Tiger Tiger, wherefore art thou Tiger?

After yet another late arrival with greetings from aggressive tuktukers into Amritsar Station, we made our way to our hotel. A rather odd little room but very comfortable and really lovely staff that went above and beyond to help us throughout our stay.

Once we were up and out, and put our first load of washing on (one load cost around £9 – shocking!) we headed into the heart of Amritsar. We wandered over to the Golden Temple early, to see what it was all about and take some photos. it was rammed, supposedly 1 million people visit there a day, we reckon a few thousand. After learning that we had to be bare foot and wear used sweaty orange bandannas we went in for a stroll around the outside and took in the peaceful tranquillity of the temple. The temple itself was stunning, the water reflecting its indulgent golden structure and sheer lavishness was pretty breath taking.

There were hundreds of bathers around the outside (women in their small section on their own) blessing themselves and their relatives in the holy water. One father stood out to us that carried his teenage disabled son into the water, which was rather moving. This is something they all take so seriously and we feel honoured to have watched it all.

The temple provides free meals 24hrs a day to everybody, just a simple dish of Roti and Black Dahl. Thousands are fed there each day as its one of the Sikh’s main religious principles to share food and socialise with one an other. We were slightly hesitant due to our hesitant stomachs!

After leaving the temple and feeling slightly relived to get our shoes back on and away from verruca city we headed for Jalien Wala Bagh, the sight of another British massacre from the British Raj period. Some very poignant visuals of the bushes carved into British soldiers gunning down some innocent Punjabi people during this horrendous massacre.

As we wondered around the gardens, many locals asked for selfies with us. At one point we were handed a baby! It felt strange in this particular park for this, as we were always asked where we are from.. it’s funny to see that no one holds a grudge.

After milling around the local bizzars for the afternoon, we decided to take in the Golden Temple one last time and watch the sunset over this magnificent building. Such a peaceful place right in the middle of a hectic city, and as you can see from the picutures below, the shots were worth waiting for.

Afterwards we went for a lovely Punjabi dinner. We had a classic Punjabi chole (chickpea curry) and loads of laccha paratha. Heaven.

The next morning we headed back to Delhi for a quick over night stop, some rather iffy looking chicken and a walk to Deli gate, which in all honesty was a rusty small version of the Arc de Triumph.

Another long train the next day led us to a rather exciting stop on our tour, Ranthambhore National Park. We found our hotel very easily and checked in to absolute bliss! We had a mattress on the bed for the first time, a duvet and air-con, living the dream for an expensive £18/night. Up at the crack of dawn we headed off on a safari in search of the Bengal Tiger, probably the only time we will ever get to see a wild tiger in our life time and we found a peacock, some monkey’s, some deer and a mongoose. Would have been better off in Richmond park!

We took solace in the fact we had a late check out and used the pool facilities and chilled out before out before our 18 hour long train journey to Mumbai.  

We had a wonderful time in Amritsar and Ranthambhore, even though we didn’t see the elusive tiger. Leaving both places really positive about the next leg of our journey.

Onward to Mumbai!

Lily and Luke