The lodging was rudimentary, but the price was right (Free-ninety-free). The beds were wooden planks with thin mats over them. It made for a long night, but it was a great experience. After our restless night in the bowels of a pilgrim horde we got up and went into the Golden temple complex. The temple is one of the most amazing places in the world. The golden Temple is the holiest place on earth for the Sikhs, and as far as Indian temple's go it's not hard to see why, the temple is just amazing. 
It is surrounded by a huge lake, and that is surrounded by a white marble courtyard all around the temple. The entire area is covered with pilgrims from all different religions, but the Sikhs especially are reverent and kind all around Amritsar. It was raining most of that day so some of the really neat places we were able to go we did not take pictures of. 
One of the other place we went to was the silver temple, this temple is the Hindu version of the Golden temple and looks very very similar. They call it the Silver temple because of the solid silver doors that adorn its marbled halls. The silver temple is much smaller than the golden temple and is much less impressive, but it was interesting to see the differences between Hindu and Sikh priorities.
After the silver temple we went to another temple in Amritsar known as the Cave Temple. The cave temple is a shrine for a lady that died in the 1970's and is supposed to be like a patron saint of fertility. So basically if your a young lady and you need to have a baby you go to the Cave Temple. 
The temple is interesting, it is not really adorned with precious things like most of the temples, it is mosiaced with glass and mirror, giving it the appearance of a fun house. Also, there are portions were you have to get on your hands and knees and crawl, there is even a part were you have to wade through some water, giving it the artificial appearance of a cave. We are not sure what the symbolism of the cave theme is, but it was funny any way you look at it. Probably the most peculiar thing we did on our trip was attend the border ceremony at the pakistan-india border in Wagah. So every single night, just outside of this small town you find a ceremony at the only official border crossing from india to pakistan. The ceremony basically consists of a whole bunch of people gathering at either side of the border, for about an hour they play music and people dance and cheer. Then at about 6:30 they start the official program where in soldiers in huge fin looking hats march around and yell a lot.But that's not the best part, after marching around and yelling, the soldiers march towards the gates of the other country and then the Indian Soldiers and the
Pakistani soldiers have a march off. That's right, the soldiers try to outdo one another by stamping and kicking high in the air. The whole time the crowds are just going nuts and the competition is fierce. After their little march fight, they shake hands and close the gates. Then they lower the flags at the same time and that's that. Afterwords the crowds converge on the soldiers to get signatures and pictures. It is seriously like a sporting event, and we have never seen anything like it. All in all it was a great trip with a lot of neat things to see and do, but the best was probably just the beauty of the Golden temple and the amazing Sikhs all around that were so nice and so reverent.
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