It’s now Wednesday, March 3, if my calculations are correct. I’ve been in a whirlwind of activity and one of the only ways to keep accurate track of the time is to consult my weekly pill container to see which days are empty and which are still full. The last couple of places we were had no Internet connection. Hence my delay. Now, days later, despite my hasty notes as we progressed, I’m sure I won’t get it all correct. No matter. I’ll just do the best I can.
Let’s see. I guess I left you all in Agra after a day at the Taj Mahal, et al. Late in the day, we stopped at one of those shopping places where I’m sure your guide receives a cut on anything one buys. The boys from Lexington, Kentucky, bought two rugs, about six feet square and encrusted with semi-precious stones. Tom said they were for their cabin by the lake. They were $8,000 each, representing a nice commission for Anil, our guide, who steered us there. Some cabin! The only other noteworthy happening was notice by our guide to Dennis that his email account had been breached. One of his sisters had tried to email him and found something peculiar. She phoned the tour office and they emailed our guide. Investigation revealed that the hackers had sent a message to his entire mail list saying that he had been robbed in London and needed funds wired to a certain place so he could return home. It took a while for him to straighten that all out. At dinner that night, I had a nice conversation about movies with William, who teaches a course in the history of cinema at the University of Houston. You might like to know that CASABLANCA is not his favorite movie. He prefers SNOW WHITE where, he says, one identifies with the heroine but falls in love with the prince.
At the end of this day, I was very tired and it occurred to me that his may have to be my last trip this arduous. Walking and climbing steps and getting off and on the bus and being ever vigilant for that perfect photograph has worn me out. Maybe my cruise as a gentleman host was not so bad.
Sunday, February 28: Agra to Ranthambhore to stay in the hunting lodge of the late Maharajah of Jaipur and visit Ranthambhore National Park, which used to be the private reserve of the maharajah. Along the way, we drove to Fatehpursiki, a city founded by Akbar, the third Mogul emperor and son of Humayun, whose tomb we had already seen. The palace and town was built from 1569 to 1575 and later abandoned. It’s now a World Heritage Site. Although not well-educated, Akbar was a very prosperous and clever emperor who tried to bring all the best of many traditional religions together under one faith, something like Akenaton, in Egypt, before him. He founded his capital where he did because of a priest who lived there. He had three wives: one was Hindu, one Muslim and one even Portuguese, combinations that “married” him to many powers in his world (at about the same time in history that Elizabeth I was avoiding marriage for much the same reason). The site is magnificent, all dry construction and far too complicated to describe. You’ll just have to see the pictures.
On the way to the train to take us to Ranthambhore, we stopped for lunch at a mansion from the days of the Raj, a place called Laxmivilas, that has been turned into a hotel. At the sight of food, David got sick and, along with several others in our group, spent the lunchtime in the lobby of the hotel in what we laughingly referred to as the fainting room. Something about the bacon at breakfast we think.
The train ride to Ranthembhore didn’t improve anyone’s stomach. The trains are dirty and the stations common places for vendors and beggars who tear at your heart with their infirmities and their pleading eyes. Often, a mother will be carrying a small child who holds out his hand for a few rupees. Or the deformed beggar on a make-shift platform on roller skates will move up to you and tug on your pant leg. It’s quite wrenching but we’ve been told to ignore them or they will just persist. And if you give them anything, more will flock to you to ask for the same thing. It’s one of the qualities of India that detracts from its charm.
Built in the early 1930’s, the hunting lodge is all art deco in feeling, with round lines and ridges and a verandah overlooking a croquet court. There was a billiards room and a library and a paneled dining room. One could easily imagine being Claudette Colbert or Clark Gable, guests of the Maharajah. I got lucky and drew the Maharani’s suite, all marble floors, a sitting room and a huge bathroom big enough for a cocktail party. The lights went out several times but that didn’t seem to matter.
