Adventures in Amritsar

Joyce and I knew we were in foreign territory from the moment we left the train station and tried to meet up with our driver. I was told he would be carrying a sign with my name on it, and after a few minutes of looking, we were relieved to find a Sikh man who spoke almost perfect English. However, he turned out to be the director of the taxi drivers, and motioned us over to our real driver, a man in his early 30s who spoke absolutely no English, and only seemed to understand basic Hindi since he spoke what I could only assume was Punjabi. Through broken Hindi, we managed to direct him to our hotel, where we checked in and ate lunch, and then headed out to our first adventure, Wagha Border.

Wagha Border

I would have to dub this my "Most Indian Experience" thus far. On Saturday afternoon after checking into our hotel, the Hong Kong Inn, Joyce and I braved a crowd of thousands at the Indian-Pakistani border closing ceremony. There is a ceremony every evening at the border closing, and thousands gather to witness this celebration, which is amazing considering the historical animosity between Pakistan and India.

Our view from our crowded corner. It was almost impossible to try to get this shot through all of the human heads and the shoving that was going on.

The people who are sitting down there are a part of the closing ceremony. Those students are going to dance and sing and get the crowd excited. It really is like a pep rally. The people who are sitting down on the bleachers behind them must have arrived hours in advance. We got there two hours early and got to seats.

The guards kept on patrolling through this area because it was so insane. People were pushing and shoving to try to get past each other to get a good shot of the ceremony. Joyce and I were smart enough to avoid this area, but we were also overwhelmed where we decided to stand.

This is the best picture we could get together. It was a miracle to try to get my arms up to take the picture...we were THAT squished in the middle of all these people. We were dripping in sweat...both ours and other peoples, and we both lost our scarfs a few times, but were lucky and aggressive enough to demand them back. I dropped my clutch and phone a couple of times, but there were some brave school kids to our left who were nice enough to help me grab it back.

People dancing and chanting in the middle of the ceremony, which began at sunset.

All of these people were standing directly in front of us. Note that they are holding on to each other and to poles for any kind of balance. On several occasions, Joyce and I were moved against our will. There was no such thing as standing still...You were either shoving to keep your spot, or shoving to move past other people.

These people were directly across from us. They too were going nuts.

This was our corner. Joyce and I eventually felt a bit overwhelmed and claustrophobic and too hot, so we had to battle our way down the stairs against the influx of people trying to make it into the spots we'd just left. Most people didn't seem to understand basic laws of physics...If I'm standing here, you cannot be standing in the same exact spot. The girls in blue and white became our friends through this whole ordeal because I kept on yelling at the guys to stop pushing at the little girls. Even though I spoke no Hindi, I got my message across. Most people asked me if I was their teacher, and were impressed when I responded that I wasn't but that didn't mean I wanted them to fall off the railing. Those people helped us in our endeavors to protect the young girls and even ended up protecting Joyce and I from the predatory stares of less well intentioned men.

These people were sitting on the railing and were really far up and completely fearless.

The girl left shortly after we headed out. We noticed that we were all covered from head to toe in human sweat. It was so intense to have so many people concentrated in that small space. I was also really happy to see that after we stood up for them, the young school girls were more than willing to stand up for themselves and for us, since we didn't speak Hindi. The girls even pushed people to make room for us next to them. I loved the friends we made that day.

Golden Temple

We visited the Golden Temple a couple of times before leaving Amritsar, one at night and one in the day time. Both times were very busy, but my favorite time to visit was in the nighttime when the temple was lit up beautifully against the backdrop of darkness. Getting there was quite the experience itself because the car wasn't allowed to go all the way up to the temple, so a bike rickshaw took us up up a crowded market street to the door and waited until we came back. The market place is always a fun place to ride past.

The Golden Temple at night.

We were both so exhausted by this point because we'd been up since 5am, been on a 6 hour train ride, and survived the crowd at the Wagha Border...but we wanted a picture of us in front the the temple, so here is one.

Joyce and I rocking out the "covered hair" look..and feeling very touristy in sun glasses. I guess Indian women are just used to the sun so they don't really wear sunglasses...the men do though...the men also wear Western style clothing regularly, while it's still less common to see women wearing anything other than the traditional styles.

