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Begining of Journey To India- Amritsar, Delhi And Agra (Part1) Tim and Catherine Tim and Catherine from Britain, have travelled world over. They share with us their travel stories of India from their experiences.

Lahore was our last stop in Pakistan.

Despite railing pretty vehemently against the hotel's lackadaisical approach to their "peeping tom", I fail to get a night's refund - or rather don't want to deal with the hassle of not paying and wondering whether they're going to call the cops (which would not be ideal as we are trying to leave the country). Our driver (the same one from yesterday) takes an alternative route to the GT road - a much quieter, smoother road alongside a canal and green fields. Along the way, we see hordes of water buffalo and one large group of maybe fifty animals is wallowing in the canal. There are also lots of men cycling around with large brass pots of milk strapped to their bikes. It is an incredibly humid day - we are sweating even when the car is moving and wind is blasting through the open windows.

At the border, we make the driver very happy by giving him some extra rupees and then have to walk into the Pakistani part of the complex. It's a jumble of buildings down a leafy shaded road and the whole area is almost totally deserted. The outgoing immigration guy is mainly interested in trying to do an illicit currency deal with us - we politely decline. (Once across the border in India we find out that he was, as we'd suspected, blatantly lying to us about the rate we'd get on the other side). The customs men do a thorough job and actually unpack both of our bags, which is a bit of a drag. Of course you have to grin and bear it and humour them all the way through. From there, we walk another couple of hundred yards - a short distance, but in the sweltering air we both sweat buckets under our overloaded packs - to the formal border. There is a line across the road and on our side a Pakistani soldier stands stiffly to attention in a black uniform with full regimental regalia. Three feet away is an Indian soldier in green but with very similar ceremonial extras. Neither looks at the other one. A large steel fence stretches as far as we can see in both directions from the line on the road. We pause for a brief moment, slightly anxious at the prospect of leaving Pakistan, our home for the last eight weeks and a country that we have come to understand in a limited fashion, and entering India - that vast and teeming place that we have seen only through the embattled Pakistani mindset for the last couple of months.

The moment passes and we step across the line and walk past the Indian and into the Indian province of the Punjab. We then stop three separate times for various soldiers to enter our details into hand-written books. Each time they put our information in wrong - they never get the surname right, half the time I go into the book as Timothy Roy (they find the Roy bit confusing because it's an Indian family name and I don't look very Indian). Trying to help out doesn't seem to work so we let them do their thing. We then walk another few hundred yards to the formal immigration building and wait for a while before someone appears to process us. It is deathly quiet around here. During the hour or two we spend passing through, we only see one other traveler (going the other way). The soldier spends quite a while leafing through more hand-written books that list "undesirable aliens", tries to permanently borrow our pen (as predicted by people we'd met in Pakistan who came through the other way) and then finally gives us the go-ahead. Customs is a mere formality and then we are through - it was not nearly as tortuous as we had been expecting.

Outside the security area we change a bit of cash, have a drink and get a Suzuki cab into Amritsar. It is strange passing through the countryside. Nearly everything is the same - water buffalo, tongas, honking etcetera - but there are also a horde of small differences. Lots of the men wear turbans; they pee standing up; the women are unveiled and much darker-skinned and there are no more lurid rickshaws or buses - Indian vehicles are much plainer. Amritsar seems like any other city as we come in - although it seems a little bit neater and cleaner than the big Pakistani cities. We get a room in an unimpressive place recommended by the LP (we are really beginning to lose faith in their advice these days) and quickly shower before walking down the road to the railway station. Despite very confusing forms and billboards, we get a pair of second-class tickets to Delhi for tomorrow morning at 8am. From the station we get a cycle-rickshaw into the center of town to go and see the Golden Temple. The rickshaw feels a bit precarious as the seat is high, very narrow and sort of tilted so you keep slipping off!

