So our next stop in India was Jaipur. We stopped at the Temple of the Sun God of Galpa just outside of Jaipur, which is also known as the Monkey Temple...due to the fact that it is surrounded by monkeys! The truck parked at the bottom of the hill that the Temple was on and off we all set off...in the blistering heat...up a steep hill...to see a temple...yay!!! In all honesty the temple was a temple but we were all transfixed by the family of monkeys that was just outside the temple. When we looked over the edge there was about 40 or 50 monkeys monkeying around (really sorry but had to do that!!!). There was loads of little baby monkeys too...as in baby baby ones and toddler ones! And we even saw one that looked like it was only a couple of hours old...we guessed this partly due to the fact that the mammy monkey looked pure knackered and couldn’t move at all except to cling to the wee baby! Some of the teenager monkeys were quite inquisitive and were coming right up to us which was pretty cool. Once we had our fill of monkeys we headed back to the truck and had a short journey then to Jaipur...where we found a gorgeous hotel awaiting us!! And in contrast to the noise and dust of Delhi we had a nice hotel in a peaceful suburb with lovely comfortable rooms. We took it easy that night and ate at the hotel. The restaurant was a veggie one but I found loads on the menu to eat so had a lovely meal that night!
Next day a group of 14 of us headed off on an organised day trip. In Delhi I felt that I hadn’t done very much tourist wise because I was struggling with the heat so I had found out about this tour and decided to do it so that I could see some of Jaipur. My god see some of it...I saw all of it... in a day!! I was shattered by the end of it!! Jaipur is known as the Pink City after it was painted pink in 1876 to welcome Prince Albert to the city. Oddly enough it is more of a terracotta colour...something which our tour guide commented on himself!! We stopped first at the Birla Temple which had amazing marble carvings all over it and was set in a beautiful garden. After that we moved onto Albert Hall which is the Central Museum. It was built in 1876, again in honour of the visit from Prince Albert, and was a beautiful building to look at, and again it was set in a fantastic garden. Hawa Mahal in the centre of the town was our next stop. The Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds) is a 5 story semi-octagonal building that has 365 windows on it. It was built in 1799 by a Maharaja with the purpose of allowing his wives and other royal ladies to watch the parades through the city without them being on view to the public! It was the most intricately carved building I’ve possibly ever seen. Our next stop was Jantar Mantar which I found quite interesting. Jantar Mantar is one of 5 observatories built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II throughout India in the 18th century. It’s not an observatory in the sense that we know it; there was no massive telescope or anything like that. Instead it was all walls and structures that allowed people to study the movements of constellations and stars in the sky. And it still all works today, the sundial told us the accurate time of Jaipur down to a difference of about 30 seconds or so...fairly impressive I think!! People also use it a lot when arranging marriages as they believe a lot in star signs matching and that kind of thing. The families go to the observatory and get an astrologer to align the two peoples star signs and see if they are suitable and what is ahead for them in marriage in terms of children and their fortune. I will just say that even though India is still a country of arranged marriages there are nowadays a lot of “love marriages” where young people are finding their own partners rather than them being arranged from a young age.
After Jantar Mantar we headed into the City Palace which was in the heart of the Old City. The Palace had the usual house of Public and Private Audience as well as courtyards and loads of impressive gateways. Two marble elephants stand on either side of the entrance to the palace itself. There was also an armoury and weapons museum (which I gave a miss) and also a display of traditional art works where we could watch some of the artists at work as well as buy some of the art work if we wanted (something I didn’t do seeing as an being an overlander makes it impossible to buy a lot of stuff!!). I also saw an entrance in the Guinness World Records while I was there, two large silver containers that are credited as being the largest single pieces of silver in the world. There were absolutely massive and were used by the Maharaja to transport water from the Ganges when he was travelling and in battle! Jal Mahal was our next stop which was a palace set in the middle of a large lake. The palace was lovely and the view was amazing as the lake was so still it reflected the palace perfectly in the lake. Our guide told us that the palace was built as a summer lodge for hunting... but then the Maharaja decided he would also like to be able to fish also, so he got a lake dug out to surround the palace! Nice to be able to decide you want to have a lake around your house and for it to be just done like that!!
