Day 16 - Varanasi - Traumatised!

Traumatised!

And no access to alcohol to ease the stress, as it's a festival day (God bless Shiva).

"Why the trauma?" I hear you ask.

Well, I'm glad you asked. While sorting out a lack of hot water in the hotel room (now resolved), the hotel room phone rang and on picking it up, the whole thing came up with the handset, revealing a large bug underneath, which scuttled off onto the bed and under a pillow.

Now since being traumatised as a student with bed bugs in cheap digs, I have a phobia about sleeping in any room where I know there are potentially hungry bugs roaming free.

Mercifully, the thing came scuttling out, as the lad dealing with the hot water was there, who grabbed the hotel information folder and smashed it onto the escaping bug, killing it instantly and disposing of it into the hallway with a flourish.

So...... after calming my nerves with a very pleasant meal of pizza and pakora, 2 Sprites, apple pie and ice cream (be assured you'll be the first to know if there are any ramifications there) and an Americano (all for under £7) and jovial conversation with a retired German lawyer-cum-buddhist and 3 travelling Australians (an artist and a couple who run an organic olive farm) - you'll be wanting to know about Varanasi.

Spiritual pilgrimage site for buddhists as well as Hindus, coupled to one of the oldest living cities in the world (people have been living here and doing what they do for over 3000 years), it makes you pause and think.

Still the mad, noisy, smelly, dirty, delapidated atmosphere that all works, and like the Thames, the Ganges river flows serenely through it all, offering it's silent, salving solace.

And the Ganges - I was expecting the Thames and got the Solent! (see pictures)

An interesting question posed to me over dinner and one which I have pondered during the trip, and will share - "Was I in search of anything?"

The honest answer is no, I don't think so.

However, I am beginning to see that India is not your usual tourist holiday destination. It does things in a way that question and challenge your values, your perceptions, your way of doing things at a deeper level than other places. You can't help but engage (positively or otherwise) with the everyday happenings that confront you here.

Hmm. Let me come back to you on that one.

Certainly as a place, I have my guard up - ready for another assault of temples, traffic and touts, but I can sense by the river, something else - reverence, veneration, spirituality......

Let me come back to you on that one too.

Hope all's well with you and yours. I understand spring is calling.

You won't be pleased to know that it feels like Summer here - 30 degrees celsius and shorts and T shirt all day.

:-)

Until tomorrow.

xx



The Ghats

 The Ganges

The Milkmen

The Monks

Day 15 - agra and the Taj Mahal



The cold is finally clearing, thanks for asking, and here we are in Agra - capital of the Mughal empire.

The Mughals are an interesting crowd and the stories of it's emperors can rival the Ceasars or the Borgias any day (or maybe it's just that power thing those emperors had?).

Two of the more interesting characters include the founding father - Akbar the Great - and his understanding that if you want to build an empire in Asia, you keep in grand style a Hindu wife, a Muslim wife and a Christian wife at the same time. And of course his grandson, Shah Jahan - builder of the Taj Mahal out of his undying love for his first wife, only to die after eight years in prison, at the hands of his own son. And sometimes we think we have it bad.....

So how was the Taj Mahal?

Incredible.

Incredibly beautiful as befits a mausoleum to a beautiful wife.

Incredibly grand as befits the mausoleum of the wife of an emperor.

Incredible in it's perfect simplicity of design and colour as befits the perfect simplicity of two people in love.

I did the Lady Di pose (see below - apparently it's de rigeur, so the guide told me.....well actually she didn't actually say "de rigeur", more "you have to wait 15 minutes to sit on that bench in the afternoons as so many people want to pose where Lady Di sat." Luckily, this was 7.45am by now and so had to wait for no one - good enough for me....

By 8.30am, the place was heaving with tourists and therefore time to leave for breakfast.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Tonight - overnight train to Varanasi. This part of the trip has the potential to be the most incredible experience so far, or one of the worst!

Until tomorrow.

xx



Taj Mahal - Front - 7.30am 



Taj Mahal - Front - 7.45am  



Taj Mahal - Front - 8.30am



Taj Mahal - Rear - 5.30pm

Taj Mahal - Rear - 5.30pm



Day 14 - Farewell Rajasthan - Hello Utter Pradesh!

On the road and stop off after half an hour out of Jaipur at what's known locally as Monkey Palace. There are a couple of shrines there as a thank you for the constant water that pours out of a steep valley in otherwise desert-like conditions.

But now over-run with monkeys - so more people go for the monkeys including shallow old me ( c'mon give me a break - I've done some temples...).

Over the border into Utter Pradesh and the first Indian Mughal capital - Fatapurh sikri.

Well - it started as soon as I got out of the car with a "guide" hassling me - and went on for the whole visit - being pestered to buy - and I do mean pestered.

If this is what it's like here - god help me when I get to Agra!

Agra - Pestered Along the road by 3 year olds and everyone is on the make!

Guide - negotiated 2000 rupee "deal" for me to have my room for an additional half a day so I can use it until the train leaves tomorrow evening.

Dinner - men kept coming in and going through or coming out of a back door to the restaurant .... Something's afoot - local mafia run restaurant....?

Hotel - best shower in a fortnight -shame about the doorman in military uniform with the rifle over his arm ...

