I had informed the rickshaw driver to take us to a spot which was very close to the golden temple. Once we got off, he wanted to charge us much more than what it should've been. Shani got in an argument with the rickshaw driver and the tourist police got involved. Turned out the rickshaw driver was in the right, so we paid him.
The next step was looking for a hotel to stay. A random guy started following us to show us a room for a "good price". Everywhere we went, he kept on following us. We told him to stop following us several times, but he kept on following us. Finally, Shani got so frustrated, he threatened the guy. It worked! We were able to stay at a nice place specifically made for N.R.I (Non-Resident Indian). They were ok with Gin because she was my wife. No other people could stay there - even Indian Indians. At least, that guaranteed peace and cleanliness. It was the cheapest and cleanest place we'd stayed so far.
After we freshened up, we headed out for the golden temple. People from all faiths are welcome as long as they cover their heads and take off their shoes. It was a very beautiful place and you could feel the spiritual energy. We hung out there for a very long time, but decided not to go inside the main area because it was very crowded. Besides, we were very hungry by this time.
We decided to try the food in the "bhandar", a communal feeding area where the temple serves about 50,000 people free food everyday for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It was by far the most amazing temple experience I've had in my life. About every 15 minutes a flock of new people come in and eat. The food is very simple, but extremely delicious. Dal (lentils), rice, a subgee (vegetable), and chapati (flat bread). They even had a desert, ciro (made from clarified butter, flour, sugar, and maybe some more stuff I don't know about). After the lunch, they also provide tea. Not the best tea in the world, but it's more like a "prasad" (food that was offered to God, which in turn, is distributed to people to eat).
Everyday there are hundred of people that volunteer at the Bhandar. People that help cleaning dishes, serving food, making the food, etc. While we were going for some tea, an old gentleman saw us and directed us where the tea was being distributed. After we had the tea in our metal cups, he started chatting with us and got us a place to sit. He kicked some people out of the sitting area, so that we could sit there. He was talking to us mostly in Punjabi and I could barely understand him. He didn't speak much Hindi.
He offered us to go to his village and stay with his family there. Unfortunately, we had only 2 days in Amritsar, otherwise we could've taken up on his offer. Instead, he took us on a tour of the kitchen where all the food is prepared for 50,000 people everyday. It was a massive undertaking. There were utensils that I did not know even existed to make the food. The dough to make the chapati was being made by an extremely complicated machine, then taken to people where they made the dough flat and cooked it on a huge grill. It was absolutely amazing to be able to see something like this. Normally people aren't allowed in the kitchen area, but since we were with the old gentleman, no on questioned us. Besides, my Nikon camera makes people think I'm a journalist and lets me take as many pics as I want. Actually, there was an audience that wanted me to take their pictures and mail it to them. I took a lot of shots of them cooking food, making the bread, or simply hanging out in the kitchen. Women, as usual, wanted me to take their pictures with Gin. After about an hour or so, we decided to leave the kitchen area. It was a worthwhile experience to be had and now it was time to get some more tea.
We decided to hang out directly outside our hotel where there was a chaiwala (tea maker). We spent hours sitting there and chatting. Shani's phone was dying and he hadn't brought his charger. Luckily, the chaiwala also had a Nokia phone which allowed Shani to charge his phone while sipping his tea.
After chai, we went to the main area of the golden temple. I'd never felt such strong spiritual energy in my life before this incident. The chanting and singing inside the golden temple was so uplifiting, it almost brought me to tears. All I wanted to do was join them in their chanting and spend hours there. It was an experience I'd never had before going into any kind of religious building and that alone made this long journey worth it.
We returned to the hotel hoping to go back to see the temple closing ceremony. However, we were having such good conversation that we decided not to go and see the sacred ceremony of putting the temple's holy book to sleep. Yes, that's correct, putting the holy book to sleep. There is a separate area where the Sikhs bring their holy text every night at about 9pm and bring it back to the main area inside the temple at about 5am.
We did leave for dinner. By the time we left the hotel, almost everything was closed. Since the temple doesn't ever close except the main area, we decided to go and see it at 11pm. It was a beautiful time to visit because there weren't too many people around. It was very cold as well. The marble floor got so cold at night, it felt like walking on bare ice. Fortunately, at some spots they had a carpet where we could walk. Once we had gazed at the temple to our heart's content, we called it a night.