It was then time for our lunch stop which was up at Nahargarh Fort 600 feet above the city. We got some amazing views and the drive up reminded me a little of the drive the truck did on the way up to Nemrut Dagi in Turkey...as in it was narrow roads, extremely windy and a slow drive!! There was amazing views of the city and the Fort itself was lovely, although we didn’t have a lot of time to explore because it was a choice of explore or have lunch...so we chose lunch naturally!! Afterwards we went to another fort called the Jaigarh Fort. This Fort also stands overlooking the city. The main attraction at this fort aside from the views is Jai Ban, which is the world’s biggest cannon on wheels. The cannon has a 20 foot long barrel and can hold 100kg of gun powder. The cannon can fire up to 20 miles...it has only ever been fired once...which was a test shot, and once people heard of how accurate and the power of it, it seemed to deter people from attacking the Fort...so it worked without actually working!! After Jaigarh Fort we went to Amber Fort which was my highlight of the day. The palace itself took 2 centuries to build under the watchful eyes of 3 separate Maharajas. It is built in red sandstone and white marble. In the palace we saw the Sheesh Mahal which was the chamber of mirrors...where us girls became princesses as the story went that only princesses of the palace were permitted to look in the mirrors...so we all did of course!! The palace also had an amazing courtyard and was just pretty impressive overall! My favourite palace to date I think. At this stage we had been out for 9 hours so we were all extremely glad to head back to our hotel. We went for dinner that night at a rooftop restaurant and then we all collapsed into bed after such a busy day! The following day was an EXCEPTIONALLY lazy day!! I spent most of the day on the net catching up with people and making a few long overdue phone calls. Proof as to just how lazy we were that day lies in the fact that we decided we wanted Dominos pizza for lunch...so we got it...by ordering it on the internet and having it delivered to the hotel!!! The poor delivery dude got quite a shock when he walked into the hotel to deliver 6 pizzas and he got ambushed at the door by a group of hungry white people!
The following day we moved on from Jaipur to Agra and the Taj Mahal. The Taj is one thing that for some unknown reason I have been ridiculously excited to see the whole way through the trip. On the way to Agra we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri which was a preserved fortified city with all the usual palace/fort stuff. Then we headed to the hotel and started making plans to visit the Taj Mahal. The Taj was built by a Maharaja for his first wife after she died giving birth to their 14th child. So next morning a group of us got up BEFORE the crack of dawn and headed into the Taj for sunrise. We were the first people in the queue and even though it wasn’t supposed to open until 6 they opened the gates at about twenty past 5 when we arrived. So we got the iconic picture of the Taj Mahal but with no people in the foreground which was amazing. Seeing it for the first time took my breath away. I found it hard to believe that I was actually standing in front of it. It was so beautiful and majestic and just absolutely perfect. The sky was the brightest blue behind it and it just glowed in the morning light. We spent ages looking at it and taking pictures and then started walking up to it...which is when it dawned on me just how big it actually is. We walked around it and went into it and then found a spot on one side of it to watch the sun come up behind it. The sky turned a lovely golden colour and the Taj looked even more amazing in that light. I could have sat there all day looking at it but unfortunately we were being picked up to go to the Red Fort. So we headed out to meet our tuk tuk driver and off we went to the fort. The fort again was lovely and a really impressive one, bigger than most of the ones we have seen and again in perfect condition. But what made it truly breathtaking was the views we got of the Taj Mahal across the water. It looked much smaller all of a sudden but still as stunning. When all that was done we headed back to the hotel and chilled out for the day after our early start. In the evening we went to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Taj for sunset. We left a bit too early though and missed the sky changing colour unfortunately but we made up for it the next day by going to a different restaurant and waiting til it was actually turned to dark sky and we got the spectacular views that we were looking for.
