The description is so far true: there is stadium like seating for at least 1,000 Indians and similar facilities for the Pakistanis only metres away. Whilst the Indian side is slowly starting to overflow the Pakistani side is remaining relatively vacant, with about as many spectators as guards. Apparently Ramadan takes place over patriotism in Pakistan.

As the crowd starts dancing to the music being blasted over the PA and chants begin, special border security guards - with hilariously oversized red frilly hats - try to calm everyone down to a reasonable level. Then the music abruptly stops and is replaced by the enthusiastic tones of the MC. I am not too sure what he starts by saying but it could have quite possibly been “Let’s get ready to rumble” judging by the crowd response. After they start to quiet down slightly he starts the chant of Hindustan Zindabad ( Long live India ) firing them up even more than before. Next thing a group of the red hatted guards appears in a line and sequentially jump and kick the air followed by taking their place in a line on the stage.

The real ceremony must now be beginning, as one of the border guards has a microphone shoved in his face and he replies by screaming for at least a good 20 seconds straight. During this people continue to chant Hindustan Zindabad. In between every other guard making their attempt at screaming for as long as physically possible I hear similar sounds coming from the Pakistani side - I realise we must be in some type of screaming competition. After the last guard completes this feat the PA is silent for a few seconds revealing no competing sound from the Pakistanis. Hindustan 1, Pakistan 0.

Next the guards jump up and down again and march in true Ministry of Silly Walks style along the border area, towards the border gate itself, then back to the stage again, then back half way between the two. The MC continues talking and gets the crowd going again with some more Hindustan Zindabad. This continues for quite a while until both sides simultaneously open their border gates and appear to exchange pleasantries in form of synchronised silly marching and pouncing in all directions. This also reveals that Pakistan’s border security are also wearing equally hilarious large frilly hats - at my distance I can’t tell if either hat is larger but I do notice the difference of colour. Both sides continue to strut around just in front of the borderline itself alternating between acting like marching peacocks and blank staring at the opposition. The crowd is yelling Hindustan Zindabad during most of this.

At some point it is decided to actually get on with the closing of the border itself and each side takes responsibility for jumping around in the general direction of their flag pole, and twirling and throwing the rope between each other. As the sun starts to set both flags are lowered at exactly the same time and velocity, with the border guards then having just enough time to perfectly fold the flag and place it on a large red cushion before the border gate is slammed right behind them. The flag is whisked away in more Monty Python-esque walking and the border is closed for the night. As the crowd starts to leave some of the red hatted guards are besieged by fans asking for photos. Chants of Hindustan Zindabad are heard all the way out of the car park.

So, it has occurred to me that I haven’t updated this blog thing for a while, well the time for changing that may be happening soon, possibly.

To very quickly update, and admittedly I’m assuming anyone who reads this probably already knows, I am in India. I’ve been here about one week and will be here for the foreseeable short term.

So stay tuned for some semblance of a proper update sometime in the next week, hopefully with slightly more content of actual interest!

The most famous pyramids, generally referred to merely as the Pyramids, are found at Giza. Here there are the two rather large pyramids of Khufu & Khafre and the still relatively largish one of Menkaure as well as a number of smallish pyramids around these main pyramids.

I was able to climb inside the 2 biggest pyramids through narrow passageways up sleep slopes with roofs which occasionally go down to chiropractor requiring heights, all leading eventually to the very humid yet somewhat disappointing tombs in the centre of the buildings. I say disappointing because once in the medium sized rooms there is nothing to see other than an empty and undecorated sarcophagus - and, in the Great Pyramid of Khufu at least, people meditating.

The other lesser known pyramids which I saw are still close to Cairo but in the direction of Memphis, the ancient capital that is now roughly covered in sand. Pyramids here include the oldest of all pyramids, the Step pyramid ( called so because, shockingly, it has steps ), the Red pyramid ( ironically it was the same orangey colour of all the pyramids ) and the failure of the Bent pyramid ( this one was meant to be the tallest of all pyramids, but it’s very steep angle turned out to be too much for the ancient Egyptian architects to handle, so was changed midway through completion to be at a more gentle angle ).

