Golden Temple & Food

27th June
Travelled 570kms from Jaisalmer on a very good army necessitated road yesterday and today will head to Amritsar and the Golden Temple. I didn't realize the Thar desert was as big. The whole day we travelled through dry arid country populated by camels, outposts and military bases. Suddenly, approaching Punjab State, irrigation starts and the desert is growing corn, millett and other crops. The Punjab is the bread basket of India and it is a pleasant change driving past irrigated greenery with trees lining the road including the ubiquitous eucalypts. They seem to be all over the world.
Maybe a good time to mention the food here in India now that we are almost leaving the country and have suffered no ill effects apart from Joan's 12 hour bout earlier in the month. We have had some delicious meals since we have been here, haven't really become tired of the curries etc as we have our own food in the van for a change and the restaurants seem to have a bigger variety of food than our last trip 6 years ago and definitely more than 31 years ago. The hygiene standards are better and filtered water as well as bottled water means less gut problems. Ordering in a restaurant often means choosing from 30-40 items often it's a case of experimenting which usually has an agreeable result. We met two English girls who had come from Australia, they had been in India for 2weeks and were still living off the food they had brought from Australia, the were too afraid to eat the local gear. We were tucking in to some samosas as they told us. What a shame to miss out on such an integral part of a country.
We've had a couple of glasses of Indian wine but haven't bothered most of the time, the most popular brand of Beer, Kingfisher', contains glycerol and tastes like shit. I have tried the odd other brand but with 8%+ alcohol they pack quite a knockout. Fortunately Fosters is brewed under licence here and has quite a foothold. At 5% they class it as a light beer. Joan finishes off her gin tonight as Pakistan and Iran are dry countries and I think I'll be having my last Fosters as well.
Tomorrow we cross into Pakistan. As the sun was setting we visited the Golden Temple her in Amritsar. The holiest of holies for the Sikh Religion. We remembered visiting it 31 years ago, it's still a very peaceful place and an amazing building. It was a pleasant break from the mayhem outside.
Next blog from Pakistan.