Monday, March 1. We made our first, early morning foray into the national forest in search of the elusive tiger, the main object of being at this location. There are only about 1400 tigers left in India; 41 of them are in this national park. But the park encompasses 151 square miles so trying to find a tiger in this dry jungle is like looking for the proverbial needle. Finally, coming down off a steep ridge, someone spotted a striped object off in the distance and it was a tiger, taking a dump. Not very majestic, but seeing is seeing. I tried to get a photograph but it wasn’t easy. It’s surprising how well the animals are camouflaged to blend in with their surroundings. Later in the day, we went out again, this time not so successfully. But we saw many deer, of several kinds, and many birds, some of which would come right up to light on your hand. I have a great picture of one on Don’s hat. Sitting at a watering hole, watching the animals feed before dusk and hoping (I guess) for a tiger to come out of the jungle for a kill was somehow very spiritual. Like being in the bush in Africa, I found it calming and eternal, natural, a connection to all that is.
Monday was the holiday called Holi, a celebration of friendship and the richness of the harvest. It’s a time when people drink too much and (oddly) throw colored powder or paint on each other. We saw many people with pink faces and smeared clothes. Anil told us that sometimes the paints used last for months. He and Puram organized a little Holi celebration for all of us by giving us a Nehru outfit of cheap cotton and inviting us out on the lawn to smear powered color all over each other. It was silly, but fun, and we all got into it. The before and after pictures are priceless.
By this time, more than half of us were sick. Even Dennis, who can eat and drink anything, fell prey to this bug and spent the day in bed. Andrew, our HE guide, said he’d never had this kind of sickness in India. Fortunately (knock on wood) I’m one of the lucky few who have remained unscathed.
Tuesday, March 2, we said goodbye to Hollywood and moved on to Jaipur, a city of two million, built about 1787 by the Maharajah of Jaipur and laid out by his architect in wide boulevards and, unlike other places we’ve (I’ve) been, in straight lines. What a relief after the winding narrows of other old cities. Jaipur is called the Pink City because in 1883, when Prince Albert Edward, the British crown prince, was to make an official visit to the city, the Maharajah wanted to show special courtesy to the British crown, and so ordered that all the buildings in the city be painted pink, the color used at the time on maps to denote British colonies. The tradition remains. The effect is startling. After checking in at one of the six palaces still owned by the royal family (but now leased to the Taj hotel chain), we visited a textile mill, which was really a showroom/shop for printed fabrics. After being in the textile business, I found all this quite interesting. And of course, the guys bought lots of scarves, bedspreads, etc. We came back to the hotel looking like a caravan.
Wednesday, March 3 and I’m getting up to date. Hooray! Today we went to Amber, the traditional seat of the Maharajah of Jaipur. The “fort,” as it is called, is spectacular. Built high on a ridge, it looks a little like Lhasa and is actually a fort and palace. We all took elephants up the steep incline to the entrance to the fort, with mahouts commenting so that we would smile so the photographers lining the route could get a good picture (we were expected to buy at the end of our tour). Again, a description of the inside would be pointless. It’s too grand and immense to capture in words. The views of the inside, and the valley the fort commands outside, were incredible. Like much of India, that’s the only word that accurately captures the feeling.
Anile has wanted us to get the real feel of India so we left the cocoon of our bus to walk the streets in the spice market. The sounds and smells, the crowded cacophony of it all was almost overwhelming. I got lots of great shots but the camera gets heavy and I was very tired by the time we got back to the hotel.
On the way back, we stopped at the Observatory, constructed by the Maharajah in about 1787. It’s an outdoors place where there are many kinds of sundial/type constructs that tell time, the phase of the moon, astrological signs and other time/space oriented facts. It was quite advanced for its time and I couldn’t help but wonder how all these renaissances in the arts and science happened in so many places in the world at approximately the same time. Was mankind just entering a new phase? And if so, what caused it?
After the observatory, we toured the City Palace, the current home of the current Maharajah. We didn’t go into his living quarters, of course, but entered many spaces – the open courts, the pillared pavilions – traditional to these “forts.” In one space, the place where the maharajah conducted his audiences, the walls were carved and embedded with concave mirrors so the whole place would be dazzling in the eyes of those who attended. We also saw the two largest silver containers in the world, huge jugs that contained water from the Ganges, and carried by the maharajah when he first left the country for an official visit to England. What one can do when money is no object!
