Saturday, Feb 12th 2005, 9:21pm

Today was pleasant - in fact the last two days have been very pleasant. Staying at the Golden Temple has been great. There's the Golden Temple, with all of its areas and charms - the langar hall (dining hall), the residence I'm staying in which is now packed with foreigners from all over the place, the green areas surrounding grounds, the temple itself in all its facets. Then there's the city wiht various temples and what-not to see. I've really just been taking it easy, reading lots, drinking a soda here and there, going for walks, eating, reading more, playing guitar... and I would continue to do such for a few more days except....

There are these three fellows, one from Austria who's driven over-land through whatever parts of Europe, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, and his two companions since Iran from Chezk Republic. Oh, and the little puppy he picked up before crossing the border into India. They seem a pretty neat bunch... The fellow from Austria has his Mac laptop (very nice indeed) with him, and is daily working on his web page done in Flash - very sweetly done. They're planning to head out of Amritsar tomorrow, swing through Agra, Rajasthan, and head for Diu, right on the ocean on the North-west coast of India. And, they've invited me along if I'd like... they've room for one more! I can't think of any good reason not to, so I expect I'll accept the invitation and go for a little adventure, and then of course return to the Punjab after that.

I've met ...maybe a half-dozen people in the last day who've traveled through places like Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and so other countries I don't know how to spell. Anyway, what I've heard from them has really piqued my interest, and I can't wait to set up for another trip, this time through those very countries, and more.

Yeah, staying in this dorm type situation at the temple has been a very nice surprise. Initially I thought that I would want to get a private place quite quickly, but my attitude has changed. There's guys and girls from all over, as I mentioned, Japan, China, Canada, Spain, France, Chezk Republic, Norway, Austria... and more. Stories are swapped, tea is served, conversations go, it's great!

Anyway, I don't really know what more to say at this point. I'm feeling pretty high spirited right now which is nice. I'm making a little progress in Panjabi. I think I've pretty much got down the Gurmuki alphabet pronunciation, and now I've just go to memorize all the consonants, work in the vowels, and on and on.. and on.. :) I'm up to thirty now in counting. Need to memorize more verbs. Today I bought some good stiff card-stock paper, or whatever you'd call it, to cut up into flash cards to aid the process. I'm starting to be able to read some words with references back to my alphabet chart, and thereby correct my own pronunciation... so that's cool.

Yeah, so that's it. More adventures! Weeeeeee....

dharma