Little filler for the golden carp

Little extra update today (8th of January), as it has been raining all day. We're just waiting around without haste, wasting our time to get our bus to Ludhiana in the early evening.

Yesterday late in the evening I went to the golden temple on my own as there was some nice religious music bouncing from the outer speakers. Pity that Maarten didn't come along, so I once again got myself in some unexpected situation. We hadn't been in the small golden temple itself, so on this last night I wanted to see it at last gasp chance as something was going on in there. I peered inside and a ceremony with the main guru was taking place. An elderly Sikh man ushered me gently inside, though I felt ashamed for invading in this ceremony while not being pilgrim like all other people around me. The guru and his helping men were chanting recitals from holy Sikh papers and on a sudden moment every pilgrim started singing along. The guru then held a package upon his head and walked outside the temple with a lot of the pilgrims on his trail, wiping tears away from their faces. Tears of enlightenment, one person told me. There's only one marble lane that connects the temple to the land from this artificial man made holy lake so I followed behind. Pilgrims were carrying a golden cabinet, taking turns for it and all offering themselves. I just wanted to get past so not to be a nuisance to the pilgrims. Several men pushed me upfront in the queue, as being the token tourist you can bet that they want to give you the honor to help them. The golden cabinet was actually carrying the old gray guru, lying on plush pillows, who was waving with his white fur stick. A pilgrim stepped made place and a barrier of the cabinet put upon my shoulder so I was part of the walking machine of 20 or so men. Quite heavy! For 30 seconds I carried his holiness in his human transportation box until I got relieved by an eager and happy pilgrims. Sure deal, it's yours to take and carry. At the end of the marble lane I got sanctified sweetened dough put in the open palms of my hands. I couldn't eat more after the heavy dinner we had before, so I sat down at the lake and dropped little balls of dough into the water for the fishes. A golden carp surfaced -which brings luck if you spot one, a Sikh said- and accepted the holy food with pleasure.

Oh yeah, Maarten has added the *new year gunshot video* in the post of Jan. 1st.

some pics of Punjabi train rides


the Sutlej river, one of the 5 flows from the Indus