DAY5
Masochistic Festival and Flag Lowering Ceremony
Islamabad-lahore
Take a bus from Islamabad to lahore,
Full speed, about 4 hours.
There are TVs on the bus, food and drinks are provided, and beautiful waiters are at your service all the way. The service area of the stopover is also very large, and there are all kinds of fried chicken skewers and snacks.
Once I got to lahore station, I felt like I was back in India as soon as I came out.
The tuk-tuks all over the street swarmed up to see you and asked where you were going. The streets were dirty and the air was filled with the smell of smog and dust.
Everything is so familiar.
Three years ago, I entered Pakistan by land from India. The first stop was lahore, and then I started my first trip to Pakistan.
Everything seems to have happened yesterday.
In some places, you will go again and again, because every trip is brand new, it has little to do with whether you have been there before, for you, every day is different.
After settling in the accommodation, we immediately went to the mosijid mosque. The three of us are people who don’t do strategy, and we just wander around everywhere without any real destination.
When the tuk-tuk got into the alley, I saw all kinds of local life, a woman with a veil crossing the street, an old man selling corn, a horse cart and an ox cart were walking on the street, and an old bus was full of people , The sound of hawking, the sound of horns, the endless stream of people, everything flashes in front of your eyes like a movie scene.
Whether it’s a tuk-tuk, a motorcycle, a car or a pedestrian, everyone walks on the same road calmly without disturbing each other.
I also wonder how everyone manages such chaotic traffic in an orderly manner.
Finally, the driver let us go at the place with the most people. Today, Saturday, there were so many people on the street, we walked along the crowd, almost sticking to each other.
At first I thought there were many people involved on weekends, but more and more people walked into the alley, there were also many policemen, and there were many security check devices.
Those of us from Xinjiang have long been familiar with the security inspection devices, but found that there are many people around us distributing food, and it feels like today may not be an ordinary weekend.
Until a guy with blood on his clothes walked past us, I immediately thought of Ashura (the festival of masochism).
I wasn’t sure at first until we got to the crowd that was slapping themselves.
A group of shirtless men slapped their chests fiercely with the beat, many of them had stab wounds on their backs, and some walked among the crowd holding bloody knives.
Some extreme people will use these knives to cut themselves on the back. The scene is extremely bloody, so I will not post the video.
I am a person who likes to join in the fun while traveling. While I feel so lucky to catch up with such a special festival today, I am squeezed by more and more people so that I am struggling.
Every year, people die because of Ashura, some of them are too aggressive, and some may be because of the stampede that happened in this alley.
At the moment, I and my companions are a little worried. The crowd is getting more and more crowded. We are looking for the exit everywhere, but we can’t find it. The more people go, the more people go. There was a bloody smell all around. We are lost.
It wasn’t until a local asked us if we were going out that he pointed us the right way.
People were still walking in, holding black flags, and more and more people joined the ranks of beating themselves.
Faith, sometimes it is so powerful that it is terrifying.
There was chaos on the street, the traffic was completely blocked, and we had a long walk to get a taxi out of here.
I found a roadside stall and ate fried fish before I felt like I was back in the world.
The weather in Lahore is similar to that of Amritsar, and the air pollution is serious. Since the three of us live in the Pamirs with super-good air all year round, we all suffered from respiratory infections when we arrived here, and even caught a cold and fever.
However, we are all real travel enthusiasts (we don’t forget to continue to travel when we have a fever), and going to the border to see the flag lowering is also one of our important itineraries.
I have seen the flag lowering in India before, but this time I watched it in Pakistan, it is simply too complete.
Today is the weekend, there are so many people watching the lowering of the flag, the music is very loud, the stands are full of people, men and women are separated.
Everyone shouted slogans and waited for the start of the flag lowering. It was like waiting for a ball game.
At 4 o’clock, soldiers with tall hats appeared with goose steps.
At the border gates of the two sides, the soldiers began to stomp their feet and raise their legs. When the gate opened, the soldiers on both sides of India and Pakistan made exactly the same provocative actions. Although their expressions were serious, they looked really funny.
It feels like their os is, believe it or not, I will trample you to death with one foot, and if you can’t do one foot, you will have two feet. Ha ha ha ha.
In short, this flag-lowering ceremony did not look serious at all. When the two sides opened the gate, I seemed to see me on the opposite side, and I laughed like this, and I missed the trip back then.
In fact, the lowering of the flag itself is quite complicated, and the various ropes cross each other, but everything is smooth. Presumably, even if the two sides are hostile, this show is the result of cooperation between the two parties.
It is often heard in Pakistan that China is our friend, but India is not.
