The Golden Palace close to the Pakistani border

The day before I headed to Amritsar the landlord of Jayanth talked to me. He more of less accused me of being a Pakistani terrorist (maybe my beard is getting too long?). I told him I'd send him a copy of my passport etc. as he asked for. He said apparently indians have to report foreigners staying somewhere to the police. Especially now that Pakistan has been said to be a terrorist country and even the EU acknowledges is (which is wrong as far as I can tell). Jayanth said the guy is just strange.

So I headed to Amritsar. Close to the Pakistani border to visit the golden temple of the Sikhs and I had heard of a interesting ceremony at the border between India and Pakistan which I might also attend. And I had a sort of crazy plan: I'd take a night train to Amritsar, stay there for the day and take a night train back. So only sleep in trains, to make the most of it...
I slept poorly, as expected, but not because of noise, rather it was suddenly cold! Something that had so far never happened in an indian train! I was shocked. Of course it was noisy and alot going on in the train, but I think it was actually the cold. Since Jaipur I didn't have any proper shoes, only sandals, so I didn't have socks with me - a big mistake...
I did have a cloth, which helped, yet a jacket would have been nice aswell.

Anywho... I arrived there in the morning and on the way saw the sikhs do their turbans. Other indians stared aswell, which was a little comforting. It is actually just apiece of cloth, they tie around their head in a special way. I heard someone say he thought it was like a hat, you can just put on! I walked around and towards the Golden Temple. On the way I saw a memorial site. I though it might be interesting so I went inside. 

Apparently Amritsar was the place of a massacre by the british upon the indians in 1919 (the Jallianwala Bagh massacre). Alot of people (especially indian freedom fighters) condemned these actions as inhumane and the responsible officer be punished, he wasn't (other then "forced" to retire). The officer defended his actions as the only way to maintain order in the city. His squad had started firing at a crowd gathered in a courtyard. So they were cornered and had no where to hide. Many tried escaping in a well, but drowned or died from the fall there...

The entrance to the memorial sight

Plants made to look like soldiers ready to fire

Actual bullet holes from the massacre

The garden was very interesting and a good memorial I think. Worth visiting, if you are in Amritsar.
Then I went on to the Golden Temple. It said I should have my head covered, I had my hat. Later I found out that a hat isn't allowed. Luckily I could just stuff in my back pocket and take a piece of cloth which is sufficient to wear (if you don't have a turban handy).
I just walked once around the big pool which surrounds the temple, the crowd wanting to go inside was too big, so I stayed outside. Probably it would have be worth going inside. I missed out...
But the gallery they displayed was also interesting. Alot of paintings about the first sikhs and sikh rulers. Apparently alot of them resisted the british occupation and therefore were murdered and declared martyrs by their brothers in belief. Also lately, in the 80s I think, alot of Sikhs were target of oppression. Sadly it didn't say why, just showed pictures of the killed people. 

The golden temple, you csn see all the people waiting to get inside...

Another view on the golden beauty

Back view to the temple

The surrounding buildings of the temple, were in pretty white (in one of these was the Sikh museum)

Once I went out and got my bag again I was approached by a man if I wanted to go to the border. We agreed on a price and I had time for some lunch. Once I came back I was sent to a office and waited there with some others. One was indian and said a week ago there wasn't any ceremony, she hopes it is happening now. It is because sometimes the political tension between the governments is too big, that they won't allow this actually friendly ceremony. But today it did happen.
Then all but a spanish guy and me were taken to a jeep. We waited and waited till we didn't want to wait any longer. We complained and they said there aren't enough people to fill a second jeep, so they'd put us in a rickshaw. Great. We did get some money back, though we should have asked for more back, because that ride was no fun at all. There I met another german guy, who joined us.

We left and the rickshaw was filled with some other indian people and so the 3 foreign guys sat in the back. It was a long drive, much longer than I expected, but when I checked google maps I found out it was several kilometers to the border... Great. Anyway we survived, left our bags at a shady looking counter and walked towards Pakistan. The road was empty, probably the border was already closed for normal traffic. We crossed checkpoint after checkpoint, it seemed one checked the passport, one the pockets of your bag, one the other pockets, but probably just to be 100% safe, that your fellow security officer made no mistake... I was told there was a terror attack on the pakistani side not too long ago.

When we arrived (the foreigners had their own queue) there was a big arena. And on the indian side they were building it even bigger (it couldn't be the same size as Pakistan I guess). They were building a second "floor" of the arena, so more people could watch the indian military kick the pakistani militarys butt.

The arena around the border

We sat down and then the party started! Loud music was playing all the time, then women started running with the tricolor flag infront of the crowd, children joined in. People started chanting something and after no one was running anymore women jumped down and started dancing cool bollywood moves.

At one point, as soon as enough viewers were seated the ceremony started. Soldiers started marching on both sides and a excited commentator started making the crowd go wild and yelled along to the sharp military drum rolls. Soldiers kept on marching, till the senior officers (at least I think they were) arrived at the gate and slowly let the flag down, both sides at the same time. That was a cool thing to see and really funny to watch the soldiers march up and down, jump to the beat and do splits standing up, while marching (they pulled their legs up to their heads) and always showed the fist towards the other country. In these parts the 2 countries were not always totally synchronal ( at least from what I saw, unfortunately a tree blocked my view towards Pakistan. After the ceremony - so once the flags were folded and brought to the office or whereever flags rest - the crowd rushed back to the taxi place. A few were lucky to be at the border and take closer pictures with the giant indian and pakistani soldiers (I guess they use the highest and best looking troops at this border. I was wondering if I could get a pakistani stamp in my passport... but the stress of pushing through the many people didn't seem doable...

Before the military ceremony indians ran infront of the crowd with the national flag, to get the crowd going

Troops parading towards the border synchronised:

Also the pakistani forces march towards the border:

As it was slowly getting dark we found our bags again (and everything was still inside!) and joined the indian girls to the rickshaw. We drove off back to Amritsar. I got off with the other 2, though the returned to their hostels somewhere else and I slowly made my way back to the trainstation.

After a short dinner I arrived at the station, got my luggage and waited for the train. This time I was a little better prepared but it wasn't that cold... I slept better and awoke again in the vicinity of Delhi. As I walked to the toilet I saw a man jump off the train... weird =/

Don't mind me, I'll just jump off the train here...

The sikhian harmonists? No idea what hey were, they looked cool and happy though!