Amritsar

 

 

We are off to Amritsar 200km from Dharamsala

 

 

. The first thing you notice about this place is the number of military bases on the outskirts. This evening we head to watch the Wagah border closing ceremony at the Indo-Pakistan Border, which is an hour away the the city. This is an entertaining ceremony, watched by hundreds of visitors, where guards from each side try to outshine each other with their elaborate posturing. It takes place each day at sunset and the ceremony concludes with a firm handshake and the lowering of flags on both sides of the border. 

 

 

We stay the night at the Holiday Inn and next morning visit to the spectacular Golden Temple, the holiest of all Sikh shrines. This fascinating temple complex is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in north India. The gleaming central shrine seems to float at the end of a causeway jutting out into the Amrit Sarovar tank. The tank is claimed to have healing properties and thousands of pilgrims flock here daily to bathe in these holy waters, we decided to abstain from this activity, but we did visit the central shrine, for some reason they allowed us to bypass the hundreds of pilgrims waiting patiently to get to the shrine. The people here are so kind and generous with their time and actions.

 



 

We spent a wondrous hour looking around the huge kitchens where they provide free meals every day, an amazing forty to fifty thousand meals are served here a day, all done by volunteers and donations.



 

The tour also included a visit to Jalianwala Bagh, site of the infamous Amritsar massacre of 1919, today it is a national monument surrounded by gardens. The topiary shapes of soldiers shooting rifles is a grim reminder of what the British did here hits you hard in the gut, especially after experiencing the goodness of people at the temple.

 With the usual efficiency we were dropped off at the train station then put on the train ( Shatbadi Express again) back to Delhi. Met a man on the train who knew our guide in Shimla, both were actors and had worked together, in a country this big we thought that was an incredible coincidence!