Udaipur & Amritsar

This city was incredible and I definitely hope to be back someday. Two days here was just not enough. We had the most incredible meals here and did some awesome shopping! It was definitely one of the more touristy areas that we've been to, but every once in a while thats just what we need! Here we rode camels and were taken on a tour of the city! It's old and beautiful! 

During our time here we were able to experience a festival in which the Goddess Durga is worshipped. Durga, meaning "the inaccessible" or "the invincible", is the Goddess of feircness. In Northern India this is a 9 day long festival where everyday there are so many things going on in the streets! My favorite was on the 10th day where they marched through the streets of Udaipur carrying a statue of Ma Durga and then threw her in the lake. They did this because in the Hindu religion (don't hold me to this exactly) there is this thing about not getting attached to things, so after nine days of obsessing over her they drowned her to show that they were not attached. It was a beautiful thing to experience. 

From Udaipur we moved onto Amritsar by an overnight train and then a day train as well. Trains are becoming one of my favorite things, I have the greatest sleeps ever while on them and during the day trips I meet the most incredible people. During this trip I was sitting with this family of about 7 or 8 that were on their way to a wedding. They offered me DELICIOUS homemade indian food and offered to watch my things for me while I took a nap on the top bunk with the pillow of theirs that they insisted I used, and another older man that was sitting there too bought me chai. I find it really incredible how there are some people that are so incredibly genuine and friendly, and then so many the complete opposite.

In Amritsar we stayed as pilgrims at the Golden Temple. SUCH A COOL EXPERIENCE ! We stayed in a large room with a bunch of beds and mats on the floor with a bunch of other foreigners. There was food being served 24 hours a day (Amazing dhal, rice, chapatti, and rice pudding YUM!) and both the food and accomadation were free. It was incredible to see this community of volunteers running this place and serving all this food! It was an amazing, amazing experience. And the Golden Temple itself was of course beautiful. I spent the majority of my two days in Amritsar with Katherine and we just wandered around, had chai and coffee, read our books and journaled. It was a very wonderful couple of days getting to learn about the Sikh religion.