This is India!

Okay, so I am about a month behind in my blog posts, but I know you are all so very excited for me to get caught up, so here goes.

Very early in the morning on February 23rd, 2:30 am to be exact, Jeff, Anna, David and myself hopped in a cab and made our way to the airport to begin our journey up to Amritsar. I am sure that most of you have never heard of this place, but it is in north eastern India in the Punjab state, about 30 km from the Pakistan border.

We had a layover in Delhi and on top of being super tired from the early morning departure, my stomach wasn't feeling so hot. God damn IndiJoe's! I am so never eating there again. Suffice to say, the toilets at the Dehli airport are most definitely not the pristine, porcelain commodes one would wish for while in that state...

Anyway, we hopped on the plane from Dehli to Amritsar just after sunrise which really was gorgeous. Furthermore, I was very excited about the plane that would be taking us there. It was a smaller, propeller plane that looked like it was right out of Indiana Jones.

We landed in Amritsar at about 10 am to be greeted by security guards carrying automatic weapons. Stuff you just don't see in the states. We exited the airport and made it to the pre-paid taxi booth that was actually just a dude sitting in front of a makeshift table just outside the airport. We grabbed a taxi and headed out to the hotel that Anna had booked a couple of weeks before.

When we arrived at the hotel, it looked pretty nice, but in traditional Indian fashion they had misplaced our reservation, and we ended up booking a room at another joint. The rooms were okay, the price was good, and plus, we were only going to be there for one night.

Since we didn't have much time, we decided to hop to it and had the hotel book us a driver for the day. The driver was a nice enough guy whose name consisted of an 'A' followed by a bunch of consonants which I couldn't even begin to pronounce.

Since we really hadn't eaten anything we decided to head to a place that was recommended in Lonely Planet called Pizza Point that was about a kilometer away from the Golden Temple.

Now this was my first time traveling in India outside of Hyderabad, and this was not a big city. There were people everywhere, but it was definitely not as developed as Hyderabad. A very new and novel experience for me.

We were able to find Pizza Point which was a hole in the wall that looked very suspicious. It had a rather strange smell and cleanliness was most certainly not the first thing that came to mind when we stepped in. On top of that the waiter looked like one of the Munsters' long lost Indian cousins who wore platform shoes and pants that were pulled up way too high, but I must say, he is to this day is one of the best waiters that I have had so far in India.

The kitchen was nowhere to be seen in the restaurant and after my IndiJoe's experience from the night before I was skeptical to say the least, but our waiter emerged from what looked like a closet door with pizzas in hand which weren't half bad.

After scarfing down the much needed sustenance, we head over to the Golden Temple which is the holiest of all Sikh shrines. Before you enter, you must remove your shoes which you check in at this sunken locker room-ish area just outside of the temple complex. Now this place is packed with hundreds of people who have just taken off their shoes and I can tell you, when you have this many feet in a small place the smell becomes worse than dirty foot smell and actually smells more like dog shit.

In addition to not being able to wear shoes, men and women are required to cover their hair. For 10 rupees, we each bought a head scarf, washed our feet in the little pool at the entrance and headed in.

Now I have never tied a head scarf, and didn't really know what I was doing. The gang decided to let me look like an idiot for about half of our time there before helping me out. Such friends. :)

The Golden Temple, the Hari Mandir Sahib, is located in the middle of the sacred pool, the Amrit Sarovar, and to reach the Golden Temple, you must wait in line on the Guru Bridge which leads to it. Within the Hari Mandir Sahib lies the original copy of the Guru Granth Sahib which is the holy Sikh book. Throughout the day, four priests inside the temple keep up a continuous chant that is broadcast throughout the complex via loudspeakers.

The complex itself is really quite breathtaking and made of all white marble. We ended up spending a few hours wandering around, taking everything in. I hadn't expected to be as impressed as I was.

Also, since we are pretty far north, I don't think many western tourists make it up here and the locals seemed very eager to meet us. Everybody was very friendly and wanted to take pictures with us, especially Anna.

After the temple, we headed back to the hotel to relax for a couple of hours before heading to the Wagah border. As I said, Amritsar is right next to the Pakistan border and each evening, the border patrol on either side puts on a show for their respective countries. In fact, both countries have built little stadiums that hold a couple thousand spectators each to enjoy the show.

For those of you who aren't up to speed on the current status of the India-Pakistan relationship, these two countries don't like each other too much, and for years have been fighting over where the border between the countries actually lies in the state of Kashmir.

When we arrived, we each bought an India visor and a couple of India flags to show our team spirit and sat down in the VIP section. As we sat there the excitement began to mount, they blasted music and people danced. Meanwhile, the border guards who wore the most outrageous outfits and all sported these ridiculously hideous mustaches, prepared for the show.

The show began with the emcee shouting into a microphone, trying to get the crowd riled up. People were pulled from the crowd and ran up to the Pakistan gate carrying the India flag. The head guard then started a chant and the guards took turns high stepping their way up to the Pakistan gate to do a little dance full of bravado and machismo.



This went on for quite a while before they opened up the gates, and a Pakistan guard and an Indian guard came face to face as they performed a ceremony while raising their respective flags.

The show ended as they lowered the flags, closed the gates, and the guards high stepped their way back to center stage.

Afterwards, made it back to our driver and started on the drive back to Amritsar. Now this was perhaps the scariest car ride that I have had so far in India. It was dusk and we were headed back along with the hundreds of other cars that had just left the show. The road we were on was a two lane road and in India, just because there are only two lanes, that does not mean you have to stay out of the lane which belongs to oncoming traffic.

So it's getting pretty dark. I have pretty good vision, but even I couldn't see too well. However, the driver could apparently see fine because he didn't turn on his headlights despite the fact that we were driving on the wrong side of the road half of the time to get around slow moving buses, narrowly missing the cars or tractors that were coming towards us, who also had their lights off!

As soon as we made it back into town and I started to feel a little more comfortable, a dog jumps off the median directly in front of us. Anna screams, but the driver doesn't even slow down. Somehow we miss the dog and the driver laughs and says 'This is India.' That statement sums up so much of my trip that you can't even believe it.

We found a nice restaurant that served continental food and some things called 'Cheesy cock rolls' which we found highly amusing and had to order. There was so much stuff on the menu that looked good that we each ordered 3 or 4 items and pigged out.

We headed home, went straight to bed, exhausted from our long day.

The next morning we got up and headed to Jalainwala Bagh which is a park where the English massacred over 2000 Indians in 1919. They have now set the land aside as a memorial to those who died. Some of the buildings still bear the marks from the British bullets. For those of you that have seen the movie Gandhi, you probably remember the scene that took place here.

We were going to head into the Golden temple again, but decided against it and instead wandered around the market looking for some souvenirs before heading to the airport.

We had a 4 hour layover in Dehli and decided to make the most of it by getting a taxi and heading to the Oberoi which is a very, very swanky hotel and grabbing a bite to eat at the restaurant. Since it was a nice restaurant, they had beef on the menu and I ate my first burger since leaving the states. It was fantastic.

After dinner and a couple of drinks, it was back into the taxi, into the airport and on a plane back home to Hyderabad.