Amritsar

After my great experiences in McCloud and and the sentiments of more goodbyes, I met up with a few others at half four in the morning, to get a taxi and bus to Amritsar which took about 7 hours. Arriving in Amritsar I had the awareness of how protected it had been up in the Himalayas, especially when we got off the bus to be attacked by a hoard of taxi and autorickshaw drivers! In the end we escaped from the masses to a little cafe and had chai and butter biscuits for breakfast to take a few breaths of acceptance at having arrived in the madness of a new Indian city.

2 chais and an autorickshaw drive later amongst the predominantly turbaned Sikkhs, we were in a different world of the Golden Temple. We managed to find accommodation (incidently free-donation only, as all are welcome) within the vicinity. We were lucky enough to get two rooms for 3 people each, and they were nice enough..

After recovering, we had our first meal in the temple (huge hall with people eating out of metal trays) and it was really well organised. As it is free, one way you can pay is through offering Seva, which is to volunteer work to help. We did washing up, which was actually quite fun, in these huge sinks with ten people around them.

The temple itself is the most beautiful I have ever seen, and had a real sense of calm, an oasis compared to the hustling bustle of the city around us. The most amazing expereince in the Temple was the ceremony of the book arrival at 5am in the morning (the book gets read or 'sang' every day, and then gets returned, out of the temple at 9.30pm in which they have a closing ceremony). The bridge acroos the water was full of pilgrams, and we were amongst them! In the Temple itself, we prostrated on entering and donated money to the book (as an offering) and stood whilst a kind of opening prayer chant was said -(SAT NAM, WAHE GURU!).

The Temple within the water was absolutely breathtaking and had been painted in real gold. Inside it was carpeted, and there were beautiful intricate designs on the walls. I was not allowed to photograph, as is understandably disrespectful. I expected to find God sitting on a throne at any moment! There were 3 floors and 2 more Holy books which were being followed at the same time, and we had another beautiful moment of being given a sweet semolina gee (there is a name , but can't remember) sweet into our hands (representing the sweetness of God). We also found a smaller room (back on pathways surrounding the lake) with a group of musicians playing sacred Sikkh music, it was really nice just sitting there for a while listening..

My next stop was Rajasthan and fortunately Edwin (one of our Tushita group) was heading the same way so we booked a sleeper train via Jalander to Jodhpur to see the blue city, my first train expeience!!! The local Indians were intrigued by our game of eye spy, and before we knew it we had a large audience and participants. Very funny!