Rajastan to Amritsar.

Alright. I'm finally getting back to the blog, it's been too long since any posts. But I already said that was going to happen. In the past couple weeks I have been getting in more of a groove over here, I have been meeting more travelers, some over and over again as you inevitably do when you're on the tourist circuit. I have stayed healthy, with a mix of Indian, street and continental food. I have stayed away from the drink, except for one rough night with the whiskey. So things are going well right now.
Since the last time I checked in I have wound up my time in the deserts of the state of Rajastan. I visited the highly recommended town of Pushkar. I thought the place was OK, it is small and peaceful, situated right on a lake where Indians from all the local villages go pray and bathe. But there seemed to be a high amount of Hippies in this town, especially Israeli hippies. It's not that they are bad people, it's just when you visit this town as a person just stopping by for a couple days, it's hard to get in the flow and meet anyone. There were even hippie babies that had been born while their parents on permanent vacation. I did end up meeting a few nice people in this town, and it was a relaxed environment compared to some of the other larger cities in Rajastan. I enjoyed renting a motorcycle for the day and cruising around some of the outlying villages. It's a good, cheap way to see some of the sights besides just the streets selling hippie pants and shawls. The quality of bike isn't the highest though, I rented a bike twice, and each time I got a flat tire. Luckily there are bike mechanics everywhere, since it's the preferred mode of transport over here, so getting it patched up cost 20 rupees each time, or about 40 cents.
I decided to wind up my time in Rajastan with a quick one day dash trough the tourist heavy Jaipur. It's in the tourist triangle of Delhi and Agra, home of the Taj Majal. Usually I like to spend more than one day somewhere, but I figured I would hustle to see the sights, then move on. After almost 3 weeks in Rajastan, all the forts, palaces and temples that were all built by the Mughals about 500 years ago start to look the same. I know that sounds like the short attention spanned tourist, but I was in need of a change. So I hopped on a 7 hour bus to Delhi, then on to my 12 hour sleeper train out to Amritsar, which is 30km from the Pakistan Border. That's just how you roll in India, things move sloooow here, so when you want to get somewhere you have to commit to the travel, charge the ipod, get a new book and go with. And realize everything will be a little bit late.
Alright Amritsar, Tourists come here for one thing, It's called the Golden Temple. It is one of the most Spiritual places I have ever been. What it basically is, is a Sikh temple, where 40,000 people each day come and pray. It's open to all religion's and it's all free, if you want they will provide you with free accommodation and free food for up to 3 days. You can bathe in the holy water that surrounds the temple. The temple sits in the middle of the holy water and its said to have 1500 pounds of carved gold on it's exterior. I visited the temple 3 time for the experience. When you enter the temple, which is open 24 hours, there are 4 gurus singing and playing sitar music, the Sikhs are sitting all around the small area reading scriptures from small prayer books and giving large and small monetary donations to the gurus. The temple its self is very small, compared to the rest of the complex. It was definitially worth the long journey out to this city, even though the weather didn't cooperate. It poured all day, leaving the crowded, streets as a flooded, muddy mess, but that didn't stop the Sikh's from visiting the temple in amazing numbers.

I'll be updating very shortly.