From this point everything went smoothly. Jasdip’s father, Mr. Harjit Singh is taking excellent care of me. He arranged a room in the very comfortable University Guest House. I grabbed an auto-rickshaw to the University. I had barely reached my room, when tea arrived to revive me. One could get used to this… Next, Harjit arrived at spent some time talking and helping me get oriented in the city.
I spent most of my first day at the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikh faith. It is easily the most amazing man-made structure I’ve seen. It is not very large, but it is very beautiful. It sits in the middle of a large pool of water, in which people bathe. From a distance the gold is dazzling. Then after making your way through the crush of people, you get a close up view of the interior. Everywhere you look there is fine detail, colors, patterns, fescos and small mirrors. After visiting the temple, I went and at there at the Langar (free meal offered to all who come, regardless of faith).

My next step was to start eating at dhabas (small, simple road-side eateries). Before I left, Jasdip told me that these were his favorite place to eat. I have to agree. The food is simple, usually dal (lentils), sabzi (vegetables) and roti (flat bread). I have found the food in fancier restaurants much too rich. Here I started with Aloo Paratha (potato filled flat bread), piping hot off the griddle. I particularly like the dhabas here in Amritsar, because they all have tandoori ovens, and the roti are delicious.
Hands down the best food I’ve had here was home cooked food. I was invited to lunch by Punjabi friends in Mussoorie. The mother made ‘makki ki roti’ (thick corn flatbread) and mustard greens.
As I write this, I have arrived in Dharamsala, which is overrun with westerners. For this reason, many restaurants serve western food. I have avoided these for the most part, but did have some good lasagne last night, and I have been eyeing some quiche.
I have heard that most people who visit India have a great time, and lose lots of weight. So far, I’ve been gaining weight. Maybe I need to do some hiking to work off all this food.

We sat on the platform with an older man who was waiting for his wife to arrive on the train. With him was his neighbor, who didn’t want him to come to the station alone, since “Delhi is not safe at night”. The man had just spent two months in Los Gatos, California, and we had a good talk. Actually he saw more of California in those two months, than I did in ten years.
We arrived in Amritsar at around noon on Tuesday, and took a room in a hotel near the old city. After stuffing ourselves with Naan at a Dhaba next door, we took a cycle-rickshaw to Jallianwala Bagh. From there we walked to the Golden Temple. Even though I knew what to expect, it was still as impressive as on my first visit. Sarah was struck by the clean gold and white marble which shone in the bright sunlight, and by the humility of the Sikh pilgrims coming to worship. Again we both felt welcomed.
From there we visited a chai stall I had gone to on my first visit. The Chaiwalla remembered me, and asked lots of questions about my trip. We were soon joined by a group of locals who listened in and discussed what Sarah and I said. After chai we wandered the narrow back alleys of Amritsar.
The next morning we headed to the train station. After taking langar (in this case tea and sweet toast) with the richshaw-wallas outside the station, we boarded our train to Pathankot. Sitting in our section were three travelling salesmen, with whom we chatted. At one point, one of them (an older Sikh man who sold auto parts) asked if we could sing. I said that Sarah could. After some encouragement she began to sing a Hind movie song (“Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”), and all three of the men joined in. Afterwards Sarah said to the same man, “you have a good voice, you should sing us a song.” He first went to the end of the car to practice, and then came back and sang a song for us. Just a typical day with travelling salesmen.