Our next stop in India was Varanasi and the river Ganges. We had a very early start to get on the road and make it in one day without having to bush camp along the way. Varanasi was different to the other places we had stayed in. Throughout India on our drive days we would drive through little rural villages but once we reached our destination it got a feel of being more city like. Varanasi was different in that when we reached it, I didn’t actually realise that we had because it just felt like one of the slightly larger rural villages! We were due to camp in Varanasi in the courtyard of a lovely hotel. When we first arrived the hotel said there was no room available but then they found a few. I decided to stick it out and sleep in my tent...I got it pitched and then found out there was a few more rooms available. Even pitching the tent had made me pump sweat (sexy I know!!!) so I decided a room was probably a good idea for that night! And best of all the bed had a DUVET!!! I have not slept with a duvet since my last sleep in my bed so this was an extremely exciting thing...once again evidence that it is the little things in life that makes us happy!!
Our second day in Varanasi was a lazy day by the pool and deciding on options for our break in Nepal but the following day was jam packed! I got up at 4am to go on a sunrise boat trip on the Ganges. It was extremely peaceful when we got on the river. There was very few people around, only a small handful of people washing in the river or doing laundry. The boat brought us along many of the Ghats (steps) all the way up to the main burning ghat. Everyone knows that the Ganges is where people go to burn their deceased relatives as if they die by the Ganges they are released from the circle of eternity and won’t be reincarnated (which is why there are such a large number of elderly people in Varanasi). The guide told us that the funeral period is very short; when a person dies they are burned within 24 hours of them dying, which I found quite odd. Women are also forbidden from going to the Ghats and so it is only the men in the family who accompany the body to the Ghats. Looking at the ghat was a slightly odd experience. At first I was just looking at these fires and even when the guide pointed out a family sitting on the steps with a shrouded body waiting to burn, it didn’t hit me. However it did hit me when I was looking at one of the fires and I noticed (look away squeamish people) a leg from the knee down sticking out of a fire untouched at that stage by the flames. It really hit me then exactly what was happening right in front of my eyes.
However after this experience we then rowed back down the river and the religious significance of the river was slightly tainted as we saw people literally having a crap in the river, buffalos bathing and also a dead body floating in the river. The guide explained to us that there are 6 categories of people that can’t be burned in the Ghats and so they get a weight tied to their foot and are dropped into the centre of the river instead. The 6 categories are children younger than 10, holy men, pregnant women, people who suffer from leprosy or elephantism (not sure that’s the actual name of the disease but you get the picture) and people who have been castrated. The guide said that often the bodies lose the weights and so the float up. Every few days men go down the river gather up any bodies that may have come lose, tie another weight to them and drop them down again! When the trip was over we headed back to the hotel for some breakfast and then a few of us headed into Varanasi to explore a little bit. We went first to a cafe for some lunch where I had the wonderful experience of a mouse crawling across my lap while I sat eating my pizza!! Yes I did jump up, probably quicker than I had moved in a long time!! Then we went to walk down by the Ghats. We ended up without realising down by the burning ghat once again. It was an even stranger experience to be standing so close and seeing it. I looked but at the same time stopped myself from taking too much in because I was afraid of what I was going to see. We then started to make our way to the main street. We had to walk through lots of little narrow alley ways and came across 3 funeral processions on the way to the Ghats, the first of which freaked me out slightly as they didn’t have the face covered like the rest of them. To say Varanasi is a maze doesn’t even begin to cover it! It took us forever to find our way back to the main street and when we did for the first time in India there was not one tuk tuk in sight!! We walked for ages looking for one and we all started to get extremely pissed off. The beeping was absolutely nonstop, once again people were staring, there was even one guy standing beside a body waiting to go down to the Ghats with a video camera that was filming the 4 white people rather than the funeral he was attending...although why he was filming a funeral in the first place was something else that was completely beyond me. At one stage the 4 of us where standing on a street corner when a guy on a motorbike stopped at the edge of our circle and started beeping for us to move so that he could drive through the four of us and get down the alley. Now we were in no way blocking the alley, all he had to do was move a few inches to the left and he could have gone around us. But no instead the ignorant bastard sat on his horn until we moved, to say he nearly got pushed off his bike would be a gross understatement and the 4 of us could easily have killed the dude with Rosie’s parasol if we had been given the chance!! We eventually found a tuk tuk anyway and got ourselves the hell out of there and back to the tranquillity of the hotel...only to have a very quick turnaround as we were doing the sunset trip on the Ganges too!! So we showered quickly and headed back into the city. Having been up from 4am and then having the awful experience of the afternoon the last thing I wanted to do was go back into the hell hole but off I went and I’m glad I went. The evening boat trip was a completely different experience as there was a lot more people around and there are ceremonies held all the way along the river in the evening giving offerings to the river with people praying for different things. After 45 minutes of watching 5 dudes waves flames, and incense and bells around in a choreographed routine in the ridiculous heat I was well ready to get home to bed!!
