Operation Wanderlust

This past weekend, despite the heat, we set off on a  camel safari (one night) in the beautiful Thar Desert.  Our favorite part of the trip was when the camel stood up and sat down. See the video of me on my camel Johnny Walker below.

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Bangladeshi tourists at Agra Fort

Marc may have been a bit harsh in his first assessment of the country.  We’ve spent a few more days  and visited a few more sites to realize that every place in India is not the same (wow, what a revelation, right?).  What has surprised us the most is the friendliness of the people.  Seemingly everywhere we visit people bombard us with questions and are really excited to learn we are from America. (Sometimes I think that people just want to practice their English, which is fine with us.)  Inevitably we learn about an uncle or third cousin who is a doctor or engineer in either the US, Canada or Britain.   Also, we’ve been invited to visit two different families so far.  The strangest adjustment for us is the number of people who want to take a photo with us or of us.  Sometimes people strike up a friendly conversation and then ask for a photo.  Others try to surreptitiously take one.  Marc jokes that we’re minor celebrities!

The hardest part of traveling in India has been dealing with the touts and moto/bicycle-rickshaw drivers.  We are doing our best to remain calm and patient, trying to be understanding, knowing that they are just trying to earn some money; however, some people are just plain deceitful.  On two occasions (that we know of) touts have outright lied to us.  I am also quite disturbed when random men try to touch me in public.  The most blatant attempt was in Agra when a guy in a passing moto-rickshaw grabbed my arm while I was talking to Marc in our moto-rickshaw.

Despite the handful of negative experiences, India is certainly growing on us.  Our favorite activities so far are breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Marc is trying not to eat the same dish twice while consuming a fruit lassi with every meal.  Each city seems to bustle with activity at all hours of the day and night, presumably due to the 1.15 BILLION people that live here.  Even at 4:30am on a Wednesday morning when we took a moto-rickshaw to the train station, there were people out and about.  We also love all the colors, especially the women’s saris.  Finally, it’s hard not to be amused at a herd of enormous water buffaloes marching slowly across a crowded street (or train platform) while buses, rickshaws, and motorcycles honk and swerve to avoid them.

It is the premonsoon season and the thermometer is inching its way up from really hot to unbearable.  So far the heat is tolerable but we might have to adjust our Rajasthani itinerary and escape to the mountains or the beach.  We have no excuse for not updating the blog more often since we are spending so much time on trains but as usual we are behind (yes, Brazil fell into a black hole but we will post eventually!).  So far we’ve been to Darjeeling, Varanasi, Bodhgaya, Khajuraho and Agra.  We are now in Jaipur and we’ve booked upcoming transportation segments that will take us to Udaipur (where we’ll take cooking classes), Jodhpur (the “Blue City”), Jaisalmer (camel safari!), Bikaner (Rat Temple!) and Amritsar (site of Sikhism’s Golden Palace). I was hoping to make it to Ahmedabad to see Ghandi’s ashram but the train gods (aka Indian Railway) won’t allow this trip.

Taj Mahal

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

On Tuesday we grabbed a morning bus from Khajuraho to Jhansi. After a greasy lunch of fried samosas and kichoris and excited questioning from several engineering students we boarded a crowded train to Agra. In Agra a friendly mototaxi driver named Bobby took us to the Taj Ganj neighborhood and offered to give us a day tour of Agra on the following day for Rs500. We agreed.

In the early evening we climbed to the roof of our hotel (avoiding an angry looking rhesus macaque) to catch our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. Even in the waning light the building was impressive. For dinner we made our way past numerous rickshaw touts to Joney’s Place restaurant where I tried mughal biryani and Beth Ann went with the old standby malai kafta. Joney’s banana lassi was one of the best I’ve had in India. Back at our hotel we chatted with a friendly hotel staffer who had emigrated from an area near Nepal to India in 1991. He had learned English over the years from visiting tourists.

