Sikhs, Pakistanis, and concrete

I'm having a few issues with these going out in email, so bear with me if you get a couple of these (and the last two posts, which didn't seem to go out).

My last update left off as I was about to leave Rajasthan. I'd reluctantly agreed to let my driver take care of arranging a train ticket for me to Chandigarh, the capital of the next state north. As it was a 14 hour, overnight train, I hoped to get what they call 3AC class. You can kind of think of this like cheap business class, and even though I didn't really care about the AC this time of year, it has the bonus of being non-smoking, and you avoid some of the hassles of the lower classes. Unfortunately, it was apparently booked up, so I got the next class down, Sleeper. My driver claimed this too was sold out, except for one seat, which he had to pay a hefty bribe to get (more than doubling the cost of the ticket). Of course, the train turned out to be half full, making me regret tipping my driver at all at the end of those two weeks - just one more little scam.

Anyway, the train wasn't too bad. There were 8 bunks per little compartment. The only real downsides were that it got very dusty going through the desert (it was a bit too warm to close the windows then), and it also got freezing cold at night (though I fortunately had my light sleeping bag to bundle up in. There were also a awful lot of beggars that kept passing through the train (which are hard to get away from when you're cornered in your bunk), including the first hijras I'd seen - an ancient caste of transvestites and eunuchs that earn a fairly profitable living by being paid to go away. I stubbornly refused to pay, and had to keep pushing them away as they tried their best to shock and offend me. As the only foreigner on the train who didn't make it into AC class (which is locked away from the lower classes), I also drew a lot of attention, including a couple of guys in rags who watched me and my bags very closely all night. I didn't sleep a lot, and I will try much harder for AC class next time!

I arrived in Chandigarh around 5:30am, with it being a few degrees above freezing. I was going to try to wait until 7 to drop in on Jimmy and Jen, but decided to barge in on them early after a few minutes of shivering, despite having finally found my jacket in the bottom of my pack.

Jen and Jimmy were both amazingly gracious hosts, having just gotten back from a similar 2-week vacation around Rajasthan (which sort of inspired my own). Jen had unfortunately had a similar Delhi hospital experience as well, but was finally feeling well enough to face her 11th grade class in Chandigarh later than morning. They have quite an impressive penthouse apartment in the posh, but convenient, Sector 34 of Chandigarh. One more plug for their excellent blog here, with better Rajasthan pics, hospital fun, and biting humor. But I guess I should explain Chandigarh a bit first.

Chandigarh is India's only experiment at building a totally planned city to serve as the new capital for the state of Punjab. They started it just after Independence, using a famous Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, to design the major buildings, as well as the detailed layout of the entire city. It's broken up into 60 sectors, each of which is to contain all the necessities of life. It does sort of feel like a bad 1970s sci-fi, though, and the 1950s were a particularly frightening period for architecture (especially since nearly every structure in the city consists exclusively of concrete, usually unpainted). Punjab was split about 40 years ago, to carve off the mostly Hindu part (now Haryana), and give the Sikhs more control over their own affairs (hopefully enough such that they become less interested in total independence). As they haven't built a new capital for Haryana yet, Chandigarh is temporarily capital of both (and no longer part of any state).

Despite all this, Chandigarh really quite a nice, relaxing place. No industry has ever been allowed here, and the short distances allow the use of cycle rickshaws as the main way of getting around (basically a tandem bicycle, where you don't get to pedal - about half the cost of autorickshaws). There's also plenty of space devoted to parks - probably something like 1/4 to 1/3 of the land. Every apartment building (none of which are allowed to be very big) is right next to a park/playground, and there are many huge parks and gardens as well, especially Nek Chand's famous Rock Gardens.

Be sure to check out lots of other rock garden photos and other updates, starting with my last stop in Rajasthan on page 42. After 3 days and 2 nights of enjoying Jimmy and Jen's hospitality (including excellent homemade Indian food, perfect Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza (after calling multiple places to find it in stock), guided city tours, a speedy DSL connection that I hogged for days, and a surprisingly comfy couch "borrowed" from the teacher's lounge to sleep on), I hit the road to Amritsar.

