Amritsar

This weekend, Matthew, Beamesh and I took a trip to Amritsar. Amritsar is the capital of the state of Punjab. It is also the site of the Golden Temple which is the Sikh's holiest temple.

We took an overnight train which was an adventure. Because we booked the tickets late, we were in seats but we didn't have berths. Not a pleasant way to spend twelve hours on a train. (Although it still beats my 24 train trip from Dallas to San Antonio) However, Beamesh did some sort of Beamesh magic and got us into our own compartment.  

We found a hotel near the Temple and the center of the old city and went for breakfast where we randomly ran into one of Matthew's old friends. Robert (see below) and his friend David happened to walk into the restaurant where were having breakfast and Matthew recognized him. It was a "small world" moment.

Robert, Me, Beamesh, Matthew in front of the entrance to the Golden Temple.

Both men are either in their late sixties or early seventies. They've been traveling around India for the past two months. I hope I'm still that active when I'm their age.

David and Robert

Entrance to the Golden Temple

The temple itself is HUGE. There's a lake thing in the middle complete with fish.

And there's a big gilt building in the middle of the lake where the guru or holy book is kept. The line to see it was two hours long. Matthew and Beamesh wanted to see it, I was indifferent and when I saw the line, decided I'd rather sit in the shade and people watch.

I found a nice couple from New Zealand to take my picture.

A little note on picture taking, white people are a tourist attraction here. I lost track of how many people asked to take my picture. And no, in case you're wondering, it's not because they think I'm a celebrity. I think I am somewhere on par with a bug eyed alien... or one of those people that dress up in costume at Disneyworld. I mean, to be honest, if I saw ET walking down the street, I'd want to take a picture too. 

After that, Matthew went off to do something else and Beamesh and I and some other tourists boarded a four wheeled rickshaw and headed for the border. Well, that's what I thought we were doing anyway. 

We actually stopped at this other temple first. It's a Hindu temple but looks very similar to the Golden Temple but on a much smaller scale.

And it was much less crowded which meant I could stop and take some pictures of the interesting architecture.

Then we headed for the border. 

The border of Pakistan and India is about thirty km from Amritsar. Every night, they have a big closing ceremony. There are stadium seating on both sides and the guards on both sides put on quite a show.

Behind me is the gate into Pakistan

Most of the time I had no idea what was going on. I sat in the VIP/Foreigner section next to a German woman who spoke perfect English. So we commiserated in not knowing what the heck was going on. At one point, they lined up a bunch of women and girls from the audience and gave them Indian flags. Then the girls ran down to the gate and back.

This guy in white who looks like a yell leader, was acting like, well, a yell leader. He would throw his arms up and get the crowd all worked up.

Then the guards finally came out. I took some video but my pictures weren't so good. They did some very high kicks then they opened and closed the gate a couple of times. Then they lowered both the Pakistan and Indian flags. 

After we got back to the city, Beamesh and I met up with Matthew at a Dhaba and had excellent food.

The next day, we visited some more temples.

Yes, this is in fact a temple. You have to walk into the mouth of crocodile to see all the statues 

And then there's the ubiquitous giant monkey god statue.

It was getting pretty hot so we went to a mall. Dehradun is too small for a mall but Amritsar has a western style mall with lots of AC, sparkling clean shops, and an "Italian" pizza place. It also boasts a pretty impressive movie theater. For seven dollars I got to sit in a leather recliner and order popcorn from a waiter.

Matthew declined the movie so me and Beamesh watched a Hindi movie called English Vinglish. It's about an Indian woman who goes to America and takes an English class. I actually understood quite a bit of the Hindi but it helped that there was liberal English sprinkled throughout.

Beamesh and I then went to the cloth market and through serendipity stumbled onto this Sikh temple hidden way within the market. Maybe it's in a guidebook somewhere, but not that I've found. It was really just a big pool of water surrounded by a marble walkway.



It was serene and beautiful. You can't see them in this picture, but there were dozens of kites flying through the air. We sat and watched for a while until the lights started to come on as the sun set.

 

It was a peaceful end to the day. 

Except that wasn't really the end of the day. We still had to catch our train back to Dehradun. Both Matthew and I thought it left at 10:50. It didn't, it left at 10:15. So we thought it was strange that Beamesh seemed to be rushing us through dinner because we didn't realize and Beamesh didn't point out the fact that we were cutting it perilously close. Blame it on the language/communication gap. 

Long story short. We got to the station as the train was starting to  pull out. We jumped onto a moving train. It wasn't actually moving all that fast... but still... very exciting. You can't do that sort of thing on the Dart rail in Dallas. 

Tomorrow I leave for Delhi to see my American Hindi teacher Manju and hopefully Songjoo! It's the most unplanned trip I've ever taken in my life. I'm getting into Delhi at around 11:00 AM and I know I'll see Manju, but other than that, I have no idea what we'll be doing because Songjoo's not sure if her visa will allow her entry back into India. 

If Songjoo doesn't come, I may just hop a train to Darjeeling or maybe join Matthew in some trekking in the Himalayan foothills. Who knows?

Only God and the Indian government. That's the saying here in India, anyway.