The Taj and 'Agra-vation' (Mar 26-29)

You know how it can be with exotic things you've always heard about and that when you finally get to see them you think to yourself, "well what was the big deal with that?". We definitely agree that that cannot be said about the Taj Mahal. Your first view of it through the immense front (south) gate (see below).......just takes your breath away, both because of its immense size and amazing beauty. (The view through the gate)... John's word was "stunning" and Lori's was "exquisite".

It really is something...even worth all the Agra-vation of the city of Agra. Because this is such a tourist magnet, it is also a magnet for everyone trying to sell you everything and who just won't leave you alone no matter how many times you feel like you've said no. This is the worst we've experienced in India and we guess there isn't much you can do except just put up with it, although by the end of the day it takes real emotional toll on you. You begin even to dislike yourself for who you are becoming because of your attitude to everyone who appears to be friendly around you but you know just want not only to get something from you but also to rip you off for the maximum amount possible.

But let's leave all that aside and wonder anew at the grandeur of the Taj Mahal. The top of it's dome 20 stories high, all polished white marble, inlaid with coloured stones making floral designs. Each flower can be 30 to 60 separate pieces of inlaid stones and there are countless such flowers. The Taj is a tomb built by the Sultan in 1650 for his beloved wife who died in childbirth with their 15th child. 22 years of work by 20,000 labourers.

We were there at first light and before the crowds built up too much. By the time we left at 11 it was getting pretty full, and with probably 85% of the crowd being Indian. Here's a thought for the day....if there were 10,000 Indians per day coming to see the Taj, how long would it take for 1 billion Indians to each have a chance to see it? 250 years!!!!. And since most people only live for 70, I think you could safely say that the Taj could be packed with Indian visitors every day forever and it will not be possible for every Indian person to see the Taj....

After the Taj we retreated to our hotel for a short rest and then got a peddle rickshaw a couple of kms to see the Agra Fort. All the other forts we've been talking about on the blog have been Indian Hindu rajput forts. This one is Mughal, Muslim. In fact, Agra for many years has been the capital of the Mughal empire that controlled the majority of India for hundreds of years and was the attacker of those other forts we've visited so far. The Agra fort is huge, 20m high walls, 2.5 km in circumference, with several palaces built inside by successive rulers...one of whom was the builder of the Taj so his palace is likewise built of pure white marble + inlay.

Our rickshaw ride to see the fort is an example of the hassle referred to earlier. We agree with the young guy to first take us to the train station to book our next ticket, then to the fort. On the way to the station he stops and says he can take us to a travel agent who can book us a ticket with less hassle and only 20 Rs fee. So we let him do this, thinking he might be right and besides might be nice to support someone who is not in the heart of tourist-ville. We get there and are told that the train is full, we will be on a waiting list but that by paying a 500 Rs extra fee we can have a seat guaranteed with a final price of 1900 Rs per person (which includes his commission of 200 Rs - not 20 -). So we bid him adieu and head back for the original train station destination. There, it is true we have to go on the waiting list....(and there seems to be no possibility for a 500 rs surcharge to somehow guarantee a seat anyways), and so the final ticket price is 720 Rs (vs 1900) per person. At the train station we try to shake free from our rickshaw driver saying we'll find another way home after we've gotten our tickets, but he refuses to leave and waits for us. Rather than being rude we then get back in with him to go home even though we don't want to because it's partially uphill and he can't make it up the hill without getting off the thing and pushing it, while we're bombarded all around with traffic. Finally when we're about half-way home he says he knows this good restaurant he could take us to. And it takes 2-3 minutes of us saying no several times before he decides he better resume the journey and take us to where we want to go. So, in the end when we get back to the hotel, we pay him twice the amount of money originally agreed (because at first we just wanted a 1-way journey rather than round trip) and when he looks at the money he says "What? what about a tip for good service!". This story then continues into the next day as we exited the lobby of the hotel we are once again overwhelmed by guys wanting us to get into their rickshaw and this guy from yesterday starts getting upset and pushing another guy claiming that we are his (I guess because of using him the day before)....It will be good to leave Agra-vation behind.

