A cracked hub, free drinks, three apprehensions and a visit of the secret service

With two new boils, which like vulcanos seem to be ready to erupt their poison, the ride to Pakistan is a painful expedition for me. Besides that it's far too hot for us white people, but what's the alternative?
The border, this time with empty grandstands, is easily reached and with an exit-stamp of India in our passports we cycle into Pakistan.
The Pakistani immigration-official, seated in a large empty room at a old and empty desk, doesn't want us to leave just like that. First we have to drink tea, then have an early lunch with dahl and chapati. And a nice chat of course, which was his intention from the start. The customs-officers also try their best to entertain us as long as possible, there is not much else to do. After having wrestled ourselves from the cheerfull bureaucracy, we cycle between beautifully painted and richly decorated Pakistani trucks into the new country.

Via a somewhat cooler road that leads alongside a vast canal, we cycle to Lahore. Men, children and water buffalo dive and relax in the water, whilst the moslem women and girls, traditionally compliant and completely dressed, watch them from the hot shore.
When we cycle into Lahore we are stopped by an unknown man, who insists on giving us each a packet of mango-juice. A little bit further we ask for directions and a young man offers to accompany us on his moped, but not before he has given us an ice-cold rabri (milkdrink with ice and nuts).

At our hotel we check in, after which we are dragged along by Sultan, a young employee of an attorney. We drink tea with an attorney-friend of his, who mainly seems interested in obtaining bottles of whiskey, a privilege only for foreigners in this muslim-country.
At night we stroll around the streets searching for something to eat and end up at the modern Eat & Sip, where we savour some fresh salads and a real shoarma-sandwich. Another guest can't help himself and orders two Sprites for us. This brings the account of our first day in this country to five free consummations. Does this country still have a negative travel advice from the western governments?
The long day is concluded with the semi-finals of the World Cup soccer, between Germany and Italy, which ends sadly for the two German guests of the hotel.

Lahore has more powercuts per day than Amritsar in a week, a fact that's especially disturbing at night, when we soak our bed when the fan stops once again in our windowless room.
When Peter checks the bicycles, he discovers a big crack in his rear hub, the cause of the ticking spokes yesterday. This really is a disaster, because it's sure that the needed parts aren't available here and having them sent from The Netherlands is a lengthy and expensive business. Never tried is always missed, so we cycle into Lahore's cycle-district, Nila Gumbad. Every shopkeeper shakes his head and refers us to the Pakistan Cycle Company. This shop turns out to be just as small and stacked to the brim as all the others, but with a different kind of owner. This man, Pervaiz Bashir, regularly travels to Europe and Japan where he sometimes buys some modern bicycle-parts. One of those is a Shimano rear-hub. Okay, an Ultegra that is meant for racebikes, but still. Unfortunately it has 32 instead of 36 spoke-holes, but the shopkeeper says he has a good solution for this difference.
At a workshop the old hub is removed and the wheel is respoked... until they discover that the rim needs 36 spokes. The spokes are removed, some discussion in Urdu follows and the mechanic is off with the new hub.

In the meantime Peter and I nervously drink one cup of tea and glass of water after the other. Half an hour passes by and then the mechanic returns with the hub, which is provided with four new holes, drilled into the aluminium. Peter almost has a heart-attack. This solution is unthinkable in The Netherlands, but for Pakistani notion and on a journey around the world it's simply practical. The wheel is spoked again and Peter adjusts the derailleur. Everything seems to be in fine working order, we hope for the best...
A second invitation by Sultan, with friend Abbas, leads us through the electronics area and a lot of backstreets of Lahore to the restaurant of his uncle. After a delicious dinner we relax in the gigantic Bagh Jinnah Park, a oasis of peace and quiet in this crazy city that is teeming with exhaust-gasses.

Our last night in Lahore is even more awful than the first, with continuous and long lasting powercuts. We can't fall asleep in our sauna-room, so at five o'clock we get on our bicycles. Outside it's 34 degrees Celsius, which is only two degrees cooler than inside, but the riding wind feels miraculous in the humid heat. Between hundreds of people who are sleeping on the streets and foul smelling auto-rickshaws we leave town.

The Grand Trunk Road, which leads to islamabad, is flanked on both sides by dishevelled factories of ceramic toilet-pots and handbasins, ugly furniture stores, inflated dead dogs, tile-factories, half collapsed or finished houses, rice-fields and especially a lot of garbage. We get apprehended by the Highway Police, whose first question is whether we already had breakfast. Disappointed after our confirming answer they check our passports instead. Half an hour later another highway patrol stops us. Did we already have breakfast? This time we can cycle on without passport check, to be stopped five kilometres further by the same policemen again. This time they are carrying two bottles of cool drink and two bags of potato-chips. Would we mind accepting this as a little gift and a thousand apologies that they're not able to buy a decent gift: there are just no shops around! If things go on like this, we will become very fat in this hospitable country!
The heat causes us to drink continuously, our bellies can't store all the fluids our bodies and thirst need. The sleepless night has turned us into zombies; after seventy kilometres when arriving in Gujranwala we think it's enough. We put our belongings in the local hotel and go shopping for our dinner. On our way back we end up in a demonstration of a few hundred shouting men, many of them with an old-fashioned hand-cart carrying big signs with slogans. We ask some onlookers what the occasion is and from the half school-English we understand that people are protesting against inflation and high prices.
From the terrace of the hotel I take a picture of the spectacle, after which we finally lay down for our much needed afternoon nap.

We haven't been sleeping for two hours, when somebody knocks very hard on our door. A middle-aged man with a serious and harsh face orders Peter to follow him. On the terrace of the hotel the man fires a lot of questions at Peter, in quick succession: where are we from, what's the purpose of our visit, did we walk through the town that afternoon, did we see the demonstration, did I take a picture and why. After his third question Peter understands the situation and asks the man directly whether he is secret police or not. Astonished by this direct approach he confirms and Peter can't repress a smile. The man is here to check us because we took a picture of a protest-demonstration, an action that undermines the state, of course. Peter shows him the picture and convinces him of our pure touristic innocence, after which the secret agent excuses himself and Peter returns to bed.
A lot of police, for one day.