The 1000 Day Holiday

Went out for beers/dinner in Amritsar after the border closing ceremony. You have to be a few blocks away from the temple before you are allowed to smoke or drink.

So we found a resturant which would allow us to have beer. But this indian guy who appeared from next door said to come have a beer in the bar next door.

Thinking he worked there(he didnt), we agreed. He was very in your face/personal bubble. but seemed to be a jovial chap. After a strong beer he started being a bit much. So we said our goodbyes and headed back to the resturant.

not less than 5mins later he and his buddies turned up in the resturant, and tried to take our order, and get comission for bringing us there. It was rather embarrasing as he was quite drunk and loud. Fortunately he finally got the message and left, and the resturant staff managed to understand our hand signals.

Cheapest meal we have had. 150 rupees for 4 people. and it was excellent. We then walked around looking for a bar.

we ran into Suringar a rickshaw driver who had excellent english. When he found out where I was from he said wait there and ran off to his rickshaw saying he had something he needed help with.

I was figuring he had some NZ coins that he wanted to exchange for rupees. But he came back with a couple of letters from kiwis who he had helped out when they visited. He had letters to write back to them, but cant write in english, so he dictated and I wrote for him. It was really cool.

John and Jessica got seperated from Allan and myself and ended up in a locals house at 1am having mango and drinks. The whole family was up, even the kids.

I think Ive been close to having a proposal for marriage 2 different times.

The whole family would approach, and the girl asked:

1. Where are you from
2. Whats your name
3. date of birth (for starsign I think)
4. occupation
5. income
6. married
7. Girlfriend
8. would you consider marrying in india…

All this while the mother looks on with great interest. And then every where I walked, the girl would magically already be there. Quite funny!

And then theres posing for photos with whole families or random indians. With film cameras! What they do with the pics I dont know. Maybe theres an FHM like magazine which has a contest for getting a pic with the weirdest tourist you can find. We have seen guys use almost a whole roll of film just with our group!