The next day we took a bus 35km to a nearby town of Fatepuhr-Sikri. The picture below is tossed in to give you a sense of what a bus station is like around here.

One of the Mughal emperors Akbar in 1570ish decided he would make a new capital city here and set about to build a fort with palaces etc. He ended up only being there for 20 years before deciding that Agra was in fact a better place so moved back to the fort talked about above in Agra. Fatepuhr-Sikri has basically been abandoned since. The front gate to this fort is absolutely immense, they say the biggest in Asia and it is something to experience (note how small the people look like in the photo).

Well the rest of the fort is more of the same same....huge walls, a random assortment of palaces etc inside, a mosque, etc. We are coming to the point now where we feel like we've seen all the forts and palaces that we need to.

We are booked tonight on an overnight train to Varanasi although we are 4th on the waiting list to get on. We are told our chances are pretty good but if we don't get on at 9:15 we will have to go back and find another hotel here in Agra for another night or more.

The Thar Desert by Camel (Mar 20-22)

Where does one start when they experience riding a camel in the desert for the first time??

We met our guide and his son by the side of the highway waiting for us with Raja, Jee and Polo. A little apprehension sets in because you have heard so much about the nastiness of camels (i.e. spitting, farting and burping and just generally not seeming very pleasant) not to mention how sore we will likely feel after riding. We booked a 3 day-2 night trek being the over zealous types that we are! I can say that riding a camel is less scary than riding an elephant because they are not as tall.

It didn't take long to get our groove and find a riding position/style that was best although by the end of the first day........John was a bit concerned about his lack of thigh muscle flexibility required for straddling a camel's back but he persevered and the muscles seem to stretch to meet the challenge! Lori did fine the first day but the guide switched her to another camel and the saddle/camel's back was not comfortable but she rode it out and now has paid the price! She was switched back to another camel but alas, the damage had been done - thoughts of riding back for the jeep pick-up the next day haunted her!

Enough of that stuff, the desert is amazingly hot and dry (no surprise there) - there are families that used to farm and raise sheep, goats and cows but they had to abandon that lifestyle and the soil cannot support as much as it used to and the last 3 years have not seen much rain. Our guides do camel treks for 8 months (where they earn $45 Cdn/mth plus tips) and spend the other 4 months cutting sandstone for building construction at a quarry. This rock cutting is done using a pick and it is the hottest time of the year. There is no easy life for people living in the desert. The only water is from wells, so any animal without a human to retrieve water for it, will not live. We passed by a few skeletons on our journey.

There are still people raising sheep and goats (and a few cows) for selling to city markets. One 'shepherd" showed up for lunch on the first and third day. His goats nibbled on John's laces and my sandal straps. They are going around hoovering up any tiny green scrap they can see in the sand. At this point in time we were in an area with a few trees and the owner was up in the tree cutting down the lower branches so that the goats would have something to eat...and it's still 3 more months before the rainy season is supposed to start. The baby goats are particularly cute.... I think they grow into their big floppy ears. Overall though the number of animals is on the decline due to lack of grazing. Our guide said he used to have 300 goats but they died off until he was down to 30 at which point he sold them and used the money to buy a camel (since camel tourism was on the rise), but then there was not enough grazing to keep the camel alive so he sold it to a richer fellow (the camel man, who manages a fleet of 30 of them) who can afford to pay to truck in grain to meet their needs of 20kg per day!. Here's a photo of our guide Jamin (whose English was really good by the way) preparing our meal using little bits of dried sticks gathered from the desert.

Every mealtime, people (friends of our guides) seemed to magically appear and stay for the food. We felt we were feeding a community. It probably helped when we informed them they we didn't need them to cook so much food for us - at least there is more left over for their use. They defintely need it more than we.

Well, the first night, we slept under the stars! It was amazing! So blissfully quiet. Once we settled into our bed of blankets, the wind came up and a stray dog headed for John's side of the blankets and curled up for the night.

The second day, we had a short visit to our guide's village and played with the children and drank tea with the adults. They live in houses constructed from cow manure and sand. These apparently last about 10 years before any maintenance is required. Other homes in the community seemed to be constructed with the sandstone blocks and electrical wires were overhead, having just came in in the past 6 mths but no power was switched on yet and no homes actually wired up to the poles. However, there were cell towers and our guides were on the phone constantly as we were out in the desert as we were never far enough away to be out of signal range.

