The Golden Temple

We couldn’t miss out on a trip to the Golden Temple whilst in Punjab (A mere 7 ½ hour round trip in a day). It was well worth the drive - firstly because we saw our first elephant! It was casually walking up the side of the road and within minutes it had its trunk inside our car, massacring our shortbread (yes Gilbert makes amazing heart shaped shortbread). Elephant – tick.

Secondly, the Golden Temple is as amazing as it looks in the guide books. We spent a good three hours wandering around and could have easily been there longer if not for getting on the road for the long trip back.

Walking around the edge of the lake was peaceful and serene, interrupted frequently with locals wanting to take a photo of us, take a photo of us with them, or take a photo of them. My favourite moment was when a local man asked me to take his photo, show it to him and then he offered me 10 rupees for the privilege which I politely refused! Either he was encouraging me to consider this as a new career path or he was driving a hard bargain for my camera.

If you visit the temple, make sure you have lunch there and visit the kitchen (all Sikh temples have kitchens which they call a langar). The langar is a place where food is served to all visitors, regardless of faith or caste, for free. I have never seen catering on such a scale before and it puts many of my previous mass catering experiences to shame – i.e. University halls of residence. Volunteers staff the kitchen, serving around 50,000 meals each day and double that at weekends and public holidays!

We also managed to get fast tracked down the side of the queue to go into the Temple because of Helen’s leg (there have to be some advantages to having a tree fall on you!).