The Wagah Border is the main overland crossing between Pakistan and India, and while I wasn’t headed to India we still went to witness the famous lowering of the flags ceremony.

During my travels I was told that when I visited Lahore, that I must go to the Wagah border and see the ceremony at the end of every day. When I first brought it up with the Khans they had heard conflicting stories about the ceremony and it wasn’t until I showed them the following video that we decided to go.

So we piled the whole family into their two cars and drove to the Indian border. We got there early, but there was already a crowd amassing so our fears of a non-event quickly subsided.

As the gates opened, the males were sent to a different grandstand to the females in this segregated Islamic culture. Over the gate we could see the Indian grandstands on the other side full of colourfully clothed men and women chanting and screaming.

Saad and I tried to get some better seats, and when they guards saw me they ushered me into the ‘foreigner section’ with a better view of both grandstands and the show.

The video above largely explains the whole event – which was recently modified to appear less hostile – the handshake is longer now, but the stamping just as fierce.

It was a pretty good show in the end, and the crowd got very into it – chanting in Urdu as the show went on. The Indians were doing the same on the other side and it was quite fun. I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

This post is tagged India, Pakistan, Wagah