Twenty short...
I knew from The Overland Guide to India and Beyond (a roughly duplicated and stapled collection of travel tips for hippies) that the first border would be a piece of cake.
The road from Kabul winds up into the Hindu Kush to the border with Pakistan. Immigration control and customs were rudimentary. I went to the bank to change some money. And was promptly told that the exchange rate was better on the street.
Outside the bank, I encountered a row of money changers. They all looked the same, wizened men in khaki blankets and Chitrali caps. I brushed them aside, following the smell of opium that assailed my nostrils. I squatted down with two older men. Without a word, one of them passed me the pipe. I drew deeply. Exhaled. I nodded my thanks and stealthily extracted twenty dollars and a few afghanis from the pouch around my neck. I pushed the afghanis toward the center of our makeshift circle and stood up.
OK. Money.
There were ten Pakistani rupees to a dollar. So I needed 200 rupees. Approaching the line of money changers, I fixed on one. Not that he looked any more trustworthy than any of the others, but you have to start somewhere...
"Bist dollar."
"Doh sad rupiah."
I nodded assent. Held the dollars in my left hand and held out my right as he counted the crumpled notes into my palm. I kept hold of the twenty-dollar bill and told him to repeat the exercise. He did. Two hundred rupees. He took the twenty. I folded the pile of notes in half, licked a thumb and started counting. One hundred and eighty. I looked up. I was surrounded by wizened men wearing khaki blankets and Chitrali caps...
My "guidebook" told me that, because of the traditional enmity between India and Pakistan, the next border was difficult. We would cross into India by train, from Lahore to Amritsar.
Lahore station is a legacy of the British Empire, designed and built in a fashion only a race supremely confident of its destiny could devise, a touch of Baroque here, a trace of Gothic there. A kind of cross between St Pancras and Bradford Central.
I was wearing a jean jacket, a shirt and a pair of jeans, the closest I could get to "respectable". I walked up to the ticket office somewhat leadenly. As well I might. My feet were hideously uncomfortable. The laces of my desert boots were straining at the eyes.
Passport control and customs were administered by a tall soldier in immaculately pressed khakis with a lathi under his right arm. Our passports were scrutinized at length. The soldier gestured for us to empty our bags. He poked through the contents. I showed him what was in the pouch around my neck. He grunted. And waved us through on to the platform. I exhaled as we made our way to the carriage and found an empty compartment.
Just before the train left the station, another soldier came around for a brief inspection. I willingly proffered the my baggage. He declined to examine the contents, but looked me up and down. From head. To toe.