The Golden Temple, Amritsar

My cycling trip ended in Kerala and from there I sent my bike off to Delhi on the train by itself while i continued on by a different route. We eventually met again in Delhi but in the meantime, I did some travels by conventional means.

I went to Amritsar, in Punjab, for the experience of the Golden Temple and I would highly recommend it to every traveller to India. Amritsar itself is nothing to get excited about. Its a grey dusty congested city. Just as most Indian cities are described in my guidebook. This one though fits the description better than all the other cities I visited.

The Golden Temple is a sikh temple. It welcomes people of all religions and travellers from anywhere. It's a sanctuary like no other religious centre I have ever experienced. There was one thing I didn't like - having to take your shoes off when inside the temple gates - so that means cold and wet feet for quite a long time because its a large area. Apart from that its a fascinating place and very different.

Anyone can stay in the accommodation provided by the Temple. Indians who can afford to pay, tend to pay 50r for a family room while, as a traveller, I was shepherded to a free dorm. I think i would have preferred the room but never mind. Next to our dorm, and between us and the toilets and showers, hundreds of poorer pilgrims stretched out their blankets and mattresses on the ground where they slept. There were a couple of very old sick men who must have come to die here. One of them could do nothing for himself. He looked in pain. It was humbling and shocking (in a good way - for the want of a better word) to have to walk past him several times a day.

The temple also provided free meals. I only ate their one as it was a bit off-putting to have your meal sloshed onto your plate so that most of it fell on the floor beside your dish. Anyway, you have to experience these things. Dinner was simple chapati, dal and rice pudding. And water.

The pilgrims - all of us - were invited to help out in the large communal kitchens. I had a go at making chapattis. There was a lovely atmosphere in the chapati rolling room but they also had a chapati machine which was less interesting.

I also loved the sound of tin dishes being banged about by the hundreds of dishwashers.

Seating and organisation of the dining room was interesting. I don't know how they could have done it better. You walk into an empty hall. On the ground is a long mat and you sit down on it, next to the last person to have sat down. The servers go along the seated queue of diners. Someone has already given you a dish and cup. The server slops your food out and then after you've finished, assuming you don't want a second helping, you leave taking your dish with you. Meanwhile the queue has gone on and there might be several hundreds of people eating dal and rice all at once in the great room.

That's all for now. Maybe I will write the rest up the top.