About Amritsar: Amritsar is the Capital of the state of Pubjab. It is also the spiritual and physical home of Sikhism as it holds the Harmandir Sahib or the Golden Temple. This temple attracts more visitors than the Taj Mahal at 100,000 on a weekday alone.
As getting around in the himalaya is difficult due to lack of trains and as it is low season tourist wise we struggled to work out a good way to get from Mcleoud Ganj to Amritsar, a 5-7 hour journey down into the flatlands. The two options were either get a 3am taxi down to Dharamsala to then catch the 4am public bus to Amritsar, or hire a 4000RP (£40) taxi between the two of us. Laziness, safety worries and the fact we’d had a few relatively cheap days pushed us to choose the taxi.
Arriving into the exceedingly hectic Amritsar we had to find some accommodation. All the good places were completely booked up so we greatly regretted not booking in advance as we ended up staying in a dodgy hotel. The temple does provide free accommodation for pilgrims and tourists in huge dorms located around the complex which would have been a great experience. However, we thought it safer to pay the £3 each for a hotel.
For me, Amritsar itself offered little charm. A very big, very dirty city. It didn’t help that for some reason they had decided to reconstruct the whole Main Street up to the most popular Sikh temple in the world all at once. Imagine an active building site that thousands of people, motorbikes, scooters, rickshaws, cows and dogs all need to pass through. On top of this we struggled to find somewhere trustworthy to eat, with us being bacteria/parasite anxious due to our ongoing illness.
However, on entering the Golden Temple all these issues seemed irrelevant. Having studied sikhism in high school and University I’d always been fond of the religion, it’s history and some of it’s messages. It was founded in the 16th century by Guru Nanak who was then succeeded by ten gurus, the last of which decreed that after him the only guru would be a book containing all the previous teachings. This book is the Guru Granth Sahib, it is considered to be the living guru and is therefore treated with the same respect any human guru would be. It even has its own bedroom.
The temple was originally built by the fifth guru, Guru Arjan, as a place of worship for all men and women from all religions to come and worship. It has a large square outer building with a grand gate on each side, this contains a holy tank where the golden building from which the temple gets its name sits like an island.
The golden building houses the living guru in the day time, so we queued along the ajoining bridge to see it. Squashed in with all the pilgrims we were the only non-Indians slowly shuffling towards the golden structure, acquiring looks of intrigue and listening to the crowd sing along to Granthi reciting verses from the Guru Granth Sahib.
Visiting religious places as a non-religious individual obviously doesn’t hold any spiritual value but the value it does hold is a fascinating insight into our fellow humans. As we got closer to the living guru the atmosphere was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Considering some people can only make this pilgrimage a few times in their life it felt like an honour to be able to be amongst this fascinating aspect of life for Sikhs. The crowd was more compact than a rush hour London tube carriage, however unlike a rush hour London tube carriage it was enjoyable. People were desperately reaching through railings just to touch the doorstep into the room, you could see tears running down the cheeks of those leaving their meeting with the guru.
Afterwards we visited the Langar, the community kitchen that is a key feature of any Gurdwara. The food served in the kitchen is completely free and all diners sit together in lines on the floor regardless of religion, caste or creed. It is a great symbol of Sikh values. Considering this Langar serves 100,000 people a day and the food is cooked in giant spaceship like pans it was one of the best meals we’ve had in India. The staff and volunteers walk the lines insisting you have more Dahl or chucking you a fresh chapati. We got a lot of interest as we tried to eat with our hands like the locals do.
Naturally, there’s lots of pots to be washed so afterwards we went to the giant shelter where this is done. About 10 huge troughs filled the room lined by voluntary pot washers. Men and women wash separately, so we split up and tried to find a gap. The lovely folk made gaps for us, the ladies kitting me out with the necessary sponge and soap. Every time a giant barrel load of trays came in there was a commotion as everyone was very keen to get washing. A lady from another trough kept handing me dishes when we were waiting, like when a child wants to do adult jobs so you give them something to keep them busy, and I loved it. Forty five minutes later covered in water, soap and bits of discarded rice we left feeling absolutely thrilled. Who said washing pots was a chore!
We got the standard attention of people wanting photos, here’s Finlay and I with our pals;
Another noticeable thing was that people were so welcoming and very proud to speak about their religion and intrigued by our presence.
We also visited the Wagah Border ceremony as Amritsar is only a 45 minute drive to the border with Pakistan. It is an exceptional display of one-upsmanship by the Indian and Pakistan border police centred around lowering the flag at the end of the day. The stands were full to the brim with patriotic Indians, flags painted on their faces singing along to Bhangra hits, including my fave Jai Ho. We were quite hilariously segregated with all other white people to a VIP area, less crowded but less atmospheric and very bizarre. They encouraged all women to come and run up to the border bearing the flag in a procession that seemed to hint ‘look how free and liberal our women are’ to the more conservative Islamic side. The critical parts of us trying not to recall the great inequality between the sexes here. We may have read too deeply into this though.
samaste 
great post
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