A short-ish set of final blog pics from Amritsar

We're on to another destination, so I got a few pics ready for a final post from Amritsar.
First, some pics from around town again: then a few from the the nearby Wagah Border, where the India-Pakistan border is officially closed before sundown (quite the spectacle!); then, finally,  some more pics from the Golden Temple. 
I do have a whole bunch more pics, but enough for now!

Please click on the pics to embiggen!

A lot of red bangles - there were a number of speciality red bangle shops in the markets

The bangle shop owner

A bicycle rickshaw wallah

Selling hot sweet potatoes from a portable bicycle  food stall

A milk store guy making up hot spiced milk

One way to advertise your business

At the Wagah Border, as the crowds gathered (eventually filling all the seats on both sides of the border) for sundown, getting ready for quite the military personnel  show of strengths.

Getting ready for the ceremony

Marching towards and showing muscle off at the other side

Amazing high steps walking towards the border

Flipping off his moustache at 'the other side.' 

Back to Amritsar....

A few folks heading for the Golden Temple

Some students with mandatory head coverings to enter the temple.  You can buy them or there are
bins to take them from for free.

Heading to temple

Every day, thousands upon thousands of people are fed for free in the Temple area, produced by volunteer labour and regular cooks, as they view it as their duty to feed anyone who needs it.

One of the large vats of food cooking in a side building

One group of volunteers

One of the volunteers

A short stack of pics from Amritsar

We've been moved on from Amritsar for a bit now - have had a nice stay in Dharamsala (McLeod Ganj), and are now down in Lower Dharamsala staying in the Norbulingka monastery Hotel, The Norling (Wait till you see pics of this place!), waiting to take an overnight bus to Delhi and onward.
Anyhoo, before I'm so backed up in blogs we'll be home I thought I'd share some assorted pics in Amritsar (but not much of the Golden Temple yet!).

We met up with our old - I mean really old, like ancient - friend Doug from Vancouver, who we arranged to meet in D'sala and travel around with. Although I won't go into details of just how Methuselah-like he is, he does carry a tiny camera with him and has - to him - a blog of 'interest.'  He claims no responsibility for the blog, putting the blame on a mysterious shadowy figure known as 'The Lone DeRanger'.  Who that guy is....maybe we'll never know...but if you want your eyeballs re-wired with more up to date stuff the blog address is https://thelonederangerspeaks.blogspot.com/😁


Anyway, back to Amritsar....

Part of he view of the Golden Temple from our rooftop

Back down to the streets, with a well adjusted auto-rickshaw

A very old little shrine to Hanuman embedded in a wall

A chai guy and one of his customers

People do work hard here

Just a guy in the street

A guy & his buddies buying kulfi (Indian ice cream) from a travelling stall....mmmmm, kulfi.

Another kulfi seller

Anne with friends.

Back to India - November 2019 to January 2020

A short first pass blog post from the start of our trip. 

Back to India to revisit some old haunts and get to someplace new!

Haven't been away for very long, but here we are again.  First thing to do - avoid New Delhi!  Just way too polluted, so...fly-in, fly-out!  We had a quick flight to Amritsar in the Punjab for a few days of  flight recovery and to visit the Golden Temple.

After leaving the foul air of Delhi, the flight on quite a large plane was only about an hour on Air India.  Skies looked good...until we got close to Amritsar, then...oops!  Flew into a pretty heavy storm, and lucky that the lightening didn't start until after we got on the ground!  It was really wild, with blasting rain, even coming in everywhere inside the airport, then had to hang out at one of the slowest baggage retrievals I'd had to put up with.

Should have suspected something was going on from the clouds as we came in to Amritsar.

Waiting and waiting and waiting for the luggage.....but it was just pouring down rain!

We stayed quite close (two minutes walk) to the Golden Temple complex, so had the opportunity to go in, from pre-dawn to late night.  What a marvelous place!  Easy place to spend some time. The only other 'destination' was to get to the official closing of the India-Pakistan border at sundown - also a real India-feast!

Otherwise, just walking through the little streets and alleyways was a great treat.  Lots of interesting old architecture.  As well, Amritsar has as a very 'Disneyland' experience in a few walking-only linked streets from the town hall to the plaza next to the Golden Temple.  No conservation of old buildings along the route, but rather a simplified architecture, and wide open streets with even the wiring underground (wow!).  Kind of sterile for India, but a nice change.  You walk through all the little alleyways, with broken down and deteriorating buildings (something I like, actually), and little businesses and bigger hotels, thick electrical wires everywhere, watching out for puddles and poop, then wham you're in the big new open street, with lots of tourist shops, some little dhabas, kulfi stands, and even a Subway and McDonalds.  Quite the different ambience.

So, we're in the Punjab! As expected, lots of pride in their identity!

View towards city rooftops from our hotel.

Down into the streets

There are still old wooden parts to many of the buildings, but generally not well maintained

When you look up....some extreme electrical work

One of  the many small stalls on the side of the road

A nice wave from a fellow with a horse cart.

I'll flesh out this first view of Amritsar in a couple of other posts, including the wonderful Golden Temple.