We packed up the following day and bused off to amritsar in the Punjab province to check out the golden temple and the only border crossing between India and Pakistan. We arrived unknowingly to the largest Sikh festival of the year called holla mohalla and a city fully booked with pilgrims. It seemed hopeless, but we eventually came across a room after hours of searching and nearly reaching the point of killing the next person who asked what country we were from. Things chilled out though, and we walked through the crowd over to the golden temple to check it out.
The place was absolutely amazing, Sikhs are some of the most beautiful and enchanting people ive ever met. They broke off from the hindus in the 17th century to escape from the caste system and were nearly wiped off the planet by the Indian government when their numbers reached a mere ten thousand. Today their number are back into the millions, but they haven’t forgotten their bloody past and to this day still carry weapon such as daggers, axes, and swords with them at all times. There an wonderful looking people, straight out of another era, carrying ancient weapons, wearing turbins and colorful robes, huge beards, and hair that they never cut worn in buns on the tops of their heads.
To enter the golden temple, the holiest place of the Sikhs, one must remove all socks and shoes and cover their heads with a turbin or hat. Upon entering the temple everyone walks through foot pools to wash their feet. I witnessed the act of many people drinking the foot water as they walked through, as the water is considered holy…more like disgusting if you ask me. What is it with holy shit that makes people go fucking nuts and do the most retarded things.
Anyways, the complex itself was magnificent, and made almost entirely of white marble, blinding in the mid day sun, and revolved around a large central square lake used for bathing. Pilgrims would walk around the lake clockwise, stopping to bath and pray along the way, or drink more of the nasty water, bathed in by millions. The golden temple itself jutted out into the lake, and thousands of people would stand in line waiting to get in. along the outside of the lake there were many different shrines and where monks read from scriptures and conducted elaborate ceremonies. There was an amazing and gruesome museum also on the premises depicting the brutal history of the Sikhs with rooms filled from floor to ceiling of amazing portraits of bearded men in turbins, often wearing sunglasses.
The golden temple feeds an estimated 40,000 pilgrims a day in a huge industrialized kitchen that we tried out. We stood in line with everyone else and collected our plates and bowls and whatnots and then squeezed through the doors moshpit style and sat cross legged on the ground in rows of hundreds of people, we were the only tourists in the place jammed with easily over a thousand and it made for a very unique dinning experience. Servers would walk down the rows efficiently slopping out dahl, handing over chapattis, and throwing rice down with their hands…it was quite delicious actually, and we were starving, so we appreciated it immensely and it was totally free and without a doubt the strangest dinning experience of my life.
The following day we hung out at the golden temple some more and then in the afternoon caught a microvan out to attari, the only border crossing between Pakistan and Indian, where thousands of people show up everyday to watch a hilarious ceremony conducted by the soldiers and cheer for their countries. The ride out I sat bitch with the stick between my legs, the whole time trying not to get my nuts jammed by the drivers fierce motions to get it in gear. The place was real zoo, with more moshing Indian men and flag wavers and kids selling dvds of the event and popcorn and shouting and whatnots. The tourists got “vip” seating which kept us out of the mobs, but wasn’t that great of a view. We also had to sit facing into the squelching hot sun the whole time and really couldn’t tell for shit what was happening…but occasionally we saw the clownish soldiers go flying by in full on speed walking spazz, mocking towards the border before promptly stopping and throwing the most hilarious straight leg high kicks ever…and that was pretty much that. code
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