India has worn me out. I’m tired and dusty. And I haven’t been very articulate in this account. My apologies. Tomorrow it’s on to Udaipur. Anil says he’s leaving the best ‘til last. We’ll see. Stay tuned.
Let’s see. I guess I left you all in Agra after a day at the Taj Mahal, et al. Late in the day, we stopped at one of those shopping places where I’m sure your guide receives a cut on anything one buys. The boys from Lexington, Kentucky, bought two rugs, about six feet square and encrusted with semi-precious stones. Tom said they were for their cabin by the lake. They were $8,000 each, representing a nice commission for Anil, our guide, who steered us there. Some cabin! The only other noteworthy happening was notice by our guide to Dennis that his email account had been breached. One of his sisters had tried to email him and found something peculiar. She phoned the tour office and they emailed our guide. Investigation revealed that the hackers had sent a message to his entire mail list saying that he had been robbed in London and needed funds wired to a certain place so he could return home. It took a while for him to straighten that all out. At dinner that night, I had a nice conversation about movies with William, who teaches a course in the history of cinema at the University of Houston. You might like to know that CASABLANCA is not his favorite movie. He prefers SNOW WHITE where, he says, one identifies with the heroine but falls in love with the prince.
At the end of this day, I was very tired and it occurred to me that his may have to be my last trip this arduous. Walking and climbing steps and getting off and on the bus and being ever vigilant for that perfect photograph has worn me out. Maybe my cruise as a gentleman host was not so bad.
Sunday, February 28: Agra to Ranthambhore to stay in the hunting lodge of the late Maharajah of Jaipur and visit Ranthambhore National Park, which used to be the private reserve of the maharajah. Along the way, we drove to Fatehpursiki, a city founded by Akbar, the third Mogul emperor and son of Humayun, whose tomb we had already seen. The palace and town was built from 1569 to 1575 and later abandoned. It’s now a World Heritage Site. Although not well-educated, Akbar was a very prosperous and clever emperor who tried to bring all the best of many traditional religions together under one faith, something like Akenaton, in Egypt, before him. He founded his capital where he did because of a priest who lived there. He had three wives: one was Hindu, one Muslim and one even Portuguese, combinations that “married” him to many powers in his world (at about the same time in history that Elizabeth I was avoiding marriage for much the same reason). The site is magnificent, all dry construction and far too complicated to describe. You’ll just have to see the pictures.
On the way to the train to take us to Ranthambhore, we stopped for lunch at a mansion from the days of the Raj, a place called Laxmivilas, that has been turned into a hotel. At the sight of food, David got sick and, along with several others in our group, spent the lunchtime in the lobby of the hotel in what we laughingly referred to as the fainting room. Something about the bacon at breakfast we think.
The train ride to Ranthembhore didn’t improve anyone’s stomach. The trains are dirty and the stations common places for vendors and beggars who tear at your heart with their infirmities and their pleading eyes. Often, a mother will be carrying a small child who holds out his hand for a few rupees. Or the deformed beggar on a make-shift platform on roller skates will move up to you and tug on your pant leg. It’s quite wrenching but we’ve been told to ignore them or they will just persist. And if you give them anything, more will flock to you to ask for the same thing. It’s one of the qualities of India that detracts from its charm.
Built in the early 1930’s, the hunting lodge is all art deco in feeling, with round lines and ridges and a verandah overlooking a croquet court. There was a billiards room and a library and a paneled dining room. One could easily imagine being Claudette Colbert or Clark Gable, guests of the Maharajah. I got lucky and drew the Maharani’s suite, all marble floors, a sitting room and a huge bathroom big enough for a cocktail party. The lights went out several times but that didn’t seem to matter.
