21 Aug
After a day and a half of travelling, we are finally back home in our native country. We had a great time, but are glad to be home. Now, we are spending time in our laundry rooms cleaning a month’s worth of clothes.
That’s it for the Indiachicks. Signing off…..
21 Aug
Today was not much of a day. We had to get up in order to catch a flight from Varanasi to Delhi. Surprisingly enough, our flight was an hour and a half late, so we ended up waiting at the airport during that time, where there is really nothing to do. When we were in Delhi, we had 7 hours to kill, so we went to a mall. The boys went to a bar and Jane and Laura wandered around the mall. We couldn’t really buy anything because we didn’t have any room in our bags to put anything for the flight home.
After a nice dinner with Sujata, we went back to the airport to wait for our 12:15 flight. I hope it isn’t late! Everything has been at least an hour late…please don’t let this flight be late!
19 Aug
Yesterday, after checking temple number 19 and 20 off our list, Jane expressed that she is just about templed out. I hope she is feeling refreshed this day because we were on our way to a Buddhist shrine.
We awoke at a good time (4:30 a.m.) to get to the Ganges River and take a boat tour. The steps that lead to the Ganges River are called Ghats, and each set of ghats has a different name. There are many sets of steps that lead to the Ganges, but only four of them are considered sacred. Pilgrims often walk barefoot to the Ganges River and take the water from the river to a temple somewhere else in Varanasi. They offer the water of the Ganges to the Lord Shiva, one of the main gods in the Hindu religion. Pilgrims also bathe in the water of the Ganges, and drink from the river five times. For the four of us, that is a practice that we don’t want to do.
On our boat tour, we were able to see the two spots where Hindu cremations take place. A cremation is very ceremonial. After they have covered the body in oils, and carried it to the Ganges river, they create a funeral pyre out of wood. You can buy the wood at shops on the river for Rs. 3 per kg for wood that is not covered, or for Rs. 6 per kg for dry wood. The dry wood burns the body in a couple of hours and wood that is mostly wet takes 6-8 hours. Only men are allowed at the ghats to burn the body because women are too sentimental. The soul is supposed to leave the body during cremation, and if women are crying and carrying on, the soul might stay behind, which is not good for the dead person. So, women stay home during that part of the ceremony. After the body is completely burned, the ashes are gathered up and taken back to the home. After 11 more days, the eldest son, he who was also responsible for lighting the funeral pyre, will bring half the ashes back to the Ganges and sprinkle them into the river.
We walked around the streets near the river for a little while and saw a Hindu temple, whose domed roof was covered completely in gold. I think our guide told us that 800 kg of gold was used to cover it. Let’s see – $1000 USD per ounce, 28g in an ounce, 1000g in a kg…… I think that works out to around $28 000 000 USD at today’s rate. Or something like that.
After visiting the Ganges River region, we went to a Buddhist shrine, which was more interesting that we originally thought it would be. I mentioned that Jane was templed out. We learned a few things about Buddhism that we didn’t already know. This might have a slant/bias of an Indian guide, but we learned that Buddhism has a home in India. Sarvath (I forget the actual name of the town) is a town where Buddha visited to do his first sermon. Wow. You never know what you are going to find in India.
I am running out of internet time, so I will end this with these events:
We spent the afternoon drinking wine and beer by the poolside, had a nice dinner at the restaurant at the hotel, and fell asleep thinking about going back to Delhi the next day. Wow, a half hour of internet time goes quickly!!! I have to get going now!
19 Aug
We arrived in Varanasi an hour late – at 9:30 instead of 8:30. We arried at the Gateway Hotel in Varanasi just in time for a bit of breakfast. None of us had really slept on the train. We were discussing this morning how it was strangely quiet on the train last night. There is so much noise everywhere in India, but on the train, everyone was asleep early.
We had a little bit of rest time between breakfast and our first tour of the city. Grayson, Mic and Laura had a little nap, and Mic and Jane went out to the pool for a little while.
Our first stop on the city tour was the Temple of the Mother of India. It was created in the 1930s to allow people to worship their country. It has no religious significance. There is a huge relief map of India made out of marble, that took 8 years to create. You can see the Himalayan Mountains, Pakistan, Burma Sri Lanka and other surrounding countries. It’s amazing the things that people make out of marble.
A visit to the Hindu University was up next. Indian Universities (or at least this one) are much different than Canadian Universities. We consider a university a place to study. The only people that really frequent a university are the people that study there and maybe some of their other friends or parents. This university had shops in it, a temple, families, some of them obviously not relatives of those going to university. Many people were camped out on the campus grounds, selling postcards and other items.
