mountain country

Continuing our mostly unintentional tour of religions in India, we made a brief stop in Amritsar, home of the Sikh Golden Temple. It is said to hold 750kg of gold, and is built in the middle of a large pool, accessible by a narrow causeway. We went at dawn, which was an interesting time to be there - beautiful light and a lot of people doing their morning prayers.

We also made a trip to the border between India and Pakistan, which is about an hour by car from Amritsar. At sunset, there is a big flag ceremony that draws spectators on both sides and involves a lot of patriotic chants, songs, and guards marching around high-stepping and saluting, each side trying to outdo the other. It was actually quite disturbing to see, especially when it was all over and a bus traveling from Delhi to Lahore passed through the crowd, reminding me that these people all used to live in the same country - not without conflict, but still the same country.

After a six- turned seven hour bus ride into the mountains, we are now happily in Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan govt in exile, stunning mountains and cleaner air. It rained and thundered yesterday and spit a bit of snow last night, but today we have deep blue skies and lots of things to explore. It's cold here - people don't really heat things - so even though it's in the 30s outside, everybody just layers up. Sarah and I have been wearing roughly the same max-layered look for awhile now.