Speechless / Famous in India

This Saturday me and Daniela decided to take a bus around 10 in the evening to go to Amritsar, about 30 km from the Pakistan border. Amritsar, home to Sikhism’s holiest shrine; the Golden Temple. For those who not know, Sikhism is a religion, founded in Punjab by Guru Nanak in the 15^th century, which began as a reaction against the caste system. What I’ve seen so far is that the Sikhs, well at least the men, do not cut their hair or shave their beard, wear a turban to hide their probably 2 meter long hair, and some even carry a sword with them. I’ve heard that they also wear loose underwear but I won’t be the judge of that. Sikh men also seem to be a bit bigger than Indians in general. I’m still trying to figure out why that is.

So after a 4,5 hour warm bus ride with too loud Punjabi music we arrived at Amritsar at 2.30 in the night. We took a tuk-tuk with a friendly Indian couple to the temple complex. After chugging the last bit of my rum and coke (as alcohol and tobacco are strictly forbidden within the temple complex), we had to take our shoes and socks off… It was freezing cold! And no gloves allowed, damn! But hey, I’m Dutch so let’s do this! Once inside the complex, we saw the Golden Temple and forgot about the cold for a while, the sight simply took our breath away. And the chanting flowing out of the speakers took our thoughts to a different place. After staring at the temple for a while and taking some pictures, we started to walk around a bit and even at 3 in the night a lot of pilgrims were already there to pray and pay their respect, bath in Amrit Sarovar (the sacred pool surrounding the Temple), take a drink out of that same holy water and volunteer in cleaning the Parkarma (marble walkaway surrounding the water). I liked the idea of pilgrims volunteering in keeping the temple clean, however walking barefoot on a wet marble floor in the middle of the night...we were not made for this!

Luckily there were a lot of things to take our minds of the cold for a while. Everywhere we looked there were people praying and performing rituals. It was strange for me to see these pilgrims being so strictly religious, coming from a country where my generation doesn’t seem to take religion all that serious anymore. It was strange to see, but strange in a good way. After realizing my feet were turning blue we needed to find a place to warm up. And what better place than the Golden Temple itself! We crossed the Gurus’ Bridge and entered: gold everywhere, flowers, people praying, lots of colors and 4 well-dressed Sikhs playing some weird instruments and singing into microphones. So that’s where the chanting is coming from! We went upstairs to the first floor, more people praying, and...the Sikh Holy Book, which is huge!! Still amazed of the beautiful vibe surrounding us we went up to the second floor, which is outside and on top of the temple. Getting a bit emotional after seeing all these people really loving and living their religion and rituals, the cold kicked in again. Back to reality. So we left the temple and with the help of our holy Travel Bible we found the dorms where all the pilgrims (and us tourists) can sleep for free. We stayed there for half an hour to warm up our feet and went back to the temple because there was a ceremony planned at 5 AM which supposed to be really special. And special it was! It also seemed that we were the only tourists/non-Sikhs/white people attending this ceremony which made it even better. I’m trying to think how I should describe the whole thing and put it in words but I’m afraid it won’t do any right to what I saw and how it made me feel. At that moment I was speechless and even now I still am when I think about the ceremony. Let’s just say this was one of the reasons I came to India. Inner peace.

We went back to the dorms to catch some sleep and unfortunately were woken up at 10 again. Then we had breakfast in a big dining hall, together with the Sikh pilgrims, on the floor, for free. Great meal, great hospitality. After giving our plates to one of the hundred volunteers who were doing the dishes, one of the Sikhs asked us if we wanted to be on the picture with him. Yes please!!
We walked around the beautiful golden shrine once more to take some touristy pictures and then left the complex, to put on our socks and shoes. I love socks and shoes!

Next stop: Pakistan border.

About 30 km eastwards from the Golden Temple lays Wagah, the only road border crossing between India and Pakistan, also known as the Berlin Wall of Asia. Every day at around 5 in the afternoon, this border crossing closes and this is done by holding a big ceremony.  They have built big tribunes around the gates for the people to sit because some thousand Indians and Pakistanis are drawn to the spectacle every day. Arriving there in an Indian taxi (read: taxi with too many people in it), having 3 passport checks and being frisked two times, we were seated in the tourist section. After a while some guy in a white jogging outfit of some sort started to sweep up the crowd and the ceremony started. Traditionally dressed border patrol on both sides marked their territory by shouting and doing aggressive but silly walks. Every aggressive step directed at the Pakistanis was received by lots of cheering and laughter, great atmosphere! I have made some amazing videos from this ceremony but you’ll just have to visit me in 3 months to see them because I can’t put them up here. After lowering both flags, seeing one of the Indians shake hands with one of the Pakistanis and the closing of the gates, the show had ended. As we walked back to our Indian taxi while making some pictures, a group of Indians asked for my camera so that they could take a picture of me and Daniela. At least that’s what I thought... What they really asked was if they could be on the picture with me! So suddenly I was surrounded by 5 Indian guys from around my age, while holding up my little Indian flag, and giving them my best smile. This happened two times more and made me feel very ‘special’.