Even with the Taj Mahal - Ever have that funny feeling that all's not quite right and everyone else is playing a game to which you don't know the rules, not being local....?!

Getting that feeling about Agra...

24 hours and I'm on a train out of here....

Any way - pic of the monkeys in the blessed water, the great gateway at fatapuhr sikri (and it is great) - but if you're reading this with a glass of wine or cup of tea - please raise it and toast Laxshmi, the driver who's made everything run smoothly for me for the last two weeks.

"to Laxshmi!"

Now, As the French say

A demain

Xx

Day 13 - rest day in Jaipur

Greetings reader.

I'll keep it brief today.

Jaipur happens to have india's premier cinema for Hindi pictures called the Raj Mandir - interesting to note that to buy tickets - men and women are separated, whereas inside, they can mingle together as much as they want!

Film was fantastic - a load of old nonsense even if I hardly understood a word they said - the Bollywood music, costumes and set piece dance routines really are spectacular.

Lovely also to have an old fashioned intermission!

Relaxed and had a keralan massage before heading out for dinner.

And it was very kind of the teenage rickshaw driver to offer to drive me to get some dope and join me in having a smoke, but I think you'll be glad to know dear reader that I declined the offer!

And so to bed and the last day in Rajasthan.

A seemingly arid place full of history, temples, palaces and a proud and generous group of people.

Tomorrow Agra and the Taj Mahal.

Until tomorrow. Sleep well.

Xx

Day 12 - and back to Jaipur

So - back on the road, or technically back on track - as I took the overnight train from Jaisalmer to Jaipur, making today my last day in Rajasthan.

I took the liberty of walking into a high school in jaisalmer yesterday and asked if it would be possible to see the principal - unfortunately he's on long term sick - but I did manage to have about an hour with the vice principal so here's a few bons mots about a state school in provincial India...

Class sizes = 60-70 students per class with 43 teachers for 1200 students in the school.

Annual Salaries = teachers get about 400k rupees (£5,000 - about a sixth of the salary of a UK teacher) with the vice principal earning 500k rupees (£6,500 - a tenth of what a vice principal would get in London).

They have no computers - ICT is taught by demonstration using the teacher's computer, theory and rote learning.

I could go on (literacy rates, university and employment prospects) but you get the picture!

Then took my first overnight train - heard lots of horror stories but it wasn't so bad - shared a cabin with two slovak girls on their way to a wedding In Jaipur, two Germans on their way back from a wedding in jaisalmer (apparently the two astrologically most auspicious days for getting married this year was the 9th and 17th February) and a retired gent from Mumbai travelling with his family who were in another carriage.

So relative rest day today for me before heading east to Agra tomorrow. Cinema and Bollywood followed by massage and dinner I think.....

Come on - I deserve some little treats...

A bientot

M

Xx

Day 11 - the international language of music and gesture.

Frere Jacques..

You know the tune...

Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques,
Dormez vous? Dormez vous? Etc.

Imagine my surprise then, upon travelling through the desert while on a camel - hearing it raucously sung (in french, with dancing) to a group of tourists in the middle of the sand dunes by a group of traditionally dressed young Indian girls.

Similarly surprised to hear it again last night at a restaurant in Jaisalmer - hearing it this time being played during dinner by a young teenager on a harmonium, accompanying his own brash, accented singing of the French lyrics.

Actually, he wasn't that good.

And on a losing wicket.

He was struggling to be heard against diners who were more interested in talking, waiters who kept shushing him and an Indian wedding party celebrating outside, making enough music and noise to waken the dead.

And then - as I was wishing he would get the hint from everyone around him and stop - I caught myself and thought "hold on a minute, when I was his age, that was me - not a very good musician, but good enough, willing to get out there, have a go and if it made some money, so much the better."

And I was transported back to my own teenage years and my audition at the Academy, when the head of singing, Marjorie Thomas, a grande-dame, sat and, whilst the rest of the panel had their heads buried in making notes, smiled at me, encouraging me all the way through my audition to sing my heart out. And I did.

(and was successful and got me to where I am now as a result, I may add).

So, chastened, I looked at the boy sat silently with his harmonium and smiled an encouraging smile and with a broad grin back at me, he started up again, playing and singing louder and stronger than before.

And so the baton was passed from a moment 27 years ago in London to this moment now in a restaurant in western India, with the same effect.

And it struck me like a bolt out of the blue - such small gestures, such small seeds, so easily given. And one never knows what effect those small gestures will have, how long they will last or how much they will grow.

A thought for the day.

Hope all is going well with you.

Xx

Day 10 - camel trek into the Thar desert

First of all - meet Raja, the camel, the bedroom part of the tent and Amrat the guide.

Camel safari into the desert - verdict?

FANTASTIC!

Raja was stately as a galleon and had a great personality, matched by the guide's entertaining conversations along the way.

The camp was small enough and we were looked after incredibly well - including a bedroom with bed, side tables and electricity, as well as a fully functioning bathroom!

The stars were no more than we get in the lake district, but the whole experience was fantastic!

On the return journey we stopped off at some wells for the camel to drink and saw village women coming to collect water - that's 15th february 2012 - women going with large jars to collect and carry water from a well - So much still to do to get the standard of living in the indian countryside up to the standard in towns and cities!

Observation only - not preaching!

Off to shower, sleep and read.

Hope all well with you.

Until tomorrow. Xx