Nathalie said that I would never admit it, but here 'tis, I got a good dose of Delhi belly. It takes the gloss off ones' journey if the focus is where is the next available convenience. The wind whistling up ones' wahoo as one squats at the train toilet is fun.... At least you can't SEE directly onto the rails as was the case in Sri Lanka. As I write this I think things have settled down, but I think it will be bland food for the next few days.
Amritsar and more particularly the Golden Temple, is the holiest place in the world for the Sikh community....so it's lots of turbaned and bearded, regal looking Sikhs, and the colour of choice for some reason is safety orange.
Risked a trip on a local tuk-tuk for an hour and the driver didn't quite understand that we just wanted to orient ourselves,and have a look....the highlight was a stop at Mindar Mata lal Devi Levi or National Mother temple....it was build by a female devotee, and the crowd was huge....not uncommon in India....it was different......best summed up as a "Disneyesque" journey through about 400 metres of crocked stairs, low ceilings, bells to rings, crawl spaces, water hazards, and each new area has a diorama, or statute of one of the Hindu deities.
The Golden Temple. There are no cars/ taxis within about 1/2 a km, so out of the car and began our walk....there were of course the cyclo drivers who wanted to take the lazy westerners to the temple, but we walked...assailed by a tout giving away (for a gratuity) head scarves, who told me I could not wear my hat...the temerity of the temple telling me I could not wear 'the hat'. Anyway ten rupees later we were set...lovely safety orange head scarf, and it was on...
From the outside it looks much like an enormous marble railway station,
Once inside, the enormity of the crowd became more apparent, a rough estimate would be 193, 432 (give or take 50 thou). There is a sacred pool about the size of the MCG and in the middle is the Golden temple, with real gold, about 750 kgs of it. Seeing the tens of thousands of people waiting to enter the GT, we decided discretion was the better part of valour, and the BSC was heading towards 7.5 and we did a lap if the pool instead. There were thousands of men wearing their ceremonial Kirpan (a dagger, one of the 5 Ks of Sikhism ) and many with fully fledged, clearly old and traditional swords.
This man was peparing to do a sacred dance, using the big sword.
There were some pretty ordinary sights too, because of the sacred nature of the waters, many of the men stripped down to tunic 'undies' to immerse themselves in the healing waters. The women had bathing boxes.
The Temple provides food,water and a milk drink to al pilgrims, and the pilgrims can also sleep within the grounds of the Temple if they have no hotel. It is a wonderful example of volunteerism, and I am sure if I was not on BSC 8 by this stage, we may have eaten there too.
Being the only obviously white people we saw whilst we were at the temple, at least ten families asked if they could have their photos taken with us. They were delightfully polite, and really loved the uniqueness of the site folk. When an American Indian(an Indian who has gone to live in America, not a Native American! ) watched three families have their photo taken with us, he suggested we could make a fortune...not quite in the spirit of the place though. Nathalie was more popular...must be a blonde thing.
Where's 'Wally' and who's wearing Andrew's scarf...eh?
If it is possible to be so, the traffic at the point of exclusion zone around the Temple, was more bezerk than other places we have seen. The traffic police, backed up by the state police kept moving the traffic on by blowing their whistles, yelling and belting the backs of cars with long sticks they carry.
Now that's and idea I could float back in Melbourne.
We have mentioned the BSC a few times bore well it stands for the Bristol Stool Scale attached note it only goes up to seven.
Cut short the proposed further touristy things for a return to the Hotel, to enable abc to do a bit of recovering.
Finally caught up with Avi, who is Suyras friend in Amritsar. He has organised an awful lot for us here and he took us out, first for a look at a shopping centre that was like Chadstone on speed and steroids, and then out for a dinner...which NJC reports and being delightful. ABC still being cautious.
Avi is doing his MBA with hopes of completing his studies in Australia.
His only fear is the image that Indians have of Australia as a racist nation picking on Indian students...the media has a lot to answer for.
Some advice from Aunt Wendy never travel without stoppers and starters! Elle swears by this little piece of wisdom and i'm sure passes it on to all her travelling clients. :))
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