So last night was maybe not as nice as the romantic vision of train travel that I had in my head. Cold and fairly uncomfortable, I also woke up every half hour to make sure my bags were still there (they were fine, by the way, the train was completely safe). Starting at about 5am the chai-wallahs came by 2-3 times an hour calling “Chai, chai, masala chai, chai, garam chai, chai, chai.” After the bathroom pics I posted earlier, though, I think I’ll give my digestive system more time to get used to the food here before I brave the train chai.
Leaning out the train door into the freezing cold wind, I can’t see much at 6:30. I return an hour later when there’s a hazy smudge of a sunrise and see scrubland and more buildings in desperate need of repairs. There are people huddled over fires outside the tents they live in along the tracks and their glow is the only light for miles. I imagine this part of the country gets little to no electricity outside of what’s supplied by generators.
I know about what time we should arrive and that Amritsar is the last station, but I have no idea how I’m supposed to know when we’ve actually made it. There have been no announcements for the other stops and now I’m getting worried for my next train ride. How do you know when to get off? I pack my bags around 8:15 and luckily it turns out the next station is mine. Phew. At the station I store my bag for the day in the cloakroom and hop on the free bus to the Old City. A nice woman holds my backpack since I’m standing in the aisle and I smile and wave at her small children who convulse into giggles and hug their teenage sister. The kids are adorable here with their big eyes and chocolate skin (at least until they get old enough to learn English and start trying to sell you things). We arrive outside the temple and I decide to walk around a bit to get oriented. There’s a lovely, wide brick sidewalk that circles the temple complex and it takes me past some of the nicest homes I’ve seen yet. It’s tranquil here—I’m enjoying the Amritsari calm, already.
Now for the Gold Temple, my main reason for coming to Amritsar, other than my love of the movie “Bride and Prejudice”. I set my shoes with some others at the side of the entry gate, cover my head and enter near the kitchen. I’m starving, and one whiff of what they’re cooking gets me to head in for breakfast. I’m given a tin plate, bowl and spoon (which I hastily clean with an antibacterial wipe) then told to sit on the floor in a long line of people. Men with large tin buckets ladle out heaps of food, of which you can have as much as you want: vegetable curries, dahl (lentils), vegetables (raw, so be careful) and warm chipati (flat bread). It’s delicious, spicy and free. They run the kitchen, housing and temple 24/7/365 purely on donations and anyone can come and make use of it. They’ve done this here for hundreds of years; it’s awe-inspiring.
The temple itself is surrounded by a moat of clear, sparkling holy water that many (men) come to bathe in. The young boys with their starter-braids in tiny turbans and cartoon undies are adorable as they dip their toes in and shiver. The first thing you notice is the craftsmanship. The inlay in the white marble is exquisite and colorful and everywhere, even the floor of the kitchen. The gold plate of the temple doesn’t have any smooth areas; it’s all engraved with script and pictures of people, birds, flowers and big cats chasing deer.
I meet a retired Air Force air-evac nurse and we stroll into the temple with a large crowd. On the main level there’s an area to give offerings in the middle. Two men sing into microphones and are broadcast throughout the complex. Others sit nearby waving their white hair batons (whips?), folding and unfolding fabrics of many colors. People sit where they can and sing along from a devotional book; I join the line of those going upstairs. The middle is open to see to the level below, but along one wall is where the excitement is: the head priest is reading a book about 3’ by 2’, weighing probably 50 pounds. It’s THE BOOK: the original Sikh gospel that is 400+ years old. At night they literally put it to bed in a gold case in a neighboring building. I get about 5 seconds to appreciate it before I’m pushed out. No, I’m not kidding. It may be a temple, but they will bowl you over if you aren’t fast enough. It’s like they have road rage all the time. Let’s pause and consider Singaporeans and Indians: who is more difficult to be around? Singaporeans zig and zag in front of you like they’re drunk and frequently stop in front of you for no reason. But they know how to queue and darned if they don’t respect the line. Indians don’t give a hoot. One, two, twenty people ahead of you? Guess that’s their fault for not pushing to the front themselves. Trying to get off the bus from the back seat? Just push; if nothing else everyone else will at least fall out and you’ll be set. Like that American girl’s camera? She won’t mind if you pull on it and play with the buttons, that’s probably why she brought it. VERY FRUSTRATING.
