I must admit that I completely forgot a few things from Amritsar, many of which I've since forgotten again. This is what I've remembered I've forgotten, so to speak:
On our last night in Amritsar, we were sitting around in the GT, when we soon found ourselves totally surrounded by Punjabis, who were fascinated by Westerners. At the centre of the melée was a kid of about 7 or 8 who was leading our interrogation. Everything he said was greeted with howls of laughter from the others, though we didn't get a word as he spoke no English. We had a large (i.e. fat, a sign of wealth in Punjab) guy of around 20 next to us translating (he said) what the kid was saying. Most of his questions, apparently, were just the ordinary "what is your father [sic] name, sir?" and so on; either Punjabis are very easily amused, or we weren't being told something.
On the other hand, the joke was still on them as, bored of being ourselves, we adopted fake names. I was Björn from Iceland for an evening; it was more fun that way. Eventually we had amassed such a crowd that the easy-going Sikh guards (they were happy to pose for a photo with us earlier) came along with their spears and dispersed our admirers. Even after that, we were trailed by some of them until we split up, doubled back, and eventually lost them.
I had, amazingly, forgotten a little incident at the Mata Temple on the way back from the border ceremony at Attari. We noticed that a recitation or teaching of some sort was being filmed, so we (of course) sat in the small crowd watching it. Perhaps sensing that Sikhs had won us over with their langer, we were provided with some good food: a potato curry with a pastry biscuit. Very nice. Still, it wasn't the same as a free 24 hour kitchen...
Anyway, that's all I can remember having forgotten off the top of my head. Next issue: Dalhousie and Chamba!
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