During the subsequent walking city tour, it started to rain really hard! We were walking through Old Varanasi, when we had to take cover in a few different stores. They were pretty good about not bugging us to buy anything. The rain did not stop for several hours and the roads were flooded – so much so that our driver could not drive down the street. Many people tried and flooded their vehicles. It was a little scary because their electrical wires are not nicely tucked away on poles (look back at pictures of day 1 if you need a reminder). I envisioned an electrical wire falling into the now-river and reducing the population of India by about 5000. It was pretty wild! Now that we have had that experience, we are good for the rest of our lives. It’s the sort of thing that you really only need to see once.
We reached our hotel with just enough time to have dinner before they closed. We had to get into our little beds right away because we had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. the next day to go to the Ganges River.
19 Aug
Today was rather uneventful, something for which we are glad. We didn’t have to worry about driving for 6+ hours back to Jodhpur to catch a flight to Delhi because we decided to stay in Jodhpur instead of going to Jaiselmer. So we missed a camel ride in Jaiselmer. We figured that, if we really wanted to, we could have a camel ride in Jodhpur. There seem to be a lot of them around. We chose to hang around the hotel, go for a swim, go to the gym, and then get on the plane at 1:00 to go back to Delhi. It is really just a day (and night) of travel for us.
In Delhi, we had a few hours to kill so we went to a restaurant called @live. It seems to cater to Westerners because it has a very North American feel about it and they were playing Bryan Adams when we went in. The wait staff didn’t really speak English, but that’s okay. We seemed to get what we wanted and needed.
When we arrived at the Delhi train station, of course there were lots of porters in red suit jackets to meet us. We opted to carry our bags themselves, something that is difficult for them to understand. The Delhi train station is very interesting, with an array of different kinds of people. We were getting on a sleeper car with assigned seats, so we didn’t have to worry about running onto the train to try to get a good seat. Those in 3rd class have to sit wherever they can find a space. You can usually see a few people sitting at the doorway or hanging off the side. I’m not sure if they would be hanging off the side overnight….they might fall off while they are sleeping.
We are in 2nd class, not 1st class. That, in itself, is a good experience. It’s funny that we came from the Taj Hari Maha Hotel in Jodhpur, which is very posh, and are on our way to the Gateway Hotel in Varanasi, which is also very posh, and right now we are sharing sleeping quarters with about 16 other people, separated by a curtain and in some cases, about three feet of air. Grayson and I are sharing our space with a 2nd year college student and her mother. Mic and Jane are adjacent to our quadplex. I’m sure the mother and daughter duo wish they were somewhere else. Everyone seemed to go to sleep almost right away. I am the last one up and it’s only about 11:30. I say that it is a good experience because it is good to understand how another culture goes about its everyday life. The father of the girl next to us is a doctor and he is in the bunk next to us. This is the type of transportation that regular people use.
We will arrive in Varanasi at around 8:45 a.m., all refreshed from a good night’s sleep, in the same clothes that I have been wearing since around 8:30 the morning before. Woohoo! We’ll be going right to our next hotel, which is apparently the nicest hotel in Varanasi, eating breakfast, taking a shower (I hope!) and then going on a city tour. It should be fun!
19 Aug
Today, we were supposed to get back into our van and take a 6-hour drive to Jaiselmer. Seeing as most of our trips have taken much longer than expected, we decided that we liked Jodhpur so much, we would stay here. We just gave ourselves 12 hours of fun, instead of 12 hours of van driving.
We met with our guide, Raghu, after breakfast. He took us to the crematorium of the Maharajah’s ancestral family. It is considered to be the Taj Mahal of Rajasthan. Whereas the Taj Mahal was created for the dead wife of the Maharana in Agra, this crematorium was created for Jaswant Singh, the husband (Maharaja) of the Maharani in Jodhpur. They still have Maharajahs here, but they do not have great significance. They are considered royalty, but do not make laws or have any political power. I suppose they are like Queen Elizabeth. They are figureheads, but are just for decoration. It was interesting to learn about how members of the Hindu faith treat their dead. All Hindus are burned on a funeral pyre – cremated. The family carries the dead to the spot where he or she will be cremated. After cremation has taken place, if the family is able, half of the ashes will be taken to Varanasi and sprinkled into the Ganges River. The other half stays and a memorial is built over the buried ashes. It’s sort of like a headstone, but in cases for the wealthy, the headstone is huuuuuuge – and very ornate. There is also great ceremony that goes with the lighting of the funeral pyre, but I won’t go into all of those details right now.
What did we do after that? We went to another fort. This was the Maharajah’s old castle. One of the Maharajahs had another one built because he wanted to create work for the people, which I think is a nice gesture to the people of India. He who has money makes up a new project so that the people who don’t have a lot of money can work and make some money.
