High kicks and holey water

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Just back from a grand weekend in Amritsar.
We (Virginia, Nikheel, Surinder and I) set out just after 9am on Saturday, in a very heavy rain storm, hello monsoon! The driver thought he was Peter Brock, swerving past cows chewing their cud in the middle of the road, dogs wandering about with no respect for objects bigger than them and massive road slips… plus of course on coming traffic. After 6hrs 30mins on the road, we arrived in Amritsar a little worse for wear, checked into our hotel and within 15mins we were racing for the Pakistan / Indian boarder, Wagah Boarder. I seriously didn’t think the van we were in could reach 95kms per hour, it did. The driver was tooting like a man possessed. We didn’t really know what to expect at the boarded, apart from what we had read in the LP, a box called ‘Boarder Bravado’. I’d have to say it was one of the most exhilarating performances I have ever seen!

There were grand stands on either side of the road leading up to the Pakistan / India gates. The crowd, which must have been well over a couple of 1000 was held back, women on one side men on the other. At 5.30pm the women were allowed to make their way to the stand, after much jostling we got to the stand. Us westerners where allowed to sit in the VIP stand with the best view. The men then can in; they ran, shoved, pushed … rather a scary site and very pleased us girls got to go first. It was a complete party atmosphere. There was even a crowd hyper getting the 1000s of people screaming for India, chanting and clapping madly. It was great to see such patriotism. There were hardly any folk on the Pakistan side. Then the ‘hyper’ started the flag running, two people ran up the road to the gates waving the India flag and ran back … the crowd absolutely loved it and so did I. The Pakistanis then got there flag out and started running up and down on their side, however there was only one person doing this, not randoms from the crowd and certainly no women. Then the dancing started, women ran down from the crowd and were busting moves on the road, and even some men (who looked like demented chickens) were getting involved… carnival! It all got serious around 6.30pm when the soldiers came out. We could see them warming up behind the main building for a good 20mins and thank goodness they did, they could have caused themselves a nasty injury otherwise. When they did their high kicks they were lucky not too knock themselves out. They paraded and goose stepped up and down the road to the delight of the ecstatic crowds, the Pakistani soldiers doing the same on the other side. I have never seen such a quick march in all my life, it was almost comical. There was about 30mins of this, then they swung the gates open and really eye balled each other and proceeded to take the flags down. The gates shut and that was that.

After that spectacle we headed to the Golden Temple in the heart of Amritsar. It was stunning, the entire complex was marble and the Golden Temple its self was in the middle of a pool with a bridge leading to it. Again there were many people and always so colourful. We walked clockwise around the pond, stopping for a free dinner in the community dinning hall. We sat on the floor with all the locals and ate chapattis, lentils and beans; to my surprise it was rather tasty. They were cooking for over 30,000 people per day, I have never seen such giant pots, I am sure you could have boiled an entire cow in those pots if you wished. We continued around to the temple and waited in queue to enter to see the Guru Granth Sahib, or Holey Book. It is a highly spiritual place to Sikhs, and to be honest I didn’t feel completely comfortable being a tourist in the temple, although everyone was extremely welcoming. After visiting we all sat watching the temple in the moonlight pond side for around 1hr waiting for the closing ceremony. Even with thousands of people it was still very calming and serene. At 10.30pm they moved the Holey Book ceremoniously to another building, I love the sound of the horn to signal it was moving. We all collapsed into bed around 11.30, and were back up at 4am to see the opening ceremony, moving the Holey Book back to the temple. The sunrise was not spectacular as there were too many clouds however it was still great to see the changing colours of the temple and complex, got a bit snap happy. We retired back to the hotel and set out again at 9am. The Sikh museum was very interesting - especially the pictures of how the temple looked after the Indian Govt attacked in 1984 when extremist took control, near destroyed one end. Mid morning it was then time to take a dip in the ‘Pool of Nectar’, which is similar to a blessing. I went with Shurinda to the ladies area, stripped off to my knickers and jumped in, trying not to slip on the marble. I got in up to neck level and splashed water on my face, all rather exciting.

It was another long 6hrs to get back to Palampur. I am starting to wonder if the road will be there in 2 weeks time when I finish the Programme, in some places half the road has been washed away in the rains.

Photos

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