What a crazy trip it was.
Actually the entire week was crazy.

Still 11 more of these weeks to go. That should be interesting…

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener

Cold Chandigarh

Where was I? O yeah, I arrived in India, chaos in Delhi, warm welcome by host family, lot of extremes etc. Wednesday, Day 3, I had another great Indian (warm) breakfast, did some chilling in my room and played some football with Jasmeet (of course while wearing my orange jersey). Then I did some shopping with Harmeet at a flea market because I needed some more warm clothes. Have I told you yet they have no central heating system so it’s inside as cold as outside? So most of the times I’m even wearing my jacket and scarf inside the house…crazy! Oh, and there’s no hot water. So taking a shower means boiling a lot of water, put it in a big ass bucket, mix that with cold water and then use this little scoop thingy to poor it on you.

Anyway, in the afternoon we watched a movie and then it was time to say goodbye to my host family and go to the trainee house, where I am supposed to be living for the rest of my stay here with fellow adventurers. I met my roomies: Malick from Senegal, Daniela from Brazil and Maria from New Zealand. Nice combination right? The combination 1) no heating system, 2) just a thin blanket, 3) crappy isolation and 4) officially the coldest day in Chandigarh ever recorded (no kidding!), was not so nice… I was wearing my jacket, scarf and gloves in bed and still had one of the coldest nights in my life and a really hard time falling asleep. I don’t even want to know how all the people in the slums must have felt. There were actually some deaths reported of (probably homeless) people who didn’t make it through the night. And that was Day 3!

The next morning, still frozen, I had my first doubts about the whole India experience. To live in such a cold house is not funny at all. But luckily my new roommates were there and took me with them to lunch somewhere in the city. It was nice to get to know new international people again, like I have been doing for the last 2 years. At one point we entered a dance studio because one my roomies was interested in taking lessons. After watching one of the lessons for a while the dance instructor closed the door and forced us to join them in learning some Indian dance moves. What the hell!? I didn’t sign up for that! But ok, let’s just go with the flow and make a fool out of myself. So I did… Sorry, no video material available. In the evening we sat all together in one room with some simple heaters, getting to know each other, having some food, listening to music and I gathered some more blankets for another cold night to come. The doubts were gone; I’m going to have a good time here.

Friday, Day 5. Everything goes so slowly here that I’m taking over this rhythm and am losing my Dutch productivity. Waking up, having breakfast and actually start doing something takes about 3 hours. Time to change, not too much, but just a bit. So I went to find a gym together with my Brazilian roommate Daniela, jogging. I found a decent one which I’m probably going to join. On our way back we stopped by the liquor store to buy some cheap alcohol. Feeling Dutch again. Later in the afternoon me and Ms. Brazil went to play some football with Indian people, 5 against 5, of course wearing my orange jersey again and showing them how the Dutch play football (no comments please). Back home, physically destroyed, I desperately needed a shower but I had to wait for 20 minutes to boil all the water, kind of annoying…
Friday night was clubbing night! With my roommates and a bunch of foreign and Indian friends they gathered over the past months we went to this rather empty club. Apparently it was too cold for the Indians to leave their house, which was perfectly understandable. We had a great time anyway and it was funny to see people from different countries having completely different ways of dancing. The club closed at 1.45 AM (!) and me, Maria and Daniela had some girl talk until 3. Then I passed out.

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” – Fitzhugh Mullan

three Days, a million Impressions

Ok, so I am in India, about 7000 km away from home. And in these past 2 days I have seen and experienced so many wonderful, strange, new and extreme things that it is hard to organize everything in my head and put it on digital paper. The best thing is probably to start at the beginning and just go from there…

After a full week of partying, preparing, saying goodbye and not to forget, New Year’s Eve (which ended at around 6.30 in the morning instead of 1 AM which was the original plan), I was saying goodbye to my family at Schiphol Airport  on a Sunday morning, too tired to even realize what I was about to do. My first flight (11.40 AM) was to Helsinki in which I slept almost the entire time. There I had to spend about 5 hours, walking around a bit and eating way too expensive airport sandwiches, before I could board on my connecting flight to Delhi. After having dinner on the plane and watching Dinner for Schmucks, a baby on the plane decided it was afraid of flying just when I was ready to catch some sleep. It was then when I decided I hate babies. Finally, after a 7 or 8 hour flight (including 2 hours of sleep) I arrived at Delhi International Airport at Monday 7 AM, (2.30 at night Dutchy Time). A bit afraid of going outside where about 100 taxi drivers were eagerly waiting for Mr. Tourist, I had some Indian airport food first which was of course spicy, but no steam was coming out of my ears like I expected. Feeling rich after taking 5000 rupees out of the ATM, I looked for a taxi to bring me to New Delhi Railway Station, where my Lonely Planet travel guide (my bible for the next 3 months) advised me to go the International Tourist Bureau to buy a train ticket to my destination for that day: Chandigarh. That’s because in unofficial ticket offices they would overcharge me or sell me fake tickets. The first Indian guy I met said the Bureau was closed that day. Such bad luck! But he knew another Tourist Bureau that happened to be open and he was happy to bring me there. “Ok man, nice to meet you but you’re full of shit”, is what I thought but of course didn’t say. Finally I got into another taxi. The driver didn’t try to fool me but I was still very cautious. First things I noticed on the road: Army guy with a machine gun aiming on the traffic apparently looking for terrorists of some sort, people just standing on the side of the road doing absolutely nothing, a lot of honking and... ULTIMATE CHAOS! Bikes, cars, buses, bicycle rikshaws, taxis, tuk-tuk’s, all on the same highway passing each other left or right, cutting each other off, and suddenly in a matter of seconds: traffic jam. So my taxi driver obviously used the sidewalk and after a while decided to go into a shop to buy something and leave me behind for about 20 minutes. Makes perfect sense right?

