Golden Temple — Nina

Golden Temple — by Nina

During our last stretch the whole group is touring around Amristar. Upon our arrival to the new city, it was clear how different the city was to previous destinations on the trip. From a religious perspective, the Punjab region is around 60% Sikh, and the base of the Sikh religion. There is also a strong sense of Islamic influence around the city.

Today, we visited the Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is the most important Sikh location of worship around the world. Dave emphasized the relevance of the Temple today. The visitors at the temple ranged from locals, tourists and Sikhs from around the globe visiting on pilgrimage. Part of our sight seeing included a visit to the kitchen at the temple. For all of the pilgrims, the Temple provided free masala chai as well as food. We all tried our hand stirring curry and making food, but I frankly wasn’t too great at it. It was quite astonishing to see the mere number of people who flooded into the dining area. Babbu, our tour guide spoke of the community aspect surrounding the Temple. His family owned 12 buffalos and 4 cows, and to serve the community, they donated around 12 liters of milk on a daily basis to the temple. He also mentioned the thousands of volunteers who come to volunteer in their spare time. This to me reinforced the community values that surrounded the Sikh community as well as the greater Punjab region. —Nina