Week 17, Pune

Our last stop in India before flying back to the UK was Pune. It was nice to visit ‘home’ one more time. We stayed with Susan and Caroline in our flat, so my mom got to see where I lived for the past 4 months. Then on Saturday we went to Shelter Associates. They got us a Maharashtrian thali for lunch from my favorite all you can eat thali restaurant. Here are Sandhya and Shoba explaining all the food to my mom. We spent the afternoon in the office because I had some work to finish, and my mom just caught up on all her emails and online games.


On Sunday morning we went on a day trip with Caroline to a village near Pune. The landscape was beautiful and I think my mom was happy to see a bit more of rural India, because most of what we saw was big cities. We did some shopping in Pune that afternoon and in the evening we completed the trip with a bollywood movie, Aladdin. Then on Monday morning we packed up and took a taxi to Mumbai. My mom flew out in the evening, and I flew the next morning.


Bye India!

Week 17, Varanasi the River Ganges

I think Varanasi was the most Indian place we went to on our trip. Meredith, a girl I met in Belize in May, said that Varanasi was her favorite place in India and that it was “raw” India. I totally agree with her about the raw India comment. My favorite part of being in Varanasi was the two boat trips we went on, on the river Ganges. First we went on a boat trip at dawn. My mom and I each put two candles on the river Ganges. Here they are floating down river with the ghats (and our hotel) in the background.


A boat trip is the best way to see all the ghats along the river, and the see the raw India Meredith was talking about. Ghats are just steps leading down to the river and some have special purposes. The people in Varanasi use the river for everything: they do laundry, they hold pujas or prayer rituals, they cremate bodies at funerals, and they bathe. Varanasi and the river Ganges are holy places for Hindus, so they are supposed to take a ritual bath in the river every morning. Here is a photo I took at one of the many bathing ghats on our sunrise boat tour.


That same evening we went on a second boat tour just after sundown. First we went to the second burning ghat, Harishchandra Ghat, where we saw a funeral in progress. As we arrived they lifted a body onto a funeral pyre, big pile of wood, and performed a ritual that involved pouring oils and flowers on the body. They then stacked more logs on top and said more prayers. The whole ritual was performed by the oldest son the man who died; the son has to shave his head and wear white for 13 days after the funeral. When they were finished, a second group of people lit a pile of logs to the left, which has obviously been prepared before we arrived. It quickly grew into a large fire. We were told it would burn for another three to four hours before the last of the ashes were cooled by pouring Ganges water over them and then thrown in the river. We saw this final part of the funeral later in the evening when we went to the main burning ghat, Manikarnika Ghat. At the second burning ghat there were only the two funerals going on that I described, but at the main burning ghat there were at least 12 going on at one time and there was a queue of bodies waiting to be cremated next.

Between the two burning ghats we stopped for a while at the main ghat, Dashaswamedh Ghat, where they were performing the evening puja. A number of Brahmin priests were doing a ritual with some fire, and there were bells ringing and prayer music playing in the background. The puja itself got a bit repetitive after a few minutes, but it was impressive because of the number of people who came to watch. The river was full of boats, and the ghats above the river were packed with people.


When we got back to our hotel another typically Indian thing happened: there was a cow sleeping outside the entrance to our room. Before my mom came to visit me in India she asked me if there were cows everywhere, and there are, just like you would expect.


We only spent two nights in Varanasi and the only part of Varanasi we really saw was the river Ganges; we also went on two day trips with guides from the hotel to Sarnath and Chunnar Fort. Sarnath is where the Buddha gave his first lecture, and at
Chunnar Fort we got an amazing view over the river Ganges.

Week 17, Delhi

After a nice day in Agra and visiting the Taj Mahal, we took an evening train from Agra to Delhi. It was supposed to be 3.5 hours, but ended up being more like 5 because we left late and then got more delayed on the way. Euan was feeling really sick and my mom and I were kept busy watching the small cockroaches crawl around on the floor and into/out of the seat in front us.

