Love Thy Neighbour

Now that most of the nagging little things on the bikes have been sorted, we could spend the day relaxing and decided to take the bus over to the Indian border at Wagah to have a gander at the infamous border closing ceremony. It was worth it.

Every night, about 1 hour before sunset, each side fills a small stadium with devotees to cheer on their countries border guards as they make a rather spectacular show of shutting the gate and saying "Fuck You" to the other side, but politely of course.

It starts with music. As the crowd piles in (men and women separated on the Pakistani side), each country tries to outdo the other by attempting to play tacky patriotic pop music as loud as possible to drown the other out.

Whilst waiting for the ceremony to begin, a car arrived from the Indian side and got the most raucous welcom to Pakistan by a couple of thousand people. I don't think they were expecting that.

Then some flag bearers, one an old man about 90, come and wave their flags about, dressed in Pakistani flag clothes.

Papa Pakistan

The ceremony begins with each side then howling like dogs at each other, I think the objective here was to howl the longest on one breath, which Pakistan seemed to win the most.

During all this the crowd goes wild with chants, applause and shouting.

Then the guards appear to do their stuff. The Pakistanis dressed all in black with a black head dress type thing, and the Indians in Khaki with a red one. They quick march up to the gate then back again and stomp around a lot in preparation.

Then they open the gates.

The guards stomp up to the gate from both sides and begin to engage in what can only be described as the most ridiculously choreographed show of taunting ever.

They kick their legs so high they almost break their own noses.

At one point two Indian guards and two Pakistani guards appear to do bear impressions at each other after a fit of stamping.

More howling ensues.

The crowd goes wild.

Eventually they prepare to take down their respective flags.

After undoing their ropes they appear to throw the slack at each other before lowering their flags in unison in an attempt to show that each side is equal. The Pakistani flag seemed to stay slightly higher than the Indian however...

Once the flag is lowered it is quickly folded and marched back to the guard house for safe keeping.

The captain of the guards from each side then approach to shake hands. It happens so quickly that if you blinked you'd miss it. I'm sure they must mutter something to the other side as well.

After some final kicking and stomping the border gates are closed for the night.

A job well done.

Till tomorrow...