Heavenly Hospitality

It began on night one.  On our first night out of Lahore, we had ridden into the darkness.  My light was working well, and we took advantage of the great conditions (clean air, good road, and clear sky) to put a few more kilometres behind us until tiredness would dictate a stop.

We came to a military police outpost; we decided to try sleeping in safety on the very well lit grassy area, right beside the gate-house of the barracks.  Disciplined guards bearing large weapons seemed skeptical at first, but not threatening.  Mark showed his passport to assert our ‘validity’ as Australians, and we made charades to tell them we wanted to sleep on their grass.

Within seconds, we were escorted through the front gates into the military grounds.  Their friendliness was apparent – there seemed to be no surly faces here, and we felt like family.

As I began to lay my tarp just inside the gates, we were beckoned further into the grounds.  They brought us to a basic tent and pulled out charpoys (wooden framed rope beds) for us to sleep on, and supplied us with pillows.  They lent us their chappals (slip on shoes) to walk around with, and woke up an entire dormitory to lead us through to the showers where we could wash ourselves in comfort.

When we finally drifted off to sleep, unexpectedly refreshed, our assistance didn’t stop there.  We had fallen asleep while the air temperature was still warm outside.  We needed no bedclothes.  At 4am, one of the guards came over, gently woke us, and provided us with blankets.  He considered that it was getting chilly, and from his actions he didn’t want us catching cold.  Then at 5am, a gentle breeze began to blow.  We were woken gently again, and to our embarrassment and amazement we were moved into the tent, and the guards sleeping inside were moved out.  Just for us – two itinerant beings who had never even dreamed of meeting a group of soldiers like this.