Amritsar - India

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Moving on from New Delhi, I hopped on a train and made my way to a city known as Amritsar, located in the North Indian state of Punjab. I chose Amritsar for one reason, and that is to see the Golden Temple. What Mecca is to the Muslims, the Ganges River is to Hindus or even Vatican City is to Catholics, the Golden Temple is to Sikhs. To be quite honest, I didn't know much about the Sikh religion. The only think I can say I knew is that some men who practice the religion wear turbans, but not more. Anyways, visiting this temple I learned a good amount about these kind people and the strong traditions they have. First off, here's a quick map showing where I'm at.

Getting to Amritsar had me taking a sleeper train from Delhi. Taking a sleeper train was quite an experience. The trains are set up in compartments and you are given a birth. A birth basically referes to which part in the compartment is yours. So on this train ride, I was in the sleeper train, which is the cheapest class and the one that most of the Indian population takes. Each compartment in the sleeper class has 6 births, 3 on each side (bottom, middle and top) and then two at the other end of the compartment.

As you can see from my backpack in this picture, I was bottom bunk or bottom birth. I think this is the best place because you don't have to worry about getting down, only problem is you'll run into your occasional cockroach/EVERY OTHER INSECT IN THE WORLD

Stuck my head out the train at night to get some fresh air. Don't think you can do this on American trains...

People getting off and on at the station before the one I'm waiting for

 After a rough 9 hour train ride, I arrive at the Amritsar train station

Once I arrived, I caught an auto-rikshaw and made my way to the hotel, which was located right beside the Golden Temple. This is another thing, hostels are not common in smaller cities such as these. The hostel I stayed in at Delhi is literally one of the only hostels in India. The concept is not very familiar here, but the Indian version of a hostel is a guesthouse. Here everyone will receive their own room (for a great price also!) but the rest is communal, such as shower, computers, etc. In Amritsar though, I stayed at a hotel, which was interesting because it was the first time I was literally by myself and didnt' have the opportunity to meet many others. Regardless, this didn't phase me, I was excited to see the Golden Temple. The night I arrived, to my luck, was a very special day. The Sikhs were celebrating Vaisakhi, a festival marking the beginning of their harvest season. As the state of Punjab is known for its agricultural background, this festival is very important and celebrated proudly amongst Sikhs. The night was cool and everyone was wearing their brightest sari or kurta. It was amazing seeing so much color, but stepping inside the Golden Temple grounds itself, was amazing...

 The entrance to The Golden Temple which was right outside my hotel. The bright lights and decorations were meant for the Vaisakhi festival

Hello Beautiful.

So, as you can see in the pictures, the main portion (temple) is located in the middle of a man made lake if you will. There is a walkway leading to this central temple, which houses the holy book of the Sikhs and is where all the people who are standing in line in the walkway are going to get their blessings/say their prayers. This specific night, being a festival night, the line was especially long. For some reason, when you're inside a beautiful facility like this, things such as queue time and queue length don't matter. I actually stood in line for about 4 hours, just taking in the beauty of the temple. While in line, I met families that spoke to me about my travels and also told me the relevance of the various parts of the Golden Temple complex. Quite a bit of history has taken place here but one of the coolest facts I was told is how although this temple is "the one" for Sikhs, it is meant for everyone. For this reason, it was built with four doors. Each door representing the major religions of the time (Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian). 

Awkward

Video from inside at night. This was right before I entered into the 4 hour line

So, every evening the holy book located inside the temple is taken out of the temple and put in another room to get to sleep. People I was standing in line basically said that the book is treated like a king. The king is available during the day to listen to what the people have to say, but like any king (or real human being), it needs its rest and is taken to sleep. This function is very interesting because a carriage is brought out and then taken inside the complex. Anyone can go and help carry the carriage if they can get under it on time, people usually wait hours for this so that they can get close to the holy book. The following video is when the carriage is about to be taken inside the temple to go get the book.

Carriage being taken into the temple to retrieve the Holy Book for the night

So, seeing the Golden Temple at night is amazing, but to get the best views would be in the morning, specifically sunrise. One of the beautiful things of traveling is that you're always excited, at least that's how its been for me. You can ask my family and friends and they'll unanimously tell you I would never wake up at sunrise to go see something. I've been excited ever since I left Seattle, so getting up at 4 AM or getting 3 hours of sleep means nothing to me. With that said, I headed to the temple around 5 AM to catch the sunrise/morning bhajans (prayers) at the temple. On top of that, you get the AMAZING views of the completely gold temple glistening in the sunlight. I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

Good Morning

Entering the walking to go to the temple. Got inside in about 20 minutes, unlike 4 hours from the night before

I may have failed to mention this, but everyone must cover their head when inside the complex. This is why I have a white head scarf on at this time. It doesn't matter the color, just needs to be covered. Women usually take their dupatta (shawl) and pull it over their heads National Geographic style

One of the many security guards at the Golden Temple complex. The guy I'm taking a picture with now is a little tame in style compared to others. Some of the other guys have multiple talwars (swords) and some extravagant turbans.

Assortment of head scarves guys can choose from outside to put on before entering the temple

 

Here's a video from my final walk inside the temple when I was there in the morning

The Golden Temple is just one of those places you can spend hours and you wouldn't want to leave. It's also one of those places where you can take a picture from any angle and you will still get an amazing shot. I would recommend EVERY traveler who wants to see India, to make a stop here for at least a day. Next stop for me is the India/Pakistan border to watch the border closing ceremony. The border is about a 1.5 hour taxi ride away from Amritsar and is known to be quite an interesting show. Headed there in the evening and felt like I was at a cricket match between both countries...

New Delhi - India

So, the first stop on my Indian tour was New Delhi. Starting from Hyderabad, I took a flight out to New Delhi (domestic flights are so cheap it's a crime to not make use of it) and began my journey. One thing that proved to be a slight problem upon arrival was the language barrier (again...). Although I am Indian, I don't speak Hindi fluently, let alone Telugu (one of the main languages spoken in Hyderabad) fluently. I do know some words and can definitely manage a conversation, but it was interesting at how many people in Delhi, being the capital city, still spoke Hindi and would not even try to speak English, even when they knew it would make the communication between myself and the person much easier (just another frustrating mannerism you have to accept). Either way, language was the least of my worries, after stepping out the airport, I realized that I just landed into a burning hot oven. Upon arrival, Delhi was a cool 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees F) and I don't think I've felt that dry of air before. The temperature is actually what shortened my time in Delhi, b/c there is no way I plan on making my way through Delhi in this heat.

So, upon arrival at my hostel, I decided to plan out my trip. First night out was a nice little trip to the neighborhood of Karol Bagh. Plainly stated, it's a cool market that is pretty big in size and has almost everything you need from electronics to the latest baby diapers. Myself and a girl named Helia from my hostel probably had more fun on our way back as we went through about 3 different auto-rikshaws in our quest to make it back to South Delhi. I had more pics from the trip, but this is the only one that survived...

Picture taken in our musical rickshaw (he played the latest bollywood hits) at around 2 AM searching through central delhi trying to find someone who knows how to get to our hostel which was in southern Delhi

The next day I decided to head to a major tourist/historical site very near my hostel named Qutb Minar. This place was awesome to visit for a couple of reasons. The main one being it is ancient, originally built in the 1100's, there is amazing architectural prowess and talent shown from the then ruling dynasty, the Mamluk dynasty.  What's also interesting is the foundation that Qutb Minar was built on and how the Mamluk Dynasty basically set forth a tradition that was very common throughout the other places in India in regards to Muslim architecture. So, to start, here's Qutb Minar from a distance...

Got here around 8AM so I could beat the heat, but it was already about 38-39 C (not-fun degrees F)

Upon arrival, I got a taste of pretty much what to expect in terms of how foreigners are treated at major tourist sites. The price to go into Qutb Minar is about Rs. 10 (10 Rupees), but for foreigners, Rs. 200. This is absolute bull if you ask me and at the time I made sure that was understood, but first I tried to make my way through as an Indian, after all, I look the part. Here's a quick descrip of our convo (myself and the ticket guy)

me: ek ticket (1 ticket)

ticket guy: ten rupees

then I hand him 10 rupees

ticket guy: where are you from? (asks this question in Hindi)

me: Delhi

ticket guy: where in Delhi? (in Hindi again)

me: Karol Bagh (this is the only neighborhood I've been to so far, so thought it would work)

ticket guy: blah balh balh (something in super fast hindi, but saying it pissed off and I got the point)

me: fine, I'm from the US

ticket guy: 200 rupees

me: That's pretty pathetic, but here you go asswipe (said in fast English, he didn't care b/c all he cared about was the 200)

