Golden Temple

The latest trip took us to the town of Amritsar in northwest India, close to the Pakistan border. The reason for the visit was the famous Golden Temple. The Muslims trek to their holy land of Mecca, while Sikhs make the trip to Amritsar to visit this temple. The unique thing about the Golden Temple is that everyone is welcome no matter your race, religion, or sex. To top it all off, everything there is free. You can check shoes, luggage, enter the temple, eat and find a bed to sleep in all for free. It was one of the most incredible well oiled machines i've ever seen.

Ganges River at sunset as we leave Rishikesh for the train to Amritsar

We met a nice Irish lad, Mossy, who gave us the idea for the trip

Golden Temple

After you check your shoes and bag outside of the outer walls you walk in and see the temple surrounded by an small lake. The Sikh's come here to bath in the holy water. Also inside the temple grounds is a large kitchen and cafeteria, where it is said they feed anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 people a day their free meal. This setup really blew me away. You walk through the line and are handed a plate and head up stairs into a large hall. Everyone sits on the floor in rows of about 100 people. Then men come speeding by and ladle dal, rice and curry onto your plate. This takes them about 2 minutes to serve the entire row. You can also ask for second helpings if you are still hungry. The whole process takes about 10 minutes before men come through and clean up any mess left in a similar rapid fashion. After you eat your food, you go out a door on the opposite end and hand over your dirty dishes and go on your way. All the staff are volunteers taking turns preparing vegetables, washing dishes, and serving food.

The accommodations were also free. There was a separate tourist room, which was basic dorm style. Then there were fancier rooms for rent. All the Indian's who were staying for free were given mats, blankets and slept shoulder to shoulder covering the entire courtyard. Pretty amazing.

The other attraction of Amritsar is the border "celebration". Pakistan and India have there differences and this "ceremony" is a good hint that there is competition between the two nations.

If you walk more than 10 ft outside of the Golden Temple you are asked repeatedly by 50 different touts if you want to go to the border celebration. So no problem in finding a ride there. You are packed like cattle into a shared mini-van taxi and driven about an hour and a half to the Pakistan border. After exiting the van you go through multiple pat down security checkpoints which reminded me of going through airport security. You can't even bring in your water bottle in. You are then directed into large concrete bleachers, with divisions for foreigners, women and Indian men.

In my opinion the ceremony was hilarious. There were dance parties, silly border guards with crazy marching, a cheerleading coach type person, and a raucous crowd. This ceremony happens everyday at sunset, lasts about an hour and a half, and seems to exacerbate the two countries animosity for each other. Here is a YouTube video that is pretty good at capturing the atmosphere. See below for some pics

Silly border guard costume

These men were responsible for the marching and taking down of the flags. They also seemed to have a shouting contest with the Pakistani border guards.

Dance party before the gates were closed

The crowd would go crazy

A man that reminded me of a PE coach, in his full white jumpsuit, would lead the crowd in cheers. Which was timed to drown out the cheers of the Pakistan side.

Loyal Hindustani woman

To say the least the ceremony was a unique experience and I would recommend anyone going to Northwest India to take a trip to Amritsar to at least stay at the Golden Temple, and if you're in the mood for an over the top cultural experience, check out the border ceremony as well.