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Published: November 29th 2009
At the crack of dawn the two of us hauled ourselves from our bed and began the next phase of our India trip. A quick 2 minute walk saw us at New Delhi train station - a bustling 24 hour station with half the population of India rushing from platform to platform. Because India has such a good train system the railway is an interesting place as people from all walks of life - from rich to poor - use the network. For some reason we had first class tickets which meant our journey was a lot more luxurious than our usual forms of travel.
As it was a morning train we knew that we would be served some kind of breakfast. In other countries train food has been pretty average, however for its first class passengers Indian rail manages to whip up about 5 different courses. First there was tea (in an individual tea pot for every passenger) and biscuits, followed by cornflakes and milk, toast, a hot meal of peas, chips and some kind of vege thing, followed by fruit and more tea, all served by uniformed attendants! Outside the windows the scenery grew progressively drier as we
got nearer too Amritsar, whilst around cities and towns it was common to see a lot of rundown buildings and slum style homes beside the tracks.
Our accommodation in Amritsar was about 10km’s from the city itself, so we were picked up at the station and driven out into the countryside (past Walmart…yes Walmart!). We are staying at the farmhouse of a couchsurfing member named Mr. Singh; however ‘farmhouse’ really is an understatement. The property is about 12 acres of farmland centred around a 300 year old haveli which can only really be described as a luxurious fort with 3 meter walls surrounding hotel like bedrooms and a central pool. Our bedroom is one of the original rooms so it is about 300 years old and quite dark, however it is HUGE and lavishly furnished and the old brick walls would keep it nice and cool in the hot summers.
Mr. Singh allows 12 Nepalese to live in and operate a small restaurant for free in exchange for them maintaining the property. The ‘farmhouse’ also comes equipped with 13 horses, a bunch of cows and a few other members of the animal kingdom including of course a token
cat (called Money) for the crazy-cat-lady Bianca. We met a nice lady, Rishma, at the farm who seems to be the manager/local chatterbox and almost immediately she took us to her village all the while chattering away to us with neither party understanding anything the other was saying. She took us to her house inside the village and introduced us to her daughters in law and their brood of grandchildren and ordered another to prepare us chai over an open fire. After more incomprehensible chatting and laughing she took us to her bedroom and played us some Punjabi music DVDs while sitting on her bed. The village is only 11km from Amritsar, but you get the impression that the people never really leave the village. They live very simple lives, and everyone we met was lovely and friendly and we were trailed by a group of children who eventually built up the courage to demand we take their photos. When we agreed they would all line up very solemnly at attention with straight faces until we encouraged them to adopt some crazier poses.
We spent the first evening trading stories with another couchsurfer who was staying on the farm
named David from Switzerland. He had spent the last few months riding over 7300 km’s on a push bike from his home all the way to India via countries such as Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Mr. Singh came out to the farm after his shop closed at about 9 (he sells shoes wholesale to shoe shops in the city and seems to do very well) and chatted with us and David. He told us about Amritsar and the Sikh’s and life in general in the area and then proved that he could tie a turban on my head in less than 2 minutes (a turban consists of over 5 metres of fabric).
The next day was our first true day in Amritsar city itself so, after admiring the calf that had been born out the back overnight, we walked out to the main road and hopped on a shared rickshaw for 5 rupees each (a whopping 12 cents for the 10km journey). We walked in the vague direction of the Golden Temple and each bought a scarf to cover our heads (which is compulsory to enter the temple). The Golden Temple itself is the holiest site for the Sikh’s.
After you have covered your head and remove your shoes and socks and wash your feet you enter an enormous rectangular compound of white almost colonial looking buildings and are greeted with the site of a huge rectangular lake with the gold temple in the centre. Thousands of Sikh pilgrims come to the temple each day and there is a very relaxed atmosphere, much like Shewadegon Pagoda in Burma. You join a massive line of people to cross a bridge out to the temple itself which is intricately decorated inside and out. Inside is the original Sikh holy book which is read out continuously on loud (Bose) speakers. The entire complex is run by teams of volunteers who guard (literally with spears and swords), clean and maintain the facilities. There is also an enormous kitchen and dining hall that prepares food non-stop for free for everybody and anybody like a giant machine. You collect a metal plate and cup at the entrance and then take your place on the floor and then men and women with buckets come around with a variety of curries and bread. Once a line of people has finished eating a man on a miniature street-sweeper
cart drives down the line sweeping up slopped curry and crumbs and the process begins again for the next batch of hungry pilgrims. Outside of the eating hall are hundreds of men and women either washing plates and cutlery or chopping onions and garlic out the front. From the temple we next walked to the martyr’s garden which is where soldiers from the British army opened fire on protesting Sikh’s back in 1919 and there are still bullet marks on the walls. The British officer that ordered the shots to be fired was later murdered in England by a Sikh as retaliation for the massacre.
After the temple and the garden we made our way to Mr. Singh’s shop. He has a four story building packed full of shoe boxes. He only sells cheap shoes ranging between $2 and $4. Once there we sat and chatted for a while before he got his wife to come and meet us and to take Bianca shopping. She took us by car (chauffeur driven of course) to a fabric market where Bianca bought material to get two salwar kameez (Indian outfits) tailored. On the way out Mrs. Singh organized for Bianca’s hands
to get Henna-erised. The two artists who did one hand each could paint the designs amazingly fast and two hands only took about 10 or 15 minutes for about $1.20. Apparently it is traditional to have your name written somewhere in the henna design so Bianca spelt out her name for the artist...Indian’s seem to have trouble hearing the letter ‘B’ and somehow one of the ‘a’s got left out as well so Bianca’s new name (which is written on her hand for at least the next 10 days) is ‘Pinca’. After the market we went back to the Singh’s house for tea and snacks and they invited their ‘daughter/neighbour’ over who was our age and spoke rapid-fire English until it was time to head back to the farm followed by some chicken soup and then bed.
The following day we had organised to be picked up by a tuk tuk and driven to Wagah where the Pakistan/Indian land border crossing is located. By day the border is a simple land crossing point, but at about 4.30 traffic is stopped on both sides and thousands of Indians and tourists fill grandstand seats for the nightly show. Essentially what happens
after this is two nuclear powers compete to see who has the biggest balls. Soldiers on both sides wear elaborate uniforms and perform ridiculous drill movements involving stomping, yelling and kicks so high they almost knock themselves out. For 30 or so minutes the soldiers march up and down yelling whilst the Indian audience yells out ‘Hindustan Hindustan’ and girls dance. Eventually the border gates on both sides are wrenched open and two officers salute, shake hands and the flags of both countries are lowered simultaneously and the show is over. It was interesting to note that the Indian side had several thousand people in attendance whilst on the Pakistani side there was only a handful of supporters and a lot of empty seats. Security is heavy at the border - aside from the performing guards there were plenty of real armed soldiers including one with a sniper rifle perched nearby and a lot of barbed wire.
We were due to head to Rishikesh for three days however we changed our plans and stayed in Amritsar for 3 more days before having to head back to Delhi to fly to Nepal. For those three days we did a whole
lot of...nothing! We read a lot of books, talked to other couchsurfers and walked around the city. On his day off Mr. Singh took Bianca and I plus two other couch surfers for a tour of the city. This wasn’t any old tour; this was Mr. Singh’s wacky Amritsar adventure tours. We started out first taking another route from his farm to the main road, passing a lot of fields being cultivated and ended up at a dairy he sells his milk to. Here we had thick sweet lassi’s with a big dollop of curd and some cheese which was pretty nice. Our next surprise stop was to Mr. Singh’s best friends shop near the centre of Amritsar. It turns out this shop was a gun store and we were shown some of the guns for sale, but then to our surprise they took us out the back with a loaded pistol and a pump action shotgun and said ‘ok shoot’...’but shoot what!?!’ we asked, ‘anything just shoot at the brick wall’...’hmm ok’. So for the next few minutes we emptied bullets into a brick wall out the back - in the middle of the city!! To make the experience
all the more surreal, whilst shooting we were listening to a young man talk about Sikh history, in particular about Operation Bluestar in which the Golden Temple compound was stormed by Indian troops and a lot of Sikh’s were killed. The next stop on our tour was for food - I have no idea what it was called but basically the cook takes a piece of dough and throws it into a huge wok of oil, the dough then fills with air and expands to the size of a small soccer ball. You then rip chunks out of it and dip it with curry and onions - its good.
Amritsar ended up being like a relaxing holiday within a holiday. We enjoyed hanging around the quiet of the farm and having a bit of a refuge from the hustle and bustle of Indian cities. Most nights we had the company of Mr. Singh and various other couch surfers, as well as some Indian travellers and we would sit around a fire outside and chat
Scott and Pinca
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Sally
non-member comment
Pinca is a way cooler name than Bianca anyway...