Since our hotel reservation in Agra did not work out, I decided to call ahead to the hotel in Delhi to make sure that was all set. It turned out that that reservation didn’t get made properly either, so before we left Agra my mom went on hotels.com and booked us a really fancy hotel with a western price to match. It was nice though, because Euan was able to spend his last day in India in bed in a nice hotel; I think he was very thankful for that.

So my mom and I did all the touristy things in Delhi. First we visited New Delhi: Connaught Place, India Gate, Qutb Minar, Lotus Temple, Hayuman’s Tomb. After Amber Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, the historical sites in Delhi were not that impressive. I think my favorite was the Lotus Temple. It’s the only really nice piece of modern architecture I saw in India. It was built in the 1980s and is one of seven Bahá'í Houses of Worship. Even though it belongs to the Bahá'í Faith, it is open to anyone of any religion for worship. It is really peaceful inside.


On our last day we went to Old Delhi to see the Red Fort. By this point a lot of the Mugal architecture was looking the same with the red stone carvings and the white marble with colorful inlays, but it’s still impressive to see these buildings that are almost 500 years old. They were built around the time of Henry VIII when a lot of Cambridge was being built, and before Bath or anything in the USA.



The funny thing about our time in Delhi is that we didn’t eat any Indian food. My mom was getting a little sick of it by this point, and there wasn’t anything near our hotel so I couldn’t drag her out to a restaurant. We ate mostly at the hotel, but also at McDonalds and the Hard Rock Café.

Week 16, Agra the Taj Mahal

After Jaipur we hired a car and driver to take us to Agra via Fatehpur Sikri. Susan, who was another volunteer at Shelter Associates, recommended we go the Fatehpur Sikri. It was amazing. It was constructed in 1570 and then they only lived there for about 15 years and then abandoned the place. I don’t really know how it’s been kept so well maintained, but it’s just like a ghost town now. We spent a few hours walking around (including a big mosque, Jami Masjid, that is still in use right next door). Many of the buildings had really detailed carvings all over.



Then we drove to Agra. We stayed at the Taj Plaza hotel, which is really close to the east gate of the Taj Mahal. They messed up our reservation, so we ended up in the best (most expensive) room in the hotel with a view of the Taj Mahal from both bedrooms and the toilet! So we saw it at sundown the night we arrived, and then we got up a dawn to visit it the next morning.



The Taj Mahal is hard to describe. I was expecting it to be one of those places that you’ve seen in photos and on TV so many times that you feel like you’ve been there already. But it really wasn’t. It is even more beautiful than I could have imagined. The marble inlay work is so detailed, and it’s all over the place. We took the required photos from the end of the water as you enter the complex, and then walked all around to get a closer look. We spent a couple hours there, but I could have sat there and stared at it all day. It’s so white and shiny you just don’t want to take your eyes off it.

Later that afternoon Euan was not feeling well, so he went back to the hotel to rest. My mom and I tried to go to Agra Fort, but our rickshaw driver talked us out of it saying it was quite expensive and really small. We just took a picture outside and instead we went to see some more handicrafts. In Jaipur we saw textiles being block printed and embroidered by hand, in Varanasi we saw silk being woven by hand, and here in Agra we saw people inlaying marble by hand. It’s really neat to see these things being done, but on the other hand it’s sad because they are showing you exactly what we would call a sweat-shop in the West. They work sitting hunched over on the floor with very little light, 7 days a week, and get paid next to nothing. And we benefit from this by being able to buy cheap stuff. It makes you not want to buy anything because then you are supporting it, but if you don’t buy anything then these people become unemployed and have no money at all. So we bought a little bit of stuff.

Week 16, Jaipur the Pink City

We arrived in Jaipur at 6am on 20 October. I slept pretty well on the overnight train, but I was still tired getting up so early in the morning. We checked into the hotel (the Umaid Mahal Hotel) and since our room was ready we ended up sleeping till noon.

