You'd thinks it's grand, pompous and dignified. But the closing ceremony at Attari border (30 km from Amritsar) between India and Pakistan is anything but. In fact it's more like a daily fiesta.
The ceremony itself probably is rather serious business. The marching and stomping soldiers make grim faces at one another while the flags of both countries are taken down. Or so you hear.
In reality the ceremony is so popular among Indian tourists that your chances of seeing a thing are pretty grim. I don't know how early you would have to be there to get proper seats for the 6 pm event, but I'm assuming at least 2 hours before. And that's along wait when there is no way to hide from the blazing sun.
But it doesn't matter! What's really worth seeing here are the Indians going crazy with national pride. For about 45 minutes preceeding the ceremony school girls and boys make quite a spectacle dancing on the street leading to the gates between the two countries. They jam to the latest Indian tunes - to me it sounded like music from Bollywood movies, but heck, what do I know, the songs could have been Punjabi just as well. The only word I could catch was "Hindustan" - which made the crowd go absolutely nuts. The Hindustan theme continues when the actual ceremony begins. And what a beginning it has! A man with a marathon runner's lungs just screams to the microphone for as long as he can. "Oooooooooooooooooo" And the crowd cheers. Then begins the marching accented by some silly looking kicks.
The cheering of "Hindustan" lasts all along during the ceremony. The crowd is as extatic as if they'd just win the world cup. It's funny and scary at the same time.
So yeah, I'd go and see the ceremony, even if it's quite different from what people tell you. At least it offers one insight to the relationship between India and Pakistan.
If you decide to go, here are a few tips:
1. Leave your valuables at your guest house or at the Golden Temple, if that's where you are staying. Bags are not allowed to the ceremony, something that no one seems to remember to tell you when you go.
2. By far the easiest way to make it to the border is by a shared jeep. The running price for a return ride is 75 rupees. If they try to charge you extra for parking, turn to another jeep. You don't particularly have to go look for a jeep in Amritsar. You'll be offered the trip to the border to an annoying extent. These touts are the single one bit I didn't like in Amritsar. A public bus goes there as well but apparently it takes about 75 minutes one way whereas the jeep only takes 30 minutes.
3. Be prepared to be pushed around - and I mean seriously pushed around. This ceremony is not for the claustrophobic, although I assume they would not come to India in the first place.
Read more about Amritsar and the Golden Temple here.
