making use of that one-year multi-entry visa for India!

My many visits to India over the years had still left me with some gaps to fill, so I’d booked myself onto a guided tour of Kashmir & Ladakh.  When the Pahalgam incident ratcheted up the tensions between India and Pakistan in June the company briefly threatened to cancel the tour – and then tensions in the Middle East led to a closure of Iran’s airspace threatening my Helsinki-Istanbul-Delhi flight (finally re-routed around the coast and so requiring a refuelling stop in Doha)- so I was thankful when I arrived back in India that all seemed to be back on track.

]I’d come a few days early so that I could fit in a quick visit to Amritsar before heading to the mountains, as a very messy conflict there back in 1984 (Operation Blue Star), when I’d travelled overland across Asia and planned to visit the Golden Temple, had led to its closure.  So finally, 41 years later than planned, I arrived by bus in Amritsar, grabbed a night’s sleep in my £2.50 a night hostel, took my scarf from my rucksack, and made my way to the Golden Temple complex – housing the most important shrine of the Sikh religion.  An impressive place, with a large sacred pool in the centre, a number of spectacular white marble buildings around the edge (including committee offices, a museum, the centre of Sikh religious authority), and the Golden Temple itself, its name reflecting the fact that it is covered with gold leaf.  Thankfully it is open to people of all faiths (and none…), so after a couple of hours in the very pushy ladies’ queue, I was able to go into the temple.

In my two days in Amritsar I also had time to visit the Partition Museum and the Gobindgarh Fort (where I saw a display of traditional Punjabi music and dance) and then, although I hadn’t intended to visit the Attari-Wagah border site having seen the ceremony from the Pakistan side last year, a rickshaw driver was trying to get one last passenger and so I was offered the return journey there (an hour away) for the Indian equivalent of less than 50p, which I couldn’t refuse!  Worth seeing again, although I have to admit that I found it to be more impressive from the Pakistan side, perhaps because there any tourists are seated in an area with a great view, whilst on the Indian side you just have to find a seat somewhere amongst the (much greater number of) Indian spectators, and then the focus of the event seems to be largely on whipping up the crowd to chant about the greatness of India, compared with the Pakistani side where the focus is on the performance of the soldiers.

Then I had to get my bus back to Delhi, to meet the tour group.  I’d booked myself a sleeper seat on the overnight Flixbus, departing Amritsar at 10pm, arriving in Delhi some ten hours later.  I found the place to wait (not straightforward as it was not a marked bus stop, but locals were helpful) but then at 10pm my phone buzzed with a text message – the bus was running 30 minutes late.  No problem; I sat on a bit of wall to wait another 30 minutes.  Shortly before the bus was due, yet more locals had stopped to ask me if I was okay, if they could help in any way, and whilst we were chatting my phone buzzed again: “We are sorry to inform you that your Flixbus ticket has been cancelled”.  Thankfully the guys were able to lead me away down a path, around a corner, and along another path, and there was someone manning a street stall marked Long Distance Buses!  We quickly sorted out my purchase of another ticket, and as the bus was due to leave shortly but from a different part of the city, they put my big rucksack in front of the one riding a motorbike, sat me behind him, and we were off, weaving between the traffic – me a little nervous with no helmet on – and arriving safely behind a bus, which I was quickly loaded onto.  It turned out that I had taken the last available seat, which was one of two next to the hot engine and non-reclining, and I had my rucksack on the floorspace where my feet should have been as they’d already finished loading luggage under the bus … but I made it to Delhi, and via the metro then made it to my hotel to meet my tour group for lunch – phew!!

As a side note, I was interested by what I observed of the Sikhs whilst visiting Amritsar.  There was a small display of Sikh paintings in the Gobindgarh Fort, and as with other Sikh art I’ve seen, the pictures all had a violent air.  & Sikhs are required by their religion to wear a dagger (the kirpan) at all times – and these were much in evidence!  So the surface image is quite aggressive.  However, research tells me that the kirpan is not to be used aggressively, but represents the Sikh commitment to stand up for what is right – for justice and defence of the vulnerable.  & my interactions with Sikhs were all very positive.  Not just the kindness of the strangers who ensured that I got a bus to Delhi, but the dorm room-mate who insisted on buying me dinner one evening so that we had time for a chat before he rushed off for his night bus, and the passing rickshaw driver who stopped to offer me a packet of biscuits, which he refused to take any money for.  I also felt more comfortable with the Sikh men I interacted with than with other Indian men, that they were not going to try to overcharge me, or to put their hands on my body, or behave in any way less than honourably.  I know one shouldn’t generalise about a group of people, but I was impressed!