Lahore

This is a story about how there is always something to do for a traveler, even when you think you arrived in a town, where there is absolutely nothing to do. This is also about how we started as merely spectators and soon became involved, too involved in a demonstration in the streets of Lahore, Pakistan.


We had arrived in Pakistan after spending the entire day at the Indian border crossing, but that is another story. Anyway, we arrived very late in Lahore, where we were going to stay for a few nights. As it was so late and the rooms were next to nothing, I took a room again. Three people of our group were leaving in Islamabad, so we had a party planned as a big goodbye to those people leaving. The people responsible for the bar had made a punch with rum, which you had to drink hot. The party wasn't really going anywhere, because a lot of people were a bit depressed from sitting at the border the whole day and went to bed early. I started talking to this elderly American guy, but that seemed to be a mistake. Axel, a Dutch guy, came to my rescue and soon we started talking in Dutch. I explained to Axel that is was very impolite to have a conversation in Dutch, since none of the other people would be understanding a word we were saying. Axel was very understanding, so we continued in English. We talked for a while, but since no one was in the mood to have a party, we went to bed very early.

The next day we had breakfast at 8 o'clock in the morning. Breakfast was just beans, bacon and bread, because the eggs, for some strange reason, were gone by then. After breakfast I did the back locker as usual. Back locker is something typical for an overland trip. Because there are always locals around, you never leave your bags out nor do you put them in your tent. So each morning and each evening the bags are taken out of the truck and after everyone has taken out what they need, they are put back into the truck. So after this was done and there was absolutely nothing for us to do in this city, we just hung around for a while.

A few of us decided we might as well go for a visit to the city and have a look at the museum. We walked around town for a bit and found the museum quite easily. As soon as we were in the museum, a local guy came up to us and wanted to know if he could walk around with us and talk to us. At first, remembering India, we thought he just wanted to be our guide to get some money out of us. Seeing our worried faces, the guy quickly told us that he didn't want any money, but that he was an university student and that he could use the practice of his English. So we ended up with this local guy showing us around the museum, talking and explaining everything to us. In return we helped him with his English, for which he was very grateful. After about an hour of walking around in this museum, we had quite enough of it, so we asked the local if he knew anything interesting we could do around this city.

The guy suggested that we might want to go and see this cricket game. Since Nevil and Dan were Aussies, they were very enthusiastic about it. I wasn't really interested in cricket, but since that was all there was to do, I agreed to come along on the condition that they explained the game to me. As we came out of the museum, the streets were full of young people. Our local guide explained to us they were students, but didn't want to say much about what was going on. Even after we insisted that he told us what was going on, the only thing he would tell us was that they were students. We started walking around and went over to this little square were there was this big canon. We took a few photos of the canon and soon started looking at the students again. Our local guide kept insisting that we went to the cricket game, but we were actually more interested in what was going on in the streets. Which sounds pretty logical to me. Since we were there to explore the county, what better way was there to feel the local culture than to check out what was going on.

By that time bus loads of students had arrived and more and more busses kept arriving. All these busses were packed with students, inside and outside. There were students all over the busses. They were not only completely packed inside, but students were hanging outside and sitting and standing on the roof. All of them were carrying flags and shouting "Allah, hu Akbar!". I knew enough Arabic to know that it means "God is great!". We were amazed by what we were seeing and I for one, had to find out what was going on. The other two were a bit reluctant, but they soon followed me when I started walking over to the place were the busses were unloading. Our local guide tried to stop us at first, but when he saw that we had to know what was happening, he just disappeared.

So there we were among all those students. We soon started talking to them and asking them what the hell was going on. Well, we tried talking to them, but since none of us spoke the local language and they didn't speak any English at all, we still didn't know what this demonstration was about. That it was a demonstration, was something even we could see by now. The students were all very friendly to us and it seemed they were, for some reason, very proud that we were there with them. Soon a few of them came running to us and put a sticker on our T-shirt. None of us actually knew what was written on it, but at the encouragement of the students, we left the sticker were it was.

We started walking with these students at the back of the demonstration, or so we thought. Because more and more busses with students kept arriving, we were soon not at the back, no we were actually in the middle of the demonstration. It took us a while before we figured that one out, but when we did we thought things were getting a bit out of hand. Three foreign tourist in the middle of a demonstration in Pakistan with no idea what these students were protesting about. After walking with them for a while, we realized that we might be doing something stupid and very dangerous, so we just left them and walked over to the side of the street. Standing there we took a closer look at our stickers and decide it might be saver to take them off, as we still didn't know what they were saying. Of course we didn't throw them away, but kept them in a save place because to me it was a very valuable souvenir.

As we were standing there, the students started running forward and we understood that we had indeed done the wise thing by not staying with them. A few minutes later all the shops started closing up. We looked at each other not knowing what was going on, but we stayed there because we still weren't aware what was going on. This of course didn't last for very long, soon the students all came running back because the police was charging and shooting teargas at them. Our first instinct was to start running as well, but I soon told the other guys that we might be saver staying where we were, as the police would see that we were just tourists and that we could always flee in a shop if things got out of hand. The police, and more important, the teargas was getting closer and closer. Soon we smelled something strange, but you know what they say about teargas: once you smell it, it is too late! So we were standing there crying our eyes out and unable to see a thing that was going on.

Suddenly the shop behind us opened up, a few guys grabbed us, dragged us in the shop and they closed up again. Someone gave us some water and told us to was our eyes out with it. We did as we were told and we soon stopped crying. We only stayed in the shop for a few minutes, because as soon as the police had passed the shop opened up again. Standing outside we saw that most of the students had gone and that a few of them were talking to some police officers. A few of the students whom had given us the stickers, came over to us and told us to go talk to the police, because all they wanted was a peaceful demonstration. As we didn't want to get anymore involved as we already were, we ignored them and decided that we had enough and go back to our hotel. We actually never made it back.