Outside the Golden Temple complex we grab some quick eats in the form of a good Thali (sort of a sampler of lots of different dishes) and then go in the main entrance. An awesome sight awaits us. Inside the outer walls is a huge plaza of beautiful white buildings with a fifty foot wide marble walkway (the Parikrama) that passes around a huge, sacred pool several hundred feet square. In the middle of this pool sits the delicate, shimmering, totally gold, Hari Mandir. When the sun shines directly on the temple it is incredibly bright to look at. The temple is joined to the main walkway on one side by a marble causeway called the Guru's Bridge. Even as non-Sikhs, we are allowed to walk up this causeway and enter the temple itself. Inside is a small but incredibly exquisite room with walls literally covered in gold and precious stones. My irreligious mind briefly turns to the gaps in the peitra dura of Jehangir's tomb in Lahore as I gaze at the latter. Several priests chant from a large holy book to the accompaniment of drums. Needless to say, all the Sikhs here are extremely reverent and several are seated swaying gently with unfocused eyes. As we walk back along the Guru's Bridge we notice the water is full of large fish and as we come back onto the walkway a bearded guru offers us balls of prasaad (a sort of sweet goo).

We sit for a while at the edge of the pool and after a while are approached by a young boy of about fifteen who strikes up conversation with us. He has that curiously feminine look that quite a few young Sikh boys seem to have. He is called Sunny and speaks superb English. After chatting for a while he asks if we would like to visit his home after he has shown us around a bit. We are initially skeptical but seems so excited at the prospect that we agree. We walk around the sacred pool again - past a couple of super-bearded priests in alcoves who read aloud from a Holy Book in a semi-trance-like state - and then Sunny shows us into the museum. The museum is basically one long justification for the use of violence against Muslims and Hindus. Each of the seven or so large rooms is filled with really graphic paintings of various Sikh Gurus and leaders being martyred in horrific ways, mainly by vicious Muslims. It is both horrible and sad - but I am sad not so much just for the Sikhs depicted here, but for the almost hopeless spiral of hatred and violence that this place represents and perpetuates. There is no mention of the other side of the story, of the appalling violence and cruelty displayed by the Sikhs in the eighteenth century or their atrocious contributions to the appalling inter-communal violence of the twentieth century. Here the Sikh is only the victim - never the perpetrator.

And yet despite the narrative of victimization, many Sikhs look pretty fierce. They are physically quite large, have huge, bristling beards and carry ceremonial daggers. Many also bear spears and swords. It's all a bit confusing for a sect that started out in the fifteenth century as a religion designed to fuse the best of Hinduism and Islam. Next it is our turn to feel ashamed. Sunny takes us to Jallianwala Bagh, a park just a couple of hundred yards away from the Golden Temple. This is the scene of the horrific Amritsar massacre of 1919 during which British troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd of protesters and killed or wounded 2000 people. It is a humbling place to visit, the site of one of Britain's worst acts as a colonial power. We see the well that was filled with dead and dying and a copy of Tagore's letter returning his Knighthood in disgust. While we are walking in the grounds, a Sikh man calls over to Sunny and tells him that he shouldn't talk to "Britishers" because we are bad people. Sunny tells him to mind his own business (he is an impressively confident person) and tells us he should be free to talk with whoever he wants. Quite right! Still, it feels a bit funny to have anti-British sentiment here after so little in Pakistan. Maybe this is what it feels like to be an American in about half the countries in the world!

From Jallianwala Bagh we follow Sunny for a long way through heavy traffic. We finally get a rickshaw and follow him on his bike for the last part as he leads us right into the suburbs and down a long series of small lanes. Once we arrive at his house he is incredibly excited, as are his mother, cousins, sister and neighbours - clearly he has brought home a great prize! They are all very sweet indeed and the kids all speak flawless English (speaking Punjabi is forbidden at school!), especially his ten year old cousin, who shows off some of her Hindi dances for us. Sunny shows us some of his paintings - which are pretty good actually - and can literally not keep still from excitement and enthusiasm. It is rather strange to be able to make someone so happy by simply being present. We watch a lovely sunset over the city from the roof of their building and then sit down for tea in the main room where Sunny has to have some pills, he's developed a headache he is so excited.

