We had a very relaxed start to the day with departure scheduled for 10 am out of deference for the folks who didn’t arrive until 11.30 pm last night.

The coach took us to close-ish to the Golden Temple and then we had our first extreme ride of the trip - an electric / battery tuk tuk - just amazing and really in amongst the back streets of Old Amritsar. We have difficulty believing how resistant Australia is to electric vehicles when ‘even India’ has embraced them. It was still a mental drive through the donkeys, mules, camels, carts, bicycle rickshaws, trucks, cars etc etc - but at least we weren’t choking on diesel fumes being spewed from the many and varied tuk tuks (though here they are termed battery rickshaws!)

The Golden Temple is an amazing sight (pictured). It was plated with 100kg in actual gold by one of the maharajas who thought the white marble needed perking up a bit. We went through the routine of feet washing, hand washing and head covering then headed in to the temple - just us and a gazillion other people. Even though there are a few tour groups floating about, white faces are still a bit of a novelty and we had several requests for people to take selfies with us. Strange. Must be what being famous is like. The temple itself sits in a reservoir of holy water and people were bathing in it - men in public, women in private pavilions (of course). The men tuck their daggers into their turbans and strip right down to their shorts - then grab a chain to hang on to and dunk themselves in from head to foot.

The highlight for us for us was not actually the temple (though we now know more about the Sikh religion that ever before - basically our hands-on advanced qualification in Comparative World Religions is continuing apace). The highlight for us was actually the free kitchen. On a regular day somewhere around 70,000 meals are cooked and served from the kitchen - lentils, chapati, pickles, rice, dessert chai/tea etc - a full meal. On a holy festival or weekend it can go well over 100,000 meals. All free, all staffed by volunteers - just incredible. People can eat as much as they want as often as they want - the only guidance is if you take food then you must eat it as waste is quite rightly frowned upon. So really enjoyed visiting the ktichen and dining areas. We had the opportunity to queue up for at least 2 hours to view the holy book within the holiest of holies... but as a group we decided against it and viewed another holy book instead and then moved on (no queue - perfectly holy enough).

Our next stop cut a bit close to the bone for some members of our group - The Jallianwala Bagh Memorial garden. This garden stands as a memorial to a massacre of the local Indian populace by the British in 1919 and quite recently was just a bit of vacant ground. It is now a lush and green with topiary figures of men with guns and walls with the bullet holes highlighted - not to mention the martyrs well where over 100 people jumped to safety from the shooting - only to have bullets rained down on them from above. Quite a moving memorial - particular for the British majority of the group who not surprisingly wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

The next ‘attraction’ was a bit blah - The Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama - a panorama of glorious Indian military history - ropy plasticine figures done in dioramas... but we think it was just a filler since we’d all decided not to queue up in the blazing sunshine for a couple of hours at the Golden Temple. Lunch was accomplished (curry... who’da thunk it) then it was back on the coach for the hour or so to drive out to the Wagah bording with Pakistan.

We both didn’t know what to expect - perhaps a dusty fenceline and some uniformed guards doing a bit of a quickstep around the flagpole at sunset? We certainly didn’t expect an extravaganza. There was dancing, there was music, flag waviing, some very impressive funny marching, more music, the Border Security Force had their bomb dogs out on display - and this happens every single day! Except for the other day when the regional tensions came to a head and the ceremony was cancelled for a couple of days when the airspace was closed. But otherwise everyday. Quite a good watch actually, then another long drive back into Amritsar where we enjoyed another lovely dinner at the rooftop bar before hitting the hay. Tomorrow the Road to Chandigarh beckons. Must remember not to say Kandahar... close, but we’re definitely not in Afghanistan...