Ok, so finally arrived at the station with literally thousands of people roaming around. Knowing that the Tourist Bureau was somewhere in the station, but not knowing where exactly, made me the perfect target. Suddenly a lot of people wanted to help me(!). I got send to many different directions and saw different (tourist) ticket offices but none of them seemed very official. I entered one so I could sit down and take a quick look in my travel Bible. It said that the Tourist Bureau I had to go to is situated in the main building of the station. Apparently I had already been close but the closer I got the more ‘helpful Indians’ send me in a wrong direction. That’s when I marched down to the main building, ignoring the people following me and wanting to ‘help’ me and eventually found what I was looking for. It was around 11 AM and I got a ticket for the train of 5.15 PM. So I had a lot of time to kill. With the help of my Bible I decided to go to a restaurant downtown. I took a bicycle rikshaw operated by an old skinny man with the leg power of a horse. He was very friendly and working incredibly hard to get me to my restaurant. The ride itself was crazy and chaotic. Some of the streets were so incredibly crowded! Almost impossible to go through and so many people all around us! Hundreds of Indians were constantly staring at me which made me feel quite uncomfortable and I decided not to use my camera yet, afraid of insulting people. The friendly old man dropped me off and after having my second Indian meal without any problems I decided to go back to the station as soon as possible, the streets were just too hectic for me and my luggage. Once on the platform in the station, so away from all the annoying people I met before, I met the real Indian people as I hoped they would be. I had some great conversations with just random Indians. One of them was an air force commander in the Indian army who was carrying a little baby girl in his arms. She blew a kiss in my direction. Very sweet! So now I love babies again(!) Another conversation was with an older Indian guy, around 50 years I think, and we talked about Indian politics. He also asked for my age. When I told him I was 23 years old, he started smiling in a funny way and said his daughter is of the same age. His facial expressions suggested an arranged marriage and I was very flattered. Our ways separated once the train came but immediately another super friendly guy started talking to me, Yogen, who became my travel buddy for the 4 hour trip to Chandigarh. We talked about a lot of different things and also met a very intelligent 10 year old girl who was reading a book about Anne Frank. When I told her I was Dutch she couldn’t be happier! She also loved languages so when I arrived at my destination we said goodbye in Hindi, Dutch, Spanish and French. Amazing!

Once in Chandigarh, I was picked up by my AIESEC contact Harmeet together with his brother Jasmeet, two proud Punjabi’s. Being really tired from travelling, all these new impressions and the lack of sleep, the only thing I was looking for was a bed. But they gave me such a warm welcome and such a nice meal cooked by their equally friendly mother that they pulled me through the evening. After dinner I touched the bed and got into a small coma. After a good night sleep, me and Harmeet had a big day planned and I also met his father. Guess what, also very friendly!  After a good breakfast Harmeet took me on the scooter to visit some of Chandigarh’s finest spots: Rock Garden (Artwork made from industrial and urban waste, beautiful!) and the Lake. During the day we met some of his (AIESEC) friends and everybody was really nice to me. This was a good start. However, we also passed some slums which was quite a shock. Makes you think about this sometimes unfair world… Still, Chandigarh is a good city to live in, much more organized than Delhi for instance. And deep down inside I’m still Dutch; the more organized the better!

Back ‘home’ at my host family I went to check Facebook for a minute and saw a whole lot of messages from friends around the world wishing me all the best and a bunch of friendship requests from the Indian people I met earlier. That really made my day. And then it became even better; Harmeet made me wear an orange turban! The best Dutch-Indian combination there is! In my opinion I look pretty good with a turban… We made some family pics followed by yet another delicious dinner. We had some nice conversations about the difference between Indian and Dutch culture followed by some Punjabi history. Another good day had ended.

I’m actually writing this late in the evening on the next day (Wednesday), of which I also have a lot to tell about. But I realize this story is already quite long and only covers 3 days so let’s stop here for the moment. And the real reason is that I’m tired and want to go to bed. I will try to update you guys again in the weekend, ok?

Houdoe

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard