June 26, 2016
Amritsar: the Golden Temple
Most of our day in Amritsar is taken up with a visit to the Golden Temple, the holy centerpoint of the Sikh religion. We take a tuktuk to the area and walk towards the temple among throngs of people. Shoes and socks need to be left outside, you wash your hands and feet and then you get to enter. The Sikh religion is very much like the Mormons in that they take care of each other. Free food is available at the Temple and members perform a lot of community service. We walk around the pool that surrounds the temple, but decide not the try and enter because of the long line of people waiting. It's only just before 8am and already a tremendous number of people are in line.
Afterwards we get a ride to the Tourist Center near the railroad station where a helpful guy arranges a taxi to take us to Delhi tomorrow. Very professional and easy.
By chance we discover that Tajikistan started issuing e-visas just this month. This helps us greatly since we don't have to find and visit the embassy in Delhi to get our application in and wait days for this to be processed. We submit the paperwork and payment around noon and by the evening we have been issued a e-visa including the GBOA permit needed for the Pamir Highway.
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