Hotel Swarn House Amritsar

... the road was ok, in the passed month I started to forget that there are roads like this in the world. Amritsar listed as 1+ million city looked dusty and dull. It reminded me Shanghay - the skies missed the natural color and were kind of milky and opaque. The touts at the buss station were morning fresh and very irritating. 
I dropped my bags in a Tourists Guesthouse - which looked quite empty. The room was nothing unusual, but the really hight ...

... more gold and marble.People were sitting inside and also outside - reverence towards the book was very apparent. <br>Had a walk around to the bathing ghats - people bathe in the holy water. <br><br>It was quite difficult to reconcile this peaceful,serene place with the place that saw the siege on the 1980s(?) and how badly damaged the buildings were by the Indian army. Luckily everything is now rebuilt and it is back to the sacred site that it is and ...

... man trot, skip and kick all in one go!! I dont have the camera here but I will upload the pics maybe tomorrow for you to see but still it doesnt do it justice.. <br><br>These guys do this for 20 mins or so and basically try to out do eachother with kick height ability.. hilarious.. And the crowd, you would think they have never seen such a thing like us Goras but they go all the time.. so passionate, not quite like HRH changing of the guard/colours... I ...

... non-Indians I was with. The Indians in the van weren't phased one bit as they left this guy on the side of the road. <br><br>The drive to Wagah, the Indian border town, took about an hour, and as we were getting close, the sky to the west started to look very dark with approaching rainclouds. I thought it was what I expected the skies over Pakistan to look like. We finally arrived and had to park about 2-3 km from the border because of all the other cars that were already ...

... myself marvelling at how many people were inside this place. The narrow edges around the giant pool were filled with hordes of Indians making their way around the water in a clockwise direction. After a few minutes of gawking and snapping pictures I joined the masses and fell into the procession. While making my way around with the throngs I noticed several men in their underwear bathing in the pool. I stepped out of the line, cooling my feet ...

... the Grand Hotel, close to the Railway station.This relaxing garden hotel has been functionning since 1952, and has a very nice pub with Kingfisher draft.<br>Late afternoon people are heading to Attari, on the Indian-Pakistani border to attend the colourful border ceremony.Its so much fun to see the border guards in their nice uniforms, and to watch the Indian visitors ...

... By this we do not mean to say that we didn't enjoy it-- it's pretty incredible that something like this goes on every single day and both flags are still lowered side by side and everyone goes home peacefully. But Attari is like, nothing but this ceremony, and the 1km walk to the border is infested with people trying to sell you these ridiculous CD's containing slideshows of the sights of Amritsar. It's some serious gang work going on because they are all young boys and they are all ...

... a Golden Age, with sunken baths, fountains, sauna &amp; pietra dura everywhere - and all in marble! Very opulent! Again, the Moti Masjid pearl mosque was closed, but its design (3 domes) all in white looked lovely. The emperor's privet palace (Khas Mahal) &amp; the Palace of Colour (Rang Mahal) still evoked signs of their bygone splendour, the latter having a carved marble lotus in its centre.<br><br>What I loved were all the watercourses (dry now) that evidently ran ...

... and Mande Matarum (the national anthem of India)" on the Indian side. We couldn't hear what was being said on the Pakistani side, but we're sure it was done with equal zeal and zest. The men and women were separated on the Pakistani side. On the Indian side, there was a special section for women only, but the rest of the area was co-ed. For the first 10-20 minutes volunteers were running the Indian flag from one ...

... The Golden Temple and the Pakistani border ceremonies lived up to their expectations as an amazing religious place and a shocking display of nationalism. It would be great to continue north to Kashmir or west into Pakistan...but we only have 6 more months and many stops to make. Our next stop will be back in Delhi to meet up with Steph, hopefully to quell some homesickness and have as much fun possible until she flies back to chilly Canada in March.