Amritsar and The Golden Temple

It's 7:10 am and we are at the New Delhi train station waiting for the Shatabdi Express to leave for Amritsar. The train is to take 5 hours to travel North to Punjab. The train station is literally a maze of people even at this early hour.

Here we are walking across the walkway to the platform where our train awaits. . .
Here's the train . . .
Molly and I are relieved to be on the train where it is cooler than outside . . . it's actually nicer than we expected (Although, we traveled First Class A/C)!Here is our yummy breakfast of Corn Flakes, tea and a banana. We cannot eat the hot prepared food due to the cockroach problem on the trains. However, we only found one little guy running around, so that's not too bad. He would not hold still for the photo as we would have liked to document him in our travels--they are wily little guys!
And of course, here's Paul sleeping!
We arrive in Amritsar only 10 minutes late. Not too shabby. We stayed at Mrs. Bhandari's Guesthouse in the Cantonment area. It is very reminiscent of cottage life in Northern Michigan and Canada. And it only cost $50 USD . . . which we really loved! They put us up in the spacious den with three twin beds and a fireplace--it was rather nice.

Of course Paul claimed his bed first . . . What he did not know is that Molly's was closer to the split A/C, and much cooler at night. Of course it was even warmer in Amritsar when compared to the Delhi heat!

We grabbed a quick lunch consisting of sweet lassi, Amritsari fish (very spicy--finally!), murgh tikka malai, and naan. Then, we got dropped off at the Golden Temple.

Though, Amritsar is a bit of a hike, once we saw the Golden Temple we knew why it was worth the trip. We entered the gates, and washed our hands and feet, and covered our heads. It is very difficult to explain the spirituality that we felt as soon as we walked into the temple. It was simply amazing. The entire temple is maintained by volunteers. As we were walking down the pristine marble to the temple, a group of people took buckets and filled them with holy water to wash the marble while people were walking. Though this does not sound like anything out of the ordinary, it truly was beautiful to witness. To see such devotion from people to care for their place of worship.

Here Paul and I are standing before the temple in the afternoon sun . . .

We walked around the complex before exiting. Here is an example of Amritsari homes . . .

After leaving the temple, we walked to Jallianwala Bagh. This is the site of the massacre that took place in 1919 where over 300 people were shot to death and thousands were wounded. If anyone has seen the movie Ghandi, the scene that depicts the massacre takes place toward the end of the movie. Today, a monument has been erected as a memorial to the victims.

We are little hungry after we leave Jallianwala Bagh, so we find a sweet shop to purchase some samosas.

We decide to wander around the little lanes to shop for awhile before attending the closing ceremony at the Golden Temple. Molly finds a little shop selling some beautiful Pashmina stoles.

Still more time before the closing ceremony . . . we go to Crystal Restaurant for some masala chai and more murgh tikka malai! Yes, this has become our favorite Indian dish.

Here is the Golden Temple at night . . .

We walk around the perimeter and enter the temple as it is closing. Every night they perform the closing prayers and carry the holy book to this impressive sacred vessel to transport the book to the Akal Takht where it rests for the evening. This vessel is made out of gold, so you can imagine how heavy it is to carry.

Below is a video of the closing ceremony . . .

We take a rickshaw and arrive back at Mrs. Bhandari's . . .

Of course, the rickshaw driver wants to take a photo with Molly and Paul before leaving for the evening. He insists that Paul holds his sword . . .

Ah, yes, the firm Indian bed . . .

Up at 4 am, to catch our 5:10 am train back to Delhi. We wait 1 hour on the train not moving at all before we realize something is wrong.

Apparently, activists of the Sant Samaj, a conglomerate group of Sikh organizations, has organized a protest this morning, and our train (luckily) has not left the train station as they had blocked the tracks and would not let trains pass through to Delhi. See the headline below . . .

We left the train and met up with a nice woman who took us to the airport. This is important since the city shut down completely for this protest. It was very lucky that we had transportation to the airport. We wound up booking the last tickets on a Jet Airways flight from Amritsar to Delhi that afternoon.

Hungry and tired, Molly and I decide to eat some Pringles while waiting at the tiny airport. . .

And then I passed out . . .
A few minutes later we boarded the flight, and flew back to Delhi.