John plied the guides with as many questions as possible to try and get a feel for life there. They were alway happy to answer but it was hard work...wishing they had volunteered to talk more about their life there. These people in these villages are muslim, and in fact they were part of Pakistan until a war between these countries in the 90's at which time the Indians pushed the border another 100 or so kms back into Pakistan. These people were quite happy about it though, saying life was much better now on the Indian side. There is a school in their village tho' they said there was a teacher there perhaps not even 1/2 of the normal school days. Overall, you have the sense that life here is in big trouble if it doesn't start raining again. It seems the only economic activity now is camel trekking tourists and we all know how fickle that business can be.

We arrived at our second night 'camp' early afternoon. There was a shelter made of wood and grass. This became a real blessing since while we were enjoying our lunch, we heard the sound of thunder but thought it was probably a plane - nope, it was thunder! What are the chances that there would be rain in the desert during the dry season???? Pretty good it seems. We were treated to 3 rain showers and a spectacular light show that went on for hours! We have never seen anything quite like it! The guides weren't impressed though. It actually wasn't enough rain to do more than just dampen the surface of the sand, and it just isn't the right time...they want it to rain in July/Aug and then to get a good drenching, because that is when they plant the crops.

I have to put in a word for our camels - they were great. Aside from the occassional burp or fart, there was no spitting or bad behaviour. The sounds they do make are unlike anything we've heard before loud gurgling especially when they had to kneel down or stand back up.

Lori found them delightful and would pet them and talk to them - which the guides thought was very different. They thought she was crazy ;)

Overall, a nice experience but we find it hard to imagine how some people would enjoy a 7 or 10 day version of such an excursion! OK...farewell to the desert!.

Jaisalmer (Mar 18-19)

We boarded another bus to head 5 hrs further west into the desert to the town of Jaisalmer. What would a town in Rajasthan be without a fort? and so true to form that is the rasion d'etre here. This fort is less impressive in size but more in appearance, looking truly like a sand castle in the sky. Built entirely of local sandstone and with 99 bastions all around the wall, it has a very impressive look.

It was first built in 12th century and over the years this town prospered as it was on the main silk trading route between Arabia and China. Here's a closer look at one corner of the fort from a position up on the wall....

It then fell into decline in the 1500s when shipping by sea began to drain away the business. Nevertheless, the town remains today 50,000 strong with about 25% living up on the hill inside the walls of the fort (which is very tightly packed we might say). There are no motor vehicles in there with alleyways but a few feet wide. Those alleyways are heavily dominated by hotels and souvenir shops these days but still there are active temples and lots of locals with the associated paraphenalia such as cows walking around!

The weather here is well on its way to its summer time maximums of 50 degrees, but right now it's not too terribly bad...perhaps 35 in the day, but very dry and then a pleasant 20 or so overnight so at least at this point in time AC isnt really needed. Also, things are relatively quiet as the main tourism peak season is already on the wane so arranging most things such as accomodation or travel is really easy...just walk in and what you want is usually available. The only real downer is the excessively heavy hassle factor of being stopping you on the streets and making polite conversation, which is always just a lead in for going to their shop. Too bad because it makes you just want to ignore everybody which detracts a lot from the overall experience.

One day was spent walking around inside the fort, viewing the temples, which also include some of the Jain variety with their beautiful carved pillars (this time compared to Ranakpur on a much smaller scale and in sandstone instead of white marble), and of course a palace as well. Some more Jain temple pillars in carved sandstone below.

Many buildings both inside and outside the fort have beautifully carved facades and balconies in the sandstone construction. This makes this town look visually quite appealing as its not the usual cement over brick look of most of the rest of India. Here's a look out over the 'new town' from up in the fort.

To get a sense for this facade-mania here...the photo below is the front facade, of all things, the internet cafe that we've been using. And this is not some isolated case... the majority of buildings in this town have these kinds of elaborately carved sandstone facades!

