7.23.11. 5:20 PM. Day 22. I Can’t Come Up With a Good Title for This One.

So the train ride was not to bad. We had fun, met some friendly people, Mati’s bag was stolen… It was rather bizzar, the train made a half hour stop in Haridwar and Mary and I decided to venture off the train in search for bottled water. Mati stayed on the train with the nice people we met. Apparently two of the many orange-clad people there for the month-long Shiva festival (the French lady was right after all) came onto the train and took the bag.

Everybody saw them there and walk away with the bag too, but they did it in such a way that everyone thought it was their bag. Luckily for Mati, she was a smart cookie; she kept her phone, money, and passport in a little pouch around her neck. The guys only got away with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, toilet paper, and eye drops. A waste. Other than that our train ride was rather enjoyable and we arrived in Amritsar around 8AM the following day.

We automatically thought about breakfast but doubted that any of the restaurants were open before 10AM. Everything else in India seems to open at 10AM so we figured the food would too. We decided to go directly to the Golden Temple, Sri Harmandir Sahib Ji, and get the langar, free meal, while we were there. We took an A. Rick (somehow) to the Golden Temple which was a good distance away – maybe 5km from the train station, and we only had to pay 80 rps total. Not too shabby. It seems we got there just before the morning rush but, being devout Sikhs, many were already there, having gotten up by 4AM. I saw the golden roof first as we turned the corner. I was in shock and awe. I was finally there. The trip to Agra was nice and all but my main place to see had been the Golden Temple from day 1. And there it was. Oh. My. God. We walked up, put our shoes in the shoe rack area, got the boys some bandanas to put on their heads and we girls put our scarves (chunis in Punjabi). I washed my hands, and we walked through the shallow water thing they have and we walked through the atrium and there it was – really in the middle of the water, really made of gold, and really – really there.

 I think that at this point pictures can describe better than I can how this place is laid out so I shall leave it at that. I couldn’t help but take pictures of everything. The ambiance of this place was completely contrasting that of the Taj Mahal. This was a holy place, a sacred space, where even the noise from the outside city seemed to melt away. We were in a bubble. We walked clockwise around the pool once and then decided to go to the langar hall. As we walked up to it there were huge metal framed boxes, with thousands of metal plates, on either side of the walkway.

 People handed us a plate, one by one, and then a metal bowl, and a metal spoon. We were redirected to the second floor as the first one just filled up. Not even 5 minutes later the second one filled up too. We sat in rows on long carpets and people came down the middle and put food on our plates. Dhal, Kheer, and roti. Another person poured water into the bowls, we were not sure if the water was filtered or not but I didn’t care – I drank it anyway. I figured that the experience of the meal at the Golden Temple made any risk of sickness worth it. Completely worth it. No sickness as of yet!

            After langar we went down and just sat under one of the open passages facing the temple. One lady came up and tried to politely explain to Mati not to show the bottoms of her feet to the temple. Mati was confused because this was all in Punjabi so I took over and explained what the lady meant. Mati doesn’t seem to like being told what to do by authoritative figures, so my explaining seemed to defuse her anger. As we sat, one of the temple guards would come around and tell people off for sleeping or facing the wrong way. Every time he came around I would hold my breath and every time he would just pass me by. I was relieved and proud to know that I’d done nothing wrong. We eventually got up and made our way over to the end of the really long line to get into the temple. Again, only pictures could describe the beauty inside, but since photography was not allowed inside I can only try my best. It was gorgeous. That’s all I’ve got. I was so caught up with the experience of just being there that I can’t describe more than the general layout. I’d always thought that the temple was bigger on the inside but it is actually very small. There is about enough room for about 50 people on the first floor in the sitting area by Guru Granth Sahib Ji (the holy book) and then there is a little space for the rest of the followers to bow and mill through around. Around the sides there are staircases to the second floor where another holy book is being read, also there is a cabinet with little books that people can read hymns from. There is another staircase to the roof where there is a very small room where another book is being read in front of a small group. I’m not quite sure about the meaning/symbolism behind the three layers and three books etc, but the view from the top was amazing. I couldn’t help but be amused by the willingness of Sikhs to grow with technology. I’d thought that this feature was unique to the W. Sacramento Gurdwara but I was wrong – in one of the corners of the courtyard there was a movie theatre screen sized jumbotron that displayed the current hymn being sung, in Punjabi and in English words.

