Hello guys! I am going to blog about my trip to Amritsar & Dharmshala. I went with my friends, Athreya and Shraddha and their mother and my mother.
We met at Chennai airport. You always have to go through various kinds of things such as getting tickets, giving your suitcases and bags, going through checking counters and things like that.
The most fun part was seeing the scenery outside the window when the plane takes off. Oh! I forgot! Shraddha is 7 years old and Athreya is 12. I also call Shraddha 'Shraddhastophe'.
In the plane, I was fascinated by seeing the clouds. I felt like touching them. We even had breakfast on the plane! I had a sandwich and noodles. After a while, the air-hostess came to our seat. She had lots of notebooks with her- Indigo passports! She gave one to Athreya, Shraddha and me as she gave the other children. As I opened the passport, I saw the ' Indigo passport' written on it, it had pages for each city we would visit. I spent all my time on the airplane reading books, watching the clouds and looking forward to the trip.
We reached Delhi at dusk. Delhi is a very hot place and we are supposed to go from Delhi to Amritsar which is situated in Punjab by bus. We had very little time so we hurried and found an electric auto rickshaw. He drove us to the bus station and on the way, we saw a famous market in Delhi named ' Chandni Chowk '.
Chandni Chowk used to be a moonlit market. Nowadays they use artificial lights to make it moonlit. The word 'Chandni' refers to the moon and 'Chowk' means market. We reached the bus station and waited for our bus. Inside the bus, we saw a movie called 'Bahubali' .Everybody slept through the it except Shraddha and me.
I woke up in the early morning and looked out in the window. I saw paddy fields and buildings.We had reached Amritsar!
After a short break at the hotel, we went to the Gurudwara which is also called 'Harmandir Sahib'. Inside it is the very famous Golden temple. We were near the entrance when we saw lots of Sikhs in a queue. According to the law, men are supposed to wear turbans. If they don't have one, a person will distribute an orange cloth that men will have to wear. Women will have to cover their heads with the dupatta they're wearing.
There is also a vast lake named 'Amrit sarovar'. We went inside and saw that the temple was not only made of gold, but the floor and walls were made of white marble! After we came out of the temple, we saw various shops. We went to a kulfi shop which had very tasty kulfis made out of milk.We also had a gigantic lassi. We went to an accessories and souvenirs shop. My mom bought daggers as souvenirs.
We came back in the evening to the Harmandir Sahib to have a special meal called 'Langar'.We had roti, dhal and kheer. Though it was a simple meal it was surprisingly tasty!
Did you know one famous thing to do in Amritsar? The Wagah Border. It is a military area, the border between India and Pakistan. We went there to see a beating retreat ceremony.This parade takes place at sunset everyday between the soldiers of India and Pakistan. The soldiers were energetic and disciplined. I felt very respectful watching this ceremony. Shraddha and myself ran towards towards soldier on a horse to take a picture.
Our next stop was Dharmshala! It was a very long drive.at last we reached the homestay. The rooms were very comfortable.When I went to explore the balcony, I saw an awesome view of the mountains one next to another.
We saw markets and went to Dalai Lama's temple which is referred as Namgyal Monastery. We saw a big Buddha as we entered. I heard a crowd of monks mumbling strange prayers which I could hardly understand. We even spun the prayer wheels which were big cylindrical wheels and spun very slowly.
When we went to the Mc Leod ganj, the place was bustling with people. We saw restaurants and toy shops and some tasty sweets which were very new.We ate at a restaurant where we met an aged lady monk. And for dessert, we had the Bhagsu cake which was a scrumptious chocolate cake. It was so soft and nicely made that I had a second helping of it.
The next day, we went on a hike to see the Bhagsu falls, which took about two hours. Now you know where the Bhagsu cake's name came from. We had to walk a steep hill where there was lots of greenery. At last we reached the top where we started camping.We even slept inside tents, I felt like I was in my own spaceship looking at the stars!
Our trip was coming to an end and we went back to Delhi, from where we took a flight to Chennai. We went on this trip in September 2017 and it is already three years since those days. I really liked the trip and keep remembering it from time to time.
Comments