Guidebooks recommend tourists to stay in hotels outside of the fort walls because the water/sewage drainage system of the fort is not coping with excess drain water (modern plumbing) resulting in the ground eroding away. This was experienced by the collapsing of several of the bastions of the fort wall in the not too distant past.

Our hotel then is outside the fort by 5 minutes walk through lots of narrow streets fillled with traffic and noise of all kinds. The drains seem especially stinky around here for some reason. Upon arriving we started receiving the high pressure sales pitch for the main activity around here which is camel safaris, with the usual lines about once in a lifetime experience in order to sell you on the deluxe tour. These guys were making it very difficult for us to even leave the hotel before signing up which is rather unpleasant to have to deal with. By hesitating and delaying, the price finally came down by about 30% and so we were signed up for the 2 night 3 day package to begin the next day....

Jodhpur (Mar 16-18)

Upon arrival at the Jodphur bus station, we wanted to duck out of view ASAP when we noticed the rickshaw drivers searching for us white folks (before we even got off the bus) in hopes they can convince us to go to their friend's guest house (where they will be paid a commission by the guest house owner - which of course is extracted from our pocket via the price of our room). We truly feel like moving targets sometimes ;)

We managed to find yet another guest house with a view of a fort..... and what a fort it is. John feels that it is the most imposing structure he's ever seen - that is not an easy list to make!

Below is a view on the uphill approach to the main gate of the fort, it is quite incredible to take in the enormity of the facade - it is imposing. They are very proud that this fort was never taken in its history ... unbelievable in a way that someone even thought to try!


Upon our arrival at the gate, it seemed as though the fort was suddenly being stormed by Rajasthani warriors on horseback wielding swords and spears!



Much to our relief, a big Bollywood movie was being shot on location at the fort - it really added to the experience to see horses and men clad in regalia that was indicative of the era. It is interesting to note that even though there were movie stars somewhere at the fort, the locals are still eager to say hello and chat with us - so bold and friendly! Lori wouldn't know who the stars were even if they were mounted on a horse and said hello to her while she approached to touch the nose of their horse!

All that aside, the fort (another view from our guesthouse rooftop restaurant above) is composed of mainly red stone (except for structures they painted) and we again see the intricate screen carvings that are so prevalent in earlier Rajasthan architecture. Many murals are still preserved and the three palaces contained inside still show their original , but aged, beauty. From pearl-like walls (achieved by crushing egg shells and adding them to the paint), stained glass windows, mirrored ceilings and painted floors (which look like carpet) to portraits of maharajas painted directly on ceilings and mythical scenes painted directly on walls. These were all meant to create opulant settings for romance, inspiration for artists and regality for business. Below is one shot of the palace located inside the fort walls.

All this, set behind 7 gates and a wall that is 40 feet deep in some places to allow for horses and canons to move along the top. This fort has never been taken - although it had a close call, after which the 7th gate was added as a victory gate (however one wonders if was added for insurance!!).

Did we mention the view of the city below?? Amazing views of the surrounding old city (mostly indigo painted houses), the new city and the land stretching beyond.


Next on the list was to head for a white marble structure in the distance.

This turns out to be a tomb for the Maharajah's of Jodphur, although 'small', is still inspiring as it is entirely made from carved white marble...everything, including the tables and chairs inside. When all this white marble is coupled with the bright sun pouring in from the arid pre-monsoon climate outside, it creates a soft, light airiness that lends to a sense of peace.

In India, peace is a welcome respite. For foreigners such as we, amid the hustle and bustle of everyday Indian life, the sights, sounds and yes, sometimes smells can take its toll. It is quite difficult to continue past beautiful children with matted hair, old clothes, bare feet and dirty faces who run up to you just to say 'hi' and how the returned greeting creates the most excited response; to realize you should lower your voice on your evening walk back to your guest house because a family is sleeping by the road; to witness an elderly woman shoo a cow away while competing for garbage territory; to restrain a gag when walking on the street near an open sewer; or to notice a dog's scared run when you move too suddenly.

India is laden with beauty and suffering. One needs to take time to process it all.

