Show me the way to Ama......i just cant do it.

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We finally made the effort, packed our bags and left Bhagsu…..we kept meaning to leave, but you know how things are. We were comfortable and had found a nice hotel with nice food and friendly staff. Anyway, we headed out a little late in the day (we knew there was no chance of an early start) and took an incredible rickshaw ride to Daramasala to catch a bus to Amritsar (I couldn’t stop Elly singing ‘show me the way to Amaritsar’). The entire rickshaw ride – probably our longest to date, about 20km – was in the thickest cloud cover we had seen since we got to that part of the world. Luckily the road was good and for the first time, including cities, had road markings. However, we could only see 1 white line infront of us the entire way. Of course this was the perfect time for our driver to start trying to light a cigarette. We arrived at Daramasala in the pouring rain and waited about 2 hours for a bus, which promptly pulled up 100 yards from the bus stand causing everyone to run for it, and attempt to cram themselves on before everyone else got off. At one stage there was this little old lady literally stuffing Elly onto the Bus by pushing her shoulder into her rucksack….it worked.

The first leg of the bus journey wasn’t to bad, however, we had to change at Pathankot. A nothing town half way between Amritsar and Daramasala. We pulled into the bus station, to find it half finished and full of buses going nowhere. The Lonely Planet. Or has we’ve affectionately come to know it The Vague and often totally @#$%!@# wrong Planet, told us there would be buses every few minutes. An hour and a half later and the bus that had been stood there for longer, decided to finally leave. It wouldn’t have been that much of an issue. In India things never leave on time, they rarely arrive on time and you get used to the wrong, the bizarre and the way out information. The real problem, was that Pathankot, is perhaps the worst place I have ever been in my entire life, and ive been to Hunstanton! It was covered from floor to ceiling in Shit…..literally… .covered. Being half finished, there was nothing there and I had to walk off into Pathankot to find somewhere to buy water….which bizarrely was produced by Skol (yep the beer people) and everyone was just so god damn unhelpful. Anyway, we finally got on to a cramped bus and headed off to Amritsar. Being late in the day, we knew we were going to arrive late, but as usual, where there are buses, there are rickshaws and helpful drivers to get your luggage off the roof of the bus (as they are desperate for the business). We already knew where we were headed, and were lucky to find the hotel still open. We were shown to our room, only to find it had a swing in it!

Ok, so the journey wasn’t to bad, it had its moments, like all of the journeys we’ve taken, and although it took us 6 hours plus waiting time to travel 100km, it turns out it was worth it. Amritsar is predominately Sikh – the Golden Temple being one of the holiest Sikh sites. Being Sikh, apparently explains why it is so much cleaner than the rest of India we have seen so far. I mean its sill India, but the streets weren’t covered in rubbish and all we could smell was food. We took a short rickshaw journey to the Golden Temple, to see what all the fuss was about!

The Golden Temple is pretty spectacular. Set in a big lake (manmade), like its floating. There is a walkway that takes you into the temple itself, and a big walkway around the outside of the lake, with a huge food hall (30000 people get fed here everyday) and a rather gruesome museum, with paintings depicting the fates of different gurus etc. And much more that a very helpful free guide tried to tell me, but as it was about 1 million degrees outside, I could just about remember my name. I had been given a headscarf to wear, as you have to cover your head before entering the complex, along with removing your shoes and washing your feet. It was an amazing experience, especially as we seemed to be the only western tourists in the place. During one odd moment we found ourselves outside the complex, after following the one way signs in the museum. Barefoot we had to find our way back to the complex, and wash our feet and go back in again……typical India.

The other reason we had come to Amritsar, was to visit the India/Pakistan border. Everyday there is an amazing ceremony as they close the border for the day. We had heard a few crazy things about it, so we decided to head out and see it. Its about 30km from Amritsar, which explains the heavy military presence, that I noticed as we headed out into the Punjab countryside. Paddy fields, water buffalo and the odd village, it was quite a nice journey. Elly and I had paid over the odds to get a decent sized rickshaw to ourselves, and our driver was extremely keen to point out all the sites. When we arrived at the Atari border, we were immediately jumped on by a swarm of boys trying to sell us flags and postcards. We made the short walk to the actual border (no-mans land), which we discovered was sponsored by Pepsi! The border was actually more like a stadium, with seating for 3000 people, in a grandstand kind of thing. The ceremony was something out of Monty Python, and the Ministry for Silly Walks. It was both lame and amazing. Soldiers in fancy dress (ok maybe its important to them) were marching back and forth kicking their legs ridiculously high in the air. Bugles were blowing and the crowd was screaming. The object of it seemed to be, who’s side could make the most noise. Each side (the Pakistan and the Indian) had a compere who encouraged the crowd to chant and sing. Eventually the gates were thrown open and the two opposing sides confronted each other. There was the briefest of handshakes and then the flags were lowered at the same time as each other. Then the gates were closed and it was all over. I was exhausted by the time it had all finished. We had been sat there for about an hour and a half and the ceremony had taken no more than half an hour! It was so unbelievable (especially that they do it every day) that we bought a DVD, so that we could show everyone back home!

We headed back to our fancy hotel – which we had booked into so that we could use the pool and facilities the next day, as our train wasn’t leaving until the evening. While sat by the pool we got chatting to a group of people from Newcastle. They had 20 or so Alevel students with them who had been up in Losar (which we had visited on our trek), building a school. That evening we headed for the train station, with usual trepidation, but were extremely surprised when we arrived, were ignored by the locals, walked on to the platform to find computerised timetables and platform info, walked onto our waiting train, that had a printout of who was on each carriage by name, found our seats and kicked back for our 10 hour journey to Haridwar.