Sikh and Ye Shall Find

Or: How Traci came to inflict her singing on and old Indian man, whilst on a crowded bus from Pathankot to Amritsar.
(Answer: he asked me)

Who could refuse a request from such a sweet old man with smiling eyes to "sing a song from your country"? I succumbed to the moment, and agreed to do something that would usually send me quivering into a corner with fear and shame.
The first song that came to my cowards' mind was the Australian national anthem (at least I knew the words), but when I started to sing, he stopped me abruptly by saying, "No, no... something with a tune. Sing something with a tune."
Embarrassed, I said to him that actually there is a tune to the national anthem, it's just that I have a terrible voice. Those of you who have been inflicted with my singing will know this to be true. But, he just smiled encouragingly at me, and waited, presumably thinking that I actually had it in me to sing some kind of aria that would invoke the beauty of my country and tell a story of it's victories and hardships in a range of melodic tones.
Unfortunately, the only other song that came to mind was Rolf Harris', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' which I lamely sang two lines of. This of course convinced the old man that in fact I was tone deaf, and he didn't burden either of us again by asking me to sing another one.


It was a combination of having sat on buses for about 8 hours that day, and the hoard of rickshaw wallahs frothing at the mouth at the site of fresh blood, that made me want to walk the 2 ks to our hotel from the bus station.
Hotel Grace is recommended by the LP guide, and it's very close to the sole attraction of Amritsar, the Golden Temple, so we decided to hole up there. Hole being the appropriate word.
Our attached shower literally sent out three individual and ineffectual pin pricks of water when turned on at full bore, and there was also a disconcerting hole in one of the walls (facing the car park) that had been covered by a sheet of red felt into which someone had kindly poked some holes. Other than that, it was actually a very spacious room and it did have a TV, a large double bed and a working western style toilet. It would do for a couple of nights.


Next morning I was woken up to the sound of pigeons cooing on our window ledge, which has never happened to me before, and I'm sure I'll always associate it with Amritsar. More importantly however, today was the day when we would visit the Golden Temple, the most holiest of Sikh temples.

The Golden Temple.

Before entering the huge complex (which is surrounded by a high white marble wall and, oddly, looks more like a shopping complex with it's many permanent stalls than a holy site), you must take of your shoes and wash your feet and hands and cover your head. The Sikhs were prostrating at the temple entrance, and it was difficult not to be humbled by the sight of it all.

The Golden Temple is not only surrounded by high marble walls, but it's set in the middle of an immense square lake which you walk around in a clockwise direction to reach the temples' entrance. At the opposite end of the lake to the temple, we watch hundreds of people bathing in the holy waters, and as we continued walking around, we saw many more hundreds of people either praying or meditating in this peaceful environment. There was also a constant sound of Sikh Sufi music that emanated from a microphoned quintet inside the temple itself. It created a beautiful atmosphere for prayer or just to admire the amazing temple.

The Golden Temple situated on the man made lake and surrounded by high marble walls.

Despite this beautiful temple being the focus of prayer and beauty, we had no fewer than five photos taken of us in as many minutes, by some men who were presumably Hindus. I allowed four photos, until I realised that they were all taking turns to have their photo taken while standing next to me (so they can pretend that I was their girlfriend and brag about it to their mates later), so only Tim appeared in the last photo. Could they have picked a more inappropriate place to act like such disrespectful, immature wankers??

Anyway, once we finally reached the temple walkway (it's a looong walk around the lake), we joined the throng of people in reasonably orderly queues to wait for our turn to enter the Golden temple. The walkway was covered by a long marquee, and had several fans cooling us from above. To my eyes, it looked very much like an expensive and beautiful wedding marquee.
Once we finally reached the temple, we couldn't help but be awestruck by the lavish interior complete with a massive crystal chandelier. There was a fenced off section on the ground level where the Sufi band was playing, and where another Sikh man accepting the gifts from the never ending succession of worshipers.

The covered entrance to the Golden Temple.

We walked through the temple and up to the first floor and then we walked around the temple (in a clockwise directions of course). At the back of the temple, we paused at a sign that said, "please take a step back to drink the holy water". I was initially puzzled by the sign, until I saw all the people kneeling down to drink the water from the lake - the sign was merely asking them to make room for others whilst they drink the brown water. This is the same holy water that the people had been bathing in on the opposite side of the lake.
It's official then: cleanliness really isn't next to godliness.