As with Udaipur, Jodhpur is a maze of narrow streets with 3 and 4 storey buildings sandwiched side-by-side - some are guest houses while some are homes and restaurants or other businesses. Without a map one gets lost very quickly (even with a map usually too!) - thankfully, there are many Indians who are quite adept at noticing lost looks on tourist's faces and are very willing to offer help (followed by the usual...where you from? what's your name? what's your profession? are you married?)... we are grateful :D

Ranakpur 'wow' and more 'holi' (Mar 16)

Now this is a 'wow' kind of place. The kind that you walk into and feel like, "I haven't seen anything like this before". In fact you don't just 'see' it, you 'feel' it.

...but first a story on getting there. Ranakpur is all by itself in hill country in the middle of nowhere and it is recommended to hire a car and driver to get there...so we did. On the way we start snaking through this narrow 1 - lane (but in good newly paved condition) road through the hills. Shortly we come across a row of stones piled across the road

.... and a horde of kids and young teens covered in colour and waving bottles of coloured water.


Being a Sunday I guess there was no school. Well they wanted 5 rupees to pass... They're still in celebration mode from the festival of 'holi', the one in which we got splashed with dye back in the town of Bundi. It's a bit like halloween trick or treat. 5 rupees to pass or a splash of dye on your car. Well it all seemed kind of fun and most of the kids are so cute and so enamoured with these 'whiteys' in the car. There were about 10-20 of them at the 'roadblock'. So we pay the fee, the stones are moved, and then around the next corner...another horde of kids and another roadblock.


Now we're really out in the middle of nowhere...where are they all coming from? So this easily repeatedly itself 20-30 times and by then, it just isn't very much fun anymore...especially since it's keeping us from getting to Ranakpur before closing time! Eventually our driver had had enough too and tried to 'boss' the kids into moving the road block stones. In some cases this works...and in some it results in a splash of dyed water across the car...other times our driver got out and moved the rocks himself.

Well, eventually we do arrive Ranakpur too late for the visit and stay at a motel-like place a couple kms down the road.....in large part due to a quick visit of the fort in Kumbalgarh. ...this one also said to have the reputation of never having been taken. Sigh....another day...another fort. They say the fort wall snakes for 36km in circumference around the hill on which the fort is situated.






Enough with the delay, so you want to know what Ranakpur is? It's a Jain temple from the 1400s, constructed of white marble, located amongst 1000 foot high hills, with 1444 intricately carved pillars holding up a series of domes. Each pillar is alleged to be carved uniquely... and when one steps inside ...

... there is this feeling of 'wow', with the interplay of light, carving, and colour. The pictures below will hardly do it justice. We both felt like it has been the most impressive structure we have seen in India...it kind of has a similar wow feeling as the Cathedral of Sienna in Tuscany.

Just a few words about our 'motel' arrangement the night before seeing Ranakpur. It was a nice contrast to the city experiences of the last weeks. We're out in the middle of nowhere, bright starry night, an artificial lake on the side of the property with an alleged a pair of crocodiles, and definite troops of monkeys going about their lives in the trees nearby. To sit and watch them, they are so human-like in so many of the things they do...especially when you seen the young baby and toddler types among them interacting with each other and their mothers.

So we finished our tour of Ranakpur about mid-afternoon and picked up another one of the rattletrap bone jarring milk run government buses from the side of the road and made the 4 hour journey to Jodhpur......

Questions you might want to know answers to....

We decided we should jot down a few things about us...in addition to all these stories of places we're visiting...in case you might be wondering.....



1. What are we missing the most about home?

John:

- being able to just wake-up in your own home, have a relaxing coffee and reading the paper.

- buying groceries and cooking your own meal vs having to sit in a restaurant and hope this

meal is a good one!

- friends....getting together with friends and sharing thoughts/experiences with them

- cool, clear, blue Canadian lakes to feast your eyes on and plunge into

Lori:

- waking up to rush to work and wishing I could stay home and read the paper

- coming home from work and cooking freshly prepared meals with John

- after touring around in dry humid and arid climate conditions where no refreshing, swimmable water exists I cling to fond memories of the beautiful, clear water of Georgian Bay and look forward to future visits

- seeing friends and family again.....Coco and Lucky too!



