On the way back home: January 2011

Another holy town? Yes, this is India!

Pushkar is another sacred place that receives many visitors from all around to take a bath in its holy lake, which is most part of the year empty!, receive some ‘puya’, blessing by a Brahman, and visit its temples.

One would ask, what is different in a holy place? In this case restrictions are clear: no alcohol is allowed in the area, no meat, no chicken and not even eggs can be found there! Despite this the restaurants offer a wide range of veggie specialities that make you forget about meat!

Another element of a holy place is that there are many more cows hanging around the streets, this makes traffic really complicated, as many visitors, pilgrims, motorbikes and cows transit the main street!

Its architecture is very attractive, many colours and detailed carvings in old wooden doors surprise you in every corner.

Since it’s a transited place many manufacturers and craftsmen are established in this charming village, so if you pass by Pushkar remember to buy the presents there!

We arrived with our new friend Noa from Israel who, following a recommendation, took us to ‘Doctor Alone’ Guesthouse, what a good choice! Good location, decoration, food and great view! Doctor Alone was the character to meet, a well-known local ‘Brahman’ that will share with you lots of funny stories to understand a bit more about the Hindu culture.

Lore & Noa

Dinner on the terrace of Doctor Alone

Doctor Alone's kitchen

The afternoon in Pushkar is monkey time. Monkeys from the surroundings come to town looking for food. Watching them is great entertainment, how they try to snick into the houses, opening windows and running away with a cake in their hands!

We also met Jose in Pushkar, Tere’s cousin, the one we met in BKK. Great person, we had more time to share great talks about several topics and he showed us some secret corners in town, where you can find great food and less people than on the touristic rout.

Jose combines his spiritual path with shipping Indian clothes to Argentina, so he showed us a bit of that interesting world of Indian clothes. We made a fun tour to the factories and met many of the players of this famous market, Lore played the model role!

Thanks Jose for the shared moments in Pushkar, for your clothes tour and the advices, we hope to see you soon, either in India or in San Juan!!!

MUCHO METTA PARA JOSEBABA!

On our way to Rajasthan, we decided to pass by Amritsar to visit ‘the Golden Temple’.

This temple is the most sacred place for the ‘Sikhs’, an important 'branch' of the Hindu religion.
The Sikhs come mostly from the Punjab province, one of the richest provinces in India, and are known as ‘the warriors’, their body contexture is the biggest in India. It’s very common for Sikhs to work as security guards, in the police and in the army.

We were lucky to meet many of them and we’d say that they are funnier than violent (this is how many people in India categorise them)… It’s easy to recognize them because most wear a turban, long bear and love to tell jokes.

This particular temple, intended to be a place of worship for men and women from every religion to come and worship God equally, it is emblematic in many ways.

- Impressive: it’s surrounded by a lake and covered in 800 kg of gold!

- Generosity: a huge kitchen run by volunteers offers food for all visitors, despite religion or race, 24 hour per day!

Volunteers preparing the ingredients (anybody can take part in every activity)

Rice & dull for hundreds of people

Preparing the 'chapatis' (indian bread)

The system is like in a school canteen

And in the end, somebody has to do the dishes

- History: this was the temple that Indira Ghandi attacked in 1984 to catch revel terrorists that wanted the independence of the Punjab province. This attack caused the anger of many Sikhs and one of them, who worked as Indira’s bodyguard, took revenge killing her…

- Tradition: the holy book of the Sikhs rests inside this temple. Thousands of people visit it every day to pray and take a holy bath in the lake.

Indians are not good swimmers and therefore they're scared of water, consequently there are chains all around the holy pool for people to feel safe when going into the holy water...

Every Sikh in India spends some time in the year volunteering in the Golden Temple, is part of their religion.

We spent two days in this special place. Food and shelter were given for free, people were friendly and the atmosphere was peaceful. I think we’ll place it way above the Taj Mahal…

Rooms for foreigners

Rooms for locals

Every person that goes into the temple has to take off their shoes (there are cloak rooms to leave the shoes outside free of charge) and cover their heads.

And beware of thefts in the temple!

Thanks to the Golden Temple staff and all the donators that keep a place like this up and running.

Another ‘attraction’ in the area is to go and see the closure of the boarder between India and Pakistan, every evening at dawn. Topo and Julia had suggested us to go and watch ‘the show of the boarder’. It’s worth to explain that India and Pakistan are two countries in conflict and this one is the only boarder crossing which is open nowadays and the only connection point between 2 countries almost in war.

Arriving there we were surprised to see big tribunes next to the boarder, full of Indian ‘fans’ that come from several places to enjoy the event. When the sun goes down the armies salute each other acting as if they were fighting, throwing kicks in the air and yelling against the other soldiers. The crowd gets really exited shouting at the opposite’s crowd, motivated by ‘the host’ with a microphone who tells people when and what to shout (just like in a TV show). When the silence comes you can hear the people screaming on the other side, it’s the Pakistanis yelling back at the Indians. This goes on for about half an hour until they finally close the boarder, exchange flags and everybody goes home, maybe before that they buy some souvenirs and have a bite of some Indian food.