Blogs from Amritsar, Punjab, India, Asia - page 9

Namashkar (means hello)! We landed in Delhi on November 16th and quickly realized that this country is quite different from Nepal. People there pester you, but the Indians take it to a whole new level. "Hello...? Hello...?...Mam?...what can I help?...You visit my store?...Only 20 rupees...hello?...Autorickshaw...? Where you go? Auto rickshaw...? We decided to stay in the area of Paharganj, which is the tourist area, but it was attractive to us because of it's proximity to the train station. November 17th - Happy Birthday to me! Dean and I decided that we would visit the Taj Mahal in Agra. What a great way to spend a birthday :) The only minus was that the alarm went off at 5:30am :) Oh well, our train was at 7:10am. We weren't able to get onto the express train so ... read more

Namaste! Well i finally left my four new friends in Bikaner following the camel safari and got on a sleeper bus to the holy Sikh city of Amritsar; home to the infamous golden temple. Eventually following a tiring bus journey I arrived in the city at 4:30 am - I don't know what it is but the Indian buses never seem to arrive at an appropriate time. I therefore arrived in a state of complete exhaustion and needing to find accommodation. Now, i had heard from a few people that the best way to truly see the temple is to stay within the temple itself. I therefore shared a rickshaw with another Englishman by the name of Olly (surprisingly one of the few English people I have met so far). So we arrived at the temple ... read more

Last days in the North Amritsar has to be the dirtiest city we've ever visited. Visibilty was so bad you could barely see the end on the hotel courtyard. But at night, the golden temple really did look quite magnificent. We almost blended into the background of Sikh pilgrims - except for a bunch of teenage girls who ran up to us to shake our hands and to tell Rachel how beautiful she was. I'd never seen her blush so much! The next day we went to the Indian/Pakistan border at Wagha to see the famous border ceremony. After all of the pomp and circumstance - shouting soldiers with what can only be described as one of the marches from Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, we came to the conclusion that it was simply an ... read more

Last weekend, we decided that as long as we were going to be hotter than hell, we might as well travel. So I began my series of weekend trips in the holiest Sikh city. We left on Friday morning, taking the six-hour train to Amritsar. The trains in India are a little daunting at first. If you are not reserving online, which causes its own headaches, then you have to purchase your tickets from the railway station to avoid a travel agent commission. There is a foreign tourist bureau at the Delhi station, and probably at the Mumbai, Calcutta, and Chennai stations as well, but I was promptly denied a ticket when I mentioned that I had a student visa. I returned the next day and employed the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy (it was a ... read more

July 10, 2009 The karmic setting has commenced. We were both lucky enough to sneak on the extra kilo in our backpacks. Mom and I already set the first bet: who is going to start adopting the wiggly head bob that Indians so notoriously speak with, (for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, just imagine the dolls that ride on the dashboards of cars.) Who is going to start singing the bollywood songs and dancing the bollywood dances? We're on the airplane now and have tested our our neck pillows that we've luxuriously invested in for the 14 hour flight to Delhi. Although i did at the last moment realize that when i was taking out the notebook from the bottom of my bag i accidentally left out a flip flop, ... read more