Amritsar weekend.

Last weekend we went to Amritsar, it is a small city up in the north, next to the border of Pakistan and the home to the Sikhs most holy temple.
We left Delhi early Friday evening and we spent the night at a really nice authentic restaurant right next to our hotel, called Crystal. We had a fantastic Indian meal and we all eat far too much! The guy next to us had an amazing chocolate pudding, but sadly I couldn't eat another mouthful!

On the Saturday we went to the Sikh's Golden Temple but the queue was so long so we didn't go inside the temple to look at their holy book, we only walked around the grounds. At these temples they always have a huge kitchen where they serve food for everyone that wants/need food. So we sat down with the locals and had our meal, it was really interesting to see all these volunteers cooking, cleaning, serving
" Thousands of volunteers have scrubbed the floors, chopped onions, shelled peas and peeled garlic. At least 40,000 metal plates, bowls and spoons have been washed, stacked and are ready to go. Anyone can eat for free here, and many, many people do. On a week day, about 80,000 come. On weekends, almost twice as many people visit."

After that we walked around the old town just to kill some time because at 3.30pm we had to leave our hotel to go with the guide to the border of Pakistan to see what the Indians and the Pakistanis do at the border gates every day at the same time the whole year! See the video it is amazing! They marched up to the gates and everyone cheered! But they did it super fast and then kind of kicked their legs over their heads, it is difficult to describe, so watch the video to understand. (videos to follow)

Later on in the evening we went to the Mata temple which is a Hindu temple for woman who pray for pregnancy. It was the funniest temple I have been to in India, there were plastic statues everywhere, plastic man made "caves" that you walked through, mirror walls and you got a scarf around your neck in the middle to prove you had been there. Very weird but entertaining and there were a large number of Indian Women there every day and night to pray.

We ended the evening at the Crystal restaurant again and this time I couldn't resist the sizzling brownie cake with Ice cream on top! mmm

Sunday morning was lazy and we flew back to Delhi at 2pm.

Girls, desperate to have a picture with the white lady!

Old people on a pilgrimage.

Me in front of the Golden Temple

Stephen and the Golden Temple

                                     

Old warriors.

2 Hour long queue to see the Holy Book.

Waiting for our meal

Cooking pots

Washing station

Cooking station, making roti's

Serving us the food.

Indian border crossing

Pakistan border

                                         

The two flags

                                     

Huge crowd watching

India vs Pakistan opening and closing the gate.

Me in the "caves" of Mata Temple

The statues they prayed to.