Outside of India though, not many would have heard of the Jallianwalla Bagh – at least in English speaking countries. There’s a good reason for that though. In 1919, the British massacred unarmed civilians, killing at least 400 with over 1000 injured. Approximately 1650 rounds were fired on 20000 people.

Before the massacre, the area was mainly a public courtyard, but now it is a memorial of national significance. The brick building has white squares marked along the wall – each square marks a spot where a bullet impacted.

Nearby the garden, is the Golden Temple, a holy place in Sikhism. Anybody who goes inside the temple complex must enter barefoot and cleanse their feet by walking through a stream of holy water flowing in front of the door. Once inside, one can admire the golden plates of the temple reflecting the ambient light.

The Golden Temple is only a five minute walk from the Jallianwala Bagh, but when we visited the temple at night, we couldn’t actually see our destination clearly and actually got scammed by an autowalla offering to take us there! We didn’t need the car at all!

Just outside of the temple is yet another sight to behold. Literally dozens of people sleeping outside. Likely these are people who have just made the pilgrimage to the temple.

Unfortunately, there were too many people lining up to go inside the temple itself – it would have been amazing.

See more of Amritsar here

A man calls out on the loudspeaker in Hindi, and judging by the tone of his voice, he’s trying hype up the crowd. “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, he says. It means “Victory for Mother India!” The entire crowd repeats the chant and overpowers the sparse voices heard on the Pakistani side.

The man in the sunglasses and the army camo pants with the cameras following him is a Bollywood actor. I don’t know his name, but this is some good publicity for him.

Women and children got to go up and wave Indian flags to show their support. If they allowed men to go, I would have totally gone down as one of the few foreigners that showed up.

The ceremony begins with marches on both sides. Infantrymen march up toward the gate, and even from afar, one can tell these guys are ripped – perfect for intimidating the other side. The gates are opened and the flags are raised. More soldiers march and with each step, they kick up high – up to their head even – as if both sides are competing to see who can kick higher. In between marches, the announcer continues to hype up the crowd with patriotic chants. To conclude the ceremony, the flags are lowered and the gate is closed.

See more of the border ceremony here