Well, today is the last day I spend in Mussorie. This afternoon we take a train to Delhi and tomorrow night fly for the states. There are definitely mixed emotions: on one hand I'm really excited to return home and see friends and family, but this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I will miss soooo much of India. I suppose, though, that goodbyes and transition are just a part of life. In fact, you could say that life is just one big transition into eternity. As one of my friends wisely put it: "There are seasons and times for certain people to be in our lives. We yearn for those times to be eternal, but that cannot be satisfied in this life. It will only be met when that kingdom that Jesus was always talking about shows up in fullness with everything he promised."
Please pray for me and the other interns leaving that our journey would be safe and quick, that we would transition well back into American culture and customs, and that we would be able to find the right words to describe our incredible experiences to others.
Wednesday, July 15
Wednesday, July 8
Amritsar photos
Walking through the streets of the old city
The Golden Temple
The end of the photo shoot
Crowds of people come to see the border ceremony
I love those head things the guards wear
A snapshot of the ceremony
Harry squished between Indians.
4th of July weekend
Well this weekend Ko, Harry, and I went on a sightseeing trip to Amritsar in the state of Punjab along the northwestern border of India. Due to limited train availability and our work obligations, the only possible time to schedule this trip was over the 4th of July weekend. We thought that it would be ironically proper to spend our 4th of July as close to Pakistan as we could possibly be. We also found Amritsar to be a really nice city with great food and a few major attractions. Here's how it went:
We took an overnight train to Amritsar and arrived around half past 8, while the weather was warm but not yet hot. Interestingly, I had found conflicting weather reports online that said Amritsar would either be partly cloudy with a high of 45 C (110 F), or 80% chance of thunderstorms and 30 C (85 F). Go figure. It turned out to be clear all day and hot, but certainly not 45 thank goodness. We decided to walk first through the old city to the Golden Temple, the center of the Sikh religion. Thanks to Google maps we successfully navigated our way into the old city, where we promptly got lost in amaze of haphazard streets and alleys. Luckily, Harry spotted a glint of gold over the top of a building and after wandering towards (what we hoped was) that direction, we finally bumped into the golden temple complex.
The temple itself is situated in the center of a square, man-made lake. Construction began in 1574 and embellishments/additions have been added to the complex until the present day, including the 100kg gold plating on the inverted-lotus shaped temple dome for which it has become so well known for. Today, pilgrims from all over India and the rest of the world come to show their devotion. The complex, like all Sikh holy sites, provides meals daily free of charge to pilgrims and even has simple rooms for the devotees to stay in. The kitchens at the Golden Temple are extremely busy and serve over 30,000 people a day.
In order to enter, we all had to leave our shoes outside the complex, walk through a foot-washing basin, and cover our heads with a provided handkerchief. It really is an impressive place, and the two things that especially make it stand out is that it's clean and you do feel welcome, with far less stares than you would receive elsewhere. We walked around the inside of the complex and visited the Sikh museum, which houses paintings and artifacts depicting the history of Sikhism (much of which has been very violent).
After satisfying our curiosity, we headed out and found the Jallianwala Bagh. A park that has been converted into a national memorial commemorating those Indians that were killed and wounded in this place in 1919 when the British opened fire on a peaceful demonstration against the foreign rule. It was a very nicely maintained place, and a large group of Indian tourists stopped us to ask for our picture. That escalated into a 15 minute photo shoot as more and more people wanted their picture with us.
By this time it was getting hot, and so we headed to a coffee shop to grab a cold drink and discuss our next plan. We ended up gabbing an auto-rickshaw to a museum that supposedly had some weaponry that dates back to the Mughal era. Either we went to the wrong museum or the guidebook lied because the museum our rickshaw driver dropped us at was dedicated solely to the life of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was an interesting guy who united the punjab region into the kingdom of Lahore, and the museum was set up fairly well, but it wasn't what we were expecting. So we grabbed some lunch at a local dhaba and went to see a Hindi film called New York. There were no subtitles, but a few portions of the film were in english and it was not difficult to catch the basic drift. Basically, the FBI recruits an Indian man to spy on his old college friend who is suspected of terrorism. He turns out to be a terrorist, but only because he was falsely accused to be involved in the 9/11 attack, imprisoned, and tortured by the American government and now he wants revenge. Its complicated by the fact that the FBI guy used to be in love with terrorist's wife while they were all friends in college. It was interesting, and I would like to watch it again with subtitles.
Finally, it was time for us to head to the India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. After tracking down a taxi (who's driver turned out to be a smart, fun guy) to take us to the border, we walked to the grandstand area and were directed to the VIP section. Because we're white. Anyway, the border closing ceremony is a really bizare affair in which guards from both Pakistan and India march ornately towards the gate, high kick, salute and turn around with much foot stomping and pomp. Meanwhile, the 10,000 tourists that are assembled in concrete grandstands whistle, cajole, and scream Hindustani chants. A dance party actually broke out in the street before the ceremony began. I have no idea how this tradition started, but it happens every night at this one border crossing, which happens to be the only open gate along the entire Indo-Pakistan border. The ceremony finished with the lowering of all the flags at the same time and quickly marching them into the guard building. After the ceremony completed, Harry, Ko and I somehow got caught in the Indian portion of the exodus, and were so compressed by multiple bodies we couldn't move of our own accord.
We (thankfully) found our taxi driver who dropped us at a great dhaba where we had thali - a large plate filled with small portions of different courses. Punjab is known for their delicious food, and that they use a lot of ghee and butter. Consequently, our thali was incredible delicious and very rich. After dinner we headed back to train station to catch our train home. As it turned out, our (seemingly) entire train car was related, and it was a very loud, very jolly Indian family that shared our compartment. Luckily, I was sooo tired that I simply passed out and wasn't bothered (except by the ticketmaster at 2am when he asked for our tickets).
