To Charity and to Holy Bathing

After the retreat, McLeod Ganj looked empty. The tourist high season had passed, and the mountain air was growing crispy and cold. I was the only customer in my guest house, and the restaurants were empty. Even JJI Café lacked the buzz it once had. It was time to move on. One month had passed since I walked up this mountain for the first time, and tomorrow I would take a bus at 5 AM to my next destination, the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The bus peeled down the mountainside in the darkness, picking people up at random places, and even stopping for a much-needed chai break. A one-legged man sat next to me, practically on my lap. I tried to sleep, but as the bus rumbled, leaned, and chugged its way down I resigned myself to staring blankly out the window. It is commonly said that to leave Dharamsala is to go out into India again. By the time we reached Pathankot, India was staring me in the face, with all its choking traffic, determined beggars, curious eyes, sights and god-awful smells. It took only a few hours and one spontaneous change of bus tires to reach Amritsar. When the bus turned the corner onto Amritsars main street, a bunch of touts boarded the bus at the corner and surrounded me and the two British fellows behind me. They babbled at us furiously about guest houses, rickshaws, taxis, crowding each other out as they competed for our attention. They were so close I couldnt even stand up. I looked behind me and the Brits were completely blockaded. There must have been fifteen of them. The bus pulled into the station and we shoved our way off. They didnt let up. One was missing an arm, another had a huge goiter sticking out of his neck. They followed us as we got our bags, and kept at it as we walked through the parking lot to the rickshaw stand. One of them got to haggling with the Brits, who finally gave an exasperated OK to the offer. The pack scattered instantly, and every one of the touts disappeared as quickly as they arrived. (Theres a good India tourist trick for you.) Amritsar is the home of the Golden Temple, one of the must-see sites in India. You can eat and sleep there for free, chat up the friendly Sikhs who make the pilgrimage from all over the world, bathe in the holy waters, and thoroughly enjoy yourself. The adjoining Sikh martyr museum is a bit, well, horrifying, full of paintings (and a few photos) of slaughter and death, bodies being sawn in half, etc., so if you want to leave your fine impression of the Sikhs tremendous hospitality unspoiled, Id recommend skipping that part. We also partook in one of the stranger rituals Ive seen, the famous India-Pakistan border closing ceremony in nearby Attari. At the sole land crossing between the two nations sits a kind of stadium where spectators from both sides can watch Indian and Pakistani soldiers stomp, march, kick, and growl at each other, all in the name of nationalism. The ceremony ensures the national flags on either side of the border are lowered at days end at the exact same time, and at the exact same pace. Presumably the temptation to keep ones flag higher than the other sides is how the ceremony arose in the first place. This elaborate spectacle takes place daily, and is followed by a handshake between spectators on either side. I stampeded my way to the front of the line and stuck my hand into Pakistan, but nobody grabbed it. We also visited a strange Hindu temple that was more like an amusement park. It was full of teenagers, and no parents. Touring the temple involved climbing, crawling, trudging through knee-high water, and entering ominous passages shaped like lion and snake mouths. A couple of garrulous kids followed us around to practice their English. We were certain they would beg us at the end, but they just left with a simple goodbye English people! My tolerance for Punjabi hospitality has its limits, though. Shortly before leaving Amritsar on the train to Delhi, while I was looking in a shop, a transvestite, the first Id seen in India, wearing a sari and a healthy five-oclock shadow, tapped me on the shoulder, muttered a few sweet nothings, and then began caressing my face. With his left hand.