Traveling!

Two posts in two days! Exciting.

So like I said, I went to Amritsar over Thanksgiving break with one of my friends from the Institute. It was one of the best trips I've been on, for a number of reasons, but mostly because I got to see Harmandir Sahib, or the Golden Temple. It was also kind of a whirlwind bit of fun, because I enjoy spending time with my classmates and this particular classmate is no exception.

We left late on Wednesday evening for the overnight train - he'd arranged the tickets a bit later than I would have liked, and the only seats left were in the Sleeper section of the train. Sleeper is kind of like riding on a public bus, only there are designated places for you to lie down, which is nice. But like a public bus (at least here), the windows don't exactly close, and while this was in November, it still got COLD during the evening. We'd gone shopping for bits and pieces of warm stuff, but I learned rather quickly that it was not warm enough. Anyway, we're supposed to get in around 10am Thursday (Thanksgiving day), but after a few delays and a few more delays, we pull into Amritsar at around 3:30pm.

After refreshing with some coffee and finding a place to stay, we walk to the Golden Temple. We cover our heads on the way in, and leave our shoes at the shoe check, both of which are required for entry into the temple complex. We washed our feet in the pool by the entryway, descended some stairs, and there in front of us was the temple.

I don't think I can describe it. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a writer and able to describe these things, but it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. I'll let the pictures do some of the talking, and Wikipedia do the rest. What we didn't learn until the following day was that the complex was mostly empty. The weekenders hadn't yet arrived, and we only waited two minutes or so to enter the temple itself. After wandering the temple, we came back out, sat for a while, and watched dusk settle over the complex. I was surprised how many animals were in the complex. A flock of barn swallows, or something similar, raced around chasing various insects hovering over the water. The fish in the Pool of Nectar ate liberally as well. And while there were no dogs, a cat followed us out of the complex and into the night.

Our hotel was quite nice and quite close to the Temple, a warm-clothes bazaar which we investigated for later shopping, and to a Dominoes. We wanted American food for our Thanksgiving dinner, so we decided to have pizza. It was delicious. Dominoes' sauce here is kind of weird, but I've gotten used to it. I do have pizza about once a month or so.

The next day, we lazed about for a bit, finished off our pizza for breakfast, and found Jallianwalla Bagh, a now-park which was the site of a massacre in 1919. Now there's an eternal flame (clearly sponsored by Indian Oil), a memorial to the martyrs, the martyr's well that some jumped in to escape the gunshots, walls still showing the bulletholes from over a century ago, and a lot of green space filled with people laughing and smiling. It's kind of surreal, but interesting. I would be interested in comparing this particular site to whatever the World Trade Center site turns into. It's interesting to see what nations make of their martyrs.

Then we went back to the Golden Temple and saw it in all its crowded glory. It's a bit of a different experience when it's filled with people, and when juxtaposed with the museum that we somehow missed on our first visit. The place is peaceful, even when crowded, but the museum is full of paintings and pictures of martyrs of the Sikh faith, usually actively being martyred. It paints the place in a whole new light, and I still wonder whether or not the museum was necessary for me to see. I think it was, to sort of shock me back to the realities that made this particular temple possible, but I wonder if I wouldn't have been happier with my experience without having seen it.

Following this, we picked up a lot of warm stuff (I grabbed a long sleeved shirt, two pairs of wool socks, a giant Kashmiri shawl, a jacket with a woolen hood, and a warm dupatta to match my dark kameezes and salwars. (It feels funny to pluralize those in English.) We sat down to dinner in a nice looking place, starving and ready to eat. Well, the whole day my traveling companion kept saying we should check our train tickets to make sure he'd gotten our departure time right. After we sat down and ordered, we looked, and the tickets were for 6pm. It was then 5:45pm. We quickly canceled our order, ran down the road for an auto, told him to go quickly, tossed him the fare, and ran for our train, arriving with a few minutes to spare. We managed to find food at the station in the form of chips and, a few stations down, box dinners, which while cold and kind of sketchy looking, were delicious given how hungry we were. I managed to stay warm this ride, having layered everything warm I'd bought onto my body. Still, it was touch and go when the shawl I was using as a blanket would slip out from under me. We arrived back in Jaipur on Saturday morning, with enough time to do all of our work before school started again on Monday.

Like I said, there are few of us here for the break, but while there were more people here, the five of us hopped in an auto and headed out to Galta, the Monkey Temple just outside of the Pink City. There are supposedly 6,000 macaques that hang out there, and a few langurs too. And let me tell you, all of them (save the langurs) are not afraid of people. Actually, people have more of a reason to be afraid of them, as they're both protected and occasionally aggressive. But it was a lovely hike, and I did get lots of pictures, so I'll post those later tonight.

So that's all the travel I've done in the hiatus of writing... but I did move out of my original place into a different place recently, trading a guesthouse for a flat and trading 7 or so housemates for two housemates. After the grief I was given about the first wedding party that came to the guesthouse, and another wedding party that came in November, and various parties that came in and out of the place, some of them violent (re: blood trails leading down the stairs) and some of them nearly violent (re: belligerently drunk Indian man yelling about something until 2am), and the sub-par food, and our crazy landlady, I decided that moving was for the best. I still have my own room, if not my own bathroom, and now I have my own water purifier, so I can have water whenever I want. I've been speaking more Hindi than I spoke at my old place as well, as our housekeeper often and actively engages us in Hindi. I also have my own kitchen that I've been putting to good use. I've been here for a little over a week and I've already made sugar cookies, pizza dough, pancakes, and delicious, delicious banana bread, all from scratch. My life, it does not suck.

Now that I'm settled, and the apartment is clean to my liking, and my laundry is clean enough as well, I've decided to take a few trips before this break is over. First, on Monday, I'm going to go with some friends to Agra to see the Fort, Fatepur Sikhri, and hopefully the Taj Mahal before we come back. Then, on Wednesday, I'm going to trek north to Delhi, find a hotel, and be a tourist for a few days by my lonesome. I'm hoping that there will be fireworks for the New Year. Then, if I can get up the gumption to travel alone (which not a few people have warned me against, but not a few people have also encouraged me to do), I'm going to Amritsar again, if I can find a timely train with which to do so. We'll see.

So no, I didn't spend Christmas lying on a beach in Goa, which was the original plan... but I think this worked out pretty well, too. And hey, there's going to be a trip to Goa in February with classmates... so I can lay on a beach when it's actually warm outside.

And before that, later in January, there are like six of us talking about going to Varanasi (Benaras) to see the Ganges. (I think the tickets were already purchased? Maybe? I should look into that.)

Heh. I'm on vacations and looking forward to more vacations. Maybe I should do a little more Hindi studying to temper myself.