Sunday, July 19th, 2009

For all the folks back home who have gone over a week without an interesting update, I apologize. If it was up to me to choose how often I experience excitement it would be better for both parties. But, its very difficult to travel spontaneously in India as the 1.2 billion people tend to clog the decently affordable public transportation. This past Sunday, July 19th, I travelled with two co-workers up north by train to Amritsar. The three of us, Stephen, Britt and I, woke up at 5AM to catch a 720AM train. We were all packed and excited for our day trip. When we told people we were going to Amritsar and the Wagah Pakistan/Indian border in one day, they told us itwas impossible and crazy! But we did it, and it was adventurous and a ton of fun, and almost everything went according to plan. More on that later.

So we arrived 6 hours later in Amritsar at 1:15PM and quickly met up with our driver for the day. Britt's dad is the RCMP South Asia Liaison Officer so he has some serious law enforcement hookups, and was able to get us two police escorts for the day: One plain clothed and another in uniform. We asked to be taken to lunch and we ordered a bunch of food. I won't list the real names, but basically fried bread, daal (which is basically Indian soulfood, a lentil base with a sauce) rice, spicy potatoes, and cheese with sauce. We scarfed it all down and it came to 7 dollars for the three of us, and we left fully satiated for the next 6 hours.

We arrived shortly after to the Golden Temple, Amritsar's main attraction. It is the Sikh religion's holiest place and was packed with pilgrims. It is a beautiful (real) gold building surrounded by a small lake in which pilgrims come to bath in its holy water. We couldn't wear shoes and I had to cover my head with a scarf (we only had a purple one left..), so I looked kind of silly whilst burning my feet on the sun-torched marble floors. Our tour guide (plain-clothed officer) took us around and showed us the kitchens where theymake 10,000 fajita-shaped rounds of bread per hour to feed the pilgrims. We then went in the exit (VIP treatment!) to bypass the huge line to get into the temple and got inside. We couldn't take pictures, but it was absolutely amazing. Everything was golden and immaculately hand-carved. Locals worked 24/7 constantly sweeping and cleaning the Temple and its perameters to maintain its spotless integrity. It's an absolutely spectacular building and my vocabulary can't do it justice. I will be uploading pictures shortly and hopefully it wills how just how beautiful it was to see in person.

We got to the top of the Temple and we were allowed to take pictures there. Some locals saw our cameras and wanted pictures of us, and ones with us as well. I got a few on my camera of myself and a troup of excited pilgrims on the top of the Temple, I was flattered lol, and as were they, for whatever strange reason. After we left, we went to an outdoor museum where they commemorate the 1919 Amritsar massacre. It was at this site that British troops took machine guns to a crowd of protesting Indians and hundreds were mowed down and killed. They've maintained the buildings that still have bulletholes in them. They have also maintained the enormous well where 120 Indians jumped to their death, taking their chances by jumping into the well instead of facing the machine gun fire.

At this point, I was feeling really dizzy. I had gotten a terrible sunburn on the Friday and it still hadn't healed at all, and the sweat covering my entire body was irritating my skin on top of the jeans (what was I thinking??) and the T-shirt I was wearing. We got back to the car and I drank 2 litres of water almost non-stop and since I've gotten back I've yet to urinate. Dehydration for sure, heat stroke very closeby. I dodged a bullet there and I need to be much more careful. But, my travel-buddies thought it was hilarious that I was mumbling incoherently while in my dizzy stupor.

From here, we made a beeline to the Wagah Border by car, with the only thing I truly worshipped that day in front of me, the Air Conditioner. The Wagah Border is a 35KM drive East from Amritsar towards Pakistan. It is here that every single night, hundreds of Indians, Pakistanis and tourists flood the stands to join in the festivities. We sat in our VIP (see: white people and rich Indians) seats and waited for the party to start. From loudspeakers came shouted slogans along with the yell of 'HINDUSTAN!' (literally meaning Land ofthe Hindus, aka India) repeated several times and met by raucous cheers from the crowd. On the other side of the fenced border, the Pakistani loudspeakers tried to encite the same fervour within their masses. Then out of nowhere, the peacocking began. Indian soldiers, all well above 6 feet tall and wearing lavish military dress, began their stomping and high kicks towards the border. All I could think was how shit was about to hit the fan, and couldn't help but cheer at the absolute intensity of the guards. They would kick their extremelyl ong legs up to hit their helmets with their boot; the higher they kicked, the louder the crowd cheered. The Pakistani soldiers mirrored the Indians, and met at the border for what appeared to be a flex-off and a staredown, along withs everal foot stomps. With their elaborate moustaches bristling, there was some sort of invisible signal given and two soldiers from each side marched/stomped/kicked from their respective sides towards the gate to accompany the first sent guard. It was so dramatic and intense as the guards walked past me, I couldn't help but stand up and shout stupid Western cliche slogans like 'Ohhhh shit', 'He's gonna get it now!', 'daaaaaaamn', and asking Britt and Stephen 'Do you think Pakistan is gonna take that??' I was clearly caught up in the moment, but unfortunately my camera battery had died. Britt and Stephen took tons of pictures and videos and I will upload them once I have them.

After the border ceremony we went straight back to the Golden Temple, because atnight they turn on bright lights to reflect the golden structure at night, from which I've heard/seen is the best time to view it. We weren't disappointed, andI will save the physical description for the pictures will speak for themselves. We had a 935PM train to catch, and we arrived with plenty of time and settled in. It was an overnight sleeper train, with four bunk beds. After chatting about how our day went perfectly to plan and we were never bored or waiting around, we all fell asleep, exhausted. We arrived in Delhi at 7AM, and I was dropped off at home, showered, and went to work for the day, from 830-530. I will definately need an early bedtime tonight, as I had only fallen asleep at2AM the night I had to wake up at 5AM, and a long day of activities Sunday. Was it all worth it? After describing it in this e-mail, and remembering the day, I can certainly say it was. Enjoy the pictures, they will be uploaded in the next few days.