Day 4 continued in India.

To continue Day 4, after we visited Gandhi's place, we went to a Sikh temple, but before we could enter we had to remove our shoes and socks, and  cover our heads with a supplied blue and yellow scarf, both men and women. The temple itself seemed clean enough, but the small room where we had to leave our shoes wasn't the cleanest, and the short walk to the temple was, uh, revolting. It was only 50 or 60 steps, but they were not fun steps, New Delhi is not a clean city by any stretch of the imagination. The temple was beautiful, very ornate, lots of gold and other adornments. I felt a little odd walking through a Tempe while people were inside praying, but then I realized that it's no different than walking through any church in Europe while people are inside.

Now, attached to the temple is a huge establishment that is similar to a soup kitchen at home  except anyone can eat there...rich, middle class, poor, homeless and any faith is welcome. Obviously it is utilized mostly by the poor and homeless. They sit outside by the hundreds and wait their turn while the people inside have their meal. 

All the food is donated and all the labour is volunteer. It's an incredibly massive operation. The kitchen and eating area would never pass inspection in North American, but things are different here. Really different. Remind me to tell you about cows later. I know you know that cows are sacred here, but it's a whole different level than what I realized.

Anyhow, as we were watching the food prep I was asked if I wanted to help make some naan bread, and of course I wasn't going to miss this! The balls of bread were flung at me almost faster than I could roll them out, but its not a complicated procedure, and before long I was rolling with the best of them, sitting on the floor with bare feet, flour flying everywhere.

This is half the room of people eating.

The naan making area.

Food prep, shelling peas and dicing potatoes today.

Gargantuan containers of rice. The smaller ones are 5 gallon pails.

The reason it's all free is for two reasons, one is it creates work (not for pay, but "busy work" to keep people occupied) and two being it brings you good karma.

Oh honest to gods, I just can't seem to get anything written, but if I don't do it now I'll never rememeber the order of things, so excuse the disorder of my mind.

We then went for lunch where I had paneer sharmi and naan, then went and found a money changer and probably got totally ripped off, but when you need money, you need money. Headed back to the hotel to sit by the pool for a while and then try to repack my suitcase which has expanded greatly and I haven't bought a single thing yet. How does that happen? All I've done is switched my sneakers that I wore down here with my sandals. Jeez. Time to start tossing stuff and leaving things behind already? 

Anyhow, here's some photos to amuse you.

Ate here:

Ate this:

Sat around this:

Yearned for some of these:

Felt rich owning 18,000 of these: