Amritsar

Well, after the lovely cool confines of Dharamsala we headed south and west to the holy city of Amritsar, where we we greeted by pushy rickshaw riders and temperatures of 39 degrees C !! We headed to Amritsar for 2 reasons really, one to see the Golden Temple, and two to get a train back to Delhi - we've had enough of buses in India for the moment.
Amritsar, despite the heat, was a good place. The hotel lived up to it's reputation - it's described as a 'shabby hovel' in the Lonely Planet and we weren't disappointed, but the owners were lovely and that's what counts. The Golden Temple was fantastic, definately a better experience than we thought it might be. We made a few trips there, one at Sunrise and another to see the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh holy book) being put to bed, as it is at around 10.15 every night.
One evening we went to the India-Pakistan border to watch the closing of the border ceremony (as seen on Michael Palin's Himalaya programme). It wa a typically mad scene on a very, very hot night. The gate on the border is opened and slammed shut and the flags of the two countries lowered (at exactly the same time) whilst the overdressed soldiers try to out-stomp and out-scowl each other. This all goes on in front of crowds of thousands of cheering 'fans' and they do it every night, mad...
We also sent a bit of time eating ice cream in Amritsar, after all it was very hot and we were both missing the cake we munched everyday in Dharamsala...

Golden Temple, Amritsar

Colourful crowds at border

Amritsar, India