Monday, September 1, 2008

The Most Craziest Adventure of My Life!

This past weekend was the most adventurous and craziest weekend of my life. This weekend I went to go see the Golden Temple which is in a city called Amritsar, next to the Pakistan/India Border. Amritsar is a 8 hour train ride from Delhi. My train was supposed to leave at 7pm but did not leave until 9pm. So I ended up just crashing next to a poll waiting for my train to arrive. I played a Russian card game called "Durak" translation: "stupid" with my friends, and before I knew it a huge crowd started to form around us. Gawking at us. Finally the train gets there. The train station is pretty dirty. Big Fat rats roam the station. The bedding on the train was pretty legit though. At about 3AM, I wake up suddenly from my sleep, and hear a woman frantically, frighteningly screaming. I did not know what to expect at first, I thought maybe an animal got on the train, and then I look at this big guy across from me and he is scared shit less. Did not know what the hell was going on. She woke the whole train! Apparently a robber hopped on the train and tried to steal the woman's earrings and belongings. Her scream was probably more frightening than the event itself. So around 8am we are pulling up to the train station. And I look out the window and I see a dead body on the ground. There was a crowd around the dead body and a cop staring at it. There was blood everywhere and his arm was twisted in the complete wrong direction. I have never seen a dead body before. It was pretty crazy. This all happened before I even arrived at the place.



Fortunately the next phase on the trip went well. The Golden Temple is a sacred place for Sikhs to come and worship and cleanse themselves for whatever reason. Sikhs are the people who wear turbans. Everything was free. We stayed at the Golden Temple, I slept on a wooden bed, with a thin thin blanket. The food was free. Everyone was extremely generous and grateful. I even got a chance to help out by making Roti(a type of bread) and passed out food to people, and washed dishes. The Golden Temple was amazing too. The best part about it was when I actually got to bathe in the water. The water not gonna lie, is extremely dirty, coy fish swim in the water. Sikhs have been migrating from all parts of the world too bathe in that water for the past 400 years. I asked a Sikh what was the ritual, and so I had to dip myself completely under water ten times. It was an amazing experience. Just being in that water with other Indians over looking the lit up Golden Temple at about 2am was just surreal. That same day, I went to the Pakistan/India border where everyday the Soldiers of each country do this kinda ridiculous interesting ceremony. Huge Crowds form on each side, separately by a gate. Music was playing, people were dancing. Since we were foreigners I got the VIP pass and sat near the front. The Indian and Pakistani soldiers do this ceremony where it is pretty much a dance off, where they kick really high and yell extremely loud, as if to prove who is more macho. It was pretty interesting to see Pakistan, just 50 ft away from me, and look at the people separated by a gate and a Pakistani flag. But that whole experience was really awesome.



This is the final phase of the trip. The road home. So we took the train home, and it should be an 8 hour train ride. It ended up being 12 hours. I woke up that morning feeling kinda sick but not too bad. I ate breakfast and got on the train. I ate no food after that. Throughout the day I felt worse and worse. My muscles were aching. I couldn't open my eyes all the way. I was extremely dizzy. I had diarrhea. My stomach was a complete pain. I was counting the minutes, and couldn't wait to come home. Suddenly the train stops. And in India you never know whats going on, all you know is that it stopped you never know why or when its going to start running again. The constant response I get when I ask people what happened, people respond "It's India". The train for some reason I do not know why stopped for 3 hours. Two hours later I had an extreme fever, I felt dizzy and was shivering throughout my whole body. Then the Policeman on the train told me we still had 3 hours to go. I still had no food to eat, and I was in the middle of nowhere. Finally we arrived in Delhi, I was finally home. I asked to be taken to the hospital, where they hooked me up to an IV and gave me a couple of shots. Luckily within a couple of hours of laying there, I felt alot better. They gave me a shit load of pills and smiles and told me I can go home. For an IV, medicine, orange juice, emergency room fee, two water bottles, two random shots I have no idea what they put in me, was a total of 5 dollars. But luckily aside from that everything is great. Not as sick as I was yesterday, went to school, talked to my friends. Ill post up pictures on facebook. It was a great time!