So, it was a rough start that morning, but I kind of  knew that would happen. I looked at it as an opportunity to practice becoming more Indian so I don't get blatantly ripped off like that...later on I learned a simple technique that would help, i'll explain in another post (I need suspense in this blog so I can get some of you back).... Anyways, Qutb Minar, check out a quick wiki descrip if you'd like. Prior to becoming the Qutb Minar, it was actually a temple built by the Mauryan Empire (about 200 BC) and  had some amazing architecture. Once the Mamluk empire had come into India though, this is the same empire that was spread all the way to Egypt at the time, they had built upon this temple area of the Mauryan Empire and made Qutb Minar. You can see the rough techniques of the Muslims of this time when you look at the architecture left over from the Mauryan empire because many of the pillars had Hindu gods carved into them and currently they're faces are chopped off , the work of various Islamic empires. So, here are a few pictures from my visit

 If you look closely, you see this is a carving into a pillar of the Hindu god Saraswati. It's amazing because this carving could date back to around 300 BC. Saraswati's face though has been chopped off, the work of the Mamluk Empire. A tradition done by the many Islamic dynasty's that made their way through India.

 This is an iron pillar that in on the Qutb grounds. First off, this was casted by the Mauryan Empire, so we're talking some year BC. What's amazing is how exactly they casted this iron pillar and how there has NEVER been an rust formation on it. It is definately an engineering marvel and was also explained to me by my tour guide that god may have placed it there. Right. Anyways, there's also a myth saying that if you stand with your back towards the pillar and can circle your arms around it, it is great luck. This activity has been stopped now though b/c with all the people attempting this stupid myth, rust has formed on the lower portion of the pillar as a result of human sweat.

 On the iron pillar is some inscription. This is written in the language of "Pali". This language is ancient. Not spoken anymore.

 Looking good

Short video from the grounds

The following days I just made my way through Delhi seeing some of the major markets as well as catching a few of the famous sites located in this capital city. Here are a few pics

This is the Lotus Temple in India; it's of the Baha"i faith. My auto driver was a very enthusiastic man, speaking to me English while on the way here and telling me how he would drive me around all of Delhi if I'd like showing me all the major sights. One thing he failed to mention was that the temple is closed on Mondays and once we reached and I started to question him, he spead off...so here is my paparazzi version of the Lotus Temple, as a friend called it, "India's answer to the Sydney Opera House".

Red Fort in the area of Chandni Chowk. This fort was at one time the capital of the Mughal Empire when they were in India. I was more interested in this area, as it is in Old Delhi and has extremely rich culture. The Chandni Chowk market is AMAZING. Everything you could possibly want is there and its a mixture of all types of Indians; Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, etc.


A monkey just crossing the street in the middle of the market...a few feet in the air


This is one of my favorite videos. So, I'm taking this video in front of Red Fort (the old headquarters for the Mughal Empire) and looking towards the busy market place of Chandni Chowk. All the cars are turning into the market and then coincidentally, you see an elephant walk in front of me. It's just crazy to think that this is what it was like maybe 500-600 years ago as well, as this was the capital of India and you may have had hundreds of elephants, camels, horses all walking across what was then a busy marketplace as well.

Chandni Chowk

India Gate

India Gate - made to commemorate all the fallen Indian soldiers during the time they were fighting against the British empire. If you look closely, you will see the names of some of these soldiers on the structure

So, after spending a good 4 days in the oven that was Delhi, I caught my first train and headed towards Amritsar, Punjab.

......India

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

So, I've been in India for 1 month now. Not only is this the one country I've spent the most time in, but it's also one that I can say is completely different from the rest of the world. When you go to places like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc...there are always things that make it comfortable and enjoyable, whether it be finding English speaking travelers like myself or recognizing some of the faint traces of western influences such as coffee shops located every two blocks (not just an American epidemic). India though, exactly on the other side of the world, simply put....has no rules and the things considered cool here are just so odd (such as men holding hands, I will never get over this). There are times I wonder how India functions with all the chaos in the streets (i.e. traffic), absolutely no rules for how to stand in a line (don't expect anyone to stand in an organized line, everybody is always in a hurry. BIG pet peeve of mine) and spitting their paan in the streets (which sometimes get dangerously close to my shoes...would not be happy if that happened).

