Linda and I got up early to head out for our bus. We had to wake up the house keeper to let us out since we were locked in by the metal gate. We walked to our pre-paid taxi driver who was standing by a bon fire on the street waiting for us along with other drivers. We later found out that there was a public bus that we could have taken instead of a taxi.
We met a lady from Estonia, her name was Kristina. She is a public conference speaker. She goes around and speaks at conferences and does some kind of training seminars. She is 30 years old and was also going to Amritsar. She is headed for a Vipassana retreat outside of Dehli after Amritsar.
We ended up staying together the whole day.
At the bus stop we took a long time to figure out where we were suppose to stand and which bus to get on. It was dark, there were no signs. I have no idea how we figured out which one to get on that was right bus because people tend to nod their head and say yeah, yeah to everything regardless if they understood what is being communicated.
On the bus, Linda picked out wich bench we would sit on. She picked one by the open window that was broken and did not shut. It was very cold to have that cold wind blow for the next 6 plus hours. I sure was glad that I did not out smart myself by having light layers thinking I'd be hot. I was so cold that I tucked my head to hid from the bone chilling wind and curled forward leaning on the back of the seats in front of me. I was so cold my feet went numb, my stomach clinched from being so cold. All the cold made me very tired and later gave me indigestion in the evening. By the end of the night I felt so sick I wanted to throw up and had trouble walking. I ended up just laying down early at night and prayed for a quick healing.
When it was day break, the bus stopped somewhere and I asked for the toilet. I was shown the open filed. Well, it was day light and one one side of the field was the train tracks with open running trains moving by very slow and on the other were shack full of chai tea stall with holes through the planks. In between was a grassy field covered in glistening frost and a few tiny bushes. In truth it wasn't much of a coverage. I went for it anyways and hot steam came through.
