Day 12 - All the Ones

Day 12 -  Friday 11/11/11

En route - Jalandar Station, Coach B1 in background

Morning. Our nearer companions on the train include two Punjabi gents who shout incessantly into their mobile phones, so we are glad when they leave at one of the many intermediate stations. The route zigzags towards the Pakistan (or Pak, as the press here say) border and back again, mostly on single track lines, so we have long stops waiting for down trains. A group of Turks watches films on a laptop, and I swap travellers' tales with one of them, who tries to smoke a roll-up at the open carriage end door but is sniffed out and told to extinguish. He is impressed that I once stayed in a cave in Cappodocia, though he seems to have been just about everywhere apart from Ethiopia or Southern Africa, so I score there. If the engine's horn were a maritime buoy, it would be labelled "isophase", i.e. fixed on with occasional breaks. Refreshments are available on platforms during "station stops" and at Jalandhar I give myself a dare and jump back onboard as the train pulls out of the station. Only 70 km to go....

Afternoon. Helter skelter ride in a cycle rickshaw. Amritsar rickshaws have neither hood nor grab handle (nor suspension), so they require a devil-may-care approach to life (and a good sense of balance) from the passenger. Check in to Hotel Shiraz (any connection with the grape variety must be coincidental. Sikhs are strictly TT). Spacious room, but gloomy. RB has the only room with on-street view and daylight - I try to negotiate a room with a view and am offered various alternatives, each worse than the previous, so after lugging my rucksack all round the hotel, end up back where I started. The hotel staff are very unsmiling; one of them looks and behaves like Mr Bean on a bad day.

Evening. Just back from a meal and first exploration of the old city - a maze of narrow streets round the Golden Temple complex. The streets are heaving, line upon line of pilgrims leaving their shoes and entering the temple. This is religion on an industrial scale. Decide to leave it until tomorrow.