Two buses from McCloudGanj to Amritsar, about two hundred kilometres, took eight hours. The roads are terrible, potholed and tortuous and buses have to contend with truck loads of gravel and tractors carrying huge loads. The buses do their best, blaring their horns to try to push the slow traffic even further into the ditch, so that they can get past, but there are buses coming in the other direction, not to mention cars, rikshaws, trucks overtaking trucks and the odd cow. So it's a slow process.
We arrived in Amritsar too late to go to the Golden temple, so I took a thieving rikshaw to the railway station and tried to book a ticket to Delhi for the following day. Unlike the lovely ticket booking system in Delhi, in Amritsar there are queues, supposedly for senior citizens, disabled and ladies, but the so-called ladies push and push. When I remonstrated with them they started shouting at me. In the end the ticket salesman refused to sell me a ticket because I didn't know the number of the train and told me to speak Hindi.
I dragged by bag up and down several staircases and eventually found a cheapish hotel room, with no window, in a side street in the market and went to sleep. Next day I got up and went back to the station to book that train ticket. The early morning mist was compounded by sweepers stirring up the dust and burning the rubbish, including plastic, adding toxic fumes to the dust-laden atmosphere. After a lot of shouting and pushing I eventually got a ticket to Delhi. The train will arrive at 10.30pm, not a good time to arrive. I queued properly. It was everyone else who pushed and shouted at me. There are times when I feel that the Indians don't want foreignors here in India.
Back at the hotel the young man at the desk told me to take a rikshaw to the Golden Temple and when I told him that I'd rather walk the 2 km than have anything to do with those theiving rikshaw drivers, he said "There's a free bus that goes to the temple. It's yellow and it stops outside the station". So I went to look for the yellow bus, queued up and waited. When it arrived the queue began to move. The bus filled up. More people got in. "Go on" said the Sikh herding people into the bus," "It's full" I said "I'll wait for the next one". More and more people stuffed themselves into the bus. It was absolutely packed. I waited half an hour for the next one and got in with my luggage. People climbed over me, tried to sit on my luggage, pushed and shoved. I sat tight. The bus driver had a magnificent white beard and an indigo turban.
Once inside the Golden Temple complex you enter another world, of marble floors, carved marble pillars, cool collonades, enormous sleeping quarters where the beds are lined up in touching rows, enormous dining halls for thousands of pilgrims, sitting cross-legged in rows on the floor, as turbanned Sikhs come round with buckets of dahl which they slop out into the waiting pilgrims' metal plates, splashing drops onto the floor. The loudspeakers play a chant to tabla accompaniment throughout the whole complex.
The golden temple is surrounded by a huge pool of water and all round the pool shining white towers, domes and porticoes. And people, walking round, clockwise, endlessly. Some Sikh men immerse themselves in the pool. At a certain moment in the incantation, the people standing, sitting or walking all stop, kneel down and bow down and touch the floor with their foreheads. The golden temple shines in the sun.
We arrived in Amritsar too late to go to the Golden temple, so I took a thieving rikshaw to the railway station and tried to book a ticket to Delhi for the following day. Unlike the lovely ticket booking system in Delhi, in Amritsar there are queues, supposedly for senior citizens, disabled and ladies, but the so-called ladies push and push. When I remonstrated with them they started shouting at me. In the end the ticket salesman refused to sell me a ticket because I didn't know the number of the train and told me to speak Hindi.
I dragged by bag up and down several staircases and eventually found a cheapish hotel room, with no window, in a side street in the market and went to sleep. Next day I got up and went back to the station to book that train ticket. The early morning mist was compounded by sweepers stirring up the dust and burning the rubbish, including plastic, adding toxic fumes to the dust-laden atmosphere. After a lot of shouting and pushing I eventually got a ticket to Delhi. The train will arrive at 10.30pm, not a good time to arrive. I queued properly. It was everyone else who pushed and shouted at me. There are times when I feel that the Indians don't want foreignors here in India.
Back at the hotel the young man at the desk told me to take a rikshaw to the Golden Temple and when I told him that I'd rather walk the 2 km than have anything to do with those theiving rikshaw drivers, he said "There's a free bus that goes to the temple. It's yellow and it stops outside the station". So I went to look for the yellow bus, queued up and waited. When it arrived the queue began to move. The bus filled up. More people got in. "Go on" said the Sikh herding people into the bus," "It's full" I said "I'll wait for the next one". More and more people stuffed themselves into the bus. It was absolutely packed. I waited half an hour for the next one and got in with my luggage. People climbed over me, tried to sit on my luggage, pushed and shoved. I sat tight. The bus driver had a magnificent white beard and an indigo turban.
Once inside the Golden Temple complex you enter another world, of marble floors, carved marble pillars, cool collonades, enormous sleeping quarters where the beds are lined up in touching rows, enormous dining halls for thousands of pilgrims, sitting cross-legged in rows on the floor, as turbanned Sikhs come round with buckets of dahl which they slop out into the waiting pilgrims' metal plates, splashing drops onto the floor. The loudspeakers play a chant to tabla accompaniment throughout the whole complex.
The golden temple is surrounded by a huge pool of water and all round the pool shining white towers, domes and porticoes. And people, walking round, clockwise, endlessly. Some Sikh men immerse themselves in the pool. At a certain moment in the incantation, the people standing, sitting or walking all stop, kneel down and bow down and touch the floor with their foreheads. The golden temple shines in the sun.
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