Varanasi definitely wasn’t my favourite place in India by a long shot (the goes to Agra) but I’m glad I can say I saw it. I didn’t have the guts to touch the river itself, purely because I couldn’t get over the dirt and seeing someone wash their clothes in the river with water buffalo shitting in it down stream and a dead body floating up stream is a pretty fantastic deterrent! I did row the boat for a little bit on the morning trip so at least I can saw I rowed a boat on the Ganges! Next day marked our departure from India and into Nepal. India managed to redeem itself after my Varanasi experience before we crossed the border. It was a slightly dull day with a dark sky and the roads were lined by trees and green fields...to be really honest if I looked out the front window of the truck and blocked my mind to the fact that I was on a big orange truck I felt like I was driving the roads back home and I got a bit of a happy thinking about that.
So random thoughts on India; Rory, you’ll appreciate this....all the farmer dudes driving around in their tractors all wear WHITE!!! As in head (turbans) to toe white outfits...and they somehow miraculously manage to keep them white even driving around in a tractor in the dust and dirt!!
Another random observation, you know they way at home in Dublin city we have the pedestrian lights that countdown to tell us how long we have to wait for them to go green, well in India they have the counting down lights for the traffic...and not only do they count down how long we’ve to wait, they also tell you how long they are staying green for...which oddly enough always seemed to be for less time than they were red!!
I think my memories of India will mostly be dirty, loud streets, blatant picture taking which got very, VERY old by the end of the couple of weeks. Having every person I walk by trying to sell me something... which reminds me of a funny story from Amber Fort. When we were on our way out we walked by some market stalls, one of which was selling traditional shoes. An Indian woman was standing there with a pair of the shoes in her hand looking at them. Then I (a white person with “loads of money”) walked by and the man who owned the stall literally grabbed the shoe out of the woman’s hand and started trying to sell them to me!! Now I couldn’t have looked less interested (eyes to the ground, increased pace of walking) but still he followed me for a few steps before giving up and going back to the woman who actually wanted to buy them! I just found it amazing that he completely ignored an interested customer to try flog them to me just because I was a tourist! So yes I think when someone asks me about what I thought of India I think my initial reaction will be to say I didn’t like it but I think if I put a bit more thought into it and when I look at my pictures I will remember the amazing things like the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the Taj Mahal. So yes India was amazing to experience and I saw some amazing things and experienced things I never thought I would (thankfully this doesn’t include Delhi Belly which I managed to avoid for the 3 weeks woohoo!!) but I think 3 weeks in India is more than enough and if I did come back I would be going to new places rather than revisiting anywhere I’ve been, with the exception of the Taj of course!!
Slightly shorter second part of India but to be totally honest I’m just about done with India and ready to move on to writing about my Nepali adventure which I am loving already!! So Nepal is the next port of call and all my stories from there will follow soon!!
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