We walked down the street where the demonstration was taking place, up to the corner where we had to turn right to go to our hotel. Right at that corner the police was gathering and gearing up. We stopped and stayed well aside to look at the police. It didn't look like any riot police you see in a Western country. No, their uniforms were all bits and pieces. Some were wearing helmets, some were not; some helmets had glass eye protections, most didn't; some were carrying those big bamboo sticks called lattis. While we were standing there observing the police, we suddenly saw all the traffic turn back. A guy came up to us and told us they were getting ready to charge again. Knowing this we just couldn't leave for the hotel and had to stay to see what was going to happen.

That guy had just left when the police started moving towards the students again. Without discussion, we just started following the police. We thought that we were save this time, because first were the students, then came the police and we followed at a discreet distance. What could happen to us, we were behind the cops? Well, somehow, don't ask me how we did it, because I still don't know and I probably never know, but somehow we managed to get stuck between the students and the cops. Once we realized that the students were in front of us and the police behind us, we just walked into a side road and got out of harms way. Still we hadn't had enough and we were soon following the police all around the city again. Once in a while, we stopped for a drink as all the walking and running around in this heat had started to dehydrate us. After each drink, we went in search of the cops and students again, who were playing a game of cat and mouse all over the city center.

At one point I was walking on my own about 2 meters behind a cop. Out of nowhere a guy came up to me and asked me if I was a reporter, seeing the video camera hanging by my side. The moment the cop heard the word "reporter", he turned around and raised his latti at me. I quickly told the guy next to me that I wasn't a reporter but just a stupid tourist, the cop lowered his latti, turned around again and walked on. I can tell you that I was sweating all over at that time and it wasn't from the heat. A little later we came up to some of the busses that had brought the students in that morning, parked at the side of the road. The police was beating one of the drivers until he got out of the bus. Once he was outside, they started beating him again until he got in. And of course, I was again standing about 2 meters away from all of this. I didn't have the guts to film any of this, as they might have turned around and started beating me. While the police was loading the busses again, this time with students being arrested, we walked on.

We soon arrived at the university and right at that time the police decided to charge again. I sometimes wondered if they did it just for our benefit or if we were just lucky. Anyway, the police started charging, so I thought I would do the smart thing and just step aside and let them pass, unlike Nevil and Dan who started running. About 5 cops ran passed me of which 2 looked at me, but they could see that I was a tourist and was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since everything was working according to plan, I just followed those 5 cops. A little bit down the road, I caught up with the other two guys and they started yelling at me at once: "Are you nuts? Have you lost your mind? What the fuck do you think you are doing?". I told them I was save, because the cops were in front of me and not behind me like with them. When they started laughing and asked me if I even had bothered to look behind me, I realized I was missing something. I looked behind me and to my utter amazement, I saw about 200 cops behind me, all of them with their lattis raised and a few of them with a big grin on their faces looking at my astonished expression.

After letting them pass, we soon found ourselves at an intersection where a lot of students were just resting on the lawn of a park. A student ran up to the police and managed to grab one of their lattis and he started hitting the cop with it. We did get a bit worried when that guy started running in our direction, but the police caught him before he could reach us. Needless to say that that guy got beaten senseless by the cops who caught him and the others who soon arrived to assist. The students were spreading out more and more, and the cops were chasing them everywhere. More and more of them got arrested and they were escorted out of the city center in the same busses which had brought them in. Finally the rest of the students took shelter in the university, to no avail. The police just chased them out of the university and arrested anyone that came out, not caring if those students had taken part in the demonstration or had just been at the university.

While still following the cops, we could see that most of them thought that their job was almost done as they were stopping and buying fruit and drinks at these little stalls alongside the road. Buying might be the wrong word for it, because I had the impression that none of them paid for what they took. When we got to another intersection, a guy in white who was obviously with the police was running around them and he definitely looked like a lunatic. He just grabbed a gun from a cop and fired a teargas grenade in the street. There was absolutely nobody there, not a student in sight; just me. So I had my second taste of teargas in the same day. This time it wasn't as bad as the first time, but still...

After I had finally stopped crying, we saw that most on the students had been either arrested or had fled the city, so we decided to call it a day and go back to the hotel. On the way back we could see that the streets were still full of cops. We were almost at the hotel, when we saw a little ice-cream shop. We thought we deserved something after all the things we had been through that day and went in to buy us an ice-cream. Inside the shop was a cop sitting on this big box. When he noticed us, he called us over and said: "So you are the guys who have been following us all day!". We realized at that moment that we had become quite famous among the police of Lahore.

The cop was a nice guy though, he even gave us a teargas grenade so we could have a closer look what the cops had been firing at us all day long. I never thought these things were so big, as a matter of fact they were huge. After handing him the grenade back and thanking him for showing it to us, we got back to the hotel and went straight to the bar. In the bar the rest of the group told us about their boring day, so we had to tell them we had the time of our life. They would hardly believe us when we told them about the demonstration we had been in. But none of us cared if they believed us or not, as we knew that what we told them was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...


Even a boring city can turn out to give you the time of your live. It is like they say: never judge the book by its cover. And always go with the flow despite what other people say. Everyone had told us that Lahore was just a stop over and that we would be bored there. We would have been, had we done what the rest of the group did, or had we gone to that cricket match. Instead we went to explore to local culture. By the way, we never found out what that demonstration was all about.