Day 18 - The Golden Temple and much much more!

Another early start -  up at 5am to get the 5:45am bus to Amritsar. The trip would have been fine, except there was a very loud video playing for the 3 1/2 hour trip, and the bus had the loudest horn you've ever heard, which in true Indian style the driver used incessantly!

On arrival we weren't quite sure what to do next as our accommodation had been arranged for us as part of the wedding preparations. A couple of phone calls later we had been provided with the details of our hotel, an army owned rest house with quite a nice large room.

Once we'd settled in we headed off to towards the famed Golden Temple, the holy temple of the Sikhs. Once we'd been dropped off we followed the swarm of pilgrims towards the temple. On the way, we visited Jallianwala Bagh, a park which was captured in the film "Gandhi" as it was the site where peacefully protesting Indians were killed by gunfire by the British in 1919.

After this, we headed to the Golden Temple. First we had to check in our shoes, then we obtained a scarf to cover our heads. Then we washed our feet in a small pool as we entered. We walked around the outside of the moat which separated the outer walls and buildings from the two story golden marble temple. On our way around we passed the dining hall, where anyone can get a meal prepared by volunteers, so we decided to join in. First we were given a dish by one person, a spoon by another, then a bowl. We followed the crowds in and sat cross legged along witht the hundreds of others filing in. As we sat, people came by with chapatis, and various types of vegetarian dishes. We ate along with everyone else, and when we finished we took our plates back to be washed. They feed 50 - 60,000 people every single day of the year for free 24/7.

We continued our walk around the outside of the temple, and joined the queue of hundreds of people lined up to enter the golden temple itself. After about 30 minutes we made it in, and climbed up onto the quieter second level for a view of the surroundings.

We headed back to our hotel to arrange a trip to the border with Pakistan (about 30km from Amritsar) to see the border closing ceremony. However what should have taken about 15 minutes ended up taking about an hour, as we were caught up in the infamous Amritsar traffic, further complicated by some sort of procession that was winding its way out of the old city!

We eventually managed to get a taxi to take us to the border. On arrival we walked up to the gate, which was due to open at 4pm. The crowd was huge, and as the gate started opening there was quite a crush. Once through, people started running so they could get the best positions to watch the ceremony. We had to pass two security checks on the way through, with men and women separated into different queues.

We reached the stand area and being foreigners, we were told to take the VIP entrance. We ended up in the stand closest to the border, with the locals had to take stands further back. There were people waving Indian flags, and there was an MC who got the crowd chanting patriotically. We could see the border gates, and on the other side a similar setup for the Pakistanis attending the ceremony from their side.

One strange site was to see the Delhi-Lahore bus come through just before the border closed, the crowd cheered and waved, while the people on the bus (who must have felt like royalty) waved back.

Eventually the closing ceremony commenced - the Indian soldiers marched up and down, with a strange marching style which made it look like they were trying to kick themselves in the head (Ministry of Silly Walks style). While all this was happening there were yelling contests between the soldiers on each side, seeing who could yell for the longest, as the crowd cheered for their side. On the Indian side the chant was "Hindustan Hindustan!" and on the other side "Pakistan Pakistan!". It is well worth looking it up on youtube as the whole thing is hilarious!

Finally after much marching, yelling, and chanting, the Indian and Pakistan flags were lowered, the soldiers on each side saluted and shook hands, the gates closed, and everyone headed home. There were 1000's there & this happens every single night.

Back in Amritsar, after a short visit to the market, we dined at Crystal Restaurant. The interesting thing there was that there were two Crystal restaurants side by side (apparently a family rift, so there is a wall down the middle). As we alighted from our rickshaw, doormen on both sides tried to persuade us to go in. We chose the one on the right, and as we had a very nice meal we think it was the right choice!