One last day in Amritsar

We spend the last of our time in Amritsar volunteering at the dining hall and visiting the Sikh museum. We met a Sikh man as we were circumambulating the golden temple who told us everything we ever wanted to know about the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple, etc. One thing he told us about the dining hall was that they wash all the dishes and utensils seven times. This is one of the pieces of information we were skeptical about, we love India, but the cleanliness habits are not always our favorite part. But I can tell you, after participating in this process, that they do wash everything seven times and extremely thoroughly! In fact, I caused quite a stir when I inadvertently allowed some of the washed dishes to touch my clothes as I was moving them to the next basin down the line. The guy next to us was really upset. The looks I received made me feel like they had been doing this the right way for the last 500 years, until I came and fouled up the entire process. No one was rude to us, but we were watched very carefully after that to make sure we didn't do anything else wrong. I felt really bad, it was my mistake, but the pressure was just too much for us. We changed jobs and started peeling garlic.

Maybe these jobs don't sound very exciting, but the scale is incredible. We walked over to a giant pile of garlic that was just laying on the floor. A few dozen people were around to help with this task. Really the pile of garlic was relatively small compared to the nearby pile of onions. Anyway, I just sat there for the first five minutes watching the guy next to me peel his garlic. I didn't want to mess up the job! He must have though I was really strange just sitting there watching him and I might have made it worse when I tried to explain to him why I was doing this. Sometimes I talk with my hands which is normally okay, but not when you have a knife in your hand and the other person can't understand what you're saying. Needless to say, all the people there were very tolerant of us.

After doing our part, we had lunch in the dining hall and headed to the Sikh museum. Based on what we saw at the museum, I can tell you that the Sikhs have had a pretty rough history. Some of the paintings were of religious leaders and events and some were of resistance and wars. Most, however, were of all the different ways Sikhs have been tortured throughout history. Some of the methods were quite inventive, but honestly it was a little much for us after a while. It was a learning experience though, after visiting the museum we finally understood why some of the Sikhs we saw walking around the city still carry swords on their belts!

We finally left a donation and bid farewell to Amritsar the next morning and headed to catch our train. It was an adventure, I'll try to write about the last days experiences soon. Gotta go get some dinner now!