Golden Wonder

I'm in Amritsar and I have a new favourite place of worship. Given the location (and the title) you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was that there Golden Temple that had lit my fire. You're wrong though. That's number three on my Fave Amritsar Place of Worship list. Sri Durgiana, the Golden Temple's scruffy cousin takes second spot - way more peaceful and with bigger koi. And I felt a bit sorry for it.

Number one is Mandir Mata Lal Devi temple. It was bloomin marvellous. A temple for the limited attention span generation. I say Temple, it was more like something you would find at a funfair. Like an anti-ghost house. If all places of worship were like that...

Anyway Amritsar, the Golden Temple hey? That's a thing. Well technically it's not a thing, technically Sri Harmandir Sahib is a thing and that there pretty temple is a part of a thing. And Sri Harmandir is a thing with rules. I had to cover my head, which is fair enough, but wasn't allowed to use a hat. Which is odd; if there's one thing I think hats are good at it's head covering. I had to use a dayglo orange bandana, which is nowhere near as good at head covering as a hat is.

There are also a lot of people which makes the whole thing a bit more like a queue than an experience and this being an Indian queue there is a heap of jostling. And once you've been jostled you get the opportunity to drink holy water. Which is from the pool that people are dipping in. The pool that is so murky you can't see the fish.

This is the holiest place in the Sikh faith. This means that some people are having the most spiritual experience of their lives, drinking dubious liquids, surrounded by idiots in stupid headwear and with slightly stinky strangers so close they may as well be sharing pants. Thinking about it, I've pretty much described Super Furry Animals at Glastonbury '99.

This might be the most I've written about a building. There's still another paragraph to go though.

I can't not mention the canteen. It was immense. You got given a tray, sat on the floor and then a slick team walk the line dropping curry and rice on your tray. Not seen anything like it and all kinds of awesome.

I made it to the Wagah crossing to the Pakistan in time for the flag ceremony. It was weird. Some kind of patriotic war pantomime which the peeps both sides of the border were cheering like buffoons. Scary that a crowd could be frenzied up by some crotch-splitting marching and angry stamping.

Given how choreographed the whole shebang was, I can't help but think that the two sets of border guards must rehearse together. Bet there's a shared gym of happiness somewhere where they all practice there macho posturing together. Whilst holding hands.

Got my hit of post colonial guilt from the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial. They have hedges topiaried into British people killing peacefully protesting Indians. I always find that a point is best made with topiary. I've added a photo to prove it, the other photo? Well that's a tiny joke for my own benefit that not that many people who read this will get.

KLL LL HPPS

Go to Rishikesh, they said. Good for hiking, they said, maybe extreme sports if you fancy....

It's the self-styled yoga capital of the world. And where there's yoga there's hippies - the first person I spoke to said they were "here for the healing" without any level of irony. Now this makes for a bit of a weird mix, it's clearly a stop in the backpacker trail - there's heaps of places selling ethnic tat and cheap massages - but there's nowhere selling alcohol or meat. It confuses me. I'm not aware of big signs saying "fresh grains" ever being used to get people to go into a cafe.

I blame the Beatles. They started all this nonsense. I went to the ashram that they made famous. It's deserted now. Weird to see something that was brand new fifty years ago completely derelict with jungle growing through it.

Still heaps of other ashrams about. Although most of them do look like a cross between a cheap motel and a prison, and are more oppressive than either due to chants being played through a speaker system at an inhuman volume. They seem to like it loud here. There's a festival going on at the moment which I don't understand. It appears to be an old man (a sudha? Although I think that may just mean day-glo beggar) shouting into an amplifier ratcheted up to just above breaking point.

Rishikesh's main landmark is a suspension bridge across the Ganges. Do you know how annoying it is crossing the Millennium Bridge with all the people stopping for view selfies, so you can't get past. Take that as your starting point. Third the width, add a liberal dollop of motorbikes (full throttle, full horn, obviously) and maybe a cow, just because. Then you have some idea of what its like. Forgot to mention the monkeys that patrol the bridge ensuring that no food passes from one side to the other.

I went to Aarti, that's the Ganges fire festival. Not sure I understood it but it looked pretty amazing. Lots of people waving fire and sending burning boats full of sins and flowers down the river.

I did a yoga. I think it's fair to say I was rubbish at it. I knew I wasn't that flexible, it's been years since I could touch my toes, but I didn't think that there would be poses that I just wasn't strong enough to hold. I'd say I should practice some more but I didn't especially enjoy it.

And I did make it into the Himalayan foothills for a bit of a walk. Good waterfalls, good butterflies and a good break from the bustle and the horns and the hippies.

Jantar Mantar

How fun is that to say? Let's say it again. Jantar Mantar. It's a three hundred year old sundial for loss of a better description. Incidentally it's also the first "sight" I've ever been to that looks more impressive depicted on a fridge magnet than it does in real life.

So yeah, I've been exploring Delhi: Connaught Place, Lodi Gardens, Janpath markets all places that I felt I should have been by now. For what it's worth, Lodi Gardens was my fave of the bunch. I wasn't expecting it. I figured that it would be something, erm, how to explain? I was basically expecting Fletcher Moss and what I got was pretty far from Fletcher Moss.

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Have you heard Let Them Eat Chaos yet? Why not? What's your excuse? It's massive in Delhi. All the kidz are listening to South London performance poetry.

They're not.

But you should.