current location: quetta, pakistan.
state of internet connection: poor.
today's special thought: HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

the whole of the crew has been touched by the dedication five individuals have shown in commenting on the last post. most appreciated. the love was felt.

our christmas celebrations were lovely. the posh crushed velvet hotel was quite an experience and even provided turkey and a chocolate-giving father christmas. father christmas had left us all a suprising number of gifts of high quality concidering the circumstances and even left a special message for lewis.

Christmas day was spent on the road to the sound track of silent night with our christmas lights blazing all day. we camped on christmas night.

in the morning, just before the border crossing, we stopped in amritsar to visit the golden temple that everyone in india had told us we must. the people there were friendly and there were people doing actual relgious things. the building itself was impressive. i tell you it's impressive as that is what daddy, tessie and lewis tell me it was. i did not go in as i was wearing tights; i was full prepared to wet my tights (worn now that the temperature is dropping) in teh clensing water but i was not allowed to go in with anything on my feet.
it looked pretty good from the outside though.
better than the taj mahal which was touristy and not as interesting or impressive and rumour would have you believe. we also found the service we recieved at the golden temple to be more efficient.

the india/ pakistan border was empty and crossed with suprising ease (with only 3 other people) on boxing day. we made it to lahore, only 35km from the border, the same day with the intention of staying with the family of lewis' friend from school. after the obligatory getting lost (and one man escorting us 2 miles to show us the way) we knocked on the doors of complete strangers in a new city in the dark. they had absolutely no idea who we were. their cousins from england had not come for christmas and the new year after all and they did not recognise the name lewis.
oh dear.
we were invited in anyway and such was the hospitality of the whole family that, when confronted with a group of strangers in the middle of the night who supposedly knew the english contingent of your family, offered us a room for the night.
they then showed us the sights and sounds of lahore which included bowling in the evening and the big mosque and impressive fort in the morning.

the other day daddy decided to be ill and thus spent the day cowering in the back complaining about the bumpy ride. this was due the rapid deterioation of the road that had been good from the border to lahore. really gearing themselves up to russia standards they are.
what made driving infinately worse was the thick fog that blanketed us from before we woke to 2pm. we had to follow the lorries in order to see where we were going and could not even see the buildings at the side of the road. not only do we have video of the event but also some atmospheric photographs. the few days of aweful fog we have had, have made driving conditions that worst yet.

as we travelled ever closer to the border with afghanistan, that supposedly you are not advised to travel within 100 miles of, we have encountered more and more check points. this began happening as the landscape evolved into dry, rocky, mountainous passes. one check post stop, where we had to fill out our names, passport numbers, visa numbers, fathers' names and destination yet again, involved aquiring a police escort. the man (who gave us tea and sweets as every pakistani seems want to do) told us that the area we were about to enter was extremely dangerous and night and so called a police van (with conspicous flashing blue light acting as a target) to escort us to the other side of the danger zone.
he first took us to the police station where further detail filling out ensued while daddy tried to communicate the need for a guesthouse. after some time they understood and took us to a small student room. this cost us 200 rupees and was a bit of a pit but it was out of the cold and we didn't really notice in the dark. they made sure we had done our security checks before we locked our door for the night.
highly concered for our safety, our full police escort accompanied us to the local eatery where everyone smiled, waved and wanted their photographs taken.
another police chekc and escort in the morning before we were back on the bad road.

they absolutely love and bit of chinese and treat tessie and me as though we are thier best firends. this means the most of our tolls have bee waived.

eveyone is used to the daily power cuts.
all of this took place in the dead of night.

anti-freeze has been safely purchased.

so far we have been intinately impressed by the kindness of pakistani strangers.
we have only seen about 5 women so far in pakistan and they were in a car.
tessie and i are fairly conspicious.

on the way to the border. we are assured the roads are terrible.
expecting good times.

have to go. hello to everyone who left a comment.
a man who will show us the way in now waiting for us.