Jan 18, 2009 - The Taj Mahal and onto Amritsar

HIGHLIGHTS • The Magnificent Taj Mahal • A seventeen hour train journey to Amritsar • Encounter the dread of the Travelling Ticket Examinar, AKA the 'TT' DETAIL After posting my BLOG I sit outside my room trying to copy my photo's from my laptop to a CD - no luck. Andrew wanders by in a trance, and I mean trance as he is a lost soul wandering aimlessly through life. He's 37 and hasnt a clue about anything but thinks he does (was I like that?). He hums and ahs and decides to sit and join me. I am eating tradition western-Indian food, its...

Oct 25, 2008 - Amritsar, India

Before leaving Pakistan we tried one more time to find a place to print pictures for folks we met along the way w/o success. Ended up w/ heading out w/o mailing anything, bummer! Taxi to border was same driver who took us there yesterday for 800 r. rnd trip to the flag/border closing ceremony - left at 1:30 for 650 r. Good driver, safe and skilled which is important in this traffic!!! Took us until 4:30 to get into India, a whole Sikh gathering was entering India so we got caught in the middle...very interesting, a special bus all decorated...

Dec 6, 2007 - Amritsar

Its over the border and into India. Wagah is the only official border crossing between Pakistan and India, and it was surprisingly quiet; I was the only one in the departure building on the Pakistan side. It was then a case of hanging around for an hour or so to see the border ceremony from the Indian side, and the Indians were noticably less passionate than their rivals. Whilst waiting for the ceremony to start, I got talking to an Indian couple who offered me a lift to Amritsar, and then bumped into them again that night at a restaurant...

Nov 20, 2007 - Rockin' in the Garden

Time for some rock education. Name that tune! I will walk with my hands bound, I will walk with my face blood, I will walk with my shadow flag, into your garden of stone. Extra bonus point if you can tell me what a shadow flag is. Now, Chandigarh is a planned city. Its labelled as India's cleanest and greenest. It probably is. But, Switerland it aint! Actually it reminds me of East Kilbride but without the neds. Back in the 1950's the India government commissioned some French designer bloke called Le Corbusier to design a new city which was...

Nov 19, 2007 - The Ministry of Silly Walks

Amritsar is the holy city of the Sikhs as is home to their most holy site, the Golden Temple. The town itself is fairly non descript and really, apart from a few parks and the temple, there is very little to see here. Its another dusty, noisy Indian city for the most part but the temple complex, which is extensive, is a fantastically serene, spiritual oasis of calm amongst all the madness. The father of the Sikh religion was a guy called Guru Nanak. He sounds like an all round good guy. He based his religion around the tenets of basicaly...

Nov 1, 2007 - My visit to Pakhi Kalan

I said good bye and a taxi came and took me to my favoured village , Pakhi Khalan. It was great to see them all again and as always all the Purba's were out to greet me. It was wonderful to see Amritpal again, he was to be my personal guide while there (he had taken two days off from college). First time I met Amritpal he was just 11 years old and he was a competetive bangla dancer (and a very good one) and very short. He had sure grown a lot and his English is perfect. He has a motorcycle so after all the saying "hello" to everyone we...

Oct 29, 2007 - A brief story of the wedding on the 28th of October

The wedding last night was quite an affair with almost 450 invited guests (one un-invited!!!). Duke seems to know everyone in town and I was introduced to dozens of inportant people (and a few beautiful children) - Adesh was with us and everyone adored him and he was very charming - smiling at eveyone. He reminds me of my grandchildren usually very well behavd in public. Of course Golu and Duke were beaming with all that attention their beautiful baby received! The newly married couple were stuck on a raised balcony and received many...

Oct 27, 2007 - Going to Punjab

I had to get up at 06:00 because my driver was picking me up at 06:45 to take me to the train station. Of course Abid arranged that and the driver was on time. The poor "red cab" coolie here, had to carry my heavy suitase ( it contained two big bottles whiskey!!) on his head quite a long way from the car to right track. We had negotiated 200 Rubies ( approx. $2.25) but I did give him more - I am after all a "softie". My friends here give me hell when I pay more than agreed upon!! We soon on our way and even 20 minutes after departure we...

Oct 3, 2007 - Amritsar

Hey guys! After a very long and chilled out time with the Tibetans it was time to get back on with some real travelling! So we hopped on a couple more lovely public buses (gotta love those roof racks!) and headed of to Amritsar on the Indian/Pakistan border! For the weather worriers, its been hot and sunny all week cuz we're in the NORTH WEST not the north east as some of you think (Mummy Short, get your geography right!) We had to change buses at a town called pathenkot, which was quite routine.....untill, whilst steve tied our bags onto...

Jun 19, 2007 - KKH and on to India

I'm back. Next stop was north to the Karakorum Highway, a six hundred K road through the Karakorum mountains which heads up to the Chinese border. For our trip we were going to within one hundred and fifty K of the border to the town of Karimabad. For those chums who did the Death Road in Bolivia, imagine going up it in an overland truck. Very narrow with steep drop always just a few feet away. Having said that, it was quite stunning with many of the worlds highest mountains on view. It took us two days to drive to town (and another two...

May 13, 2007 - Amritsar to Shimla, India

We took an overnight train from Amritsar to Ambala and then Ambala to Kalka. We never really knew where we were but we knew the approximate time we should arrive in Ambala. What ended up happening is that Tommy and I had to jump from the moving train with our backpacks on by the time we realized we reached our stop, which was only a stop of a couple of minutes. Yes an adventure alright.

Apr 28, 2007 - Amritsar - The Golden Temple

The Golden Temple in Amritsar has been on my travel radar for as long as I've known anything about India. It was as special to finally visit this serene place as it was to see the Egyptian Pyramids in 1972 and Angkor Wat in Cambodia at the beginning of this trip. In order to understand the significance of this holy temple, it is necessary to understand a little about "The Gentle Guru", Guru Nanak. I am getting a little pressed for time so I will provide some links to other websites where you can read more about the background and history of...