30 March 2008

Khilandeep arrived about 8.15 this morning. We were heading for Amristar. About 20 km from the Parkistan border. He decided not to drive but chose to hire a taxi. Its about three hours drive and can be quite tiring. I’m really not that surprised that he chose that option. Even though today is Sunday, there’s still plenty of people on the roads. Someone was hurding buffalo across the road. Unfortunately one of the calves moved the wrong way into the traffic and a bus couldn’t stop soon enough. The calf got one of its feet run over by the front tyre. It got up and hobbled away. We couldn’t tell how bad it was.
Being Sunday, most people are on there day off. Which means Cricket. Whatever available spot of ground was being used for playing. Whatever available bit of masonry was being used for wickets. They are really nuts about cricket. They have about four TV channels for cricket.
We drove past a mall in the making. I was amazed that this enormous complex was being built using a small amount of concrete and a fantasic amount of small bricks. The ones we use for houses. This mall would be around 3 acres and four to five stories high. The scaffolding was very worrisome. Its perhaps not as bad as some of the other asian countries but it certainly wouldn’t get the nod of approval in NZ. There are virtually no wooden houses in India. Wood is to expensive. You do see a lot of trees here and there. I wouldn’t say forests though. A common tree over here is the Gum tree. Fortunatley in this part of India they don’t have that many earthquakes. Perhaps every nine or ten years or so.
On all of the trucks you see on the road, there is a sign on the tail gate. ‘Blow Horn’. Its quite amusing. They are nearly always hand painted on and often have a real flourish to them. With lots of colours. I’m not sure if it required by law. What I have discovered is that on the most part it doesn’t matter how much you blast your horn, there’s no moving over. SO most drivers will find the quickest way around the truck. That can be inside, outside, footpath, in the other lane with on coming traffic, you name it.
I saw a vehicle today that looked surprisingly like a Combi VW, except it wasn’t. It had a lot of the curves you would expect of a combi but it was smaller and shorter. It was called a Tempo. There are millions of three wheeled scooter-cars in India. It’s the poorman’s taxi. They look like they have a 50cc motor in them somewhere around the driver’s feet. I’ve seen whole families in these things. You also get the cargo versions. They are like mini vans. Today we saw a flat top sports car slightly bigger than the MG of the sixties. It had the driver and 10 other people in it. What was most amusing was that they all managed to fit in without spilling out the sides. Even our taxi driver was laughing at it.
We passed a Police academy. There were hundreds of people in the parade grounds. Some were in brownish uniforms, others in black. Khilandeep said the ones in black are the commandos. Interesting difference with NZ in that they seem more, … military.
There are a number of convent schools in India. I suppose that means they are schools run by a convent. The one thing I have noticed here is that the Indians are very tolerant of differences.
The ‘Seminar’ was in a fairly fancy hotel. Not what we would call a seminar. More like an open day really. The hotel porters wore British style white uniforms and had these mostaches that would win hands down in the Barvarian mostache contest. It was great to look at as long as you didn’t laugh out loud in front of them. We met up with a few potential students whilst we were there. You can never really say that these things are a waste of time. It certainly felt like it for the most part. I did however get to meet a student that is coming on a course in Christchurch in April. He was really nice and is very excited about coming. We showed him the video of the Indian students and he felt much more relaxed.
Around 4pm we packed up and headed out. At first I thought we were heading straight home, but the driver was heading down some streets that we hadn’t come in on. I thought that he was trying to pick an easier path as the trip on the way in was pretty rough. New roading is being put in with flyovers and all sorts. It turns out that we were heading for the Golden Temple.
The Golden Temple is the most holy place on earth for the Sikhs. They will come here from whatever country they are in whenever they can. Some will stay for weeks just to worship. The Temple itself is made of Gold. IT sits in the middle of a big pond. The water is shallow and has a number of what looks like goldfish in it, except these goldfish are huge. (Must be well fed)
Leading nito the temple grounds you take of your shoes and socks. There is a locker area where you can leave them safely. Then you walk over to a range of basins where you wash your hands and face. You go over to the entrance to the temple area and walk through a trough of flowing water. Now you are in the temple area. Devotes will bend down and kiss the marble stones and say a prayer. You can then walk around the grounds. In the corners are stations which provide drinking water. You can also buy some kind of food that you will take into the temple itself and give it to the priests. They will mix it with something in and then share it with others who are in there. Most of it they will give back to you. You can then take it out of the temple and share it with others you meet. When we arrived there were long lines of people waiting to go into the temple. So we decided not to wait. We walked around the perimeter to the food hall. The food hall is for everyone who wishes to eat there. It is free and you can come back as many times as you like. I should say here that its not like any food hall I’ve seen. You sit in lines with your metal food tray and spoon and wait for the attendant to come to you to put the food into the plate. When you are finished you leave with your plate and hand it to the attendants who throw it into a big container ready for washing. Today was not a good day for trying to get food either. The hall was filled to capacity and there was as many again outside waiting. We gave that a miss as well. I think Khilandeep would have liked to have stayed but he was conscious of the late hour. We left back through the water trough and picked up our shoes.
The trip home was probably the worst so far. It was alright until we got to the road works. Then, on the narrowest part of the road the traffic came to a stop. As is usual over here, cars were trying to get around the blockage by all sorts of routes. All this did was completely bloke the road. The police arrived eventually to try and sort it out. To travel 5Km, it took us well over an hour. Then further down the road, we came across the malls. They were still open and boy were they busy. The one thing they Mall builders hadn’t accounted for in their building was parking. There were cars everywhere!!!!!!
What should have taken about 2.30 to get home landed up being over 4 hours. Still at least we got home.