From McLeod to Amritsar

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On Saturday the16th we packed our swags and boarded our 4wd taxi (seatbelts operational!) to Amritsar. This 6 hour drive was an experience in beeping and traffic weaving and it gave us great views of lots of little villages as we passed by. N.B. Indian drivers do not drive on one side of the road. They drive on both sides! At varying speeds, they beep the cars beside them to get them to move over and they beep oncoming traffic to get them to slow down. I had my eyes closed for a lot of it!

Amritsar, our final stop in India, is home to the awesome Golden Temple. This is a central place of worship for followers of the Sikh religion. Heaps of happy pilgrims from all over India and the world enjoy a family holiday here. This creates a festive atmosphere on the busy streets. In fact it was kind of like Christmas there with 2 of the 10 revered gurus celebrating birthdays. Inside the temple complex, the frenetic buzz of the streets gave way to an awed silence and an atmosphere of silent reflection. The golden temple itself sits in the centre of an “amrit” (sweet/sacred) pool of water and is surrounded by a rectangular perimeter of sacred buildings honouring the 10 gurus of the religion. Hauntingly beautiful chanting of the bible emanates from the temple 24 hours a day. One basic tenet of the Sikh religion is selfless service and instrumental to any” gurdwana” is the communal kitchen and dining room. Volunteers at this temple’s kitchen prepare and serve 80 000! meals a day to people of all religions. No-one goes hungry in Amritsar.

The next day we went from the sublime to the ridiculous, as we attended the border closing ceremony on the Indian /Pakistan border. The 2 country’s military personnel perform a march off at sunset everyday using an hilarious array of silly walks, stomping, high kicks and speed walking. Crowds from each country cheer from the grandstands on either side for their teams. Words don’t do this spectacle justice, but here’s a try....an absolutely crazy, funny and unbelievable event yielding unharnessed joy from the locals!

So finally now we are winging our way to Singapore and Penang for some R&R, before heading home next week. India has been a great ride and a feast for all the senses. We hope you have enjoyed our blogging and have been able to share some of the beauty, fun and chaos that is Mother India.

AnneX

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