After tea we mess around for a bit taking a group photo and then start to make noises about departing. Given that it is now dark, they are all very concerned for our safety (isn't it strange that people all over the world always think that their own hometown is a particularly lethal place?). We reassure them that we will be fine but they insist on all coming out with us and getting a rickshaw and absolutely demand that we call them as soon as we get back to our hotel! They are all very sad to see us go and Sunny is distraught - he presents us with tiny Bible (?) which he has written in and seems close to tears. It is quite moving. We lumber off down the lane on our rickshaw and half the street seems to waving us goodbye. Yet again, we're so glad to have overcome our initial scepticism - they were such an adorable family. We get the rickshaw to drop us at a restaurant and when we phone the family to tell them we are safe all the kids want to talk to us. Their father (a police chief) has arrived home from work and is apparently terribly envious of all the children that they have met us. Sunny declares that he wants to come to see us in our hotel because he is missing us so much. Poor thing - our heart goes out to him, he's overwrought!

Over our meal we contemplate what an interesting day we have had and how wonderfully friendly our first day in India has turned out thanks to Sunny Singh and his family. It's only a short walk back to our crummy hotel where we start to plan what we want to do in Delhi before falling asleep sometime around 10pm.

Day 94 - Thursday 25th. September Amritsar-Delhi

We get up early, just after six, pack fast and walk over to the station. Fortunately it is still relatively cool so we are not totally drenched with sweat by the time we reach the station. After a while, the train pulls in and we locate our seats without too many problems. The seats are actually quite spacious and they even have padding - we were expecting a horrific scrum and wooden slats. In fact, the compartment never gets too crammed, although as the journey wears on it gets hotter and hotter and we start to get a bit bored and sweaty. Lots of food and drink sellers ply up and down the aisle calling out in funny nasal voices - I reckon this is because they think a certain tone of voice is more penetrating. There are also the occasional beggars with horrible deformities and/or injuries plus two little girls that dance, a couple of transvestites (eunuchs maybe?) and lots of shoe-shine boys. Add all these up and it's pretty much a nonstop procession of people holding their hands out to you for one reason or another.

The train goes phenomenally slowly and stops for interminable lengths of time in odd places. Luckily I have a good book (Steinbeck's East of Eden) and so don't notice the time creeping past too much. However, by the ninth hour of geologically slow progress I've finished, Catherine's getting a bad headache and we're stopped alongside a huge rubbish dump with utterly appalling hovels mixed in here and there. This is probably the outskirts of Delhi - what on earth are we getting ourselves into?

Fortunately, we are nearly there and sometime later finally creak into Delhi's enormous train station. Getting out of the station is quite a struggle. There are hordes of people sitting and lying all over the platforms and walkways, many of them look like they've been waiting for days. Picking our way through them takes a while. As we near the exit we run an intimidating gauntlet of touts and rickshaw men who block our way out and pester us continually. It is now incredibly hot and humid and we are quite literally pouring with sweat under the weight of our packs. We walk across a large road and go down a street crammed with stalls selling all kinds of cheap clothes, luggage and tawdry bits and pieces. The first hotel we try is full! This is quite a shock - we're used to rarely even encountering other Westerners, let alone finding that a hotel is actually full of them! How bizarre. I'm beginning to remember what normal tourism feels like. We manage to find a room in another place, have a quick bucket shower and wring out our sodden clothes.

We pop out for a wander and some food and I can't say we're enamoured of what we see. There are lots and lots of grungy foreigners lolling around in sarongs, dreads and heaps of beads; all along the street slimy characters whisper "hashish, hashish" to us and to make things even worse, there are plenty of signs that most awful of travelers, (= loud, selfish and utterly obnoxious), is well-represented here. Suddenly I feel almost homesick for Pakistan ! Furthermore, the sheer weight of the tourism has made the shopkeepers surly and aggressive and we are no longer interesting people from another country, we are simply breathing wallets of $$s. All in all, it's hot, crowded, smelly and uninteresting. I think we'll get out of Delhi as fast as we can!

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