RTW-India

Tuesday 2 October 2007

The pilgrimage of the Sikhs to the golden temple

By dorian on Tuesday 2 October 2007, 14:30

Amritsar is for the Sikhs what Mecca is for the Muslims, a holy city. Once in their life, the Sikhs have to carry out a pilgrimage to the golden temple.
Chorus of honks, tangle of bicycles, rickshaws and horse-towed carts welcome us. First images of a milling, life-seething town. A forgotten atmosphere since we went off to Himachal Pradesh in exile. The Indian truth resurfaces again. In the streets, thick beards on smiling faces topped by firmly swaddled turbans. The Sikhs, a bewildering religion.

On the way to the golden temple, we stop in front of cages full of chicks. Further to genetic modifications, they wear colours oddly different from the common yellow. Actually, the invigorating dyes aren't only for the Hindu women's saris...

We draw near the enclosure of the temple whose one of the gilded cupolas drift above the drab and filthy street. Other white-angel-like domes break away from the muddled alleyways we step on. We take our shoes off, don a scarf on the head and get into the holy area. A mesmerizing music surrounds the holy place and hundreds of followers tread around the artificial rectangular lake. Some of them purify themselves into its waters while others line up to visit the golden temple.
This quite recent religion is definitely baffling but offers us an architectural jewel, a temple covered with glistening golden leaves when richly coloured pilgrims with turquoise, pink and orange shades soak in this musical and religious aura.

Sunday 30 September 2007

Buddhist wisdom near Dharamsala

By dorian on Sunday 30 September 2007, 11:23

It's hard to sleep on the winding and bumpy roads of the Himachal Pradesh. We finally pull in at 5 o'clock in the morning at MacLeodGanj. We go for finishing our night in a faraway guesthouse, lost at the end of a dusty alleyway.
Not far from Dharamsala, MacLeodGanj is the haven of many Tibetans whose dalai lama, the most well-known among them. The tibetan exodus started in 1950 while the Chinese invaded their homeland. A museum reminds the struggle of fundamentally pacifist people and brutally repressed by the Chinese army. The catastrophic result sends a chill down our spine. The systematic destruction of the monasteries and temples reached the frightening number of 90%. More than one million of Tibetans passed away and several ones fled despite the harsh conditions of the Himalaya crossing. A pacifist solution seems hard to find so that Tibet gets its independence back. And the Chinese keeps on carrying out the "sinization" sending millions of Chinese to live in Tibet, to such an extent that, from now on, Tibetan are minority in their homeland.
MacleodGanj is a haven, a welcoming land for this thousands of Tibetans in exile. Refugees wishing more than all going back to their occupied country. We stop in front of the humble dalai lama's dwelling. Followers and onlookers huddle together to see him, shake his hands or take part in a collective meditation session.

We won't have time to meet him and leave the place hopping on a morning bus to Amritsar, capital city of a remote but symbolic religion, the Sikhism. At the India scale, a few hours from Dharamsala, religious capitals meet in the tolerance and the mutual respect.

Friday 28 September 2007

Crossing the Spiti valley

By dorian on Friday 28 September 2007, 11:11

We keep on dreaming. A dream we live with widely open eyes. The magic of the travel. A valley drives another one away and the jeep softly passes from the Kinnaur valley to the Spiti valley. The vegetation faded away, the sunlight strokes the rock and filters onto the sand-hued land. An even color, gigantic spaces, mountains as titans, only landowners of this corner of the world.

Next to the river, a few souls clustered together in the village of Tabo we spend the night in after visiting the old Buddhist temple. At the end of the afternoon, a power failure deprives us of a symbolic event : the final of the cricket worldcup between 2 formerly unified countries, India and Pakistan.

The next day, we get back on the road alongside these self-coloured slopes which bring an intense feeling of well-being. Some tree attempted to grow close to the stream but the yellowish leaves, as a warning shriek, show the adaptation difficulty in the hostile interstices of the rock.

The main attraction of the day is a monastery built on the crest of a rocky hill. Hairspins and winding bends,we win a few meters over the mountain and the road gets more aerial. The view clears and unveils some white-stoned houses in the convex slope of the hill. The jagged peaks with the azure sky in the background were tamed by the monastery. Perilous access by a cobbled uneven-stepped stairway. We look downward and the ecstatic sensation to dominate the broad valley which the unpredictable expression of the river appears in with several ramifications that split out and converge again. We look skyward, the snow-capped outline of the mountains not high enough to go down to posterity.

It's not far from one of these snow-sprinkled peaks we spend the night by. The crinkled yellow paint of the welcome sign displays 225 souls at the entrance of the tiny village of Mudh. A whitish spot among the gentle slopes of the valley.
A gasping panorama.
Pins and needles in my legs, I go stepping this land. More I walk ahead and more the scenery extent expresses itself. Quiet and carefree, I wander about up to the dusk.

Towards Kaza, a large village at the crossroads of the Spiti valley, the perched Ky monastery and the highest village in the world, the 4200m-high village of Kyber. This unknown road is a patchwork of intoxicating feelings which fill our spirits.
From Kyber, we walk down to the Ky monastery. Our steps clung to the bit of asphalt, our eyes wander, scan, contemplate. We delight in this barren incredibly beautiful nature. Shape harmony that fades into the heap of buildings erected on the top of an embankment which tolls the end of our stroll.

We leave Kaza and the snow gets more and more stressful up to getting intrusive. The road slowly raises up to the Kunzum pass. Red, white, blue, green and yellow praying flags wildly flicker. A small Buddhist monument to remind we are in the Himalaya, the spotlessly white peaks remind us even more.

The snow dims and the greenery reappears while we go down to Manali. End of a beautiful trip out of the lively activity of the Indian cities. An interlude in another world some people have chosen to live in.