Tue, Nov 3: Amritsar

Our first visit today was to the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial.  This large plaza was the sight of a massacre in April 1919 when the British military fired on a group of people celebrating a local festival.  Between 350 and 1000 people were killed (depending on whose numbers you believe).  

It was a sobering location but we did get pounced on by a large group of exuberant school youths who wanted to take selfies with us. They were pretty relentless until Tara asked them to move on.

We then went back to the Golden Temple and stood in line to go inside the temple.  

Normally the lines are very long but we got there relatively early and didn’t have to wait too long.  Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the temple.  Too bad because the inside was covered with gorgeous golden mosaics and had a huge crystal chandelier. 

There were a lot of pilgrims (and at least one school field trip) touring the grounds.

We then toured the kitchens.  It is a tradition at the Sikh Gurdwara’s (equivalent of a church) to provide free food to all comers, no matter their religion, race, caste, etc.  This kitchen in this particular Gurdwara is open 24 hours a day and is reported to feed up to 100,000 people a day. 

In the gigantic dining room there were long rugs on the floor where people sat to eat.  Servers came around filling the plates and handing out the chapatis (an Indian flat bread).  Mary’s estimate was that the room must have held at least 500 people.

It was an incredible operation in that ALL of the work in the kitchen in done by volunteers.  We saw several stations cooking including several for making chapatis,

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and huge kettles where they were making vegetables and dhal (a lentil soup). 

There was a bit of an assembly line where people took the used plates from the guests, emptied any waste into a large pot and sorted the plates.

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And there were HUGE long sinks (troughs) where dozens of people washed the plates and silverware and then passed them to another set of sinks to be rinsed.  All volunteers.

  

There was even an interesting contraption we saw moving along the rows of people eating.  It consisted of a large covered stainless steel kettle on wheels and it turned out this was being used to dispense water into drinking bowls.

After enjoying a taste of chapati we went to a local restaurant known for its Kulcha (another type of flatbread).  The restaurant served one type of a garbanzo bean dish, some mixed vegetables (Tara suggested it was fiery and that we should avoid it) and several types of Kulcha.  The bakery where the Kulcha’s were made was on the second floor.  The servers would call up the order and shortly thereafter one would stand at the bottom of the stairs with a tray and the bread would be dropped from the kitchen onto the tray. (Hard to get a picture but it was fun watching, once we figured out what they were going.)

After lunch we headed to the hotel where Mary took a short nap.  Then it was off to the India/Pakistan border to the Wagan Gate to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony that happened simultaneously on both sides.  There were huge concrete “bleachers” set up on both sides of the gate.  There must have been a couple thousand people on the India side. 

The “cheerleader” led everyone in chants and everyone went crazy when the guards started marching/strutting/high kicking down the street towards the gates.  

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Crowd control was impossible and we eventually lost our good view.  So we did like the Indians and Mary marched to the front of the mob and was able to get good pictures while holding off people trying to get in front of her.  Tara was right behind her and Paul behind Tara to try to keep people back.  Ultimately we had a good time watching the guards on both sides of the gate go through their paces.  

At one point the large gate was opened and we could see directly into Pakistan (does that count for a visit?).  There were bleachers on the Pakistan side full of Pakistani's showing the same exuberance as the Indians.

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The ceremony abruptly ended and the mob started working its way back to their cars.  It was a fun celebration with lots of friendly people.