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17.05.2009 
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Early morning about 5-30 am on May 12th I came to Amritsar. Helpers try to put me in a hotel, so I ask to put me somewhere close to Golden Temple. But they cheated me and put into Paris Hotel (300 INR per night), which is about 1,5 km from Golden Temple, somewhere between bus and railway stations. I really wanted to sleep so I decide to stay in this hotel for 1 day and then find something else. So I slept till 12, and then went to find Golden Temple, cyber café and hotel around.
So I found pretty nice guest house called Sharma about 100 meters from GT entrance with windows facing Jallianwala Bagh. So it's very nice and peaceful environment there. Non AC room, good maintained, TV – 350 INR. I recommend this GH to stay in Amritsar. Also near Jallianwala Bagh there is a nice café called Virsa. Food is good there and mostly foreigners and decent Sikhs eat in this place. Next day I met there a couple: Sikh guy and his European wife, but she was wearing all the Sikh cloth and even a traditional dagger... such a picturesque couple...
Next day, May 13, I moved to Sharma GH and the rest of it devoted to Golden Temple. First I was walking around the temple and then meditating for a while inside... Sikh signing is just beautiful and calming... In the night temple is also charming and I could watch the procession of moving sacred book from one temple to another. After I got a desire to lay down on marble frame of sacred lake. So I did it...
On May 14 in Jallianwala Bagh I met Philip, the guy from Canada. Together we decided to go to Attari-Wagh Indian-Pakistan border to see a border closing show. The way to Attari from Amritsar takes less then hour and cost 80 INR per person in shared jeep. Road is very dusty so border area is. From Indian part there were a bunch of people, all tribunes were full. From Pakistan part there were much less people. So show started around 17-30 with kinda Bolliwood songs from both sides, then soldiers were marching around to the accompaniment of crowd screaming "Hindustan" and "Pakistan" from both sides. So after that we came back to Amritsar and visited in passing Hindu Durga Temple, which made like a Disneyland... After all we ate in a Golden Temple canteen, which was a new experience for me... after that I spent some time walking around Golden Temple and lying on the marble there...
Next day in the morning me and Philip decided to go together to Dharmshala. The way took around 6 hours and we changed 4 buses (Amritsar-Pathankot-Gaggal-Dharmshala-Mcleod Ganj). It cost around 130 INR. However it was possible to take a direct bus to Dharmashala from Amritsar at 12-30.
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