The Last Day in India OR Final Blows - Part 1

After two weeks in Thailand, perhaps it's high time to write about the last day we've had in India, which was quite hectic and left a bitter taste that only now starts dissolving. This post is a bit of a rant, so if you're not in the mood, just read the pictures :)

The month spent in Dharamsala was great. A nice room with a big balcony and mountain side view. Quiet and relaxing, unlike the main street 10 minutes walk up 234 steps that provided us with all the simple bear necessities (read: feeding ground). Had it not been for the Indian 6 month visa running out, I'd have stayed there for a couple of months or till the monsoon rains would chase me away. I managed to work well on Colnect and introduce many important improvements at that time.

A denizen of Dharamsala contemplating the teachings on the Buddha

View from our balcony

The view from our room in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala

A few days before leaving my SIM card was blocked due to the infamous Indian bureaucracy countering terrorism in some way I haven't yet deciphered. Yes, you can use your SIM without verification for a month but then you're blocked if verification fails. To me it seems any terrorist would find a month to be enough time to buy a new SIM card that will work for an extra month. But hey, I did learn not to challenge India with logic :)

Papaya-Banana - it's gonna catch on! :)

The landlord where we stayed seemed like a very nice and relaxed person but in the last days showed his ugly side very well when he got pissed off at something. I could have said it was disappointing for me to get such a lame and disgusting attitude from him but unfortunately it appears that when it comes to money, the grand majority of Indians we have come in contact with put money much above anything else. Courtesy, honesty, kindness all come much lower when you potentially have lost a few rupees. Oh well.

Amritsar's Golden Temple

Amritsar's Golden Temple

Some people are not impressed with the normal sleeping floor outside the temple.
Probably more comfortable sleeping on marble in the hot midday.

Leaving Dharamsala, we took nice local buses to Amritsar and were there hosted for free (read: donation-based) at the beautiful Golden Temple. The setup had 4 big rooms connected by a corridor and beds all over the place. Windows were non-existent and the ceiling fans were keeping the humidity in circulation. It was cool relatively to the hot weather outside and probably better than the free dorms offered to Indians which consisted of a blanket on the courtyard's floor.

The masses waiting to cheer for Hindustan
Notions of personal space known in the west should be forgotten in India

There was surely a good vibe in the dorms and we met some really nice people. We eventually headed up with a few of them up to Waga border to watch the infantile ceremony that India and Pakistan have been doing everyday for a while now. It consists of funnily dressed guards doing ridiculous supposedly-fearsome maneuvers at the other side. More amusing are the crowds going wild cheering for their own country.

Ceremonial head gear of a Waga border guard

Long hair, in whichever part of the body, means your country is the better one! Right?

India / Pakistan. As amusing as the whole charade is, don't forget they've
gone through some VERY BLOODY periods of hatred.

More - in Part 2... keep reading

Sikh Balance

Going through the pictures, I've stumbled upon this one which I was taking while on a rickshaw. I didn't notice it while I was taking it, but you can see here that both guys riding a scooter are not using their hands. That in itself may not seem special but that one of them is having a conversation with a unseen entity and the other looks half asleep makes it a nice picture IMO :)

Sikh scooter riders trusting the prophet to handle their scooter

Amritsar Golden Temple

Currently writing you from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Such a different atmosphere from India, but I'll write more about that in the next post. Meanwhile, I wanted to show some videos from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest place to the Sikh, so it's told.

Here are some videos you might enjoy

Stopping for a second as a foreigner holding a camera attracts attention of many people around. Why? Perhaps we're more interesting than most things they see, perhaps they're bored, perhaps one person accidentally stopped and the rest wanted to see what the fuss is all about. Beats me... In addition to offering free accommodation to all visitors (read: pilgrims) to the Golden Temple, free meals are also offered. Pretty basic Indian food but it's nice to see how it actually works neatly and orderly with the help of volunteers and donations. After enjoying their free food, visitors rid themselves of the dishes and volunteers quickly sort them out for washing. The sound, similar to fire crackers, is heard from dozens of meters away.