Amritsar

When I was in India I’ve visited in Amritsar with my friend Dashi / His full name is Dashdemberel and he is studying Buddhist philosophy in Dharamsala, India/

One day, I think is was the first or the second day of 2006, I decided to visit Amritsar. I heard that Amritsar is the most beautiful city in the India and the famous Golden Temple of the Punjabis is in Amritsar. The Punjabi is the second largest religion of India and it has many worshippers.

So I told my friend Dashi to go there together and he agreed with me, so we prepared for the trip. At that time I had some money /My father used to send me some money every month at that time /

We were to go by bus about 90 miles to reach Patamkot city. Patamkot city can be named as the Indian Army’s central city. There are many military objects because it’s very near to the Indo-Pakistani border. There is a war still going on between Pakistan and India.

The bus we rode was fully loaded with passengers who were all local citizens except us. Through whole road they were very interested in us (local countryside Indians are very interested in foreigners and do not hide their surprised stares) and we in our turn were interested in the environment. We came to the Patamkot city.

On the bus station I tried to ask where we have to go to buy train tickets to go further. But we Indians and Mongolians couldn’t understand each other. So we were had to look for any English speaker to ask where the train station was. And finally we met one guy who spoke English and he taught us where train station was. After few minutes we found that station and I asked when the train will go to Amritsar. The ticket seller told me that the last train to Amritsar was just leaving at that time. We bought the tickets and quickly run to the train. Fortunately, the train was just starting to move and we managed to get into it. We reached Amritsar city at 4 o’clock in the evening. As it was a completely strange city and we didn’t know anything about it, it was a very risky step for me.

We asked for a hotel which was cheap and not so far from the GOLDEN TEMPLE. We found a hotel but we just discovered that we forgot our passports at home. Staying without a passport in a hotel is not allowed in India, especially for the foreigners.

My friend Dashi had an idea. He them that we were Tibetian refugees we didn’t have any passport. One guy allowed us into his hotel and that hotel was nice and cheap and I think it was around 400 rupees per head per night.

In the evening we went to the Golden Temple. The Golden temple was looking very beautiful. There were many prayers and tourists walking and taking pictures everywhere around the temple. The giant Punjabi guards around the temple are very splendid. They carry knives, spears and guns. At the entry to the Temple there was water running through the door. Everybody must wash their feet to go into the Temple. And one strange thing is everybody must wear a cap while staying in the Temple according to Punjabi’s tradition but we didn’t have caps. So we bought towels and wrapped them around our heads.

Interior of the Temple was very beautiful and everything was made of white marble. The Golden Temple is located in the middle of water and there is only one thin and long gate to the Temple. The temple was made from pure gold.