Show me the way to Amaritsar

ben at the golden temple
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Where they don’t drink white wine spritzers

Yes that’s the only rhyme I could think of for the few days before we went and the entire time we were there

So I cant actually believe how long its been since my last blog, when we moved to the nice hotel in Bhagsu we figured we’d be there a day or so but I guess it must have been over a week in the end!

We did a tim and traci and spent about four days “leaving tomorrow” but waking up late, missing the post office opening, drinking plum wine, seeing how much water would it in bens head and it being Sunday were all at times factors that forced us to spend another night in our nice room with a TV although the food went down hill in the end and the most enormous spider ben’s ever seen appeared on our wall when we left the balcony doors open – it was a big as a grapefruit and we had to get “the boy” the get rid of it, and I was very proud of myself as even though ben said I should leave the room in future ( like I need to be told that!!!) as I make him more scared! I was in fact the calmest I have ever been, I didn’t scream, I didn’t go eeeeeeeeeeeee AND I was coherent! Plus I totally managed to stay in the room that night and sleep!

zoomed in
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So we finally managed to leave of the 26^th – after a rather extended breakfast as we knew there would be frequent buses if we went to Dharamasala, so we took a 45 mins rickshaw ride there which would have been fine if it hadn’t been pouring with rain and you could have seen more than ten feet ahead on the narrow winding mountain road!

We arrived at the station and had to wait 2 hours for a bus and when it arrived instead of pulling up to the covered stand it waited out in the rain and we had to join the mass of people desperately trying to force there way on

me on the swing!
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LET PEOPLE GET OFF FIRST – is it that difficult a premise to understand? Because if they get off then there’s actually room to get on! Amazing, what a revolutionary idea, luckily I had my training in the rush hour on the London underground, armed with that the knowledge that no-one understood my fatuous remarks about their stupidity and a big rucksack which can be used to “accidentally” ram people out of the way I managed to get on and get a seat, the young and the elderly were not so lucky

the crowds at the border
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After three hours we got to Pathankot bus station where we had to change for Amritsar which would take another 3 hours, the lonely planet said there were buses every few minutes which we knew would be wrong so we were not surprised when we got there and were told we’d have to wait an hour and a half

Pathankot bus station will probably be quite nice one day, it’s quite big and there are plenty of places to sit but they haven’t finished building it yet so it’s basically a shell and its covered in shit

the soldiers doing their thing
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Literally covered in shit

I cant begin to describe the site of it or the smell but i'm sure you can imagine what a delightful place it was to spend an hour and a half

We eventually arrived in Amritsar at 10pm and had decided on the journey that when we go to cities we don’t stay for more than a couple of nights and if we stay somewhere cheap like we did in Delhi then we hate it – yes we are basing this on one experience – so anyway we managed to justify staying somewhere nice and it was very nice, huge bed, separate dressing room, TV, good shower and of course a swing!

ben pictured with the four and a half litres of water that would fit in his head!
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An actual swing in the bedroom! It squeaked a bit but still a swing in the room!

We went to the Golden Temple, which was very beautiful and very peaceful and also very hot! You have to leave your shoes outside and cover your hair as its all very religious, we wandered around the outside and went in to see where the guys sit and sing all day – then we went to the museum where they keep old paintings depicting different Sikh gurus, most of these are being tortured in some gruesome way and after a while it made me feel decidedly sick!

The next day we checked out of our fancy hotel and headed for a luxury one – the Mohan International – basically because we had train tickets for Haridwar on the 29^th at 10pm and we were wondering what to do on that day so we figured if we spend the 28^th at the hotel we can check out but hang around using the facilities – i.e. the pool!

In the afternoon we headed for the border with Pakistan to watch the border closing ceremony, they do this everyday and everyday crowds of people go to watch – you sit in these arena style seats around the border – with people in Pakistan doing the same, they have a compere who livens up the crowd and gets everyone clapping along to the loud music, people come out of the audience to take turns running to the border gates carrying the flag, big groups of people were dancing and then the ceremony starts

There’s no way I can do it justice but basically they do a lot of feet stamping and ministry of silly walks style marching and shouting and then they slowly lower the flags at exactly the same time then everyone cheers and they all go home!

Crazy and very entertaining

One last thing I have to say about Amritsar is that it is without a doubt the cleanest place we have been so far, there was no rubbish in the streets and it smelt only of delicious food – it’s nice to be in a place where you feel the people have a little pride in its appearance

But we have to leave this clean and peaceful place as we have train tickets and we cant afford to stay any longer!

xx