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.
Amritsar is now on my list. Many taxi drivers here have asked if I've been. Look forward to seeing your photos!
ReplyDeleteCassandra
Thanks C! Amritsar is worth a nice visit - a few days is good. I just need to get a bit more down time to catch up with the pics I've shot. Haven't shot nearly as many pics as usual, but we'll see.
Delete