NEW DELHI: It’s not exactly your everyday bus trip: commandos on board, body searches and armed police escorts all the way.

As the bus linking Pakistan and India belts down the highway, the traveller is uncomfortably reminded of former US president Bill Clinton’s reference to South Asia as the world’s most dangerous place.

Check-in time in New Delhi for the trip to Lahore is at a bleary-eyed 4am — two hours before the start — to allow for body and luggage searches aimed at preventing militant attacks. There haven’t been any yet. Inside the bus are two commandos with machineguns. They don’t let down their guard for an instant during the 12-hour run.

The bus hasn’t made it into most travel guides yet. Still, for tourists wanting a new experience, it’s a great way to glimpse what the carving of the sub-continent meant for millions and the tensions between the two that nearly erupted into war last year.

The people aboard are the human legacy of partition — families divided by the boundary hastily drawn by Britain when it dismantled its Indian empire in 1947. Many are Muslims with relatives across the border and who can’t afford to fly.

Resumption of the popular “Dosti” bus service is the most tangible sign of warmer ties since 78-year-old Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in April he wanted to make one last push for peace.

“This bus is so important for people to see each other,” says Abdullah Bhat, 19, a student from occupied Kashmir.

Political antagonism has largely cut off the people of Pakistan and India from each other and long visa waits mean only small numbers visit each other’s countries. But for tourists, visas are no problem and it’s an easy, cheap way to travel. A one-way fare costs 17 dollars and includes three meals, non-stop movies and indifferent airconditioning.

With its police escort cutting through the traffic, the bus draws attention from onlookers who wave, some raising a thumb in salute, as it bounces down the ancient Grand Trunk Road on its 526-km journey. Close to the end of the journey, Pakistan-bound travellers reach the frontier at Wagah, dubbed the South Asian equivalent of Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie.

It is the sole road crossing open along the 2,900-km frontier and the bus draws up just before the sundown border closing ceremony, a daily pantomime of aggression by brightly-uniformed border guards from each country. As the bus nears the border , some spectators have already arrived for the ritual in which Pakistani and Indian guards strut menacingly and glare at each other before turning on their heels and banging shut the gates dividing the countries.

On the Indian side, a flag-waving crowd bellows “Hindustan Zindabad”. Immediately, there are answering roars of “Pakistan Zindabad”. But suddenly, the hostility vanishes and, as the bus rolls into Pakistan, there are shouts of “Long live India-Pakistan friendship”.

It’s then only a 45-minute ride to Lahore, once known as the “Paris of Asia” for its culture and architecture. At the terminal there are tears as long-separated relatives grip each other in bear hugs. The bus from Lahore reaches the Indian capital around the same hour of 6pm to a similar emotional welcome.

When Mr Vajpayee rode the bus to Lahore in 1999 to inaugurate the service, his “bus diplomacy” sparked hopes of a turning point. But tensions spiralled soon after. Now that the bus is rolling again, hopes are rising it could lead to more normal ties.

“It’s politicians who are causing all the trouble — the people get along fine,” said Khaleequr Rehman Khan on the bus to Lahore. “We’re really brothers after all.”—Reuters