We then went to the present Maharajah’s new house, but didn’t get to go inside. That might be considered impolite to barge in on the royal family at their house. “Hello, do you have any tea?” After we visited the English Wine and Beer Shop, we were ready to go back to the hotel for an afternoon of leisure. Mic and Grayson played Frisbee, while Jane and Laura lounged in the shallow end.
There is no need to worry about whether you can or cannot do something in India. You can pretty much do whatever you want without any worry about safety or anyone really caring about what you’re doing. When we were at poolside, the waiter brought beer, in glass bottles, and poured it into glass beer glasses. Pools and glass don’t usually go very well together. One would think – big pool, small glass, what are the chances that it is going to get knocked over? Well, Mic was throwing the Frisbee and Grayson didn’t catch it and it went sailing right over to that beer glass and knocked it over. Can you believe? Mic blames Grayson and Grayson blames Mic for the unfortunate accident. The funny thing is that the pool guy picked up the glass that he could see and then just left the rest. Is that safe? People are working with chisels and hammers, holding a piece of to-be-chiseled marble with their bare feet. Luckily they are wearing safety glasses … oh wait a minute, no they’re not! It’s just a different way of life, I suppose. Maybe in Canada, we worry too much about safety, and that causes people to be less careful because there are supposed to be so may safety measures in place.
Tomorrow, we will get in the van to go to the airport, to take a plane to Delhi so that we can get on an overnight train to Varanasi, so that we can get in a boat and go on a river cruise. It’s “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” without John Candy and Steve Martin.
15 Aug
Happy Independence Day! This is the day that Indians celebrate their freedom from British rule. In 1947, the English moved back to England and allowed India to make its own mistakes. I’m not sure yet how they celebrate Independence Day. I know they don’t drink, however, because the bars and restaurants in our hotel don’t serve alcohol today.
Before getting back in the car for another expedition, we visited Kumbalgarh Fort. Its wall is the second biggest in the world, at 36 km in length. It is a massive structure, built between 1459 ad 1472(ish), and housed 20 000 residents. It is situated on top of a rather imposing mountain, with mountains around it. I imagine it would be hard to see the fort if you were an attacking enemy because all of those hills are in the way.
This fort was also the King’s and Queen’s residence. It does not seem to have been popular to have kings and queens mingling with each other too much back in the olden days because we always see the “King’s bedroom” and the “Queen’s bedroom”. Each has visitors’ rooms and servants’ quarter attached. It is amazing to see the technology that people had back then. They had a water holding tank, toilets, rooms made to let in as much light as possible, and toilets that are not too dissimilar to the ones that India uses now.
We arrived in Jodhpur at around 2:30, which is strange. We were expecting to drive for at least 6 hours, but it only took us about 4.5 hours. We visited Jodhpur’s downtown area, which has many stalls selling food and other shops selling textiles, medication, and other knick knacks. Mic was not too keen on all of the flies that infiltrated the market. It’s not so bad when you are thinking of buying a samosa and you see a fly on it. At this market, there must have been about 30 lakh flies! That’s 3 million. Three million flies can do a lot of damage to a bowlful of lentils.
There is a stark and noticeable difference between the haves and have nots. We are all constantly surprised at the simple way of life of so many people. India is a developing country, certainly. There are many parts of the country where people live in tents, makeshift houses, lean-tos, or on a bench. We have not yet seen a “suburb” like one would see in Canada. We learned today that our driver, who has been following us from Udaipur to Jodhpur and then off the Jaiselmer, makes around Rs. 4000 per month. That’s about $96 a month in Canada. Wow. Of course, one can live a meager existence on that a mount of money in India, I suppose, but you would never be able to do that in Canada. I would wager that 12-yr olds who get their allowance make more money than that in a month. We usually give him about Rs. 500 per day for a tip, which (I’m sure you can figure this one out, but I’ll tell you anyway) is more than double a day’s wages, or one-eighth of his monthly salary. In contrast to the have-nots, there are those who have reasonably nice houses in the heart of New Delhi. These abodes are still not like Canada’s houses, but it is hard to have a big house with a big yard when you have to share it with 1.2 billion other people in the country.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called “On The Rocks”. It seems to cater to tourists because all of the patrons there were white. The food was definitely not expensive, though. Dinner for four of us cost only $30.00 CAD. Not being able to have alcohol helped keep the costs down. Independence Day is considered a dry day. You can’t buy alcohol at stores and restaurants do not offer alcoholic beverages. How do we usually celebrate Canada Day? Barbecue and beer, of course! India…not so much.
The Clock Tower at Jodhpur Market
15 Aug
Wow, another long car ride was in store today to get us from Udaipur to Kumbalgarh. We left Udaipur at around 10:00 and arrived at 6:30. Our hotel, the Aodhi, was very rustic. Apparently, it was the place where the Maharajah used to stay when he wanted to go hunting. The rooms were small, but that is of no import beause we hardly spend any time in our rooms.
