From Kashmir we flew to Amritsar, a city famous for the Golden Temple, the holiest place in Sikhism. While we wanted to see the Golden Temple, Amritsar was mainly a gateway city to the mountains in the region, which we’d heard wonderful things about. Stepping off the plane in Amritsar was a reminder that we were still in India. This wasn’t the cool, mountain air of Kashmir, but the stifling heat of the Indian summer that we had during our trip around the Golden Triangle.
We settled into our hotel and then made our way to the Golden Temple by foot. This seemed like an increasingly bad idea when we realized the networks of busy roads we had to cross to get there. Thankfully, with over a week under our belts, we knew the general strategy for crossing–just put your body in the road and gradually cut off more lanes. That seems to be the understood method.
Walking around Amritsar felt a lot more comfortable than walking around New Delhi, and it was nice to be able to enjoy the city now that we were more familiar with navigating around India. After accidentally going first to a mini Golden Temple, we made our way to the real one. It was, needless to say, impressive.
One of the most famous elements of the Golden Temple is the free meal they serve continuously throughout the day to all who enter. To steal from Wikipedia, this ties into the foundation of the religion: “…unity of all humankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for social justice for the benefit and prosperity of all, and honest conduct and livelihood while living a householder’s life.” Pretty awesome, huh. The meal was simple, but delicious. Just the experience of eating with many folks who rely on this meal daily made the experience especially poignant. We wandered back to the hotel to finalize travel plans for the next day.
The next morning, we boarded the first of what would be many government bus rides over the next couple of weeks. The government buses in India are very bare bones. They have AC buses but those are for tourists! And we were looking for the local experience (in reality we would have taken the AC bus but it was later in the afternoon and we were restless to get on the road). I was drenched in sweat by the time the bus pulled out of the bus station in the 90+ degree heat. Joe said he loved it because it reminded him of the Louisiana heat. I think he was only partly joking (note: if you ever want to see an argument between me and Joe, ask what temperature the thermostat in a room should be set to for comfortable sleeping).
Things we pretty good six hours into the bus ride, but eight hours into it we began to get restless, and were happy to pull into the McLeod Ganj station. The cooler mountain air, though, was a nice break from the heat of Amritsar.
McLeod Ganj, the main suburb of Dharamshala, was unlike any other place we’d seen in India. The tight, active streets gave it the feel of a mountain ski town. There were lots more foreigners than we’d seen anywhere else in India, no doubt drawn by the famous yoga centers in the city. Our hotel was quite a dismal place, but we tried to ignore that as we headed out to explore the town and get some food. We had wonderful food during our entire stay in Dharamshala. The mixture of Indian and Tibetan food hit the spot.
We were originally planning on spending three nights in Dharamshala, but there was an issue with our flight from Dharamshala to Delhi so we had to seek other means of transportation after two nights. The overnight bus was an option, but we were both hesitant to spend 11 hours on a bus. Eventually, though, it became clear this was the best option. Unfortunately, that cut our time in Dharamshala a little short, both by having to deal with the travel issues and by cutting out our final night, but as a small town there wasn’t an incredible amount to see. The visit to the temple where the Dalai Lama lives was amazing, as was the adjoining museum on Tibet.
In the afternoon we packed up at our hotel and boarded the overnight bus. As it turned out, it was quite a comfortable way of traveling. The seats recline a good amount, and the air conditioning is definitely an improvement over the government bus.
We arrived back in Delhi to wait a day until our flight down south to Kerala. We got a good deal on a nice hotel in Delhi, and were happy to have a day to catch up on rest before more travel.