I'm keeping it in English for the time being, but don't worry, soon there'll be something for everyone, also the Danes.

This weekend, we all visited Amritsar, a town famous for it's holy sight: The Golden Temple. I'll hopefully put some pictures in here soon, also of the temple, cause bl**** h** it's beautiful. The Golden Temple is somewhat a Mecca for Sikhs. It's a medium sized temple, situated in the middle of a big lake. In the night, it's bathed in golden light and the whole thing blast you with its gold walls. Wait for the pictures, or go on the internet and seach - it's really worth seeing, I tell you.

The trip to Amritsar was okay. We got up at 5 a.m. (which wasn't very nice!) and travelled for  hours. Arriving there, we were caught off guard by the heat - Punjab (the state in which the Golden Temple is) is very very hot. Sitting 8 people in a small bus, driving through a state with about 35 degrees celsius left us all slightly dehydrated. - a Mountain Dew has never tasted that good! ;o)

Anyway, we left for the border after a couple of hours in our nice'n'cool hotel rooms. Near Amritsar which is only 20 minutes from the Indian-Pakistani border, you can literally walk on the border. Several thousand Indians go there everyday to see the border show, a very weird show: 2 meters tall, the border guards prance around in funny military suits, screaming at their Pakistani counterparts across the border. Gates are thrown shut, flags are lowered and all the way through the Indian crowd screams: "Long live Hindustan (India), Death to Pakistan!" (or something like that).

On one hand it's great to see the Indians have a ball. They really give it all they've got, making a party out of every ceremony. On the other hand, you can see the crowd on the other side of the  border. We were about 5-6000 people, they were maybe a hundred, if that even. It almost seemed unfair that they couldn't enjoy their part of the show as much. But that's life. As soon as Pakistan is safe, I'll be going there - with loads of other eager tourists I'm sure.

Enough, now on to The Golden Temple: getting back from the border, we had our dinner, then took the short trip to the temple. It was 9 og 10 o'clock in the evening, but the streets were teeming with devotees, going to pray at the temple. Going there is fantastic, something I'll write much more about when I put the pictures on the site.

That's all. "As I speak" I'm sat in a cybercafe in McLeod Ganj, home of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. I woke up at 5 a.m., vomited in the toilet, then went to bed again. Strange, I'm quite careful with what I eat, but... must have had something bad, I guess. Anyway, after a couple of hours of sleep, I went to the temple where, after an hour of sitting around, I saw His Holiness with my own two unblinking blue eyes! Fantastic! I (as everyone who knows me knows) do not believe in anything, but it was really quite special to be in the presence of (to all buddhist) a god. His laughter and smile are just as you'd imagine, and throughout the seance, he was cracking jokes, telling the thousands of worshippers and tourist to try to keep awake. ;o)

Hope you're all well. I am.

Simon E