Colour and shadow in Amritsar: 24 hours in the Sikh capital

Crossing the border from Himachal Pradesh into Punjab, the haze in the

sky increases to become brown-grey smog; shadowy bullock carts loom out of the murk and then fade away as a truck belching diesel takes its place. 

We are travelling to Amritsar on the weekend that smoke from the burning crop stubble in the Punjab has combined with vehicle emissions in Delhi to create an air pollution horror story in global media. Will the murk and gloom affect our view of the Golden Temple, we wonder? 

Five hours after leaving McLeod Ganj - our temporary hill town home where the smoke has obscured our views of the Dhauladar Range for the last two weeks - the Suzuki Swift taxi drops us in a huge multi-storey car park around lunchtime. Driver Anu herds us down to ground level, and points us off into the light traffic with vague instructions about finding our way through Amritsar’s heritage pedestrian precinct.

The colour of the city hits us, bright against the dun pewter sky: deep red sandstone pavers and colonial buildings; brilliant citrus sequinned fabric lengths flow down the front and side displays of shops and onto the women around us; primary coloured turbans bob on the heads of grave bearded gentlemen; polished brass pots on the bikes delivering milk to the dhabas (breakfast and lunch shops). 

A big(gish) day out #2: rocking on the rattler

On the Kangra Valley rattler

“Yes, all our rooms are empty,” said the man on reception at the Himachal Pradesh Forestry Dept guesthouse.

“Then can we have two rooms for tonight?” asked our friend Sachin.

Head waggle from reception man followed by, “No, we are not allowed to take guests - not during the election campaign.”

We retreated in the face of such government weirdness and spent the night in Mr and Mrs Puran’s homestay in their family compound in the neat little village of Nagrota Suriyan 2 km from Maharan Pratap Sagar (see previous post).

A big(gish) day out #1: ancient gods and modern wetlands

McLeodganj is the easiest place to live in - so it was time to step out of the comfort zone, loop down the winding roads from our deodar covered ridge and see what the rest of Himachal Pradesh has to offer. 

The solid walls of Kangra Fort

At 7.30 am one recent hazy morning, we jumped into the Suzuki Maruti taxi with our friend Sachin and his mate Sonny behind the wheel (and a spare battery in the passenger foot well) and headed down the Kangra Valley, following the Beas River.

First stop was the stone pile of Kangra Fort, defensively perched high on a 100 metre arrete between two rivers and only accessible across a narrow tongue of land, and even then only by crossing a defensive ditch and passing for 200 metres under a crenelated curtain wall pierced by arrow slits.

The people speak: electioneering in the world’s largest democracy

[NB most of this post is only really relevant to the downtrodden exploited victims of a corrupt political oligarchy, that is, the average Queensland voter.]

I don't know what it says but voters stuck in India's usual
dreadful traffic congestion will have plent of time to read
all the political messaging.

A state election is looming in a largely rural state with a small for size population; the death grip on power has see-sawed between the two main parties for the last few terms; both large parties are despised and possibly corrupt but they are throwing everything into their campaigns; the smaller parties and independents are struggling to match the big money promises. 

Sound familiar?

But it isn't Queensland - it is Himachal Pradesh which is going to the polls on Thursday 9 November. And the state election campaign has taken over the airways, every chai stall, every village, and every roadway.