hello everyone !!! its Ellen again, i hope you are all doing good and have wonderful health and fantastic luck and what not but lets get down to the blog this is serious time.
So we went from rishi kesh by bus (this was a new and …interesting experience) all the way to Amritsar where we planed to see the golden temple. when we where staying there we did not stay in a hotel or hostels but the free lodging for pilgrims and travelers who have come to see the golden temple. This building is fixed with enough rooms and floor to fit the hundreds and hundreds of Sikh followers who come every day. the huge center hall turns into a carpet of people at night, the golden temple dose not only provide a free place to stay but free meals 11 hrs out of the day, after settling in and leaving our shoes we headed off to the free kitchen .
Before leaving for Amritsar we feelt a little sad that we would not be in a mostly Hindu community for duali (the festival of lights) but once we got there we found out that the Sikh religion also celebrates it. With all the people there for duali the dining hall appeared to be in total chaos, a huge crowd of people where all pushing to get plates and spoons and bowls and all ran in to this ginormous hall with carpets on the floors. quickly and crazily everyone was seated in lines and food was served, by the end of the meal we 3 of the 5 things that where served where deserts i don’t mean to say that we had any objection to this dinner menu not at all, the food was some of the best we had had yet. cleaning of the dishes is so fantastic here, some would smack the plates in huge tins and throw them down the steps to people trying to catch them and putting them in other buckets to get washed overall this was a very loud and different way to wash dishes then i had ever seen.
after dinner we went to see the golden temple!! it was so beautiful ! i will add some more pictures the next chance i get. The temple is set in a pool of water, many of the Sikhs will take a quick dip before entering the temple to make sure they are all neat and clean, when you enter and exit a Sikh temple you wash your feet or will walk through a small pool of water. The golden temple is really just the house for the holly book, this is like if Christianity only had one bible, in the mornings the book is taken out for the day and at night it is put to sleep. so some how we where lucky enough to actually see the holly book get put to bed, in the golden temple, on duali. this is something that we could never have planed and is what is so fantastic about traveling, you get to see so many things you never thought you would. we are all starting to think about home a bit more now that it seems so close ! but i think that also makes us appreciate India and all its crazy that much more.
sterling says: hi mom!!! (he specified there should be 3 exclamation marks)
ellen says: miss you grandma ! also manfree ! also ma dad! also ma mom !