The Golden Temple

  Amritsar, Punjab, India Friday, August 29, 2014

Our arrival here was nothing to write home about. It took about 4 hours by coach from Chandigarh which as we have already said must be the cleanest city in the whole of India. Amritsar must be one of the dirtiest and it was a shock to our system a little bit. It is a very old city and the central part of it really needs knocking down! Anyway there are 3 reasons for coming here 1) the very famous Golden Temple for Sikhs 2) the even more famous sunset ceremony at the Pakistan border 3) the almost completely unknown Jalllianwala Bagh Park The Temple was stunningWe booked our tuk tuk driver for 4:30 am as they have a service at 5am which we were told was well worth watching. So it was pitch black when we got there but even in the dark the beautiful white marble glowed. Inside the temple everyone has to cover their heads which is why in the photographs Bryan is wearing a knotted handkerchief on his head and Jody is wearing her purple pashmina on hers. The bright colours of the ladies sarees and the men's turbans stood out against the white walls making it a really beautiful place to be. The marble was embossed with colourful stones making beautiful inset flowers (sorry we keep using the word beautiful but is was). The marble work was just like that of the Taj Mahal which is 500 miles away. Of course the star of the show here is the Golden Temple which sits on the lake. The temple is made from solid gold and is absolutely stunning. It was well lit so it reflected in the inky black lake and was just a perfect picture.We queued with all the colourful people down the causeway to the island where the golden temple was and then everybody just sat down. not being able to move forward any further we sat down with them. The service started inside the temple and the service from inside was piped outside so everyone could hear it. The man inside was singing and everyone outside joined in it was really quite lovely Then everyone stood up and the queue got moving again. We edged closer to the temple and closer. Then we were in. Now you are going to have to take our word for this as no photographs were allowed inside, but it was truly stunning. Being all gold inside it had a natural glow of it's own. There were marigold flower garlands everywhere too and the holy men in white with orange turbans completed the picture. The flow of people moved through the temple and soon we were outside again. We stood by the water to watch the sun come up and it was time to leave. The next day we came back in daylight and it was still beautiful but it didn't quite seem to sparkle in daylight as it had in the dark so we were then doubly glad we had made theefoort to go at 4:30 the day beforeIt was with quite mixed feelings we ended our visit here as to be here now, you could not for one moment imagine the massacre that took place here in 1984. Over 2000 people (Sikhs and visitors) were killed by the Indian Army under direct orders from Indira Gandhi (Gandhi's daughter and the them Prime Minister of India) in an attempt to take the temple from the Sikhs. The Golden Temple was very memorable and definitely worth the visit. (you can see our diary for the other places separately) [gallery columns="4" ids="8041,8045,8049,8056,8062,8069,8071,8077,8081,8083,8087,8092,8096,8104,8110,8116,8119,8126,8132,8135,8139,8142,8147,8153,8156,8169,8178,8185"]