The highlight of our time in Jaipur was our trip to Amber Fort. It was built up on a hill near Jaipur in the 1590s, and the view is beautiful. Some of the surrounding hills have a wall along the crest, and it looks a little like the Great Wall of China, which is funny. It’s really hard to describe these places. You’ll have to go there too see for yourself ;-).



There are lots of other things to see in Jaipur too. Jaipur is known as the pink city because the buildings in the walled city are painted pink. We went to the Jantar Mantar; it’s an astronomical observatory built around 1730 with 18 huge stone instruments. It was fun to figure out what they all measured, and one looked very similar to Stonehenge.


We also went to the Hawa Mahal, which was built so that women could watch what was going on in the street from behind screens without being seen.


A couple of times we let the rickshaw drivers talk us into going to places that we hadn’t heard of before. One of the places we went was called the monkey temple. We walked up a big hill to the temple and when we got to the top there were monkeys all over the place. Some Indian people fed them bags of food; we had some peanuts to feed them too. My mom went first and they took the nuts out of her hand very gently. I’m not sure how I feel about feeding wild animals, but I did it in the end and it was really cute.


While we were in Jaipur we also felt my second earthquake this year. The first was when I was in Belize in May; we felt a 7.1 earthquake in Honduras. Then in the early morning on 23 October we felt a 6.2 earthquake in Afghanistan.

Week 15, Udaipur the Lake City

I’m sitting in Mumbai after my 2.5 week journey through India, finally catching up on my blog entries. I met my mom at the Mumbai airport on 15 October as planned. She had a 16 hour flight from Atlanta to Mumbai, but she wasn’t too tired. On the 16th we flew to Udaipur.

The highlight of our stay in Udaipur was Diwali on the 17th. Diwali is the big Hindu festival, like Christmas for the Christians. The whole town was decorated with lights, and streamers, and everyone lit little oil lamps outside their homes and shops. The main square outside the Jagdish Temple was especially decorated and there we load of fireworks all night long.


I hadn’t been feeling well since my last day in the office, so I spent most of Diwali in bed at the hotel, the Mahendra Prakash Hotel. The hotel was nice and had a pool. Our room was at the far right on the first floor. The hotel also had 3 turtles that crawled around in the grass by the pool.


Then after Diwali Euan joined us, and we had one more day in Udaipur. Udaipur is known as the lake city. It’s a really beautiful little town on the shore of a big lake. There is a big palace (the City Palace) on a little hill overlooking the town, and two palaces built on islands in the lake. On our last day we went on a boat cruise on the lake. One of the island palaces (Jag Niwas) is a hotel that only guests can go to, but the cruise stopped on at the other palace (Jag Mandir). Here is a view of the City Palace from Jag Mandir.


On the 19th we took an overnight train to Jaipur. This time we took the 2AC class, which is one better than the 3AC we took back from Goa. Here Euan and I are on our top bunks.

Week 15, India Trip

Yesterday was my last day of work at Shelter Associates, and today I leave on my big India trip. I’m took a taxi to the Mumbai airport to meet my mom tonight at 9:30. Here’s our itinerary for the next two weeks:

• We’re now spending the first night at an airport hotel in Mumbai. On 16 October, we fly to Udaipur, where we spend three nights; Euan is joining us there on the 18th.
  
• On the 19th we take an overnight train to Jaipur, where we will spend 3 more nights.
  
• On the 23rd we’re hiring a driver to take us to Agra via Fatehpur Sikri and we’ll spend only one night in Agra right next to the Taj Mahal.
  
• Then it’s an evening train to Delhi on the 24th. Euan will leave us in Delhi on the 26th,
  
• and then my mom and I take an overnight train to Varanasi on the 27th. We will spend two nights there,
  
• then fly to Pune on the 30th, where we’ll spend 3 nights.
  
• Our last night, on 2 Nov, we’ll spend in Mumbai again. My mom flies out at about 1:00 on 3 Nov and I fly out at 11:00.
  

Since I’ve been working with Google Earth so much, I decided to map it all out.



I’ll try to post updates from each stop along the way; I think we have internet in all our hotels along the way.