Amristar

(The Golden Temple looking very golden)

I have a ton of pictures of everywhere, but I haven't figured out a way to get them off my camera and into the computer... give it time, they will appear.

So the Golden Temple at Amristar is amazing and completely worth seeing. However everything in but that turned out to be pretty terrible. I'm completely blaming Amristar for the fact that 5 days after being there I still can't eat anything more exciting than toast and why I've already powered through a pack of my dihorrea pills.

We got in arund 2pm after 7 hours in our crazy crowded carraige and got hearded off to one side by an elderly rickshaw driver who offered to take us up to the temple, he completely overcharged us but we were so tired we paid it anyway. The rickshaw nearly packed up driving up a hill. Amristar itself is very dusty, dirty and crowded... it almost makes you miss Delhi. The driver dropped us at some manic roundabout because it turns out you can't drive up to the temple so we ended up trekking through the streets with our massive bags warding off men trying to sell us headscaves and postcards. Luckily we bumped into some people from the train who showed us the way. We were hoping to find the dorms that you can stay in, but we were so hot and tired by this point we just left our bags in the baggage place and went into the temple to look around. Unfortunately we arrived at cleaning time, so our peaceful walk around the temple ended up with us being caught up in a crowd of people throwing buckets of water all over the floor, we kept getting pushed to one side and told to move. So after a stressful temple visit and another fruitless search for the dorms we gave up and checked into a guesthouse, one that we didn't look at properly because after we paid we realised we'd actually checked into a building site. There was plaster all over the floor and the workmen were still decorating the area outside our room. That evening we made the terrible decision to go to a nice looking cafe for dinner. I'm pretty sure it was the food there that has made us all so sick. It was while we were there that we discovered our train left a day after we thought. The madness of the day, combined with the knowledge that we were stuck in amristar for 3 nights drove us to do what any sane person would. We went to the nicest hotel we could find and haggled them down to a decent price. Thank God for Hotel Indus, they had room sevice, hot water, free toilet paper and the Disney Channel showing Hannah Montana in hindi. They also had a lovely rooftop balcony with an amazing view of the temple. We spent pretty much all of our time there after that either sitting on the balcony, sitting on the toilet or laying in bed feeling pants.

We did go back and visit the temple when it wasn't cleaning time, and when you're not being attacked by people with buckets it really is amazing. The Golden Temple sits in the middle of a pool surrunded by white outer buildings and is such a contrast to the outside world. Visitors and Pilgrims walk around the pool, some pausing to bathe in the pool or pray, and then enter the temple via a long bridge. There is constant chanting and singing from the Sikh holy book. Even though the religious connections are completely lost of me we spent ages sat by the edge of the pool watch the people around us.