We arrived home on the 5th, grabbed lunch with other EMI people after church and headed back for a wash. That evening, we had a cookout with grilled chicken, baked potatoes, veggies & ranch, pop, chips, and even apple pie! And earlier someone had picked up some Indian fireworks with which we disturbed all our neighbors like good Americans. Incedentally, Indian fireworks must not be quality controlled, because more often than not the bottle rockets simple exploded as soon as you lit the wick. It made for some interesting times, because we couldn't let any go to waste. All in all, this was a darn good 4th!
We took an overnight train to Amritsar and arrived around half past 8, while the weather was warm but not yet hot. Interestingly, I had found conflicting weather reports online that said Amritsar would either be partly cloudy with a high of 45 C (110 F), or 80% chance of thunderstorms and 30 C (85 F). Go figure. It turned out to be clear all day and hot, but certainly not 45 thank goodness. We decided to walk first through the old city to the Golden Temple, the center of the Sikh religion. Thanks to Google maps we successfully navigated our way into the old city, where we promptly got lost in amaze of haphazard streets and alleys. Luckily, Harry spotted a glint of gold over the top of a building and after wandering towards (what we hoped was) that direction, we finally bumped into the golden temple complex.
The temple itself is situated in the center of a square, man-made lake. Construction began in 1574 and embellishments/additions have been added to the complex until the present day, including the 100kg gold plating on the inverted-lotus shaped temple dome for which it has become so well known for. Today, pilgrims from all over India and the rest of the world come to show their devotion. The complex, like all Sikh holy sites, provides meals daily free of charge to pilgrims and even has simple rooms for the devotees to stay in. The kitchens at the Golden Temple are extremely busy and serve over 30,000 people a day.
In order to enter, we all had to leave our shoes outside the complex, walk through a foot-washing basin, and cover our heads with a provided handkerchief. It really is an impressive place, and the two things that especially make it stand out is that it's clean and you do feel welcome, with far less stares than you would receive elsewhere. We walked around the inside of the complex and visited the Sikh museum, which houses paintings and artifacts depicting the history of Sikhism (much of which has been very violent).
After satisfying our curiosity, we headed out and found the Jallianwala Bagh. A park that has been converted into a national memorial commemorating those Indians that were killed and wounded in this place in 1919 when the British opened fire on a peaceful demonstration against the foreign rule. It was a very nicely maintained place, and a large group of Indian tourists stopped us to ask for our picture. That escalated into a 15 minute photo shoot as more and more people wanted their picture with us.
By this time it was getting hot, and so we headed to a coffee shop to grab a cold drink and discuss our next plan. We ended up gabbing an auto-rickshaw to a museum that supposedly had some weaponry that dates back to the Mughal era. Either we went to the wrong museum or the guidebook lied because the museum our rickshaw driver dropped us at was dedicated solely to the life of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was an interesting guy who united the punjab region into the kingdom of Lahore, and the museum was set up fairly well, but it wasn't what we were expecting. So we grabbed some lunch at a local dhaba and went to see a Hindi film called New York. There were no subtitles, but a few portions of the film were in english and it was not difficult to catch the basic drift. Basically, the FBI recruits an Indian man to spy on his old college friend who is suspected of terrorism. He turns out to be a terrorist, but only because he was falsely accused to be involved in the 9/11 attack, imprisoned, and tortured by the American government and now he wants revenge. Its complicated by the fact that the FBI guy used to be in love with terrorist's wife while they were all friends in college. It was interesting, and I would like to watch it again with subtitles.
Finally, it was time for us to head to the India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. After tracking down a taxi (who's driver turned out to be a smart, fun guy) to take us to the border, we walked to the grandstand area and were directed to the VIP section. Because we're white. Anyway, the border closing ceremony is a really bizare affair in which guards from both Pakistan and India march ornately towards the gate, high kick, salute and turn around with much foot stomping and pomp. Meanwhile, the 10,000 tourists that are assembled in concrete grandstands whistle, cajole, and scream Hindustani chants. A dance party actually broke out in the street before the ceremony began. I have no idea how this tradition started, but it happens every night at this one border crossing, which happens to be the only open gate along the entire Indo-Pakistan border. The ceremony finished with the lowering of all the flags at the same time and quickly marching them into the guard building. After the ceremony completed, Harry, Ko and I somehow got caught in the Indian portion of the exodus, and were so compressed by multiple bodies we couldn't move of our own accord.
We (thankfully) found our taxi driver who dropped us at a great dhaba where we had thali - a large plate filled with small portions of different courses. Punjab is known for their delicious food, and that they use a lot of ghee and butter. Consequently, our thali was incredible delicious and very rich. After dinner we headed back to train station to catch our train home. As it turned out, our (seemingly) entire train car was related, and it was a very loud, very jolly Indian family that shared our compartment. Luckily, I was sooo tired that I simply passed out and wasn't bothered (except by the ticketmaster at 2am when he asked for our tickets).
We arrived home on the 5th, grabbed lunch with other EMI people after church and headed back for a wash. That evening, we had a cookout with grilled chicken, baked potatoes, veggies & ranch, pop, chips, and even apple pie! And earlier someone had picked up some Indian fireworks with which we disturbed all our neighbors like good Americans. Incedentally, Indian fireworks must not be quality controlled, because more often than not the bottle rockets simple exploded as soon as you lit the wick. It made for some interesting times, because we couldn't let any go to waste. All in all, this was a darn good 4th!
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