Amritsar & New Delhi

We arrived at our next destination on the last Thursday of November, the day that Americans everywhere celebrate thanksgiving. The problem is there aren’t many Americans (or even carnivorous humans) in Amritsar, so there would be no turkey for us this year! What we ended up doing was, however, still quite memorable.

The main attraction in Amritsar is the ‘golden temple’, the most sacred Sikh temple, which is housed inside the religion’s most important gurdwara (place of worship).

Many gurdwaras feature kitchens offering free food to visitors, and the golden temple does this on the grandest scale, feeding up to 100,000 people per day. At around 8pm we sat on the floor for a thanksgiving meal with a difference, eating vegetarian curries, rice and bread, all funded by donations and served by volunteers.

The temple itself, which we saw both at night and during the day, was quite impressive, although not knowing much about Sikhism meant that we didn’t really understand many of the rituals and ceremonies going on around us.

Our last stop in India was the national capital, Delhi. One of the oldest cities in the world and now one of the most populated, Delhi features lots of architectural attractions from various eras, but getting from one to the next requires long stints in horrendous traffic. Our favorites were Qutab Minar (a 73 metro high muslim structure build in the 12th century), Humayan’s tomb (which was built for a 16th century royal), India Gate (a centrally located war memorial) and Jama Masjid (India’s largest mosque). We were less impressed with the overcrowded Red Fort.

We spent the rest of our time in Delhi’s richer neighborhoods, doing some important admin (including getting some extra pages into Cindy’s packed passport), shopping and splurging on some really nice (but relatively expensive) food. A lot of travelers we spoke to either skipped Delhi altogether or only spent a day or two there, but we were glad in the end that we allowed four full days to explore the city.