14-Sep-2004 -- This is the 15th out of 29 confluences on our tour from Germany to China, the story continues from 31N 74E.

On the twenty-fourth day of our tour we started at 8:45 a.m. in Amritsar. The holy city of the Sikhs was one of our best experiences of the whole tour. The atmosphere at the Golden Temple in Amritsar can never be described with words. Although it's crowded there, it is peaceful in a sacred ambiance. Nobody is allowed to bring shoes inside (I was not even allowed to carry them in a bag-pack) so it is very clean.

At that day we planned to reach New Delhi. On our way to our destination from Amritsar, we turned off the main road at the city of Ludhiana on a small side road towards north-east. The first 5 km of the road was covered with potholes, but the remaining 16 km were pretty smooth on a single-lane sealed road. As we got further from Ludihana, the area became less populated. We went through pretty forests and saw a pheasant crossing the road in front of us. At the distance of 2 km we passed through a village called Bootgarth. Approaching the confluence, we saw the big river Sutlej coming up in front of us. It looked like the confluence point would be in the water, but as we got closer it became clear that the point was at the riverside. Two hundred meters before reaching the waterfront, the road turned away in an easterly direction. We parked the car near that curve and had just 200 m to go. On a footpath we reached the CP very easily. The actual point is in the middle of a rice field, which was not harvested at the time. We decided that it's not worth to destroy any crops for a zero reading and shot the pictures at a remaining distance of 52 m. This was one of the most beautiful confluence points I have seen: butterflies and flowers all around and the big river being just a stone throw away.

After the visit we went back to Ludihana and continued our trip to New Delhi. It was an exhausting drive and I don't recommend driving your own car through that traffic. Especially approaching New Delhi I, as a European, faced many totally new traffic experiences. That day I blew the horn more often than I had during all my life before!

CP visit details:

• Time at the CP: 12:02 a.m.
• Duration: 1.5 h (until we were back on our route)
• Distance of car parking: 200 m
• GPS height: 245 m
• Description: In a rice field on alluvial soil, totally flat area, the large river Sutlej nearby
• Given Name: The Butterfly Confluence

Story continues at 26N 78E.