A break from India

Tying the bags on the bus

Buddhist temple

Himalayan foothills

Escaping mosquitoes, inquisitive stares and busy India, we instead embraced chilly nights, powerful mountains and humble Tibetans as we landed in Dharamsala in the far northern province of Himachal Pradesh. Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj is the home of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan refugees fleeing Chinese oppression in their homeland. So in many ways it felt like we were more in Tibet than India. Tibetans largely populated this town with plenty of Tibetan culture and food. Tibetan food consisted of things like momos (similar to dumplings; dough balls stuffed with veg), thankthuk (noodle soup), tsampa (barley porridge) and tingmo (steamed bread).

Massive Buddha in the main Gompa, with offerings of cookies and Tropicana Orange Juice.

Prayer wheels

We spent our days watching documentaries about the genocide in Tibet, walking in the beautiful scenery and detoxing in the crisp mountain air. The Dalai Lama made a brief appearance and the Children's Village where he held a teaching which we sadly, slept in and missed.

We also took part in a clean up effort of the Bhagsu waterfall which was, like most places in India, covered in plastic rubbish. We cleaned up at least 20 large bags of trash, with Indian and foreigners alike helping out.

Golden Temple

From Rishikesh near Nepal in the north-east, an 8h train journey brought us to Amritsar in the north-west. The city is situated just on the border to Pakistan in the state of Punjab. Famous for the stunning Golden Temple, a place of pilgrimage for Sikhs.

We found the Punjabis to be unbelievably friendly, honest, and generous people. All the facilities around the Golden Temple were free of charge, including the sleeping accommodation, toilets, shoe cubbys and last but not least the free kitchen. The best experience was without a doubt the 24h open free kitchen which served over 10 000 portions of dahl, rice and chapatis every day! All hungry souls were welcome to eat there and we sat in rows on the floor as efficient Sikh volunteers went around serving up food. The system there was absolutely amazing. Huge couldrons boiled lentils day and night, groups of people sat chopping thousands of onions and yet more helped with the frantic chore of sorting and washing up dishes.

Free Kitchen

Man serving food

Tara tucking into a nice curry

 Patrick eating in the Free Kitchen

Extremely organised Sikhs sort dishes sending them flying through the air and landing with precision and a bang

Volunteers washing up

Around the Golden Temple complex there were guruwaras places for pilgrims to sleep. We stayed in a dormatory for foreigners that was small, packed and stuffy but nonetheless the atmosphere was well worth a few sweaty nights. The first night we arrived all the beds were taken and we were resolved to sleeping on the floor with people clambering over us all night long.

Dormatory

Pilgrims taking a nap

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

On April 13, thousands of people gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh (garden) near the Golden Temple in Amritsar, to discuss the non-violent struggle for independence from British rule.
An hour after the meeting began as scheduled at 4:30pm, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer marched a group of sixty-five Gurkha and twenty-five Baluchi soldiers into the Bagh, fifty of whom were armed with rifles. Dyer had also brought two armoured cars armed with machine guns, however the vehicles were stationed outside the main gate as they were unable to enter the Bagh through the narrow entrance.
The Jallianwala Bagh was bounded on all sides by houses and buildings and had few narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. The main entrance was relatively wider, but was guarded by the troops backed by the armoured vehicles. General Dyer ordered troops to open fire without warning or any order to disperse, and to direct fire towards the densest sections of the crowd. He continued the firing, approximately 1,650 rounds in all, until ammunition was almost exhausted.
Apart from the many deaths directly from the firing, a number of people died in stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into the solitary well on the compound to escape the firing. A plaque in the monument at the site, set up after independence, says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well.
The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared - many more died during the night. There were more than 1500 casualties and about 1000 killed.