Lodging: Hotel Siddarth

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Agra Fort entrance gate

We got up early and ate breakfast at Joney’s Place with a German woman who is spending six months (!) in India. By 6am we had passed through the security checkpoint into the Taj Mahal grounds. We entered the inner compound through the impressive red sandstone gateway building and were instantly awestruck by the classic postcard view of the Taj Mahal reflected in the narrow pools of the ornamental gardens. Beth Ann and I both agreed that this is one world landmark that lives up to the hype.

The Taj was built by Shah Jahan as a memorial and mausoleum for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child in 1631. The complex was not completed until 1653. Shortly thereafter Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb and imprisoned in nearby Agra Fort where he could only gaze out at the memorial until his death in 1666 when he was interred here alongside Mumtaz. The Taj is noted for its finely carved jali (detailed marble screens) and ornate pietra dura (marble inlay work) made with thousands of semiprecious stones. Twenty thousand people from India and Central Asia worked on the building.

We toured the interior of the Taj and viewed the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan (the actual tombs are in a locked room below the main chamber). Outside we noted that the main building is identical from all four sides. We also took in the four white minarets, the red sandstone mosque to the west, and the symmetrical jawab to the east. In the small museum we viewed celadon plates which supposedly split into pieces or change color if the food served on them is poisoned. Strolling the grounds we spotted a mongoose.

After visiting the Taj Mahal we began our whirlwind tour of Agra. Bobby wasn’t feeling well so he passed us off to the decidedly less friendly and more toutish Bubaloo (Beth Ann thinks we were suckered into another scam). The first stop was Agra Fort, which was constructed by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1565. The fort was built primarily as a military structure, but Shah Jahan used it as a palace, and later it became his prison after his son seized power in 1658. The fort was crowded with domestic and international tourists and we were warmly greeted by a group of Bangladeshi students.

Next stop – lunch! Fending off Bubaloo’s commission seeking restaurant recommendations we headed it to the Lakshmi Vilas restaurant for South Indian dosas (large savoury crepe) and idli (spongy, round, fermented rice cake).

Following lunch we headed to Akbar’s Mausoleum. Emperor Akbar is buried in a sprawling sandstone and marble tomb 10km northwest of the city center. The gateway building, with its large minarets and inlaid white-marble patterns, is almost more impressive the mausoleum itself.

Ignoring Bubaloo’s suggestions to visit various shops and bazaars we returned to Agra proper and continued across the river to the riverside tomb of Afzal Khan known as Chini-ka-Rauza. Khan was a poet who served as Shah Jahan’s chief minister. The building is in disrepair and there wasn’t a lot to see except groups of children playing on the grounds.

Marble inlay work (pietra dura) at the Baby Taj

Itimad-ud-Daulah was one of my favorite sites in Agra. Nicknamed the Baby Taj, this building is the tomb of Mizra Ghiyas Beg, a Persian nobleman who was Mumtaz Mahal’s grandfather. His daughter Nur Jahan built the tomb between 1622 and 1628. The building is noted for its finely carved jali (marble lattice screens), is constructed entirely from marble and makes extensive use of pietra dura. The site was much more peaceful and less crowded than the Taj.

On the way to our last stop Bubaloo stopped for a cigarette and our mototaxi was besieged by a group of children chanting “Hi” in English and trying to shake our hands. Continuing on we visited the Mehtab Bagh park on the east bank of the Yamuna river, originally built by Emperor Babur. From the park, also known as the Moon Garden, one can see across the river to the Taj Mahal, which by this point was swarming with hundreds of tourists.

Beth Ann wasn’t feeling well in the evening so I grabbed dinner by myself at Joney’s Place. On the way back to the hotel I stopped by one of several marble inlay workshops and was amazed at the exquisitely detailed items for sale, including handmade jewelry boxes, plates, and table tops inlaid with various semiprecious stones in the identical style as the Taj Mahal.