            We stayed there from around 9:30 in the morning to about 1:15 in the afternoon. We left mostly due to the heat and because we saw all we felt we needed to see inside the temple courtyard. We’d seen a coffee shop, Barista, that we also frequented in D.Dun, and decided to go there to beat the heat. On our way to our much needed AC-filled coffee house, we were approached by an old man trying to get us to hire one of his jeeps as a taxi to the India/Pakistan border for the flag ceremony, Bhaga Border. We’d heard about this ceremony and, in fact, did want to see it, but at the moment we all just wanted something cold so we took his card and brushed him off. Once we got into Barista and cooled down a but, we discussed taking the taxi to the border. Creepy-Travel-Ticket-Guy had offered to arrange a taxi for us at 100 rps a head each way. This old man was asking for 100 rps per person round trip, plus 10 rps for the toll. We’d decided to do it. When we left to shop on the main street, the old guy found us again, rather quickly, and this time we signed up for the ride.
            When I say that Mayank told us to go see this ceremony, understand that that is all he told us about it. We had no idea what to expect…either from the ceremony or from the old man. He’d said to meet back up with him at 3:30, so we did. The whole time we couldn’t help but feel that we were getting scammed. There were a few moments where we were pretty worried but there was never fear; at most we would be out a little over 500rps. But this turned out to be a legit deal, we were grouped together with 3 21 year old British university graduates. They told us about how they’d worked their way down from Jammu and are going to end up in Goa by the end of the next few weeks. It was happy time every time they said anything – those British accents, man, woo, nice. We all found their company rather refreshing. The guys liked talking to them about soccer teams, and we girls amused ourselves by admiring the tastefully muscular physique each of them possessed and showed off. It was amusing because they all had on skin-gripping tank tops, above the knee shorts, and flip flops. They were quite the sight for any who looked because having gotten used to the standard of modesty in India, these guys showed more skin than girls in America. At least, that’s what it felt like. But since they were men, no one either cared or said anything to them.

            The journey to the border was about 30km from Amritsar to the gate. It took just under an hour – the going was slow because it seemed like it was rush hour and everyone was going to the same place we were. We passed a toll booth and saw signs for the border. The driver pulled over by a building that looked like it would have been a small convenience store had it not just been full of lockers. We were instructed to take out our passports and cameras; our bags would have to be left in lockers. Also, we could have to walk the last 1km to the gate, cars could go no further. This road was soon overwhelmed by thousands of people going to the border. Completely surrounded on all sides, even if we had wanted to leave it probably would have taken longer than if we just continued onward. The walk was painfully slow. There were so many people that it got difficult to breath, it seemed like there wasn’t enough air to support us all. After over half an hour we got to a point where we could see the heavily armed military men directing the flow of traffic to the checkpoint. One of them announced that all women go to the left. I grabbed my girls and led them to the side and we easily passed up a few hundred men. This happened because people were getting patted down at the security checkpoint and the women were siphoned off to behind a barrier to be checked. Apparently there were far less women going to this event than men because we got through much faster than the guys. To top off our luck, it turns out that there was a foreigner VIP section, so we got to bypass the rest of the masses and sit fairly close to the gate. The being put in the “Foreign Guest” VIP section was funny in its own rite because even with my passport in hand, the guard tried to peel me away from my whities and stick me with the other Indians. I had to insist and flash my passport at him one more time before he let me follow. In hindsight, it would have been more fun to sit with the masses because they were very much involved in the ceremony. They chanted, they cheered, danced, and basically had a party trying to outdo the Pakistani crowd on the other side. The foreigners just sat, watched and took pictures of the whole thing.
            There is actually a dead space between the borders of India and Pakistan. I’m not sure of the actual distance, but it probably is 4 or 5 feet. There was a gate for each country so that the border could not be crossed unless both were open. The soldiers from either side were dressed in similar garb but with distinct colors (I actually liked the Pakistani outfit better). The Indian uniform is an interesting one. It is khaki. The lower ranked officers wore red and gold turbans that are tied (and probably starched) in such a way that the ends stick straight up on top (cockatoo style).

 Their pants are proper length but are pulled up extremely high on their wastes (Urkel style) which leaves the pant leg higher than the ankle. The pant leg over laps something that I don't know the name of, white that drapes over the shined black boot. I don't know what the height requirement is for this job but these guys appeared to be 5'10" or taller. It was hard to say, because it was easy to see that the purpose of the high-rise pants and fancy turban was to give the illusion of extreme height. These soldiers looked at least 7 feet tall.

 The Pakistani soldiers, from what I could see, a distance behind two fences away, wore black uniforms with black turbans with white trim, also sporting the fancy-feathered look. But the cool part about their uniform was the long black drape of cloth that came from the bottom of their turbans, and that their commander, at least, carried a very long sword. Kinda badass.

The ceremony took place in a stadium of sorts. Half of the stadium was built on either side. The stands wrapped around the entire place (except the dead space) and were raised fairly high. The entire place was packed on both sides with people trying to out-cheer each other.

 When the ceremony started the commanders from either side seemed to have a yelling contest, after each round one or two of the officers would super-high kick their way to the gate and do something. The kicking ability of these men was most impressive. They would open the gate a few times for a few seconds, quick interactions. Finally, with both gates open they would lower their flags diagonally so that they would cross in the middle.

 Close gate. Run flags to safety. More high kicking suspense-building, and finally the gate opens one last time and the two commanders charge each other - deal a quick hand shake and slam the gates on each other. What a show. So much happened, and I understood little to none of it. We were all told to exit, and lots of people lagged behind to get pictures with the soldiers. We had a deadline to keep to get back to the car to make it to the train station, so we left. What took at least 30 minutes to walk before, not only took 10. We made it back to town with plenty of time to even get dinner before our train. We said our goodbyes to the yummy-voiced British boys and made our way into the surprisingly good restaurant across the street from the station.