Amritsar and the Pakistani Border

I had to change the title of my blog. It was called 'In India,' but seeing as I am no longer in India, I would be blogging a lie. I'm in Nepal! Much has changed, obviously...To recap: the last update was from Dharamsala. We were there for two weeks, tutoring Tibetan refugees in English. But the town was small, and very touristy. Ryan and I came to a crisis the day we found ourselves buying a broom and sponges for our apartment. We were like, wait a minute - we didn't come all the way across the globe to buy sponges. We both really wanted to travel, there is so much to see and experience out here. And four months in one town just didn't feel right. So in one night we replanned our entire trip, and backpackers we have become. To catch you up on a few of the highlights of our newly mobile life these past few weeks:

Amritsar: A town in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab, and home to the Golden Temple, the holiest sikh shrine in the world. Yes, the temple is encased in gold. It houses the holy book, the Granth Sahib, that is sung by priests day in and day out, the prayers echoing over loudspeakers. The temple itself sits in the middle of a large man-made lake in the center of a white marble temple complex. It's incredible. We spent three days there, making friends with and talking to sikh pilgrims. I swear, the sikhs are by far the friendliest people I have ever met. I know we stuck out - we were two out of about five white folk each day in a temple complex filled with tens of thousands of pilgrims. And we couldn't sit down for five minutes without being approached. The conversations we had with our eager new friends covered everything; religion, faith, death, pre-marital sex, abortion, American politics (Bush is a favorite topic over here), the status of women in Indian and American societies. Amazing. Everyone's eyebrows shot up when they found out we were American; apparently Americans don't travel so much to Punjab these days. And it's a damn shame, because never in my life have I felt so welcomed, so safe and protected in a place, by a people.

The most powerful part was that all the men that surrounded us had long beards, turbans, many with ritual swords strapped to their waists. After September 11th, Sikhs were widely discriminated against in the States because Americans have learned to fear bearded men in Turbans. Sikhism is an entirely different religion than Islam, and though the last thing I want to do is to demonize Islam (our media has done that quite enough,) I couldn't help but wonder at how this style of appearance is so feared in our country. I wish you all could have seen us there. We were honored guests; all the more so because we were American. They so wanted us to understand what Sikhism is, what it means for how they live their lives. To sum it up, I'll borrow the words of a particularly jubilant old Sikh man who talked with us one night at the temple as we sat at the edge of the pool, under the full moon; "Sikhism is about equality, humility, honor, and our general humanness which we all share." Beautiful faith, beautiful temple, beautiful people.

Pakistan/India border closing ceremony: Ryan and I ventured to Wagah to watch the ceremonial daily closing of the border between India and Pakistan. My god. This theatrical enactment occurs every day at 5:15 pm. It was militarized nationalism like I’d only read about in accounts of Nazi Germany. We packed into a Jeep with 7 Indian tourists for the thirty-minute ride from Amritsar. It was exciting and thrilling to be going to the border of Pakistan, a little scary but we knew we were safe. When we got there it felt like we were going to watch a cricket match. Boys were selling 5-rupee Indian flags, photos and dvd’s of the ceremony. Ryan and I again were two of about six white people in a crowd of thousands of Indian tourists. As we walked down the road to the border everybody around us started to run because the ceremony was about to start. Ryan and I looked at each other and grinned, and then ran full-tilt with the crowd towards the border of Pakistan. We raced past barbed wire fences and sandbags and men in the tannish-brown garb of the Indian army. When we got to the gates we were met with the deafening roar of a crowd thousands. A huge amphitheater complex had been built, straddling both sides of the border. We climbed to the topmost bleachers and watched in amazement the scene before us. Thousands of Indians cheered on soldiers in theatrical headdresses and ceremonial garb who preformed elaborate choreographed marching patterns. The Indian soldiers were mirrored on the other side of the huge iron gate by their Muslim counterparts, in black uniform, and Indian voices were echoed by thousands of Pakistanis. Head officials on each side led the crowds of thousands in chants; HINDUSTAN! PAKISTAN! Over and over, back and forth. I looked up to see the familiar orange, white, and green stripes of the Indian flag waving above my head, while in front of me a few hundred meters away flew the green flags with white crescent moon and star of Pakistan. And in that moment I realized that my American eyes have been taught to fear that flag, the flag of a ‘suspicious’ and ‘dangerous’ Muslim country. To see the two flags together, in such a charged atmosphere on very road where countless people lost their lives sixty years ago during partition…It’s impossible to explain. I felt like I had the privilege of looking at living, breathing history, in the making.

After Amritsar, we went back to Delhi, then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was as awe-inspiring as you would think, and more. Then on Wednesday we flew to Kathmandu, returning to Nepal for the first time in five years. It’s been unbelievable, to reconnect with this place, our old teachers and families. I will try to tackle this behemoth in my next post. The plan is to be in Kathmandu for a week and then head west to Pokhara to trek the Annapurna circuit. Depending on how long we last, the trek could take us up to three weeks if we complete the whole circuit. We’ll see though! The path will take us through the Annapurna range in the western Himalayas, reaching over 15,000 feet at its highest pass, and passing through Nepali and Tibetan villages the entire way. I’m nervous, but excited. Ryan and I are doing great, we kind of can’t believe our lives right now. The entire world is really open to us. So with that, I send my love and thank you for all the emails, keep them coming, I love to hear what you’re all up to at home. I’ll do my best to respond, promise!

-Lisa