Lodging: Hotel Siddarth

Temples in the western group

When we arrived in Gaya we thought we would quickly settle into a hotel, eat and go to bed.  But as we are learning nothing is as easy as it should be in India.  For a fleeting moment it seemed like we would be returning to Bodhgaya for the night after four hotels told us they were full.  Apparently, hundreds (or thousands?) of students flooded the small city in order to take the NIT engineering entrance exam the following day.  The city was swarming with young men.  The last hotel we unsuccessfully checked for accommodation suggested the Siddhartha Hotel International, which did have rooms – for 1650 rupees (about $38 USD and we usually don’t pay any more than $12 USD), almost our daily budget.  I started to walk out the door and thus the obligatory negotiating and head tilting commenced.  We got one of the five staffers down to 1320 rupees ($30 USD) and we felt like we had just bought a car!

At 5:45am in the morning we made our way to the train station to begin our long journey to Khajuraho.  A direct train wasn’t possible so we took the train to Satna, a bus from Satna to Bamitha (through a beautiful forested area), and finally a jeep from Bamitha to Khajuraho, arriving in time for dinner at Raja’s Cafe.

Khajuraho was known to us for the “Kama Sutra carvings” on the outer walls of many of its temples.  Once there we were

Carvings

easily impressed by the beauty and artistry of the intricately carved temples.  It was our intention to visit the Western Group of temples at dawn but I guess two early mornings in a row didn’t agree with us – we made it to the entrance at about 6:45am, only because the temples were across the street from our hotel and we skipped breakfast.  After spending an hour at the UNESCO World Heritage site we learned that even though our tickets were valid for one day it really meant one day with no reentry.  Despite our grumbling stomachs we managed to spend about 4.5 hours visiting the Western Group temples before devouring a South Indian feast of dosa, uddapam, paratha, and puri across the street at Madras Coffee House.

The Western Group of temples were very majestic and beautiful.  Each is dedicated to a particular Hindu god (i.e., Vishnu, Shiva, Surya, Parvati, etc.) and the architectural layouts have similar elements.  Our tape cassette audio guides (you remember those, right?) described the temples as celebrating women and the various sculptures displayed a range of human activities.  If you looked carefully you could see a woman pointing to a thorn in her foot, reading, bathing, holding a baby, etc.  We had fun on the scavenger hunt looking for those carvings along with a few others mentioned in the ASI (Archeological Survey of India) guidebook and on the audio tour.  Before leaving the temple area we were once again approached for photos!  First a man asked if he could take a photo of me with his wife.  Shortly thereafter three teenage boys asked to take individual photos with me.  Marc and I were perplexed because not one of the boys had a camera.

More temple madness

In the afternoon we rented bicycles and took care of a few errands before visiting the Eastern temple group.  First, we bought our train tickets to Agra and Jaipur at what turned out to be the easiest train reservation center in India.  We had attempted to purchase these tickets in Gaya several nights earlier but the agent shut his window promptly at 8:00pm right in the middle of booking our ticket.  Before moving on we drank chai at a small shop while a tailor sewed a hole in Marc’s battered day pack with his manual foot pedal sewing machine.  The tailor must have been in a generous mood because he refused, at first, to take payment from Marc (although Marc eventually succeeded).  From the bus station it was a quick bicycle ride to the four Jain temples in the Eastern Group.  After a detour to avoid some deviously enterprising children in Khajuraho Village who attempted to scam us out of our bicycles we made it to the remaining three Hindu temples as well.

Our perfect temple-filled day ended with a sunset view of the Western Group over dinner… in a TREE!  Precariously perched in front of the Blue Sky Restaurant is a tree house and table attached to an equally rickety walkway that shook the tree house every time someone walked on it.  It was a novelty for us and the view was incredible with the sun setting beyond the temples.  At 7:30pm a sound and light show could also be viewed (though not really heard) from the restaurant.  We didn’t find it very interesting and left early.