Brad and Lily in Dubai-India-Pakistan: July 21--travel to Amritsar and touring the Golden Temple

We needed to wake up at 6 am so we could catch our taxi to the Delhi station and our 7:20 train to Amritsar. Lily had been sick all night, throwing up and hating life. So there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm during our departure. And she didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her buddy Bailey, which upset her too. We got to the train station in plenty of time and were immediately accosted by aggressive porters. We had three bags so I figured why not. It ended up costing me a fortune—like nine bucks—to get five minutes’ assistance from two porters. Grr. When we got to the platform, Lily immediately laid down and went to sleep. She’s been carrying her grubby blanket and pillow around for a long time, but let me tell you it has come in handy.

Our seats in the train were assigned, but the overhead luggage space wasn’t, so it was good we were there early. The luggage racks were jammed. Shortly into the six-hour ride, Lily realized she didn’t have her phone. I used a friendly seat-neighbor’s phone to call our tour guide to see if maybe she’d left it in her hotel room or in the cab we took to the train station. No dice. We think it got left on the train platform. That was a big hit to the sick girl’s morale, but honestly she got over it more quickly than I thought she would.

Our host was ready for us when he arrived. In fact, we were a little slow getting off, and he came onto the train looking for us with a sign saying “BRAD AND LILLY.” He’s a devout Sikh, and told us all sorts of interesting things about their religion. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon when he dropped us off at the Amritsar Hyatt. That place is nice! Lily still wasn’t feeling great, so we just had rest time till about 6:00.

Then our tour guide took us on a tour of the Sikh golden temple. I was really impressed with that whole structure and the Sikh setup in general. My tour guide got me a legitimate turban, because you aren’t allowed to go into the temple without a covering for your head. Since it was a real turban, he had to wrap it around my head, which took a few minutes. And he was a diligent Sikh and really cool guy and so he brought me a turban in the sacred color of orange.

The tour guide said that Amritsar is sometimes called the “city of colored turbans,” which I figured was touristy exaggeration. But it’s not. The town is about 50% Sikh, and Sikhs wear turbans. It was cool. In fact, the security guard at our hotel was a big, tall Sikh with an awesome waxed mustache, so you know we got a picture o’ that. Our guide explained that most Sikhs wear turbans made of cloth that is 5-7 meters in length; that a father teaches his son how to tie his turban during the teenage years; and that my turban was only two meters long. I was a little worried because I didn’t want to be the dork in the turban designed for a six-year old. But there were other adults who had turbans like mine. The thing that DID make me feel dorky was the fact that my green striped t-shirt utterly and perfectly clashed with my turban. But I got a few compliments from Sikhs in the temple about my turban. They saw it as a token of respect for their holy shrine that I took the time to have a real turban and not just one of the ‘do-rags that are lent out to people who don’t have something to cover their heads. And when in my life am I gonna have another chance to wear a real live turban? In public? And get complimented for it?

Lily was still not feeling well during our tour, but she was a trooper. Our tour entailed about a kilometer of walking. The golden temple is surrounded by a large, square pool of water that is probably a couple hundred meters across. A tall and ornate wall—maybe thirty feet tall—surrounds the whole complex, and the wall has various rooms and structures that face toward the temple. The temple is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The water is supposed to have miraculous healing qualities (“Amritsar” means “pool of nectar” or “pool of holy water”), and there were people bathing in it—with separate enclosed areas for women. The guide encouraged me to wade in it, so I did. One of the security guards (easy to spot because of their yellow jackets and real spears!) asked me to get out after I’d been in for a minute or so.

At all times, there is a head priest reading/chanting/singing the scriptures over a huge speaker system. A bunch of other sub-priests are elsewhere in the temple, reading (and sometimes, but not always, chanting) the scriptures. We got to walk right up behind them and watch. The Sikhs believe that there were a bunch of gurus (prophet-types) some years ago, but that there’s no guru on the earth now. They worship the scriptures as incarnations of the gurus. And they put the main, original set of scriptures to bed each night to rest. We got to see the bed.

Every night the Sikhs—and whoever else cares to volunteer—cook food for anyone who wants to show up at the temple and get a free meal. Anyone can volunteer to cook, or clean up, or do any of the other things that are part of feeding all those people. There were huge vats for cooking, long stations for dishwashing, hugs kettles of utensils, and so forth. Anyone who wants can also sleep under the roof that surrounds the entire perimeter of the temple complex. So when we touring in the evening, hundreds of people were eating or sprawled out, preparing to sleep on the ground.

As we walked around and saw all that, Lily was clearly not thrilled and told me she wasn’t feeling great. She was a good sport until we walked up to finally see the temple itself as the climax of our tour. The tour guide told us it was a 20-minute wait and I said okay, we’ll do it—and Lily put her head on my shoulder and started crying. I figured I’d pushed her hard enough for the night. We canceled the plan to see the inside of the golden temple, and went back to the hotel.