Now, I've been to India before. My extended family lives in Hyderabad, India and it is the city we always visit when we go to India. Outside of Hyderabad, I have been to a few other big cities in India, but only when I was young and that too with family. This trip was different in that I went to a whole bunch of different places....alone....and with my backpack. I have so much respect for anyone that backpacks in India because forget all the troubles you may have had in Thailand, Laos or anywhere else. Multiply that by 1000 and that is what India gives you. Now, with the amount of ugly I have just described, there is...an equal amount of beauty. I went into India knowing that great transportation or customer service were all not guaranteed, but I also went in wanting to find all the beautiful things India had to offer. When people say India is a beautiful country, there must be some reason, rigth? When India's main tourist ad campaign sports a slogan "Incredible India!", there must be a reason? So, I searched for it and can honestly say I found it. I found it within India's citizens, within India's rich history and even within the chaos I saw in the streets.

So, with my homebase being Hyderabad, I decided to map out the rest of my trip in India. Hyderabad is located in central India, although most in India would say it's in South India, I think its more central and an easy access point from anywhere in the country. My plan was to spend some time with family and then head to do a quick tour of North India and then return back to Hyderabad and from there do a tour of South India. That...is not possible. I learned that quickly when in North India, because first of all, you shouldn't have a plan. Nothing works according to plan, so why make one? I chose where I wanted to go the day before I left and had no expectations. With that mentality, here's a map of the cities I visited on my India trip.

Map of India including the stops I made throughout my tour starting from and going to:

1. Hyderabad

2. New Delhi

3. Amritsar

4. Haridwar

5. Rishikesh

6. Varanasi

7.Mumbai

Hyderabad

My main reason for spending a lot of time in India is to see the country where my ancestors are from (as corny as it sounds) and to spend time with my extended family. No number of family history projects or ridiculously annoying family tree diagrams were made (elementary and middle school), would equal the first hand experience I received by being in Hyderabad. While in Hyd, I visited my family, saw the village my dad lived in in his younger years, saw the schools my parents attended and even met some of their childhood friends. Hyderabad is a beautiful city, known for its rich history and its multi-cultural society (mainly a good mixture of Hindus and Muslims). Having been here before, I didn't do too much tourist type sight seeing, but I did see the Charminar. Built in the 1500's, it's more like a watch tower. The history of this tower is always changing, so I stick to the fact I know...it's a tower and you can watch from it. It's meaning literally is, Char - 4, Minar - minaret, so 4 minarets. Here are some pics:

Climbing stairs to get to the top of Charminar

 

Great views of Hyd from the top

  Mosque across from Charminar called Mecca Masjid. This place has almost 10,000+ people inside it on Friday's for Friday prayer

Video from the top of Charminar

I went to some other places throughout Hyderabad as well, but mainly took in the fact that I had a NICE, CLEAN AND AIR CONDITIONED place to stay. All these days traveling through all of SE Asia, hostels that were clean or had A/C was definitely not guaranteed. I'm lucky my parents have a house for me to stay at and I took full advantage of it. Not to mention, it's about 100+ degrees F everyday. Here are some more pics and vids from my time in Hyderabad.

 Attended one of my mom's families neighbors (from childhood) daughters wedding (I think..)

 Little cousin and I

En route to the village my dad was born in. These kids have the best seat in the house

On the way, I tried some Kallu. It's basically an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of a Palm Tree. It tastes like fermented milk or something. Not that strong anyways, but interesting.

bartender pourin a drank

Monkey's couldn't stand the heat as well

One day I decided to accompany my uncle to the butcher shop to get some chicken. Almost turned vegetarian. Almost.

