Lahore

Simon writes:

We journeyed forth from the village of my former pedagogical employment with gladness in our hearts at the warm and friendly people we had met (and re-met) there. We then spent some time in the company of a bus conductor with an uncanny resemblance to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Actually, although he did blow his whistle unnecessarily fiercely, this comparison does him somewhat of a disservice: he was very nice to us about the storage of our oversize bags. Well. Done. Mate.

An Indian cooking course and a visit to the Dalai Lama's gaff were the main events of our brief stay in the backpacker-encrusted hangout of McLeodganj in Western Himachal Pradesh. His Holiness wasn't about unfortunately.

A couple more pointlessly noisy bus rides later and we arrived in Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs. These people have got this rather cool temple with a roof made out of pure gold in the middle of a lake.

The closing of the border between India and Pakistan is a spectator sport. Groups of frilly soldiers prance about like peacocks snorting, shouting and eyeballing each other while pumped-up patriots shout slogans and wave flags on either side of the gates. It's all rather bizarre, but very entertaining nonetheless.

We're now in Lahore awaiting tomorrow night's apparently legendary Sufi cultural feast that takes place every Thursday. I've got frikkin awesome pictures of the above but no way of uploading them at present. Curses!