Amritsar

We have a relatively short flight out of Iran to Amritsar on a plane that's not even half full. When we get to the hotel (via our 3rd 'Oz Bus'), we are repatriated with Allen, Lisa & Rick who welcome us with a crate of Fosters. Although it's 3am, it's mid 20C's. Our first hotel in India isn't one of the best to be fair but, being India, the staff do their best to please when asked – eventually we get to move rooms as ours becomes a sweat box as the air con doesn't work (outside daytime temperature is over 40C). We get a room that's already been rejected by a couple of our fellow travellers – but as its actually better than ours we take it!
We ask for directions to the Golden Temple and they are pretty good – it is only 2km away, and the walk gives us a good reminder of what India is like. The colour, the dust, the chaotic traffic, the curiosity, the ready smiles, the 'where are you from, Ah England', but most of all – the NOISE. It's a full on experience to the senses straight away.
At the Golden Temple, there's a respite from the noise of the traffic and almost immediately we are the subject of many, many photographs. It is hot when we arrive and when walking in the sun, our footsteps get quicker on the hot marble floor in our bare feet. We later return to the Temple in the evening when it's slightly cooler and have the opportunity to go inside. As we enter, there's a significant number of people in the queue who are singing, which adds to the experience. For the evening visit we take our life in our hands and take a tuk, tuk. Helen takes a deep breath in at one point and quite possibly uses the f word as we narrowly miss a car blaring it's horn in the other direction – the driver just turns round and says 'very safe' and laughs whilst he is still travelling forward at what seems to be warp speed. As we hysterically laugh this only seems to encourage him to turn around and look at us more whilst he continues to plough ahead, tooting frantically as he goes and luckily with everything else clearing a path for us.
In the late afternoon, we take a trip to Wagah to see the closing of the border ceremony – it's almost five years since our previous trip and the procedure before hand has changed somewhat including segregated security checks for men and women. Thankfully David has his passport which gets him into the VIP area. When he shows his passport, and indicates to the rest of the group, they are also allowed through.
When we arrive to our seats, we cast our eye over to the Pakistan side, it's eerily empty – our original schedule would have seen us arriving in Pakistan instead of India on this day.
When the ceremony begins however, there's a sizeable crowd gathered to cheer Pakistan, and considering the number of us on the Indian side they match us cheer for cheer.
The MC for India side does a good job of stirring the crowd up though, and events begin with many of the female audience dancing in front of the gathered crowd – everyone is having a whale of a time. Then, there's an opportunity for some flag waving and running up and down the strip with flags to the gates of the border, before the ceremony begins for real. The ceremony is now update to include female soldiers, but it has to be said that it's the males who do the vocal marching orders and the silliest of the walks. The closing of the border ceremony remains one of the greatest pieces of theatre madness to witness, and has added enjoyment with the inclusion of the dancing and the running of the flags.