2. What about food?

John: since I love Indian food, about the only thing I really feel like I'm missing is cool fresh salads. I'm not even feeling like I'm missing meat, having almost exclusively eaten vegetarian food for 5 weeks now since arriving in India (OK I fell off the wagon a couple of times...but just a couple....)


Lori: loving the Indian food....not missing anything yet although I do believe I had a craving for french fries once

3. What are you reading?

John

a) From Idaho to Varanasi - a book about religious pluralism/dialogue. This book has helped me a bit to understand Hinduism and it's plethora of gods and myths ... seeing them less as idols and rather more as the Hindu way of perceiving God. It also was helpful to clarify that being a religious pluralist...doesn't necessarily have to imply that you believe in nothing. You still believe and are committed to what you believe, but you do so without having to conclude that what everyone else believes then is false...

b) A History of India - an endless account of wars among Afghan muslim vs Mughal Muslim vs Hindu kingdoms and of bloody succession struggles of all those muslim sultans.

c) The Lonely Planet - India!!! - lots to read here (1000 pages) about all the places to see in India and it's nice to cross reference between the places in this book and how they fit into the history I'm reading about in the History book above.


Lori:

Father of a Nation, Mahatma Ghandi - a short biography which truly provided insight into the plight of Indians in Africa as well as India and the unconventional, peaceful way in which Ghandi sought to improve the lives of Indians of all castes in both continents.

The God of Small Things - a novel depicting the life of a Keralan (south India) family. A unique writing style however the story is not a pleasant one.

The Cloister Walk - a meditative journal/autobiography of a woman spending part of her time living in a monestery while maintaining her secular life as a mother, wife and poet as well. Truly delightful morsels - spiritual and real - some entries are entertaining, some are shocking while others are insightful and inspiring.

Bible - making my way through the Old Testament.... sometimes going through it mechanically (the tabernacle and laws - dry but helps put certain things in perspective) other times inspired by the devotion of Abraham and Moses despite much waiting and wondering during many trials.

Welcome Silence - an autobiograhy of a woman who was cured of schizophrenia to go on to become a doctor. Just started but it seems her episodes started at the age of 6 and lasted almost 20 years. Silence is in reference to the voices she no longer hears.

4. What about home?

John: thoughts are turning more often to home and things from home and there is a slight weariness setting in when getting on another bus and looking for another hotel/restaurant. Sometimes I feel too tired to do it again, and then sometimes I don't feel too tired because it's just part of a routine ...that doing this again is just the new 'normal'. I think for sure, another month or two and it will be time for heading back home.

Lori: while still enjoying seeing all these amazing places and not wanting to take any of it for granted, sometimes I really look forward to going home and seeing my friends and living in our own house. I am all too aware that it will come soon enough, so when I too become weary of the constant moving, finding another place to eat or sleep, I try to remind myself of what an opportunity this is! Wouldn't trade it :)

Udaipur (Mar 14-15)

A few hours by train westward from the small town and hilltop fort of Chittor is a city of 400,000 called Udaipur. This city was made famous by the 007 movie "Octopussy" as it is an the edge of a lake (artificially created in the 1500s) with 2 very impressive white palaces built on islands out on the lake (where much of the movie took place). One is now a 500$ per night hotel (we took a pass on that - shocker, eh?) while the other is for day trippers on boat 'cruises' and those willing to pay 10x more for dinner than what you would pay on the 'mainland'. I should also mention that the 'lake' is not looking too much like a lake by this time of year as the rain falls distinctly in the late summer/fall and then nothing again until the next year, so the water level seems down about 5-10 meters. Below, day and night views of the Lake Palace from our guesthouse rooftop.

Back on the mainland is also another royal palace (and it is huge - 224 meter frontage along the lake) also built in the 1500's and they say the largest in the state of Rajasthan (which by the way has a larger population than all of Canada!).


Below is a couple of photos taken out on the 'day trip' Lake Palace with its carved elephant welcoming party and aspiring princesses waiting seductively amongst curtained windows.