The following morning we woke up late and by the time we got to the temple it was past noon. Again, there were too many people around and we decided not to go inside the main area. We did go to the Bhandar for lunch again. It was an experience we all wanted to have again. Midafternoon we decided to hire a rickshaw driver and go check out the Jaliawala Bagh (a garden where about 2000 Indians were massacared by the British, an important event in history which fueled the fire of India's independence from the British. A scene you may remember from the movie Gandhi.), an imitation of the golden temple and Attari.
Attari is a village at the India-Pakistan border where they perform the border closing ceremony everyday. It's a ceremony where there is a parade on both sides of the border and there is a flag lowering ceremony on both sides. It's suppose to be quite a spectacle. It was quite amusing to see the ceremony. Men and women had separate sections (rightfully so because women get harrassed by men frequently in India, especially in crowded places). Unfortunately, we didn't realize that they had a separate foreign tourist sections until it was too late.
I think our experience would've been much more pleasant had we been in the foreign tourist section. The return journey was pretty terrible considering the sun was down and it was pretty cold. In an open rickshaw, it gets very chilly and the exhaust from the rickshaw was somehow getting in the sitting area which was nauseating after about 5 minutes in to the ride. Unfortunately, it was about an hour ride back to Amritsar. Upon returning back to Amritsar, we decided we could've skipped the border closing ceremony considering how unpleasant experience we had.
Overall, going to the golden temple in Amritsar was a very unique experience. To find such strong spiritual energy is rare these days. I am glad that we had an opportunity to experience it together with Shani.
The next step was looking for a hotel to stay. A random guy started following us to show us a room for a "good price". Everywhere we went, he kept on following us. We told him to stop following us several times, but he kept on following us. Finally, Shani got so frustrated, he threatened the guy. It worked! We were able to stay at a nice place specifically made for N.R.I (Non-Resident Indian). They were ok with Gin because she was my wife. No other people could stay there - even Indian Indians. At least, that guaranteed peace and cleanliness. It was the cheapest and cleanest place we'd stayed so far.
After we freshened up, we headed out for the golden temple. People from all faiths are welcome as long as they cover their heads and take off their shoes. It was a very beautiful place and you could feel the spiritual energy. We hung out there for a very long time, but decided not to go inside the main area because it was very crowded. Besides, we were very hungry by this time.
We decided to try the food in the "bhandar", a communal feeding area where the temple serves about 50,000 people free food everyday for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It was by far the most amazing temple experience I've had in my life. About every 15 minutes a flock of new people come in and eat. The food is very simple, but extremely delicious. Dal (lentils), rice, a subgee (vegetable), and chapati (flat bread). They even had a desert, ciro (made from clarified butter, flour, sugar, and maybe some more stuff I don't know about). After the lunch, they also provide tea. Not the best tea in the world, but it's more like a "prasad" (food that was offered to God, which in turn, is distributed to people to eat).
Everyday there are hundred of people that volunteer at the Bhandar. People that help cleaning dishes, serving food, making the food, etc. While we were going for some tea, an old gentleman saw us and directed us where the tea was being distributed. After we had the tea in our metal cups, he started chatting with us and got us a place to sit. He kicked some people out of the sitting area, so that we could sit there. He was talking to us mostly in Punjabi and I could barely understand him. He didn't speak much Hindi.
He offered us to go to his village and stay with his family there. Unfortunately, we had only 2 days in Amritsar, otherwise we could've taken up on his offer. Instead, he took us on a tour of the kitchen where all the food is prepared for 50,000 people everyday. It was a massive undertaking. There were utensils that I did not know even existed to make the food. The dough to make the chapati was being made by an extremely complicated machine, then taken to people where they made the dough flat and cooked it on a huge grill. It was absolutely amazing to be able to see something like this. Normally people aren't allowed in the kitchen area, but since we were with the old gentleman, no on questioned us. Besides, my Nikon camera makes people think I'm a journalist and lets me take as many pics as I want. Actually, there was an audience that wanted me to take their pictures and mail it to them. I took a lot of shots of them cooking food, making the bread, or simply hanging out in the kitchen. Women, as usual, wanted me to take their pictures with Gin. After about an hour or so, we decided to leave the kitchen area. It was a worthwhile experience to be had and now it was time to get some more tea.