The day before, at this hotel, there was such flooding rains that the walkways were more like waterways, reaching up to one’s knees. Luckily, we arrived the day after, and didn’t have to take a boat to visit the Kumbalgarh fort instead of a car. The hotel is in the middle of the jungle, where the Maharajah used to hunt for panther. I’m glad we didn’t meet up with a panther, although seeing one from far away would be cool. We saw other wildlife, however. The monkeys here are different than the monkeys we have been seeing up until now. They are whitish, with black faces. They are really cute. You just have to remember that they can rip your face off if they want to. And the bats! They are huge! Their wing span is as big as a raven. It was really neat to see them flying around above our heads.
At 7:30, it was almost dark and we wante to see the Kumbalgarh Fort at night when it is it up. For such an out-of-the-way hotel and fort, there were a lot of people there! Can there possibly be that many tourists? I don’t know where they came from. Our hotel had only 27 rooms, and the”Guest House” down the street only had a few. We stood on a platform which had a great view of the fort. If you were to venture off the platform, you would go plummeting down to the earth below – around 1000 metres of hill and rocks. Of course there was no barrier to prevent you from taking a flying leap. I believe that, in India, they follow this law: If you are foolish enough to go teetering at the edge, then you deserve to fall off. Maybe North America could learn something from that: Don’t protect and reward the stupid people by allowing them to sue a company because they themselves don’t have any common sense; give them, instead, a chance to take their stupidity to the maximum height (or depth, in this case).
After a mediocre dinner and some time for chatting, we headed off to bed, ready for the next adventure on Sunday.
15 Aug
Today was the day to view all of the pretty sites of Udaipur. One might say that Udaipur is more scenic than Delhi, but only in its difference. In Delhi, there are lots of things to see and you are always entertained as you drive down the road. You are also saddened somewhat when you see the poverty that is evident almost everywhere throughout the city. Udaipur has that as well, but it is not so prevalent. As we drove around, we noticed a few similarities between Udaipur and Delhi. Udaipur seems to be a city that is wealthier than Delhi. I’m sure that, since there are so many more people in Delhi, it attracts those without much money. There is not as much garbage around here, and there also seem to be more garbage cans.
We visited a palace in the city (aptly called “City Palace”), which is about the size of Baden. It is the home of the current Maharana of Udaipur. It seems that there are a lot of dignitaries in India. India has a President and a Prime Minister and the city of Udaiupur has a Maharana and a Mayor. It is probably a part of their efforts to employ as many people as possible.
Udaipur seems to be the marble capital of Rajasthan. I’m sure every town is the marble capital, but they sure do have a lot of it here. Stores sell items made out of marble and there are open-air warehouses that sell slabs upon slabs of it. One day, India is just going to cave in because all of the marble holding up the foundations of people’s houses will be gone.
13 Aug
It’s fortuitous that we didn’t have anything really planned for today because we were feeling a little lazy. We woke up late, had breakfast and then headed back to Janpath market. We were going with boys time, and I was curious to see how we would be treated by vendors. They still came up to us, but did not seem to pester us as much as they did the first time, when we were just a group of girls. Jane and I did a good job of continuing to ignore the pesky people, whereas Mic and Grayson would egg them on and get them going. One of Mic’s tricks is to tell someone that he doesn’t have any money, but that Grayson is rich and he would love to see whatever unattractive thing the gentleman is selling. Ha ha, Mic, really funny!
This day was more of a wasted day, as we were supposed to catch a flight to Udaipur at 4:30. After lunch, we waited for our car to pick us up, went to the airport, and waited for our flight. It was a little late, so we didn’t get into Udaipur until around 7:00.
Udaipur is a very pretty town in Rajasthan. It has much less garbage than Delhi, but also fewer people. Udaipur has only 250 000 people, relatively small in comparison to other Indian cities. We had a very special dinner planned at Lake Palace Hotel. This hotel is completely surrounded by water….most of the time. A few weeks ago, there was no water, but recently the monsoon rains have caused the water level to rise. At the Lake Palace Hotel, only residents of the hotel are permitted to eat at the restaurant. Our travel advisor, Sujata, made special arrangements for us to eat there.
We were taken to the hotel by boat and then were treated royally. White glove service by the waiters, comfy couches to sit on, and personal plate service added to the special feeling surrounding us. We dined until we could eat no more.
The food was splendid, and, strangely enough, the wine was not that expensive. I don’t understand it. Everywhere else, the food has been inexpensive, but the wine has been exorbitant (well, exorbitant for India). We boated back to the mainland and back to our hotel, the Trident.
The Trident hotel is also beautiful. It has extensive grounds that include a swimming pool, lounge area, grassy and garden areas and a golf course. We may be able to wander about there on Friday after our half-day tour.
