New Year 2016 in Amritsar :-)

Hey Ghumakkars,

Wishing you all a great Happy New Year 2016 !! Hope you all enjoying it to the fullest.

This time I planned to celebrate my New Year in a different way. Every year we use to party hard with family and friends but this time we celebrated it in a holy and patriotic way :-) After so many changes in our plans we finally decided to go Amritsar a long time plan of mine which we executed finally. Amritsar-a place where we ate good food, met good people, done good shopping, visited holy places and felt proud. As we were not succeeded in booking train Tatkal tickets so we thought to travel by bus and made our bookings accordingly. I will say it a good decision as it took equal/less time than train (apart than Shatabdi). So now without describing so much about our plan in theoretical I will explain it here which we were able to execute practically:-

Date: 31st Dec 2015
We have already booked our bus tickets in ‘Sai Travels’ (Multi-Axle/Volvo/Semi-Sleeper) from New Delhi. We started our bus journey @10:30 pm from Red Fort area and the bus departed at the right time wowooo :-) Me and my hubby already had our dinner at home so our stomachs were full and so we slept early. The bus dropped us next day on 01st Jan 2016 @6:30 am near Amritsar bus stand. We already have booked our hotel as well through Goibibo.com. So we just took a rickshaw to reach our hotel. As soon as I stepped my feet outside the bus I felt the fresh air, pollution free air with little bit of winter touch. Yes it was not so much cold there. So it was good for us to roam around and we were happy about it :-)

01 Jan 2016
We reached our hotel early before check-in time(12:00 pm) so need to pay little bit extra to hotel manager to stay for extra hours. The hotel staff was very supportive so we didn’t face any difficulty.

We took our hotel near Golden Temple just 3-min walk from hotel to Golden Temple and 5 min walk to Jalianwala Bagh after researching a lot over Internet. As soon as we get into our booked room we took a small nap. After being slept for 3 hours we started to get ready. Get outside the hotel in search for a heavy breakfast. Took Amritsari Kulcha and Paneer Parantha in our breakfast menu and roamed for some time in the nearby local market. Then we decided to go Wagah border first on this New Year eve to celebrate it with pride with our Indian soldiers on the border itself. Wagah border is approx 30 kms from Golden Temple so we booked a Qualis on sharing basis(Rs.150/- each  passenger) from Temple area itself. We started our journey towards Wagah border @1:30 pm sharp from Temple area with 5 other passengers as it was on sharing basis but overall it was a comfortable one. We reached Wagah border @3 pm. It took so much time to reach at our destination because there was a lot of traffic jam in between on Amritsar roads but as soon as the highway started we got relieved. We reached our destination and the driver parked Qualis in parking area. Then we stand in the long queue and after so many security checks we reached to Wagah border gate.

At the Entry Gate of Wagah Border

As soon as we reach at our destination we get seated in the VIP Gallery to see the parade between India and Pakistan. The parade started at the right time @4:30 pm sharp. It was a 25 mins retreating ceremony. Wow a great start of our New Year full of pride and patriotism. Crowd including me full on shouted patriotic slogans-Vande Matram, Bharatmata ki Jai, Hindustan Jindabad. Patriotic songs all around, hooting all around. Able to see Pakistan crowd as well from our gallery.

Retreating ceremony

Salute to our Indian Flag

Vande Matrammmm

India Pak Pararde

Chak De India

After the parade the jawans told the audience to go outside so we took some photographs and went outside.

At India Pak Gate

Our Qualis was waiting at the parking side so we get seated and returned back to Amritsar in almost 1 hour. Then we had our dinner(makke ki roti, sarson ka saag, tawa panner, butter naan :-))in Brothers’ dhaba. This is a very good dhabha good taste of food and nice ambience. We returned to our hotel after dinner and took a long nap as it was a tiring day for us.

3. Date: 02 Jan 2016: We woke up early @6:30 am as we planned to start our day by offering our prayers at Golden Temple. So after taking bath and getting ready we started to walk from our hotel @7:45 am and and reached inside Golden Temple premises @8:00 am. Took some pics, offered Ardaas and then stand in the queue for approx 45 mins. Then we get the darshan finally.

At Golden Temple

After the darshan we ate the ‘LANGAR’ there itself and returned back to our hotel. Took some rest and then go ahead for Jallianwala Bagh which was only 5 mins walk for us. We roamed around and took some pics there as well. I will not say any history or significance of the place here as Google is already there. We are here for plan so I will go directly ahead with it:-) But yes if someone wants to know more details regarding this tour then can contact me on my email id or can comment here itself. I am always available for help:-)

At Jallianwala Bagh

After had a visit at Jallianwala Bagh we took a rickshaw and visited to Durgiana temple (Lakshmi-Narayan Temple) a famous temple there and offered our prayers. It is located in the middle of mansarovar and very clean premises. A peaceful place to visit I must say. We spent our time there for approx 2 hrs and then took a rickshaw again to visit Model Town. Model Town is a place where modern temple of Vaishno devi is located. Its a beautiful very beautiful temple, first time in my life I have ever seen such an unique architecture or design of a temple. Sorry I have’nt clicked any pics of any temple as seriously I was just lost in the tranquility of these temples.

After this long day we took rickshaw and returned back to Amritsar local market which is popularly known as ‘Kapda market’ and shopped for some Amritsari patiala suits:-) Then we heard that Kesar Dhabha is known for its desi punjabi food so we had our dinner there which was seriously awesome. We had makke ki roti, sarson da saag, lachha parantha, chole with pinni as sweet dish. After having our full-fledged dinner we returned back to hotel and took a little rest. We were having our bus to Delhi @10:30 pm from Amritsar so departed from our hotel at 9:15 pm and get into our bus. The bus dropped at Delhi in early morning @6:00 am and then we took metro for Noida and thats all:-)

Thanks readers for your patience!!