SINGAPURA!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hello everyone...it's been quite sometime since an update. I am currently in Amritsar, India, but finally have good internet connection and some time tonight to update since the Phi Phi Islands (my last post). Well, I returned back to Phuket after leaving the amazing Phi Phi Islands and just stayed there for the night. I left for Singapore via Singapore Airlines the next morning and arrived to a very hot and muggy climate. From the landing though, Singapore gave off the cleanliness feel. I literally couldn't get my mind off the airport in which I just landed, it was HUGE. I've never been in an airport this big, and now I can actually say I've been to quite a few airports, and this one wins for being the biggest. The next beautiful thing about Singapore was how transportation is not a problem at all if you use the subway. I actually went straight from the airport to my hostel via subway. My hostel was located at the Boonkeng subway stop, just past China Town and Little India, I guess you could say the center of Singapore.

My first night was a little mellow. I was still tired from my past week and a half in Thailand, so I was looking to relax during my 4 days in Singapore. The first night, I headed out by myself to grab some food at a relatively popular nightime place in Singapore, Orchard Road.

When getting off at the Orchard Road subway station, you walk out of that egg shaped structure in the bottom of this picture. It was a really cool exit and you immediately walk into a huge crowd of people and lights everywhere

The next day I decided to head out around all of Singapore Island. The Island is really not that big and the subway makes its way around all of it. I literally finished the Island in about 5 hours, stopping at a variety of different stops that I thought were interesting/suggested by all the tour guides I have. I can definately say that Singapore is a very beautiful country with a good amount of diversity. Whether you're in the northern part of the southern part (main area) of the island, you still see a mixture of not just Chinese, but Indian, British and more. Through my Island tour though, I was really amused by the various advertisements posted around the country. Asian advertisements in general are pretty funny (i.e. product advertisements, mcdonalds, etc), but Singapore had some good ones. Here's a couple that I saw, some people will probably not even look twice, but I just thought they were random...

Thanks Kevin Costner

There were a lot of hygiene related ads, this one was disgusting...good idea I guess.

The hostel I stayed at was called the Drop Inn. The people there were very nice and the accomodation was nice as well. I met a few people there from all over the world. Myself and another hostel mate named Felix, from Germany, decided to do the China town and Little India walk one day. We basically took the subway to China Town and then walked up from there to Little India and then finally walked up to our Hostel, all in all, it takes about 5 hours. China Town was amazing. This seemed like one of the bigger China Town's I've ever seen, maybe besides the on in NYC. The food here is priced really well and delicious. 

Walking over this bridge from subway stop to take us into Chinatown

Just one of the colorful streets in China Town

In the middle of Chinatown is this beautiful Buddhist temple that has been there for some time but got renovated fairly recently. Went inside and took some pictures and happened to walk in during what looked like a prayer session. The art inside was beautiful and the colors were amazing. Here are a few pics

Video from inside the temple

One of things that ran through my mind when I landed in Singapore was if I even landed in the right country. From the minute I stepped off the plane, there were Indians everywhere. The security guards at the airport were Indians and the immigration guys were Indians...so I'm not surprised that they have their own designated neighborhood titled Little India in Singapore. All in all, Little India was pretty busy as well. It was a little dirtier than China Town, but the food was good there so we decided to grab a bite. We went to a South Indian restaurant (almost all Indian restaurants in Singapore are South Indian due to the large Tamilian population) and had Thali's (an Indian food item where there will be different cups with all types of curry provided). My german friend told me later that it was his first time eating Indian food, so that explains why he was in almost tears from the spice...I felt pretty bad.

Felix, if you're reading this, I'm sorry! In his defense though, they did make the food pretty spicy, it was good.

A very popular Hindu temple located in Little India

 
So, I had already seen much of Singapore and was still scheduled to stay for a few more days. The plan was initially to head to Bali, but I canceled that as well due to the heat. Most people may think I'm crazy for not going, but so far in SE Asia I've been roaming around all these places in 100+ degree temperatures. Bali was going to be just as hot and instead of doing tourist related things, I'd just be sitting on the beach. The only good thing is that I could probably DJ at some place. At this point, I was over the beaches (did it all in Thailand) and instead decided to follow the explorer side in me (which is gradually getting stronger) and get a head start on my next stop, India. I changed my flight date to Mumbai a few days early and headed for Mumbai, India.

 Bye Bye Singapore

Still couldn't get over how big this airport was. This is the domestic section...

Video from inside the airport...

Ok, Ok, enough about the airport. The next stop was India...and boy did it hit from the minute I landed.