Happy Diwali

...or Dipawali as it is called in Amritsar.

After a bit of a hassle getting away from our tenacious carpet selling houseboat hosts we escaped from the drizzle and cold of Srinigar fairly disenchanted with Kashmir and the Kashmiri people. Our last night there involved an evening of looking at our hosts carpets, shawls, ponchos etc and kindly selecting which items we would like as a trade for some of our goods which we had already shown them. As the time to haggle came around we made it very clear that no money would be changing hands - only possessions. The father was getting more and more infuriated as he kept saying 'Okay only 1000 Rupees' and then pretend the deal was over, finally he stormed out as his sons told him he didn't understand what he was doing and agreed to our trade. The souring of already strained relations wasn't made any better by a night of listening the constant wailing and moaning of the the Muslims as they yelled at poor Allah all night while he was on his annual vacation (final Friday of Ramadan) down to the first sky where he could hear their whinging.

After going through several bag scans, checks and full body searches we finally boarded our plane to Jammu - the 2nd largest city in the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) region of India. Less than 30 minutes later we landed in Jammu, a journey which would otherwise have taken us 10 hours in a bumpy bus through treacherous landslide prone terrain (a pair of Germans we met here in Amritsar had a rock fall on their jeep from Srinigar to Jammu - and whom are only a couple of very few other travellers we have met in this part of the world - the path is beaten but no-one is walking it at the moment).

The night in Jammu was Diwali festival, and Heather celebrated by vomiting up the spinach from dinner the previous evening and everything ingested since then - explains why she had such a stomach ache the whole time, my usually sensitive gut didn't have any effects from the stuff though, phew.

While Heather rested I took rickshaws about the place in Jammu and assessed our options for getting to Amritsar - an early bus or a mid-afternoon train with no certainty with seats - we took the train option and after some confusion about queues, classes, platforms and carriages (pretty much every step in the process) we seated ourselves in a pretty comfortable spot with a nice breeze blowing through the bars (windows). Snoozing, reading Indian Cosmo, chatting to an Indian Geography professor about the Australian economy and eating chips took up the very short five hour journey to Amritsar - heartland of Sikhs and venue for the Amritsar massacre where British troops slaughtered nearly 2000 innocent men and children during a peaceful protest - many dying as they leapt into the now famous well to flee the torrent of bullets.

Amritsar station was crowded but with a friendly atmosphere we haven't come across yet, maybe it was partly because of the friendly Sikh chap on the train who entrusted us with 10 rupee to donate to the Golden Temple for him, or maybe it was the cycle-rickshaw man who only asked 20 rupee for a mammoth effort of riding us and our heavy packs across town to the Golden Temple - not even attempting to inflate the price - so we paid him nearly $2 instead of 70 cents - aren't we generous (ha).

The faces of the Sikh men seem more open, gentle and trustworthy for some reason - bigger eyes perhaps? A cool spell (note: freezing cold snap in the North that we have just left) in Amritsar gives us a nice cool 25 degree day to explore the town and visit the Attari border closing ceremony with Pakistan - a daily event of bravado and pomp that draws thousands of spectators.

I am desperate to spend a day in Bhutan and we are looking at our options for getting to Darjeeling as quickly as possible after we have seen the Taj Mahal just south of Delhi. Running out of time and there is still so much to see.

photos of Kashmir here.