India, Pakistan bus journey still a tense experience

It's not exactly your everyday bus trip: commandos on board, body searches and armed police escorts all the way.

As the bus linking nuclear rivals India and Pakistan belts down the highway to the wail of sirens, the traveler is uncomfortably reminded of former US president Bill Clinton's reference to South Asia as the world's most dangerous place.

Check-in time in New Delhi for the trip to Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore is at a bleary-eyed 4:00am -- two hours before the start -- to allow for body and luggage searches aimed at preventing militant attacks. There haven't been any yet.

Inside the bus, right now the lone direct link between India and Pakistan, are two commandos cradling machineguns. They don't let down their guard for an instant during the 12-hour run.

The bus hasn't made it into most travel guides yet.

Still, for tourists wanting a new experience, it's a great way to glimpse what the carving of the subcontinent into mainly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan meant for millions and the tensions between the two that nearly erupted into war last year.

The people aboard are the human legacy of partition -- families divided by the boundary hastily drawn by Britain when it dismantled its Indian empire in 1947. Many are Muslims with relatives across the border and who can't afford to fly.

"I'll see relatives I've never met," says Abdullah Bhat, 19, who was on the first bus to Lahore when services resumed in July after an 18-month halt due to the standoff sparked by a raid on India's parliament in New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

Resumption of the popular "Dosti" or friendship bus is the most tangible sign of warmer ties since 78-year-old Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in April he wanted to make one last push for peace. Rail and air links halted after the raid are also slated to be restored but no date has been set.

"This bus is so important for people to see each other," says Bhat, a student from Muslim-majority Kashmir, the region at the heart of over a half-century of hostility between the nations.

Partition led to a massive migration as Hindus and Muslims left their homes to cross the new borders and sparked a paroxysm of religious rioting that left a million people dead. Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two over Kashmir.

Political antagonism has largely cut off their citizens from each other and long visa waits mean only small numbers visit each other's countries.

But for tourists, visas are no problem and it's an easy, cheap way to travel. A one-way fare costs US$17 and includes three meals, non-stop Hindi movies and indifferent air-conditioning.

With its police escort cutting through the traffic, the bus draws attention from onlookers who wave, some raising a thumb in salute, as it bounces down the ancient Grand Trunk Road on its 526km journey.

The road, once used by the Mughal emperors to travel between Lahore and Delhi, two key cities of their empire, is surrounded most of the way by the lush wheat fields of the Punjab, one of the regions sliced up when Pakistan was created.

Close to the end of the journey, Pakistan-bound travelers reach the frontier at Wagah, dubbed the South Asian equivalent of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.

It is the sole road crossing open along the 2,900km frontier and the bus draws up just before the sundown border closing ceremony, a daily pantomime of aggression by brightly-uniformed border guards from each country.

As the bus nears the white border line, some spectators have already arrived for the ritual in which Pakistani and Indian guards strut menacingly and glare at each other before turning on their heels and banging shut the gates dividing the countries.

On the Indian side, a flag-waving crowd bellows "Hindustan Zindabad" (Long live India). Immediately, there are answering roars of "Long live Pakistan". But suddenly, the hostility vanishes and, as the bus rolls into Pakistan, there are shouts of "Long live India-Pakistan friendship".

It's then only a 45-minute ride to Lahore, once known as the "Paris of Asia" for its culture and architecture. At the terminal there are tears as long-separated relatives grip each other in bear hugs. The bus from Lahore reaches the Indian capital around the same hour of 6pm to a similar emotional welcome.

When Vajpayee rode the bus to Lahore in 1999 to inaugurate the service, his "bus diplomacy" sparked hopes of a turning point. But tensions spiralled soon after. Now the bus is rolling again, hopes are rising it could lead to more normal ties.

"It's politicians who are causing all the trouble -- the people get along fine," said Khaleequr Rehman Khan on the bus to Lahore. "We're really brothers after all."