On the train to Rishikesh, October 19, 2016

The noise is deafening; I'm taking the night train from Amritsar to Rishikesh and the windows have to be open otherwise it gets too smelly in here. Renana and me decided to have our first train experience in the sleeper class and I don't regret it (for now, we're less than an hour on the train). Indian trains have so many different classes, you can read about it here. The sits are cozy, there's a nice sikh family beside me. Renana is already asleep and I decided to take the time to write.

Last time I wrote I was in Dharamshala, sick in my guesthouse. I got better since. Renana twist her ankle on the trail from Dharamkot to Bhagsu (Two villages near Dharamshala, where most tourists go), but she's much better now. We decided to leave from Dharamshala a few days later, and continue southward to Rajastan. Dharamshala was very nice and beautiful, but I will always remember mostly that I was sick there. I almost didn't have any powers to write or study, not to talk about going to courses in the villages or take a hike to the places around. I do regret it, but when I felt like moving forward I decided to do it.

We did have a few days that we did feel good, so I took some yoga classes and Renana did some meditation. I took the yoga class with the same teacher as before, Bijay Vasudev, and Renana went to a Meditation center called Tushita. It's a Tibetan center located on the outskirts of Dharamkot, on the way to McLeodGanj, the village where the Dalai Lama and his followers live. Tushita is doing meditation classes every day, you can just come and participate.

We went to McLeodGanj one day, we visited the Tibetan museum and the temple they built there, very impressive. There is a small market there, lots of Tibetan art and food.

people passing a railway when the barrier is closed

So Tuesday morning we took the government bus to Amritsar. It wasn't a direct one, we took a bus from McLeod to Pathankot, and the minute we got there we went up the next bus to Amritsar. For those of you who's interested, there's one bus from McLeod to Amritsar which leaves at 4:50am, otherwise you have to do what we did which was to take a bus to Pathankot and switch there to Amritsar. It's not so bad, because the "direct" one does go through Pathankot, and there's a bus from Pathankot every few minutes. The way takes about 6-7 hours, depends on the road and on how much the driver wants to stop. Our driver took his time and did a few long breaks on the way.

Amrtisar is one of the holy cities for the sikh religion, and in the center of the city you can find the golden temple. The temple is a place for worship for sikh around the world, and you can find many pilgrims doing their way into the temple. Around the temple there are few hostels for pilgrims, and there's also a place for foreigners. It's a room full of beds, but you can sleep there for free (Based on donations) and you can leave your bags there – you also get a locker for your stuff. We decided to do it.

We have arrived at about 6pm to Amritsar and went straight to the temple. We found the hostel in one of the side entrances to the temple, checked-in, left our stuff and went for a walk to eat something. We ate something called Aloo Parantha, you can find it anywhere in India, and it's a Pita bread stuffed with mashed potato. We went for a walk around the temple, but didn't enter as we left it for the morning, we were too tired for it, so we went to sleep. Sleeping in a room full of strangers was better than expected and we fell asleep almost immediately, we did wake up every now and then, but, again, less than expected.

We had a very early morning, waking up at about 7am when the guard turned the lights on. We went for a walk inside the temple. Well the temple is actually a very big square which is surrounded by a big white building and a few more building, some of them are small places for prayer, others libraries, there is also a community kitchen in which we ate our breakfast. It's a very big and efficient community kitchen, and all the people who come to visit are invited to join, they were really happy that we came. It's a very nice experience, we went inside and received our spoon, a plate and a bowl for water. The guard points you into a big hall where everyone sits in line and gets their meal.

It's very hard to tell how nice this experience is, sitting with people from all classes, on the floor and eating your Daal (Indian lentils dish) with rice and Chapati (Indian bread). You get just enough food, and you can always ask for a refill. After that you go to give your plate back, and that's where all the magic happens. You have an option to put a donation, and then you have an option to volunteer in the kitchen. We decided to go with the donation, but it was amazing to see hundreds of people, peeling vegetables, washing dishes, and doing everything very efficiently, taking care of the people that come after them.

The temple is very big and impressive. The buildings are surrounding a huge pool of water and in the middle of that pool is the golden temple. It really is golden. We didn't go inside as there were lots of people there, but just walking around, seeing all the writing on the walls, and the symmetries on the floor, hearing the prayers reading from their holy books was a really nice experience.

After the temple we went to the train station to buy tickets to Jaipur for me and a ticket to Rishikesh for Renana. Since we wanted to travel most of the way together, the tickets guy persuaded us to buy tickets to Rishikesh. He promised me that there are many trains from there, which there aren't.

There's a soldier in the coach that is telling me I need to go to sleep, I'm not sure if he's worried about me or about my computer, my Hindi is not so strong :) I'll continue when we arrive to Rishikesh.