City Travels: Amritsar and Delhi

On our way back to Pune, we spent a day in Amritsar so we could go to the Wagah Border Ceremony and see the Golden Temple.  The Border Ceremony was kind of like attending a big football game, if both teams had their home stadiums with them.  Or realistically, it’s similar to the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace because it happens every day and does revolve around the guards.  There was loud music, cheering, home-team pride (national pride songs), dancing, and even a man in a white jumpsuit encouraging different sections of the crowd to cheer louder.  The guards wore funny hats and did really high high-kicks.  Even I was impressed and I was a cheerleader.  Beyond all of the fun and games of who-can-yell-louder, I’m not sure the ceremony really accomplishes anything.  It’s a fantastic opportunity for peace promotion and yet it seems like more of a contest between the two nations.  If you haven’t pulled out the map yet, the Wagah Border, just outside of Amritsar, Punjab, India, is the only road crossing between India and Pakistan.  Hence the ‘ceremony’ between the two countries.

Wagah Border, India-Pakistan

Next, we went to the Golden Temple late in the evening.  It was incredible.  The Golden Temple itself sits in a symmetrical pool of sacred water that is said to cure you if you take a dip.  Surrounding this sacred pool is a massive open-air marble palace.  It is truly breath-taking and strangely enough, many Indians I’ve spoken to say it’s better than the Taj Mahal.  I’d like to believe them since I shamefully missed the Taj Mahal on this India visit! Oh well, I think I’m getting plenty of other sites in.  The Golden Temple can be reached by a marble walkway out into the pool, and then, after standing in a pushy line, you may enter the impressive building.  Gold, marble, fresco paintings, any description I give it will not do it justice.  It was truly fantastic.  I just wanted to brush my fingers along it and sit and stare at its beauty.  Perfection.

The Golden Temple
Amritsar, Punjab, India

Unfortunately for me, the ceremony and the temple just about wore me out because I was in such poor health at this point so I went back to the hotel, ordered a mango shake, took a hot(!) shower and passed out.  Our flight to Delhi left early the next morning and then we had a few hours to kill so grabbed a taxi and headed to the old city.  We tried to visit the Mosque but the abrupt in-your-face man at the entrance insisted that we pay a foreigner’s fee of Rs 300.  HA! Nice try, dude.  Not worth it.  Then we found out the charge was just for cameras.  Well, what if we don’t take pictures? Nope, doesn’t matter... you have a camera in your bag.  We just couldn’t win.  So instead, we sat on the steps of the Mosque and chatted in the late afternoon sun.  We also grabbed a bite at a local eatery which was delicious (from what I could tell).  Freshly cooked roti and dahl and my ever-controversial cold drink.  I really just wanted something to drink since I wasn’t going to test my stomach by eating, but the owner refused to let me have it because he explained you cannot have cold drink with meal, only after meal.  No sir, I’m not eating! I just want cold drink.  But Miss, you must eat.  THEN you can have cold drink.  No.  Just.  Cold.  Drink.  This went on for a few minutes until he gave in and let me have my soda.

I accidentally fell asleep in the cab ride back to the airport and spent the rest of the trip homewards fighting with myself to stay awake when it was important.  We finally reached Pune around 1am and I managed to garner up the energy to take a hot bath before crawling into bed and sleeping about 12 hours.  Only to wake up with a miserable fever.  But that is for another day!

xo A