Great stories about the Globetrotter's LogBook®
Pakistani shopping list
I never thought I’d become so attached to my Globetrotter’s LogBook® in such a short space of time. It’s amazing how all these little tuppenny-ha’penny memories can bring back much more crystal-clear memories than a photograph of souvenir. Take the shopping list Mukthar Khan wrote on one of my note pages, for example. I was on a family visit to Lahore (Pakistan) and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the Golden Temple of the Sikh in Amritsar, which is not far away across the border in India. Both countries are in a sort of permanent state of war and I had been warned several times that Waga Border would represent a difficult and time-consuming obstacle on account of the various heavily-fortified checkpoints I would have to go through on both sides of the border. I was cross-examined closely at the first barrier. However, the lanky and somewhat forbidding border guard suddenly became quite unctuous when he learnt that I wanted to be back in Lahore by evening. In fact he asked me in a friendly way if I could bring him something back from Amritsar. This frightened the life out of me - Pakistanis have a terrible reputation when it comes to smuggling, corruption and things like that - but I didn’t dare say no. The man then took me to a grubby little office (which frightened me even more) and proceeded to sit down behind an enormous desk. “I’ll write it down for you,” he said, rummaging round for a piece of paper. I fumbled my logbook out of my bag and placed it open on his desk. “Please, don’t forget your name,” I said, more or less strategically. My unexpected ‘customer’ kept on writing for a few scary minutes, asking one of his colleagues something from time to time. Then we went through his shopping list together: Jadhpur Hair Lotion, Jodi Tea and a few Indian names. “For music cassettes,” said my friend Mukthar Khan. He had written his name in decorative letters at the bottom of the list. My heartbeat slowed down to an acceptable level.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Can’t get them here,” answered Mukthar. “Come with me, I’ll go with you so you don’t have to hang around here for too long. Then I’ll be waiting for you this evening.” In no time at all, I had gone through all of the irritating control posts; Mukthar stood there to see me off like a friend until I got on to the bus on the other side. On my way back to Waga Border in the evening, I did his shopping in one of the many small shops along the way. No drugs or any other dangerous contraband, but ordinary hair lotion, tea and a few music cassettes disappeared into a capacious brown paper bag. As promised, Mukthar was waiting there for me to return.
He was delighted and took me off for a cool soft drink before escorting me back through to the final checkpoint in record time. Jadhpur Hair Lotion ... a great story and one of the unique souvenirs in my travel logbook.
Jerry, Toronto, Canada