Before I tell you about Amritsar, I'd just like to congratulate Uncle Daz for adopting his first asian nephew. I'm sure he is happy about it as I'm openly calling him Uncle Daz because that's all i know him as through Danny.
We got on the train early morning and arrived at Amritsar in the afternoon. It was a seven hour journey and didn't give our Uncle enough time to acclimatize to India's hustle and bustle. We stayed at Lucky Guest House (300 rupees for 1 night), dropped our bags off and headed towards the golden temple. The Golden Temple is the main worship place for the Sikhs, where the first guru establish Sikhism and the book in which Sikhs live there life by. The best thing about going to the temple was that everything was free, the entry, no camera fees and they even gave free food and accommodation if needed. We had to cover our heads and so we did, but uncle Daz looked like Robin Hood in his orange bandanna. The Golden Temple is surrounded by water with a passage leading to it where all the pilgrims line up to visit and donate generously if they wanted. Every evening at 9.30 pm, there is a ceremony where they take the book back from the golden temple to it's resting place and they return it back to the golden temple at 2am. We didn't actually go to these ceremonies but i just thought I'd sound knowledgeable on the matter. After all this hard work walking around sightseeing, we treated ourselves to a Domino's pizza just to change things around.
The next day we had arranged to see the border ceremony that takes place every night at 4.45pm so we decided to see everything else before this. We visited the Sri Durgiana Temple, which is the famous hindu temple and we couldn't believe that it was a complete replica of the Sikh Golden Temple. The hindu temple is nicknamed as the silver temple but the only thing silver about it was the front doors but the temple itself was golden just like the original golden temple. We didn't hang about too long and decided to visit the Mata Temple , which women visit if they wish to get pregnant. I think Danny wanted to have a baby girl or something like that so we visited it for him. It was a cave temple and the route set out was something out of fun house with stairs leading to different rooms, getting on our hands and knees to get through a tunnel and walking through shin high water.
We got on the train early morning and arrived at Amritsar in the afternoon. It was a seven hour journey and didn't give our Uncle enough time to acclimatize to India's hustle and bustle. We stayed at Lucky Guest House (300 rupees for 1 night), dropped our bags off and headed towards the golden temple. The Golden Temple is the main worship place for the Sikhs, where the first guru establish Sikhism and the book in which Sikhs live there life by. The best thing about going to the temple was that everything was free, the entry, no camera fees and they even gave free food and accommodation if needed. We had to cover our heads and so we did, but uncle Daz looked like Robin Hood in his orange bandanna. The Golden Temple is surrounded by water with a passage leading to it where all the pilgrims line up to visit and donate generously if they wanted. Every evening at 9.30 pm, there is a ceremony where they take the book back from the golden temple to it's resting place and they return it back to the golden temple at 2am. We didn't actually go to these ceremonies but i just thought I'd sound knowledgeable on the matter. After all this hard work walking around sightseeing, we treated ourselves to a Domino's pizza just to change things around.
The next day we had arranged to see the border ceremony that takes place every night at 4.45pm so we decided to see everything else before this. We visited the Sri Durgiana Temple, which is the famous hindu temple and we couldn't believe that it was a complete replica of the Sikh Golden Temple. The hindu temple is nicknamed as the silver temple but the only thing silver about it was the front doors but the temple itself was golden just like the original golden temple. We didn't hang about too long and decided to visit the Mata Temple , which women visit if they wish to get pregnant. I think Danny wanted to have a baby girl or something like that so we visited it for him. It was a cave temple and the route set out was something out of fun house with stairs leading to different rooms, getting on our hands and knees to get through a tunnel and walking through shin high water.
Getting to Attari (the Pak/Indian border) was fun with the driver trying to squeeze loads of people in a small suzuki but due to us foreigners being big lads compared to the skinny arsed indians, we protested and got the car for just foreigners, which was just about ok. The border ceremony is when they close the border gates on either side every night. It was like a small stadium, where loads of people were sat cheering for their respective countries, mostly slagging each other off. The guards stamp towards each other, toying and teasing each other in angry styled marching, which got the crowd going. The tourists got the best seats so we had a good view of what was happening. It was important that I kept quiet because I was on the wrong side of the border and if they knew, they probably would jump me so i retained myself.
We have about another week left in India and because we are up in the north, near the Himalayas, train journeys are either non existent or restricted so most of our journeys will consist of crazy bus rides. We had to get the bus to Chandigarh at 8pm so the following morning we could get to Shimla. We've experienced the crazy bus rides before so the facial expressions on Uncle Daz when the driver were overtaking in blind spots and tucking in at the last minute were hilarious. We arrived at 1.30 am and found a hotel to stay at for the night but we had to get up at 8am to get onto our next bus so Happy Travels ey!!
Amritsar photo link:
http://www3.snapfish.in/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2059668011/a=2264773011_2264773011/
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