Amritsar, India

Punjab: home of tandoori chicken. Ahh yea! Rudely woken up at 5am we're ushered off. The four of us bleary-eyed are immediately surrounded by eager tuk-tuk drivers, do these guys ever sleep? Fighting our way out and trying to work out where we are from the lonely planet map we head off down the road to the "tourist lodge hotel". We wake up the night person, who agreed that it's fine for me and Bryan to sit in a room for two hours until the manager came in, which we did. The room hadn't been cleaned from the previous people, we sat around reading then got changed, into exactly the same clothes.

Twins

After some discussion we decided not to take a room for that evening, and head straight out after sightseeing. When the manager arrived he wanted to charge us the FULL amount for the room which we'd only sat in until he'd arrived. We eventually agreed on paying half the amount stating our annoyance at the night-staff who said it was fine for us to relax for an hour. 

We went to see the amazing golden Sikh temple - very very beautiful. We hit this temple on a Sunday and it was SO busy. There were people everywhere. To get into the temple (which is in the middle of a lake) we squeezed into a bottleneck with thousands of Sikhs for 2 hours! The prayer is maintained 24/7 from within the temple where there's almost a full band, and some holy men. Out the back we "drink" some holy water then head back to the mainland past the still queueing hoards. 

Golden temple

After a quick stop in cafe coffee day (India's premier western style coffee house) tandoori chicken enters the hunger arena. A policeman highly recommended the Hotel Anand, a very quick tuk-tuk drive away. A soul less dark air-conditioned place but the chicken was absolutely fantastic, with a garlic naan and beer on the side. 

After some investigation we realise we're not going to be able to get a train/bus out of Amritsar today so we get tickets for tomorrow. We also realise that we're going to have to go back to the hotel and tell them that we are now staying - which was fine. We ended up in a dormitory to ourselves, however we weren't able to get him to knock off what we'd paid for the room earlier. Nil points for customer service.

There's a hilarious India/Pakistan border closing ceremony every day around 5pm. On either side there are huge seating arrays, thousands of people, massive sound systems and even a cheerleader man to whip the crowds up into a frenzy! It's like being at a football match. Once the dancing and cheering is over the border guards come out and march to and from the border - someone likened it to the Ministry of Silly Walks. The Indian and Pakistani border guards taunt each other with fighting stances, the flags are lowered and the border closed. Quite a spectacle!

Indian guard kicking self in the head

Trying to get a bus back a tuk-tuk already full with 6 people stopped and gestured us to get in. Bryan sat next to the driver and me and an Irish guy we'd met jump in the back for the 30km journey to Amritsar. Everyone on the road was in party mode: cheering, waving, honking and generally driving dangerously! People on bikes, tuk-tuk's and cars would come so close we could put our feet on their front bumper and swap drinks. The funniest thing was overtaking Mimi and Steve who'd decided a cycle-rickshaw would be a good mode of transport to travel 30km!?!?

 

The next day was spent lazing about in the hotel garden drinking beer and discussing quantum mechanics, waiting for our respective overnight modes of transport. This is where me and Bryan parted company (for now)

You can see all of the photo's here