Scenes from around town...

Truck in front of me on my way in from the airport

Below are shots from around town - both on my first afternoon visiting the Partition Museum and the next (rainy) morning on my walking tour of the city.

Large pedestrian only street near the Golden Temple

where I had a delicious kulcha (stuffed flat bread essentially)

Shoe shopping! It was so wet, I left my shoes behind and bought new ones...from this store

Kitchen operations

The Golden Temple feeds a meal to anyone who comes. During high seasons for temple visits, this can be up to 100,000 people a day. And it is a well-oiled machine...people wait in line, are provided clean trays, then enter en masse for a seating, plates are filled with people walking down the aisles dispensing food and drink. 15 minutes later, they exit, someone sweeps and the next tranche of seating is let in. It's incredible. 

Behind the scenes, they chop, cook and wash dishes in BULK. 

All run by volunteers...

This lovely gentlemen was very proud and wanted his picture taken. I can hardly blame him. 

A vat of dal (beans)

which was one vat of many...

Mass cooking of fried vegetables

Not a great picture but these ladies are rolling dough for chapatis (flat bread used to scoop all the food)

This was the chopping stations...lots of people chopping garlic and various other vegetables

racks and racks of clean dishes

And probably impossible to tell - I couldn't get a decent picture - but this is a huge dishwashing line-up. This picture shows only half the room, with people lined up on both sides of these industrial-sized sinks washing dishes, with runners picking up the clean dishes and bringing the to the racks

Line up of dishwashers

And when I say it rained...

...I mean it POURED. I found out later the state of Punjab, where Amritsar is located, got 22% of its season's rain that weekend...oy.

Devoted

All the men wore plastic bags over their head wraps to keep them dry. Creative!

My poor guide in the black t-shirt buying an umbrella

Ellora and Ajanta caves...revisited

Turns out we had pictures stored in two places within our photos app. Found a few others I couldn't resist posting from these amazing caves.

 The view from outside, and above

The view from inside. The Ajanta caves had paintings on the walls of the cave that were two thousand years old...really hard to get any good pictures, but here are a couple to provide a flavor.

Ajanta and Ellora caves, Aurangabad

 

Nizamuddin Dargah (Mausoleum) of Sufi Saint

What you can't see is the narrow walkway from when you enter that weaves around and through to the temple itself. Impossible to recreate this one in photographs. 

Everybody wants a selfie with Justin, and sometimes the rest of us. We often politely decline but here said yes.

 

Old water reservoir inside the complex...note kid jumping from top left.

Stall for flowers you offer in the mausoleum

In the alleys leading to Nizamuddin there are lots of food stalls, some of which make some amazing kebabs!