We decided to hang out directly outside our hotel where there was a chaiwala (tea maker). We spent hours sitting there and chatting. Shani's phone was dying and he hadn't brought his charger. Luckily, the chaiwala also had a Nokia phone which allowed Shani to charge his phone while sipping his tea.
After chai, we went to the main area of the golden temple. I'd never felt such strong spiritual energy in my life before this incident. The chanting and singing inside the golden temple was so uplifiting, it almost brought me to tears. All I wanted to do was join them in their chanting and spend hours there. It was an experience I'd never had before going into any kind of religious building and that alone made this long journey worth it.
We returned to the hotel hoping to go back to see the temple closing ceremony. However, we were having such good conversation that we decided not to go and see the sacred ceremony of putting the temple's holy book to sleep. Yes, that's correct, putting the holy book to sleep. There is a separate area where the Sikhs bring their holy text every night at about 9pm and bring it back to the main area inside the temple at about 5am.
We did leave for dinner. By the time we left the hotel, almost everything was closed. Since the temple doesn't ever close except the main area, we decided to go and see it at 11pm. It was a beautiful time to visit because there weren't too many people around. It was very cold as well. The marble floor got so cold at night, it felt like walking on bare ice. Fortunately, at some spots they had a carpet where we could walk. Once we had gazed at the temple to our heart's content, we called it a night.
The following morning we woke up late and by the time we got to the temple it was past noon. Again, there were too many people around and we decided not to go inside the main area. We did go to the Bhandar for lunch again. It was an experience we all wanted to have again. Midafternoon we decided to hire a rickshaw driver and go check out the Jaliawala Bagh (a garden where about 2000 Indians were massacared by the British, an important event in history which fueled the fire of India's independence from the British. A scene you may remember from the movie Gandhi.), an imitation of the golden temple and Attari.
Attari is a village at the India-Pakistan border where they perform the border closing ceremony everyday. It's a ceremony where there is a parade on both sides of the border and there is a flag lowering ceremony on both sides. It's suppose to be quite a spectacle. It was quite amusing to see the ceremony. Men and women had separate sections (rightfully so because women get harrassed by men frequently in India, especially in crowded places). Unfortunately, we didn't realize that they had a separate foreign tourist sections until it was too late.
I think our experience would've been much more pleasant had we been in the foreign tourist section. The return journey was pretty terrible considering the sun was down and it was pretty cold. In an open rickshaw, it gets very chilly and the exhaust from the rickshaw was somehow getting in the sitting area which was nauseating after about 5 minutes in to the ride. Unfortunately, it was about an hour ride back to Amritsar. Upon returning back to Amritsar, we decided we could've skipped the border closing ceremony considering how unpleasant experience we had.
Overall, going to the golden temple in Amritsar was a very unique experience. To find such strong spiritual energy is rare these days. I am glad that we had an opportunity to experience it together with Shani.
3 comments:
Thanks for your comment on my blog! I think your departure was about a month before mine, because I started reading your blog every day before I left for my trip! It was nice to watch someone else pack up their life while I was doing the same - and your first pictures from New Zealand made me sooo excited to leave even if packing was driving me nuts back then! I love your blog and will definitely have to read through it once I have steadier internet - India is not on the list for this trip but will be next for sure. Safe travels!
Beautifully written. I’m very glad to see your post. Loved it.
Thanks,
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Wonderful trip. Thanks for sharing your trip experience. Pictures are very beautiful. Are you in search of hotels in Amritsar near Golden Temple? Well, there are many! All you need to do is to have an idea of your budget so that you can book an accommodation that can cater to your requirements well. The city houses luxury hotels like Hotel Ramada Amritsar, Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Amritsar and Golden Tulip to pamper the guests who wish luxury during their stay. When it comes to exploring 3 star or mid-budget hotels in Amritsar around Golden Temple, there are a plenty of options to choose from. Explore all hotels in Amritsar near Golden Temple also.
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