We spent about five minutes with this one woman trying to get a right picture of us together next to the temple. She seemed to understand us just fine, but did not seem to know how to use a digital camera. It was a really funny, and aggravating experience. After several tries, she still covered the temple by putting us in front of it...

...So we asked a British guy to take the picture..& he was stunned by how well we spoke English. I guess we blend in?

Jallian Wala Bagh

In 1919, General Dyer declared it unlawful to hold any kind of demonstrations in an attempt to stifle the independence movement in India. In defiance of this unjust law, thousands of non-violent demonstrators united at this area to celebrate Baisakhi, a Sikh festival. In retaliation, the general opened fire on thousands of men, women, and children. The number of dead remain a mystery as British authorities sought to minimize the effect by stating only a few hundred were killed and as angry revolutionaries sought to maximize the effect by claiming that several thousand were killed. Any number in-between is possible, and devastating. Today there is a memorial in the sight of this infamous massacre.

This was just a really cool looking tree in the middle of the park.

The memorial is located in the middle of the park region.

Seeking shelter from the bullets, many victims jumped into a well located in the area, only to drown as a large number of demonstrators sought to do the same.

An explanation of the memorial. I have to say that it was ironic and somewhat inconsistent that the park is said to be an "everlasting symbol of non-violent and peaceful struggle for freedom" when one of the "martyrs" celebrated in a galley inside the park glorified the death of a man who murdered a British officer in England and was subsequently hanged. I thought that including this particular individual among the real martyrs was disrespectful to their memory, and incredibly inconsistent

There was nowhere to run since the park was completely sealed off with the exception of the entrance from which the soldiers entered. The only exit was an alley behind the men with guns.

Durgiana Temple

The remaining two temples we visited were really just to kill time. We had a little over an hour after lunch to spend in Amritsar before our train departed at 3:10PM, so our driver took us to these two temples. It was really awesome that we didn't have to pay for any of our attractions in Amritsar. As you'll note, this Hindu temple shared a lot of the same architectural design as the Golden Temple.

Lalit told us that it's bad luck to pass by the bell in the entrance without ringing it. A lot of the people entering the temple did this, and even raised their kids up in the air so that they could do the same.

Mata Lal Devi Mandir

This temple was not nearly as awesome from the outside to be honest, but it was a lot of fun from the inside, so we took lots of pictures. We weren't sure if we were being blasphemous or not by taking pictures, but we did the Indian thing, and figured we'd take pictures unless someone yelled at us to stop. I'm really glad since we got some fun pictures. This temple was like a maze.

Crawling through this black tunnel to the next area of the temple.

There were a few rooms like this and we thought this was a really cool effect.

The staircases led us to the next section of the temple.

Heading back down to the ground level.

Literally getting our feet wet. This tunnel was towards the end and the water is supposed to wash away our sins or something.

Amritsar to Delhi on the Shan-E-Punjab

Since we couldn't get a seat on the express train, we rode the eight hours on the non-AC chair car, a true Indian experience. There were several benches along both sides of the car, each fitting three people. Joyce and I sat together next to the aisle, and we quickly learned that people who do not buy tickets are also welcome to board the train and ride without a seat until they've reached their stop. It's interesting to note that women and the elderly are usually guaranteed a seat, whether or not they've bought one because people more naturally give up their seats for them. Considering the nature of our trip, I can't really say I was inclined to give up my seat to anyone, but I did witness some people doing so for the sake of a mother or her child. There were several stops along the way, so there were many people that shifted in and out of our train compartment. It was so busy at times that people stood even in the middle of two benches facing each other. Other people sat at the open door facing the outside of the train. Most people just stood around and tried to be as comfortable as they possibly could. We had no problems on the train for the most part. It was a really quaint experience actually. We ended up playing with the kids sitting across from our bench, and making small talk with people, and sharing smiles and random acts of kindness with the strangers around us. Only on one occasion someone tried to shove us our of our seats, but we were not shy about making sure that didn't happen. We had, after all, paid for the tickets...and it's rude for someone else who is not willing to give up their own seat to expect it of someone who has nothing to do with their own internal guilt. Otherwise, we made it back safely to Delhi at 11PM and rushed through the metro to make it to the last train leaving from that station. That was quite the experience in and of itself since we ended up doing some legally gray things to get past security quicker. We made it back to Hauz Khas by midnight, and fell straight to bed.

The best shot we could inconspicuously get of the train without looking like total tourists.