Monday, March 1. We made our first, early morning foray into the national forest in search of the elusive tiger, the main object of being at this location. There are only about 1400 tigers left in India; 41 of them are in this national park. But the park encompasses 151 square miles so trying to find a tiger in this dry jungle is like looking for the proverbial needle. Finally, coming down off a steep ridge, someone spotted a striped object off in the distance and it was a tiger, taking a dump. Not very majestic, but seeing is seeing. I tried to get a photograph but it wasn’t easy. It’s surprising how well the animals are camouflaged to blend in with their surroundings. Later in the day, we went out again, this time not so successfully. But we saw many deer, of several kinds, and many birds, some of which would come right up to light on your hand. I have a great picture of one on Don’s hat. Sitting at a watering hole, watching the animals feed before dusk and hoping (I guess) for a tiger to come out of the jungle for a kill was somehow very spiritual. Like being in the bush in Africa, I found it calming and eternal, natural, a connection to all that is.
Monday was the holiday called Holi, a celebration of friendship and the richness of the harvest. It’s a time when people drink too much and (oddly) throw colored powder or paint on each other. We saw many people with pink faces and smeared clothes. Anil told us that sometimes the paints used last for months. He and Puram organized a little Holi celebration for all of us by giving us a Nehru outfit of cheap cotton and inviting us out on the lawn to smear powered color all over each other. It was silly, but fun, and we all got into it. The before and after pictures are priceless.
By this time, more than half of us were sick. Even Dennis, who can eat and drink anything, fell prey to this bug and spent the day in bed. Andrew, our HE guide, said he’d never had this kind of sickness in India. Fortunately (knock on wood) I’m one of the lucky few who have remained unscathed.
Tuesday, March 2, we said goodbye to Hollywood and moved on to Jaipur, a city of two million, built about 1787 by the Maharajah of Jaipur and laid out by his architect in wide boulevards and, unlike other places we’ve (I’ve) been, in straight lines. What a relief after the winding narrows of other old cities. Jaipur is called the Pink City because in 1883, when Prince Albert Edward, the British crown prince, was to make an official visit to the city, the Maharajah wanted to show special courtesy to the British crown, and so ordered that all the buildings in the city be painted pink, the color used at the time on maps to denote British colonies. The tradition remains. The effect is startling. After checking in at one of the six palaces still owned by the royal family (but now leased to the Taj hotel chain), we visited a textile mill, which was really a showroom/shop for printed fabrics. After being in the textile business, I found all this quite interesting. And of course, the guys bought lots of scarves, bedspreads, etc. We came back to the hotel looking like a caravan.
Wednesday, March 3 and I’m getting up to date. Hooray! Today we went to Amber, the traditional seat of the Maharajah of Jaipur. The “fort,” as it is called, is spectacular. Built high on a ridge, it looks a little like Lhasa and is actually a fort and palace. We all took elephants up the steep incline to the entrance to the fort, with mahouts commenting so that we would smile so the photographers lining the route could get a good picture (we were expected to buy at the end of our tour). Again, a description of the inside would be pointless. It’s too grand and immense to capture in words. The views of the inside, and the valley the fort commands outside, were incredible. Like much of India, that’s the only word that accurately captures the feeling.
Anile has wanted us to get the real feel of India so we left the cocoon of our bus to walk the streets in the spice market. The sounds and smells, the crowded cacophony of it all was almost overwhelming. I got lots of great shots but the camera gets heavy and I was very tired by the time we got back to the hotel.
On the way back, we stopped at the Observatory, constructed by the Maharajah in about 1787. It’s an outdoors place where there are many kinds of sundial/type constructs that tell time, the phase of the moon, astrological signs and other time/space oriented facts. It was quite advanced for its time and I couldn’t help but wonder how all these renaissances in the arts and science happened in so many places in the world at approximately the same time. Was mankind just entering a new phase? And if so, what caused it?
After the observatory, we toured the City Palace, the current home of the current Maharajah. We didn’t go into his living quarters, of course, but entered many spaces – the open courts, the pillared pavilions – traditional to these “forts.” In one space, the place where the maharajah conducted his audiences, the walls were carved and embedded with concave mirrors so the whole place would be dazzling in the eyes of those who attended. We also saw the two largest silver containers in the world, huge jugs that contained water from the Ganges, and carried by the maharajah when he first left the country for an official visit to England. What one can do when money is no object!
India has worn me out. I’m tired and dusty. And I haven’t been very articulate in this account. My apologies. Tomorrow it’s on to Udaipur. Anil says he’s leaving the best ‘til last. We’ll see. Stay tuned.
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