Day 2 – Delhi to Amritsar

It was early rise and shine as we had to cover a distance of 449 kms to Amritsar. An early departure was necessary to beat the peak hour Delhi traffic and get out of the city. We had breakfast at around 6 am and then proceeded to load our cars with our luggage. The mood was upbeat and everyone was raring to go. We began by saying a small prayer for a safe journey, post which the convoy started to roll out of the hotel. Progress was decently quick, save for a couple of traffic lights where the convoy got split briefly. The roads were smooth on NH 44 and we made our first stop of the day at Karnal for tea and snacks. The weather was still hot and it would be a while till we would hit colder temperatures. At Karnal, the lead informed us that lunch would be at a surprise location and we couldn’t wait to find out more. We got our answer late afternoon when we pulled into the Haveli restaurant at Jalandar. The Haveli is a huge property and has a setup resembling a rural Punjabi village. The fare was pure vegetarian, but was totally authentic Punjabi cuisine. Everything on the thali right from the dal to the veggies and the soft rotis were lip-smacking delicious. After filling ourselves to the brim, we spent some time around the property before resuming our drive to our night halt. All the vehicles were tanked up with fuel just before entering Amritsar, where we checked into the Hyatt Regency for the night.

While we were pretty tired and had an early start at 3.00 am the next morning, we couldn’t leave a chance to visit the famous Sri Harmandir Sahib or Golden Temple as its popularly known. A few of us set out post dinner and the good part is that the temple was just 4 kms away from the hotel. On reaching, we parked the cars and walked through a lively marketplace in the temple area before reaching the shrine premises. The feeling you get when you are there cannot be described in words. You just feel so over whelmed. We spent an hour just soaking in the divinity of the place and returned back to the hotel a little before midnight. With the early start lingering on my mind, I managed a couple of hours of sleep before getting ready to hot the road again.

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