1st of September, 2017
Early morning in Lahore, around 05 AM my Uber Taxi was waiting for me at the front of my hotel.
It was very strange feeling to travel only with a backpack. Of course, I was traveling with my backpack in Turkey during our daily trekking travels, but it was daily, and you were returning to home to reach everything you want, or you need.
It took around one hour to reach to Wagah Border. I arrived at border around 6 AM and started to walk from a check point to a meeting point where an open tractor trailer was waiting to carry to passport control building.
At first check point soldiers controlled my first passport which has working visa of Pakistan.
By the way I have two passports because of two reasons;
First, I am traveling too much and we as Turkish Citizens we have to get a lot of visa for different countries. Each process of getting visa takes 7-15 days depending on countries. That’s why you have to wait always for next travel. To prevent this issue Turkish State has given a right to people to have second passport.
Second reason is quite interesting; Some countries have political conflicts and even wars between them. These countries do not like the people who visited their enemy countries and they are creating problems when you are entering to their countries. Like Pakistan and Israel, Israel and Saudi Arabia or Israel and Iran or North Turkish Cyprus and South Cyprus or Greece and North Turkish Cyprus. This is not an issue for infrequent travelers but for frequent Turkish travelers is an issue.
After check point, I walked to meeting point for 15 minutes. We had to wait around 1,5 hours because it was too early for opening of border passport control unit. Around 8 AM tractor trailer took us to transfer from waiting point to passport building. It is not far away but because of security reasons they are not allowing to walk.
Suddenly it rained. Yes, the month September is the monsoon rainy season in Pakistan and India. It was funny because there was no signal and it started to rain when we are in open trailers. I was ready and I took my raincoat out of my bag and immediately put it on.
To pass passport control took around one hour. Still monsoon rain was going on and we had to walk again from Pakistani passport control to the last Pakistan Check Point to first Indian Check point.
There is an arena or a kind of stadium between two countries last check points
There was no ceremony during my walking because it was very early, I just walked quickly under monsoon rain to reach to first check point and presented my second passport which has Indian visa. It was strange and a little funny for me to walk through this Ceremony Stadium because this Punjab Region people is the same people and they are relatives but just because of politics they are acting two enemies.
“The acting” word is a very good word and term. This acting has created “actors” and these actors had created a kind of theater, a kind of dramatic show at the Wagah Border.
A kind of Bollywood movie plateau is created at the middle of two countries border to perform their shows instead of fighting on the field. Two countries invested for local small army not to fight only to perform the Wagah Border Show.
For touristic purpose it is interesting. By the way a lot of fanatic nationalist citizens of each country are coming to this stadium to show their own supports like in a football match. It has taken the form of a beautiful place to free their anger.
By thinking these strange and funny things I arrived at Indian second check point just after Ceremony Stadium and there was another shuttle bus was waiting to transfer us to passport control building. It was again only 500 meters, but it was not allowed to walk.
It took around one hour to control passport, to fill documents and pass the custom control. It is very simple when you have only backpack.
Again, I walked from custom control building to front of border to parking area.
When I just arrived at parking area to find my Uber taxi, monsoon rain stopped.
I sat down at a small open buffet to drink a tea and to eat biscuits to wait the taxi.
Thanks to Rajat again, my car came to border parking area on time and the driver send a WhatsApp message. We met easily.
Driving from Wagah Border to Amritsar took around one hour. Finding the hotel and check-in was easy. No rain sunny weather and fantastic city Amritsar was waiting for me.
04.04.2020
Kadıkoy, Istanbul, Turkey
Numan Bayrak 