11pm: arrive in Amritsar, exhausted from a day of travel.

12am: make it to the Golden Temple, put my shoes and bag away, get a mandatory head-covering, wash my feet, go inside. Everyone’s just sleeping all over the place. So I do too. The floor is hard, but it’s peaceful! Ah, no need to worry about some guesthouse; I can just get some sleep.

1:10am: “Your eyeglasses, you should be careful, someone might steal them. And watch your pockets too.”

1:15am: “Wake up! We have to wash the floor. Here, take a bucket, you can join and enjoy the work. If you feel bad, don’t do. Take and enjoy!” (two minutes pass, in which 50 other people and I wash the floor by throwing buckets of water everywhere) “There! You have taken two buckets. Did you enjoy? Where are you from? Ah, America. There, everyone is businessman, working for money.” (I think to protest, but before I can get a word in:) “In America, you will not find like this.” (True enough.) “Would you like a cup of tea?”

4:30am: “Wake up! (something in Punjabi)” I notice a sizable, but kind of sputtering and dumb, fireworks display. Why are there fireworks? “Oh, it is not fireworks. Sometimes when the wires get rubbed off and are too close together there are sparks.” At this point there are prayers in full swing, but I find some other people sleeping and figure I can still join them.

5:30am: I am awakened once again. Now at least it’s dawn. I figure that’s as good as it’s going to get. A nice fellow about my age named Lakhwend befriends me. He was thrown out of his house for wanting to marry a New Zealand girl. He has literally the clothes on his back. He makes a few bucks teaching English (he is Indian, but his English is fluent); last week, his wages were stolen by a pickpocket. Dang. I find out he was the one that warned me.

6:00am: we get tea and some kind of corn chip things; as free as the place to sleep.

8:00am: I get a meal of rice, dal, and chapatis; also free.

9:00am: I check out the inside of the temple. The Guru Granth Sahib, the holiest Sikh book is there! (I think.) I am given a sweet mashed snack at the end.

10:00am: I contact a couchsurfer named Narinderjit. He owns an awesome farm guesthouse that he lets couchsurfers stay at. There are two swimming pools. I nap, swim, wash clothes, and relax the rest of the day.