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Rishikesh to Amritsar
Sion and Niki Amritsar is very much like any other Indian city; hot, dry, dusty, dirty, and has lots of Indians in it. It is also home to the Golden Temple, Sikhisms holiest site, and the only guy in Punjab who owns a pair of shoes that came all the way from Sydney, i'll explain in a second.
We arrived from Haridwar by train after leaving Rishikesh, perhaps a little too early, we only spent three days there and think we should have spent more. It was our first Shatabdi express train, these are faster than the sleepers we usually catch, and they travel during the day, you get a recliner seat and air-conditioning, but they certainly cost a little more, about three times the cost of normal train. We got into Amritsar late, about eleven, missing our chance to eat dinner because the restaurants were all closing, so, like the health conscious little travellers we are, we bought a bottle of Whiskey instead, and retired to our room for the night. The next morning we headed off for the Golden Temple, carefully stepping over the sleeping body of a drunken Indian guy whom hadn't made it more than 30cm from the
bottleshop counter before collapsing in a pool of his own sweat and booze, at least we got to our room. We decided that we would make it our mission to take the opportunity whilst we were in Punjab, the land of the Sikhs, to nab ourselves a couple of good ol' fashioned turbans, so we took a detour through the bazaars asking anybody in a turban where we could get one, finally settling at a fabric shop run by an ageing and wise looking Mr. Singh, and chose some colours. His sons then set about demonstrating the art, and it is an art, of wrapping over four metres, sometimes more, of cotton around ones head, doing mine first, and slowly, so Niki could watch and learn how to re-create it, and then NIkis, while i watched. Once they had finished after some squabbling over style and standards of turban donning, the father nodded in approval of us, "you look like real Punjabi man and woman, very beautiful...very Punjabi" he said with a smile and a wiggle of his head. After checking that it wasn't offensive for us to wear our turbans in public, they said it wasn't, we headed off
for the temple. The turbans went down a real treat, the broad smiles, the amused stares, the laughing children indicated that we were quite the novelty, i guess you don't see many white people wearing turbans in the middle fo India, well anywhere for that matter. I for one think they should be incorparated into western fashion, they're comfortable, trendy, and colourful, they double as a helmet when riding a bike, or engaging in sword fights, or a bedsheet at night. You can wrap it around you like a blanket if you're cold, or a towel if you're wet. If you don't have a pillow, it is comfortable b'neath your head. It keeps the hair out of your eyes, and the wind our of your hair, and at 2 dollars a piece, you can afford to have one for every day of the week and a different colour to match every outfit. Yet, for some reason I doubt that they will ever catch on. Pity. Anyway, we made our way to the Golden Temple, in turbans, which was handy because one has to cover ones head in order to get in, so we didn't have any problems, we slipped our
shoes off at the entrance and left them with a small pile of sandals and thongs, washed our feet in the small dipping pool about a metre wide by 3m long, WHICH PEOPLE WERE DRINKING FROM (gross...foot water!!!) and entered the complex. The Temple is beautiful, positioned in the middle of sacred pool of nectar or Amrit Sarovar (Amrit Sarovar/Amritsar? This is where the name comes from if you were wondering) it is a two storey marble construction topped with a golden dome (aparently gilded with 750kg of pure gold), representing an inverted lotus flower, which symbolises Sikhism's concern with the problems of the world. We walked around the parkarma walkway, deciding to skip the hours long wait to enter the darbar sahib, too a few photos, and then went back out to get our shoes. As we neared the fence where we had left our shoes, I noticed that amidst the pile of assorted foot coverings, mine were not plainly in sight, and upon closer inspection, were not even discreetly in sight. "Some cunts stolen my shoes" i thought, as i began scanning the crowd to see who it might have been, quickly realising that this was pointless, and
Sikh guard at the Golden Temple
This was the guy who was guarding my shoesthe offender would have absconded soon after the crime, although also naively holding onto the unlikely possibilty that i was the victim of some scam where my shoes would suddenly and miraculously be found by a passer-by who would offer to return them for a nominal fee, no such luck, they were gone. So, there i was, jeans rolled up to my knees (so they didn't get wet), turban on, and shoeless, my feet scalding on the scorching hot concrete of Indian streets, and a little unsure of what to do next. Niki managed to get a rickshaw, and convinced me of the futility of sticking around any longer, my shoes weren't comnig back, and we headed back to the hotel, but not before the rickshaw driver decided that he didn't want to push us up a nearby hill, making us get out and walk, with no concern for the well-being of my feet on that hot, hot ground. I bought a new pair of shoes later that day, with the assistance of the hotel owner, whom i assume got a healthy commission out of the deal, then we jumped on another train to Pathankot, headed for Dharmsala and McLeod
Ganj, the temporary home (since 1959) of the Dalai Lama and his exiled government, nestled in the foothills (anywhere else in the world and once you get to 2000m they stop calling them hills and start calling them mountains, but up here there's too many to start giving them all names) of the Indian Himalaya. See you then. I'm lying actually, we're already here, it's awesome.
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Dad/Kev
non-member comment
No shoes
I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.