India: Amritsar – City of the Golden Temple
We travelled to the far northwest corner of India to the city of Amritsar, which is about 30 kilometers from the Pakistan border. Seeing the Golden Temple was one of the highlights of our India trip, what a serene and beautiful place. The Golden Temple, officially called Harmandir Sahib, is the spiritual and cultural centre of the Sikh religion and is surrounded by a lake that is filled with “Amrit” (holy water or immortal nectar).
Upon entering the temple, you have to remove your shoes and walk through the footbaths. This is for respect and purity of the holy shrine but we found that walking barefoot on the cool white marble floors across the huge temple complex provided a more meaningful and connected experience. Over the 3 days in Amritsar, we visited the temple a number of times in order to see it in different light conditions (sunrise, noon, sunset, night, etc.). Dawn and dusk were particularly beautiful and peaceful to us.
Sikhism is one of the more universal religions where all people regardless of race, religion, creed or colour are welcome to visit the temple and fully participate in all rituals. We take the opportunity to see this openness of all others first hand and sit down cross-legged on the ground and share an afternoon meal with thousands of fellow pilgrims at the temple’s free kitchen (donations are welcome).
An interesting and worthwhile side trip from Amritsar is a short taxi ride to the Pakistan/India border town of Wagah to watch the daily border closing ceremony at around 5 pm. We sat in the spectator stands with a few other hundred Indians and tourists (on the India side of course) while the two country’s soldiers performed marching, chanting, and intimidation tactics before they finally lowered their country flags, shook hands quickly and locked the border gates for the night. The India side was particular festive (in colourful Bollywood style) with music blaring, spectators dancing, singing national songs and waving their beloved country flag.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 at 22:57. It is filed under Blogs, India, Travel Blog and tagged with Amritsar, golden temple, punjab, sikh, sikhism, travel photography, wagah border.
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