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.

 Lily crashed out at the Delhi train station

 I don't make it a habit to photograph toilets, but this was just a hole that dropped onto the train tracks.

 The view out our hotel window in Amritsar

 Heading off to tour the Golden Temple

 The place where you deposit your shoes before entering the Golden Temple complex

 Gate to the Golden Temple

 Lily at the gate to the Golden Temple

 Helping some Sikhs take a photo

 By the Golden Temple

 Golden Temple at dusk

 Screen that displays the scriptural passages as they are chanted by the priest

 One of the priests reading scripture

 Another priest reading scripture

 Just me and some Sikh buddies

 Food preparation vats

 Dishwashing station

 Outside the Golden Temple

 Security guard

 Entrance to go see the inside of the Golden Temple

 Bed where the put the scriptures every night

This group of girls followed us around timidly for a while before finally working up the nerve to ask Lily to take a photo with them.

July 20--On the way to, and in, Delhi

     First of all, let me say that I just uploaded a bunch of text for the entries regarding July 17, 18 and 19.  So go read that if you haven't yet.
     Today was almost all spent in the bus from Jaipur to Delhi, and it was pretty uneventful.  The bus driver’s daughter, Jothi (“light”), rode along with us because she needed to get to Delhi.  She was married about a year ago.  On the drive, the girls started singing and dancing as the driver held their phones up to the tour guide microphone.  It wasn’t exactly high quality sound, but they had a good time.  Then they put some Indian music on and Jothi started dancing Indian style.  It was really cool!  She taught the girls some Indian moves and that was fun.  But it was mostly sitting in the bus, staring out the window, or chatting with others in the group.

     When we got to Delhi we stopped at a modern mall, just as nice as anything you’ve ever seen in the U.S.  We got some food, including some tasty ice cream from an Indian version of Cold Stone.   They even had Twix bars to mix in.  It wasn’t cheap but it was yummy.

     Once we got checked in, we took the kids to a local shopping area.  We walked there, and it was a really long, unpleasant walk on busy streets with few sidewalks.  Along the way we passed under an overpass, where a small community of extremely poor people live.  They tried to get our attention to ask for money as we walked by.  I don’t think anyone could be much less fortunate than that group—no shelter except the overpass, with some meager beds and a few other possessions and that was it.  At the market, Lily bought some shirts, I think, and I got a few small gifts.  Some of the girls in the group got their hands professionally done by henna painters.  I can’t believe how fast they work!  They created these elaborate patterns about halfway up to the girls’ elbow in maybe 10 minutes.

     In the evening, our guide took me and two other people to Old Delhi to get some kebabs from a place that he said is legendary.  We drove about 45 minutes in crazy traffic.  Then the driver dropped us off, and our guide said we have to walk for a while.  We walked through the most crowded streets I have ever seen.  It was still as hot as a sauna.  It was almost 10:00 pm when we arrived, but the road was completely jammed.  There’s no way to describe the pandemonium.  Every vehicle imaginable—cars, little motorized three-wheel taxis, motorcycles, bicyclist-powered taxis, and scooters, all honking and shouting.  And thousands and thousands of people on foot, pushing and dodging every direction—men of various ages in groups, street vendors, beggars, families of all sizes, including lots of little kids in fancy, spangled clothes, some of whom were walking by themselves to my amazement.  The congestion really was unbelievable.

     When we reached the kebab place, it was tiny hole in the wall, maybe eight feet wide and 15 feet deep, with a searing hot charcoal fire across the entire front of the store and a little open area on one side.  The temperature near that fire was unbelievable.  The open side of the store was surrounded by shouting men trying to get service.  There was no concept of a line.  People were tugging on the sleeve of the proprietor, yelling at him, holding out money, gesturing and trying to convince him to serve them next.  To me it seemed like he was mostly ignoring everyone’s pleas and doling out the food to whoever he felt like it.  But there was probably some sort of customer pecking order, because our guide told us that it’s always crowded like that, and he wished that he could have arranged to bring another taxi driver he knows who’s a friend of the owner and can always get served right away.

     Sweat dripping down his face, our guide pushed and wheedled and tugged on the guy’s sleeve nonstop for maybe 10 minutes before finally getting a heaping plate of kebabs for us to share.  The kebab was coarsely ground beef full of fat and gristle, laden with spices and dripping with butter.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had anything less healthy to eat in my whole life.  The meat was pretty good, but not as good as the experience, which was honestly like nothing else I’ve ever seen in my life.  

     It was a takeout place and customers were just walking off with their food, but there was one grimy little table (no chairs), just big enough for four, that a friend of the proprietor pointed us to—I suspect because we were obviously foreigners.  We stood next to the table, ate our meat and drank our water bottles, mostly free from being pushed and jostled as we ate.  Afterward we walked around the area for maybe half an hour to scope it out.  It was the last night of Eid, and we were across the street from one of the biggest mosques in Delhi, so I thought it was crazy because of the holiday.  But our guide told me that it’s like that every night.  After walking around and taking it all in for a while, we headed back to the hotel.  I was exhausted and hit the sack after a very satisfying shower.  Seriously, I have never had better-feeling showers than I have in India.

Leftover photo from Agra.  A guy took this photo and sold it to us for about 30 cents after we were done.

 Nomadic cattle guy using the access road on the highway to move his cows

Random Delhi selfie with kids