Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 ISBN 978-0993210716
The following morning, Al decided to visit the Golden Temple. It was already very hot, approaching a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Keith was not feeling so well so decided to stay in the room and sleep.
As Al approached one of the Temple entrances, he spotted Miriam. They greeted each other with a quick and discreet hug and walked together towards the entrance. It was free to go inside.
They had to take their sandals off and wash their feet in a small pool of water.. Then they had to cover their heads – scarves were provided for free: there had been street hawkers outside trying to sell scarves but Al did not buy – at that stage he did not know that he had to wear a head covering.
Al took me off his head and put me into his shoulder bag. By this time I had built up such a level of telepathic contact with Al that I was still able to see what he saw:
Inside the complex, Al saw an incredible marble and golden building set out in the middle of an artificial lake joined by a walkway to the surrounding wide marble pavement and beyond that, white buildings. There were individual and small groups of Sikhs walking around the complex.
The upper part of this ornate rectangular marble structure was covered in gold.
As soon as Al's feet touched the marble pavement he regretted it. Now about 100 degrees, the marble was almost unbearably hot. There was little shade, little relief. He headed for the water in the lake, sat on the edge and put his feet into the cooling water – Miriam did the same.
Within minutes they were approached by a Sikh wearing a bright orange djellabah’s over white trousers and an orange turban.
“Mister and Madam, I am sorry, but please take feet out of holy water.”
Al and Miriam immediately removed their feet from the water, the Sikh said thank you and walked off.
Al said “I thought people bathed in this, I thought it was supposed to purify, like the Ganges.”
“Maybe we should just jump in and immerse ourselves,” said Miriam.
“Could do,” laughed Al, “It's so bloody hot my feet are burning. Oops I forgot, not supposed to swear either!”
The two of them stayed for a couple of hours, just chatting quietly and feeling the good feeling. They went back to their separate rooms.
That evening, Al decided to go to find the room where the food was provided, Keith saying that he would join him later.
The large dining room was packed with hundreds of people. Miriam was in the massive hall and sat with a bearded young man. As Al approached, Miriam motioned to him to go and sit with them. She had kept two places for him and Keith. Everyone was sitting on cushions on the floor with cloths laid out in front. Some people were already eating.
Al said hello. He learned that the man, called Sher, was in fact a Sikh who was living as a student in Germany but his home was in India, in Amritsar. Sher told Al that although here he wore a turban over his long hair, when in Germany he took off the turban and let his hair lose like Al's, saying that he seemed to get better treatment there as a hippy rather than a Sikh.
It wasn't long before food arrived. That evening they ate dahl, rice, chapatti and yoghurt with sweet Indian sweets and cool water. All lovely vegetarian food.
Miriam said “I've got us a lift to Delhi if you want to come.”
“Yes, I'm into that,” said Al.
“Sher's father is a mango merchant and tomorrow he will take us to taste his mangoes and then take us to a man that will get us a lift on a truck through the night.”
“That's far out,” said Al. “I wonder how long that will take, it's about two hundred and fifty miles, I think. Keith's going to try to sneak on a train without paying but I don't fancy that. I was wondering about hitching a lift.”
Miriam told Al that after she had left Herat, she went direct to Kabul and stayed there two weeks. She must have been there for a least some of the days that Al and Keith had been. She said she had been to Chicken Street and Sigis and had even played her guitar and sang there. But she had stayed on the outskirts. Then she had met up with some Canadian friends who had been driving overland from Europe in a Land Rover. Miriam had travelled with them across the Khyber Pass and down to Lahore. They were staying in a city close to Lahore, and when the border was open and they completed the formalities and repairs to their vehicle, they would drive through to Delhi and then up to Kathmandu in Nepal. Miriam was to meet them in Delhi and go with them to Nepal.
Al and Miriam left Sher having agreed that his father would meet them in that same place the next afternoon; they strolled around the streets for an hour or so, chatting. Al told Miriam the story of getting the boiled eggs in Kabul and she laughed for a long time.
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