Dirt around Gold - Amritsar

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After resting for so many days in McLeod Ganj, we decided it was time to move on and see some of India. We took the easy way and rented a jeep with a driver, to do the 200km 5 hours journey (yes... that's India) to Amritsar. Amritsar is the holiest city for the Sikh, the guys with the funny thing on their head (just kidding, they are nice people!) and the main site is the golden temple.
We arrived in the evening and decided to go to Laurence road, which is the modern part of town - relatively speaking of course. As it is in India, there were some very nice shops, elegant and some in western style, fancy Pizza Hut, and all that among market style shops and stalls and plenty of dirt and garbage. We went there on a rickshaw - real one carried by bicycle. The driver wanted all the money for himself so he was determined to take all 3 of us together. It was scary and funny together, with Daphna sitting in the middle and a bit to the back, holding me and Hadas that were half outside. It's a pity we don't have a picture of that!
The golden temple is a very popular destination, but you mainly see Indians there. I don't think they were all Sikh, because they didn't all have this turban on their head. I think many Indians come to see the place just like we did - as tourists. Anyway there were lots of people around, which is always very colorful in India - the women's dresses, the men's turbans, it's lovely.
In the temple you see the real pilgrims, kneeling down as they enter, some bathing in the water of the holy pool that surrounds the temple itself. It's very interesting to watch. On the other side, they found as very interesting as well. We got started at all the time, by men women and children, and sometimes women asked us to have a picture taken with us. In these cases we usually found ourselves surrounded by many people, all wanted to be in the picture with us!

Maybe our strongest Indian experience so far was the flags ceremony in the border of India-Pakistan, not far from Amritsar. The ceremony takes place every day at sunset, and is attended by hundreds or maybe thousands of people, that are totally excited. They dance, they cheer, they volunteer to run with a big Indian flag to the border - all this happens before the ceremony itself starts. We didn't see much of the ceremony - the crowd was too big, but we got to enjoy the funny costumes of the border control unit. Standing there in the crowd was tough, we sweat like hell, the smell was horrible, we didn't really understand why the people were so excited, but it was amazing and unforgettable.

On the way to Delhi we took the Shatabdi express train. This is the pride of Indian rail - a fancy train that does the 500km in about 6 hours. It's all air conditioned so we bought the cheaper tickets (still not very cheap for India). The coach looks old but the chairs are comfortable. We sit in one row together. As the train starts moving a waiter comes and gives us food. What is it, a plane? It was much better than a plane, the food was coming and coming and coming, and at least half was even edible! When we got tea, each person got a personal thermal bottle, nice... and after maybe 4 dishes, the desert arrived - ice cream. In short, it helped the hours go by quickly, and just before midnight we "landed" in the capital again - Delhi.

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Photos

The Golden Temple
The holiest Sikh temple

Worshiping Sikhs
Bathing in the "holy water", or kneeling in front of the temple

Excited Indians in the flag ceremony
So many people coming to cheer at the "closing of the border" ceremony

Border Control Police
Amazing uniform!

Colorful Indian women
in Amritsar and everywhere else