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Amritsar is the capital if the Sikh religion and has been since the 16th century. The main attraction in Amritsar is the Golden Temple which has a violent history. in 1948, a Sikh leader and his devotees occupied the temple as a protest for a separate Sikh state. The Indian Prime Minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, ordered the Indian army to attack the temple and kill the leader. They succeeded in killing the leader and many others while also causing much damage to the temple itself. As revenge, Indira Gandhi was later assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards which initiates a massacre in which thousands of Sikhs lost their lives. After peace was restored, the government offered to repair the damaged temple but the help was refused by the Sikh community who repaired it themselves. Today, it is impossible to see the damages left by this murderous conflict.
We decided to make the detour to Amritsar in order to see the Golden Temple and to attend a very popular border closing ceremony at the border between India and Pakistan.
The Golden Temple is surrounded by water an linked to the main temple complex by a narrow pathway. This pathway is always crowded with devotees and a few tourist wishing to enter the temple. Because of the two hour or more line-up, we decided to skip the inside of the temple and admired it's outside and the large complex which surrounds it.
The border closing ceremony is held at the only open and peaceful border that links India to Pakistan. It has become a huge tourist attraction for Indian tourists and foreign tourists alike. We attended the ceremony with high expectations but left thoroughly disappointed. The ceremony was basically a competition between the Indian army and crowd and the Pakistani army and crowd. It was filled with hit songs played over giant speakers, a lot of chanting and yelling from the crowd encouraged by a local celebrity, an ongoing high kick competition and a "who can yell the longest" competition between the Indian and Pakistani armies. The whole ceremony seemed a bit over-the-top and far too nationalist. We felt as though we were at a sporting event!
Amritsar does not offer much more as far as sightseeing goes, so after attending the ceremony and visiting the temple, we headed towards Delhi. At first, we wanted to visit Rishikesh, but it was too difficult to get there and we were getting anxious to move on to another country, so Delhi was the second option.
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