Amritsar's the largest city in Punjab, and the location of the holiest site to the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple. While a surprisingly clean city in many respects, it still suffers a bit from having well over a million people. Shortly after arriving, I found out another guest at my hotel had chartered a taxi to go see the elaborate Pakistan border closing ceremonies at the only official crossing with India, at the nearby village of Attari. I agreed to split the fare. It's hard to describe the spectacle - I doubt anything remotely like it has occurred on any border in history, with thousands of cheering spectators from each side driving an hour or more to see it every day. The pictures don't do it justice, as I was so far back in the stands, but I did manage to upload a short video (~10mb), which gives a bit of a feel for one part of the insanity, as particularly patriotic audience members are selected to charge the border with the flag.

Probably the oddest part was the precisely coordinated choreography of both sides - even the bizarre uniforms are almost identical, except for the color. The main part of the ceremony involves each soldier on each side pairing up with his opposite across the gate, and doing their best impression of an angry rooster (charging and scratching the ground, waving their rooster-like hats at the enemy). Even the flowers planted along the border were carefully selected to accent that fact (I think they're called Cock's Comb). Oh, and the music blaring from each side was a blast too, especially from the Pakistan side. If Disney ever wrote perky, catchy partriotic songs in Urdu, this would have been it.

The next day was spent seeing the main attraction in Amritsar, the Golden Temple, and parts of the old city. I was joined by the same guy I'd shared a cab to the border with, a surprisingly fluent (in English) Parisian, whose brother had studied wine growing at UC Davis (apparently it's the spot in the world, even if you're French). The Golden Temple complex was immense, containing a large lake with a gold-covered temple at the center. Inside the temple is the original sacred book in the Sikh religion (the 500-year-old text is considered itself to be their final guru, or prophet).
As I couldn't take pictures inside, I'll try to describe the scene briefly. With thousands of pilgrims flowing through, there's a central area where 3 Sikh holy men chant verses from it continuously (two hot spares, as it's apparently very bad if they stop entirely). Another religious leader is continual adding and removing scarfs(?) which cover the holy book. Though photography is not permitted inside, there is one live TV camera showing this scene 24 hours a day, broadcast on cable and satellite throughout India.

This temple was also the scene of a bloody struggle in 1984. A group of heavily armed Sikh militants demanding independence had seized control of the complex, and had setup their headquarters inside the golden temple, figuring the government would never dare attack them there. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, among India's most popular, called their bluff, and sent in the tanks, supposedly killing hundreds, and heavily damaging this sacred site. The Sikhs were understandably outraged, and within a year, Indira Gandhi was assassinated for it by her own Sikh bodyguards.

From Amritsar, I'd decided to take the advice of an Aussie named Mark I'd run into a few times in Delhi, and head to the village of Manali, about 10 hours into the Himalayan foothills. Unfortunately, I'd stalled a bit too long in Amritsar, so wasn't going to catch up with him before he had to dash to Delhi to catch his flight, but he left me with lots of good advice for my time in Manali (where to stay, what to see, etc.), which has proved to be excellent so far.

At least I did make the effort to find the rare private Deluxe bus to get me to Manali from Amritsar (which required going back through Chandigarh, but was actually faster than the normal government bus option). The only real difference between the two is that Deluxe buses are what they call 2x2 (two seats on each side), and the seats actually recline a bit. Regular buses are like flying on an MD80, with a 3x2 layout (5 seats across - not nearly enough, when you have to carry all your bags too!). For the 5 hour ride to Amritsar during the day, I knew it wouldn't be a big deal, but for a 14+ hour overnight ride through windy mountain roads, I figured it was worth the extra $5 for a bit of comfort.

That's almost it for today. I'll send out more details on my explorations around Manali in a couple days. I'm enjoying lots of good hikes around here, and ancient little mountain villages that are a short bus ride away. The weather's actually quite nice, once you get used to it getting down to the 20s at night (and there being really no heat, unless you're in a 4-star hotel). I'm quite comfy in my sleeping bag, covered in blankets and my winter coat. But it warms up fast during the day, and even having breakfast outside when it's near freezing is fine, and long as you're sitting in the sun (and you've just had a hot shower!).

I had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner last night, after tagging along with a large group of French 20-somethings from a village near Nice who are staying at my hotel (and one Southern Californian who moved there after marrying a local, and sorta acts as their translator). I figured they'd have found the best food in town, and I was right. We had excellent local mountain trout at a place called Johnson's Restaurant, but it took one of the French guys to remind us Americans that it was actually Thanksgiving! It's so easy to lose all track of time and the outside world here, but I guess that's the point.