We have seen now a number of Rajasthani palaces all dating from the 1400's/1500's and they share similar characteristics of domed cupolas and a white coloured plaster-on-top-of-stone look. They also have been added to in stages and so sometimes can seem like a labyrinthe lacking
symmettry in their design. They also have their most impressive rooms covered with painted murals depicting court life or hindu myths as well as a few rooms decorated with many stained glass and mirror-work. On the whole, you begin to see ample traces of muslim influence as most of North India was under the control of Afghan or Central Asian (Mughal) rulers at this time (the guys who built the Taj Mahal and other like monuments). One of many views inside the palace in the photo below...

We ended up in a guesthouse in the center of the old town, near the lake and the Royal Palace. This is the first time in North India we've been at a place that is heavily on the tourist trail. As a result, there is a high concentration of guest houses and a little ghetto with nothing but souvenir shops, internet cafes, book stores, etc. Luckily though, you need only walk 100m or so and you are surrounded by India again. Another sure sign you are on the tourist trail is that tourists arrive in clusters of 40 or so (the size of a tour bus) and outside of the major sites one can see the tour buses lined up waiting to re-engorge the hordes once they are finished their sight seeing.

We only see these hordes at the major sights and the type of guesthouses we in which we stay are in parts of town you could never get near with a tour bus like that. Most of these guesthouses are 4 stories high with roof top restaurants with amazing views of the surrounding palaces and hills.....stunning views with a very pleasant Indian meal for the price of a glass of wine in a restaurant back home! Once the sun is down the temperature is just wonderful up there....25-29 degrees with about 0% humidity. Even during the day the sun is scorching and you can't stay directly exposed to it for long, however, once in the shade the 30-33 degree temperatures are bearable on account of the extremely low humidity.

This old area of town is built on something of a hill and the streets are extremely narrow and steep and maze-like (and dirty and with smelly wastewater running in gutters down the sides of the street!). You have to be so vigilant about every move lest you are in the path of a motorcycle or rickshaw or cow coming from any direction.

...and below an example of the dozens of tiny shops almost always full of older men yakking away or having chai....or perhaps some business is being done in the midst of it all?

From our room we have a seating area in front of a window looking out over an old Hindu temple dome. In the evenings they play a song of worship (over and over about 20 times!) amidst the sound of clanging bells and drums which ring out over the town. From this you get a sense of the exuberance of Hindu celebrations as a contrast to the silence of Islamic worship and the almost mournful sound of the muzzein's call to prayer which one also hears echoing over the town several times per day.

We perhaps should have spent some more time wandering around the town or going to visit yet another palace which can be seen perched high on a hill on the edge of town, however being an edifice built only in the late 1800s we thought we could do without and with an awareness that our Indian Visa expires Apr 4, we decided we should press on the next day for the next sights of Rajasthan.

Chittorgarh (March 12-13)

And now, brought to you by Lori and John, another whirlwind tour........

Alright, so after a quick 2.5 hour train ride from Bundi, we arrived in Chittorgarh (Chittor), found a guest house, hit the fort in a rickshaw, returned to our room for a break, dined and found the nearest internet cafe..... tomorrow a.m. we head for Udaipur! There is so much left to see in Rajasthan before we leave April 4th!

This town is known for being the previous capital as well as the home of Rajasthan's largest fort - 28 square kms to be exact! Within it's seven gates and extensive wall, are nestled numerous palaces, temples and towers... there have been many contributors to the structures here beginning in the 8th century and technically up to present day (with lapses in between ;D). There has also been a lot of restoration - all this is evidenced by the shade of the stones and the sharpness of the carvings.



Here below is the stunning view of the valley and surrounding plateaus just outside the 7th gate - this is where all the battles occurred. Hard to believe now as it is productive farmland.

This Tower of Victory stands 9 stories tall and is absolutely stunning - the detailed carving inside and out is remarkable - from ceilings and doorways to walls and window screens - all are carved from stone, much of which is worn shiny from thousands of hands and feet through the centuries.

Much was destroyed due to the town being sacked three times in its history. The stories tell of how on these 3 occasions on which it had been attacked by invading Muslim armies and how when it looked like they weren't going to be able to hold it, the Rajput Muslim people committed their own version of hari-kari....the women burning themselves on a pyre while the men road out of the fort and into the enemy fighting till the last man was gone!

Hard to imagine such a large fort being pummeled 3 times....