Staying in the Golden Temple

The mystic golden temple
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(Fotos to come soon)

We arrived in Amritsar via a night's stopover in Delhi and it's incredible!  The Golden Temple is beautiful beautiful and has such a lovely welcoming atmosphere like no other religious place of worship I've been to. And the scale of it is unreal- 30,000 people go and visit it every day. Only in India! :) And not only that- they provide free food for all of these people- 24 hours a day! And it's really good aswell- some of the best chapati I've tasted in all of India! the pots they use to prepare all of this food are amazing- they're about 3 metres in diametre! And then everyone sits down on strips of carpet, hold out their plates and gets food- and within 15 minutes a sitting of 500 people is done- including the cleaning up afterwards! Absolutley incredible. It's also one of the cleanest places I've been to in India! And everyone can stay at the temple- we stayed completley free of charge. And the people were so friendly. We had our semi-celebrity status fully reinstored, with people stopping to take pictures of us more than of the temple. It works both ways though, which is great for us- people love having their pictures taken.

They provide free food for all of these 30,000 people every day- 24 hours a day!

Shining in the sunlight...so impressive!
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In the evening- EVERY evening- there is a ceremony held at the India/Pakistan border aswell. A huge affair full of pomp and grandeur, showbiz to the extreme. We had certainly not expected anythign like it. We got to the border by minibus and there were thougsands of people gearingup for the big event buying popcorn and Indian flags...and then the gates opened and the crowd rushed to the stalls get good seats. the closest thing I can think of is a football match. the atmosphere was incredible. We even had an MC standing at the front with a microphone getting the crowds going. And the same was happening on the Pakistani side on the other side of the gate. A real shout-off was happening! And then we got the whole shebang: running with huge Indian flags, and soldiers marching along throwing thier legs up ridiculously high above their heads, wearing huge feather constructions on their helmets and ornate uniforms. All culminated in the throwing open of the goate, a theatrical handshake, the exchange of flags, and more high leg kicks. Absolutley amazing! And then afterwards everyone was happy! And dancing and cheering away like nobody's business. Unreal to think that this can happen at one point of the border whereas a littel further North there is still such conflict over the same border! The world is a strange place sometimes.