Moving back towards the main gate, I'm asked to be in another photo (I'm an Indian celeb) then when I ask to take a photo of a nearby family (who just looked so beautiful and colorful) they make me sit in the middle of them! I look like such a shlub next to them, but they're great and ask me tons of questions. I move out to see about accommodations in the temple's dorms when I notice it: my shoes kinda aren't where I left them. My decrepit, ages-old, handed-down-from-my-mom Merrell hiking boots are gone. They even took my dirty socks! It's kinda my own fault for being too lazy to walk around to the shoe-check area to get a token for them, but it's still disappointing. When I ask the shoe-minder (ha, I like to call him the shoe-wallah) what to do, it seems like he only understands about every other word because he gives me somebody else's ragged, left-behind sneakers. Awesome.So I scrap my plans for the afternoon and decide to just get settled. Since I'm not going to Pakistan anymore, I've got plenty of time to just sit back for a while, anyway. I go to the bazaar around the corner in my too-big and too-old Pumas and buy some cute, new Indian-style sandals for Rs165 (yeah, that's like $4.50). I hop on the free bus again (sitting on the dashboard because, well, there was space there and that's how they do things here) and get my bag from the train station. I head straight back to the temple complex to see about getting a bed in their dorm for foreign backpackers (for which you pay by giving a donation).
And this is when I get my next round of good news: the only way they can fit me in is if I share with someone, and guess who's willing? Three cute guys from South Africa. *sigh* I know, it was a sacrifice, but I'll deal with it, somehow. I have to drop my things off quickly, though, because the shared Jeep to the Indian/Pakistani border leaves at 2:30. The ceremony doesn't start until 4:00, but it's a good hour drive and there will be plenty of traffic, as well (I promise to talk more about this later, but Indian roads are so traumatizing I shake whenever I even think about it). We cram 9 people into a 7 passenger van (the driver shifts between my legs, which isn't awkward AT ALL) and make tracks for Pakistan. I end up sitting next to David, a funny American who is headed home after this. Turns out he's interested in conservation as well, and is interested in finding a non-profit that connects this to education. Needless to say, we have tons to talk about and the next time I'm in Seattle it would be great to meet up with him again.
And then we come to what has to be one of coolest things I will ever experience: the border closing ceremony between Pakistan and India. It's basically a global-scale pep assembly, with each country's citizens in bleachers on their respective side of the border cheering like mad for their own security force. The guards are dressed to the nines, Indians wearing brown uniforms with white dress shoes and majestic red headpieces, Pakistanis wearing black uniforms with red highlights. There's a lot of high-stepping, posturing and attempts at one-upmanship. It's like an African-American step competition but with more guns (or not, guess it depends on the neighborhood). Before it starts, though, they start playing pop music and a mob of teenagers runs down to the street to dance. They look like they're having an absolute blast and I half-jokingly, half-seriously tell David that we should go down there. He laughs it off, but about two minutes later I hand him my camera and head down to join the kids. And that's how I end up dancing with a dozen teenagers in front of hundreds of Indians on the Pakistani border (no shots were fired, so I couldn't have been that bad at it). The crowd loved it! They started clapping to the music and laughing and cheering....needless to say it's going to be hard to top that as far as cool experiences go.
Now for the actual ceremony. Here's the gist of it: one leader on each side of the border calls out a note for as long as they can and the one who goes longest is the "winner". You do this a couple times then you send a guard out to high-step down the street as fast as he can to the gate to do a couple high-kicks and posture to the guards on the other side. They respond in kind. Then you send the occasional guard or two down and do it all again a few times (interspersed with mad cheers from the crowd, of course). Then they open the gate to take down each country's flag at the same time so that every night it's a big tie. Hundreds come out for this every night, and it's one of the coolest shows of international camaraderie I've ever seen.
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