Colleen's trip to India Week 2

That morning, on the rooftop restaurant, I caught my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. We would be visiting the Taj later that afternoon, but first a tour of the Red Fort where the Mughol king who built the Taj lived. It is also a very impressive building in itself. (more like palace than fort) Our local guide was very knowledgeable and it was good to learn about the full family history before going to the Taj itself. The king who built the Taj, built it as a tribute and burial place for his wife Mumtaz. After she died his son put him in prison so he could become king. However, the prison is actually a large quite palatial private room within the fort with excellent views of the Taj.


Next up on the itinerary, the feature piece (even making the cover of Lonely Planet) the Taj Mahal. To get into the area there is quite strict security, not just the usual metal detectors and bag search but there are actually more items that you are not allowed to take inside than are banned on airplanes. For example, you are not allowed to take in: food, liquids (except for the complementary bottle of water that comes with admission), cellphones, ipods, and literature. I am not clear of what risk or threat a book poses, but the ban on literature is enforced as I saw many people having to leave their books and magazines at the gate before entering.


Finally, once I made it through security I got a close up view of the Taj, and it did not disappoint, definitely meriting its status of one of the wonders of the world. With all of the security, I was surprised that you could actually go right inside the building. and walk around. While I was there I took quite a few pictures of the Taj. I was also in some pictures taken by other people. This happened in other places in India as well, but mostly at the Taj, where Indian tourists asked if they could take a picture of me with themselves or with their families. We were there quite a long time including the sunset and it was very interesting to see it change in colour as the sun was setting.


After a very full day in Agra, the next morning we took a "semi deluxe" bus to Jaipur- the Pink City, which was a nice change from the train, especially getting on and off. When we got to Jaipur, I was kind of expecting the whole city to be pink, which it isn't. Jaipur is actually quite a large modern city, but there is a large older section in the middle where most of the buildings actually are pink. The first evening we went to a famous movie theatre to see a Bollywood film. The theatre is very posh and ornate and you are not allowed to take photos inside. The movie was called Delhi 6 and was really good. It was in Hindi without English subtitles, but still quite easy to follow, especially since one of the characters sometimes spoke in English. I would like to see it again with subtitles. It was very interesting because many of the scenes were from places I had just been to, both in Delhi and Agra. Not that I am basing this on a very large sample size (three) , but it seems like most of the movies set in India include some kind of road trip to the Taj Mahal. Although it was an actual drama, with serious themes and subject matter, there was still the occasionally random song and dance numbers placed throughout the film.

An observation I made in the theatre is that there appears to be a different concept of personal space here compared to what I am used to. For example, during the movie, not only did people's cell phone start ringing on multiples occasions, they proceeded to answer the calls and chat during the movie, and no one really seemed to mind. In north america , that type of thing would most likely cause a big scene.

The next day we went to the pink part of the pink city. Then, we went to Amber Fort, which again, as in Agra, fort is more like palace. It is just outside of the city and we took a very local bus to get there. The people are very considerate about letting ladies (both foreign and local) and old people have seats, and will squeeze together as much as possible to maximize how many people can sit down. Jaipur is also a very large city and there are very few traffic lights, making crossing the street as a pedestrian very challenging. I found that the best technique for crossing the street seems to be to move together as a group (ie it is the same principle as the recommendation for avoiding being eaten by a cougar or grizzly bear when hiking in the Canadian wilderness - keep close together in a group, which the animal will view as one large massive creature and be afraid of , instead of as individual humans.


The next day we took some jeeps to a small village. We found the drivers, roads and jeeps to be a bit sketchy and actually missed the trains. We stayed in a "heritage" hotel which was actually a renovated yet another fort/ small palace. The rooms were huge with double height ceilings. In the evenings we got sari's to wear to dinner (see picture above). A lady had to assist us with dressing because it is quite complex to put on a six metre piece of material.

It was also very interesting to be in a village vs the larger cities. They don't get too many western tourists so we were even more like celebrities, especially among the children. It seems like many people live in the same building where they do some sort of craft such as pottery, weaving, jewelry etc. I particularly like seeing the pottery being made. The guy made a vase out of a lump of clay in about five minutes on just a stone wheel which he spun himself like a top.

Our last destination , we went to was called Pushkar, which is also a very holy place. It was nice because we had quite a bit of free time there and you good actually walk around quite easily and safely, and there were a lot of nice inexpensive things you could buy.

Pushkar is home to a very famous camel fair and one of our excursions was to embark on a camel safari. The actual camel riding was fine, especially if you have experience riding horses - you're just a bit higher off of the ground, but getting on and off was a bit scary. Unlike a horse where you can climb onto yourself, with camels, they kneel down to let you on, then they stand up, first he hind legs which pitches you forward, and then the front legs. The walk, first through Pushkar, then the rural countryside and finally the dessert was very nice and peaceful. Even at 5:00pm, it was very hot until we experienced a brief refreshing light rain while the sun was still shining (even though we were told in "never" rains there in March). We arrived at the overnight campsite and had a very nice meal.


In the evening, as we were sitting around the campfire when suddenly there was a strong gust of wind, and it started to rain again. So we scrambled into the large tent we would be staying in. We soon become comfortable again and felt quite safe and secure playing cards, despite the rain and wind outside, and even eventually fell asleep. Then, in the middle of the night I was awoken when one wall of the tent collapsed. As we were outside trying to fix the tent, the winds and rains seemed to pick up again and the whole tent fell down and likely would have blown away if we were not holding onto it. Still we persevered to try to fix the tent, intent on still staying the night.

It appears as though camping in the desert in Rajastan has the same rules as outdoor sports in Winnipeg - you keep playing through rain, wind, snow, cold temperatures, sleet and even small hail or else you forfeit the game. The only time you can call off a game for weather is lightning.
So, in the middle of the torrential rain and sandstorm, as we attempted to salvage our tent, a flash of lighting lit up the desert sky, followed quite closely by a loud crack of thunder, meaning we had to call an end to our Rajastan desert camping experience, and were safely evacuated by jeep.

As our trip was drawing to an end we had one last train ride (in the day this time) back to Delhi. We are in Delhi again for the last day of the trip. On this day we went to the Gandhi assasination site/ which is part museum part multimedia interactive experience. I particularly enjoyed reading the various Gandhi quotes. On the way there, in the rickshaw we remarked how despite all the chaotic traffic, we hadn't seen any accidents. Until, on the way home, about two blocks from the hotel our rickshaw was hit from behind by a motorcycle, however was only a minor incident with no damage to either party.


Planes trains and autorickshaws. One of the most memorable aspects of this trip was the various forms of transportation, I took throughout the journey. The sailboats down the Ganges, the cycle rickshaws in Varanasi, the camals in Pushkar, and of course the trains, but despite the occasionally "bump" along the way, they always seemed to work out in the end getting us safely yet memorably from point A to B.