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Published: December 3rd 2014
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The memorial for the1919 massacre
A haven of peace in the middle of the city. On the bus to Chandigarh November 23, 2014
We picked the Jugaadus Eco hostel (see hostelworld and tripadvisor and contact direct to get the best price) because it was the number one of Trip Advisor and for once were not disappointed. As it is with most establishments it is the personality of the person running it which makes it special, in this case 'Baba' Sanjay Sodhi.
Sanjay was a 27 year old local who had got some capital doing IT jobs in Chandigarh, Bangalore and Amsterdam before travelling in Europe and India. He had opened the backpacker hostel five months previously because there were none in Amritsar.
Sanjay creates a community feel by using a system of donations rather than fixed prices. He also runs excellent tours and we participated in several. The best thing for me personally about his hostel is that he designed and made his own bunks so they are 2m long! They cook informal lunches and dinners and encourage others to contribute meals if they want. Sanjay is doing his best to encourage eco-friendly practices and was great at answering all your questions whether they were about Sikh
The minars at one end of the Golden Temple
The video screen displays the words of sacred scripts amplified across the complex from players singing in the temple practices and culture or recommendations for your next port of call.
The 5 star attraction in Amritsar is of course the Golden Temple, Sikh HQ. One of Sanjay's helper, Gerd (Sp?), led the evening tour. This was an excellent start for introducing us to Sikh religion and history. At the temple you give your shoes into the locker room and everyone covers their head with a scarf or turban. You walk through a shallow pool to clean your feet. Beyond the entrance is a shimmering lake with the Golden Temple in its midst like a magnificent Victorian pier. The 5th guru gave 75kg of gold to have it covered. There is a constant long line of pilgrims waiting to pray in front of the holy book which is kept in the temple by day and 'put to bed' in the Akal Takhat at night.
Core Sikh believes are equality and hospitality. There is no place just for men and the temple serves anywhere from 60,000 to over 100,000 meals a day to anyone who wants one. We were given a thali plate and sat in a line on the floor. Volunteers come with buckets
The Golden Temple
One of the great holy places in the world and serve you with bread, rice, dal and vegetable curries. The whole of the old city is vegetarian and strictly no alcohol.
After eating we went to the kitchen and volunteered briefly with chapati making. You have never seen cooking pots so big! All the food is donated and all the labour is voluntary.
You can also stay in the temple for free and preferably give a donation.
We walked around the pool and heard about the key areas and buildings. We watched the preparation of the 'sedan chair' that carries the sacred book to and from the temple. It has perfumed pillows and sheets because it is treated like a person.
We moved to outside the room where the book is kept overnight until being taken back to the temple at 5am. There is a cacophony of horn blowing and prayer singing preceding it. People line the path it is going to take and pick any bits of dirt or rubbish or dust off the carpet with their fingers so it will have a clean passage. A white duster cum fan is waved above it constantly to
ensure dust does not land on it. It is quite an astonishing spectacle of devotion.
We came out of the temple feeling we had witnessed something unique and very special.
The old town of Amritsar has been great to walk around on our own. Right in the middle of the old city is a peaceful garden called Jallianwala Bagh which commemorates those who died in the Amritsar massacre ordered by the British General Dyer using Gurka soldiers in 1919. To the North is a bustling bazaar of narrow streets.
The other stellar attraction in the area is the so called 'retreat' from the border made famous in the UK by Michael Palin's visit a few years ago. On the surface there is little that remains of the trauma caused by the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. Those who survived and were scared by the displacement are old now. It remains a tense border. There was a suicide bomb on the Pakistan side not far from where we were just recently so security was tight.
It is a bit like a simultaneous National pageant which has being
going on since the mid-sixties. Despite the impression of bravado and machismo it is closely orchestrated by both countries and ends with a hand shake. On either side of the border there are grandstands. There must of been two thousand people on the India side. VIPs are by the gate, foreigners get a sliver of the main grandstand nearest the VIPs and the rest are local tourists. It started with some popular dancing and kids with flags before the "border force" took over goose stepping to a live drum beat in their red peacock turbans with shouts of "Hindustan!" from the crowd. It felt like the vibe from the Pakistan side was different. It would be good to see 'the other side' at some point.
To get to the border some 35km from Amritsar we had shared a tuktuk with Marcel, a German doctor from Rostov, and Ben, a new graduate from Devon. They proved great company. Over lunch Marcel had regaled us with stories of hunting and eating water rats near Ankar Wat in Cambodia. Marcel was my height and the two of us had the same challenges negotiating a Hindu Mata temple dedicated to a
recent holy lady, Lal Devi, which turned out to be a maze of low passages and tunnels with mirrors and garish gods at every turn.
On our second day Sanjay took us with Marcel and Ben on a food tour around the city on foot. This was a great help and got us eating stuff we probably would have avoided on our own. I had a wet saffron sponge with a chilli on top. The most surprising dish was an ice cream with cold rice noodles. It was very good indeed.
Our final trip from Sanjay's repertoire was to visit the village of Khasa not far from the border. Marcel had left that morning for a wedding in Calcutta and others had arrived to join Ben and us, including an Italian touring India on a 650 trial bike. We were hosted at the village by the family of Jagroop Singh who gave us breakfast of pakora and where we met the local mayor. Our guide was Jawinder Singh (called me 'Jessie') whose joyfully approached really made the tour. First we all got to milk a buffalo. We had an impromptu Indian Bollywood style dance
lesson while waiting for chai and then took a ride in a buffalo cart to the nearby school. The young kids were very excited and sang nursery rhymes we could join in with.
I opted for a ride on the back of the motorbike to get our next destination a ploughed field for a game of Kabaddi. There are two teams barefoot in the dry dirt. One person from one team goes over the marked out line towards the other team and once he touches someone he has to get back over the line before that person rugby tackles him to the ground. All good fun even though I was the oldest by some distance. Jane took pictures!
The final stop was an embroidery workshop run to help employe unmarried girls. They were great fun and we all got to have a go. We also fitted in a couple of overs of cricket on the dusty area in from of the village crematorium stands. I push Ben forward as he had let slip he had played at county level as a schoolboy. I still managed to drop a catch!
I got
A cow in the centre of Amritsar
Yes, it is sitting in a pile of rubbish. This is India. to fulfil an ambition on the way home because Vicky, Sanjay's cousin, let me drive his tuktuk. It was struggle because my legs did not fit in the drivers compartment. I was also more used to motorbike controls rather than scooter gears which tuktuks are based on. He made sure I didn't crash.
So on your next India trip we recommend you put Amritsar on your itinerary and give Baba Sanjay in Jugaadus hostel a call when you get there.
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Michele Bell
non-member comment
Really enjoying your blog
Learning lots and am reading this from most recent to older. Looking forward to the rest and the great pics!