Ok, so, it has been a while since I’ve updated this thing. In part it’s because of my vague laziness, but also because I’ve covered a lot of ground since I last posted. After my last post in Syria I spent about one week of time and three weeks of budget hanging around Beirut. Whilst Lebanon doesn’t have too many sights of particular greatness, it was a good place to relax for a week eating good food and having one or two drinks - alcohol is free flowing, in pleasant contrast to Syria & Jordan.

From Lebanon I took a painfully long shared taxi through Syria into Jordan, crossing two borders in one day ( and having to fork out a hideously expensive $75USD for a transit visa ). Amman isn’t the most exciting city in the world but I thought it was OK, as it was a good change from the relative chaos of capital cities elsewhere in the region. Although most of Jordan was good - perusing the somewhat murky waters of the Jordan river where Jesus was baptised, excessively floating in water at the lowest place on earth, spending a night playing oud with Bedouins at Wadi Rum - the obvious highlight would have to be that of Petra. Whilst the famous facade of the treasury is roughly as impressive as pictures have suggested, the whole area is filled with lots of smaller buildings, all cut into the rock face, and fun walks around cliffs. And the nightly showings of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were a great touch.

Expecting another painful border crossing upon entering Israel I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of hassle getting in, although I was asked about 10 times if I had “a weapon or something resembling one”. However, not so lucky was the friend I was travelling with who proceeded to be randomly questioned which left me waiting outside of the border for about 2 hours wondering what was happening to him. ( He eventually got in fine ). I spent a couple of interesting days in the somewhat holy city of Jerusalem and a couple of fun nights in the somewhat less holy city of Tel Aviv.

I’ve now been hanging out in Cairo for about a week and will soon be heading off to wander around the rest of Egypt. I guarantee more frequent blog updates in the next month!

After being refused entry to Syria via the border near the Turkish town of Sanliurfa ( Friendly Turkish border official “They say the bank is closed today.”, Me “Should I try again tomorrow?”, FTBO “Probably not, they are Syrians, the bank will probably be closed tomorrow and the day after” ) I had to spend a day swapping over 4 buses to get back towards the Mediterranean to Antakya. This time the border crossing was more straightforward with my shared taxi driver pushing in lines for me, throwing me in the right direction and instructing me when to put the $10 in the front of my passport. ( This attempt at baksheesh actually went unnoticed ).

I caught food poisoning from my first meal in Aleppo - I felt bad before even finishing the appropriately named ”Aleppo Kebab” - but managed to recover after only spending one day walking around not feeling like dealing with the seemingly unavoidable mass of people, cars, noise and, worst of all, the smell of meat wafting from every corner. I ended up spending a couple of days in Aleppo, wandering around the old souq and citadel, the newer & shinier Christian quarter, doing a day trip to the “Dead cities” ( cities which were “mysteriously” abandoned years ago, probably due to changed trade routes ) and eating falafel & baklava.

After this I made my way to the not overly exciting town of Hama, famous for its narias - large water wheels scattered along the river the city is on ( I don’t think I got the name of the river). I did a couple of day trips from here, checking out some crusader castles & the ruined city of Apamea.

From Hama I took a bus into the desert to arrive at the oasis of Palmyra, the site of an extensive ruined city. I spent a day walking around the site ( forgetting to bring water with me was probably not the smartest idea ) and drinking tea with local Bedouin ( desert-gypsy types ) people. I did not ride a camel despite countless offers.

I have now been in Damascus for a couple of days and have mainly been spending my time exploring the ( very old ) old city.

As well as the above, over the last week or two I have drunk many litres of tea, played lots of old men at tavla ( backgammon ) and smoked too many nargiles.