Amritsar

Amritsar is my introduction to India, but 3 weeks on I am still struggling to form an opinion on this country. I love it, but I’m not sure why because there’s an awful lot not to like.

The religious town is heaving with Sikh pilgrims but despite the mass of humanity, it’s clean and calm. I camp right by the temple, there’s a tradition of welcoming visitors which means there is a free hostel with a broken washing machine, and food is laid on 24 hours a day for thousands of worshipers. It’s cooked by volunteers who do everything from peeling the onions, chopping the peppers to stirring the massive cauldrons.

Dinner is served from slop buckets by guys racing down the line of pressed trays laid out on the floor in front of the hungry followers. It’s an amazing set up, which works phenomenally well. The washing up volunteers work around the clock and the unceasing clanging of plates is only drowned out by the piped devotional music. I’m parked right next to them and am woken every night at the 4am volume crank that keeps the washers motivated.

I realise after a very short time listening to Tajinder, a devout follower who is harbouring some Sikh supremacist tendencies, that it’s not religion I have an objection to. My problem is with people who have no doubt, and refuse to accept there can be doubt. Not just in religion, but in any belief. Extremists. Tajinder is a lovely extremist and a pleasure to spend time with.

I’ve also found that India is full of people and systems which only serve to make life a little harder than it needs to be. Civil servants’ role is to interject a measure of complication. The principle extends to anyone with a uniform, anyone with any power, and anyone that feels they have a right to tell me that I can’t park here. The bus is 7 metres long, so it’s not like I have a lot of choices.

The bus was running badly to Delhi, no acceleration, and it felt like fuel starvation. I stripped various parts of fuel system without finding the source of the problem. It would be another week before I discover what was going wrong with the bus, and in the meantime I was destined to see foggy India at 60km/h.