Vi's Travels

Day Four

violet — Sat, 1 Jul 2017 02:02:00 GMT

Another early start, back downstairs by 8:30 for a quick bite of toast before piling onto a big bus which would take us to Amber (or Amer) Fort. We picked up our guide for the day, Sanjay, and set off. We stopped briefly at Hawa Mahal (the Wind Palace), an incredibly beautiful building designed to allow the royal ladies (who were not allowed out in public) to watch Royal or religious processions, and look over the every day goings on of the street below. Just a very expensive people-watching perch, really.

Next we paused at Jal Mahal (the water palace), a now-abandoned palace situated in the centre of a grand lake. Sanjay told us that there were no rooms inside, and that the only thing left was a roof garden. This building is one of only two like it in country. This one used to serve as a summer home for royals, and the other one has since been converted into one of the best hotels in the world.

After another short stint of driving, now up windy hillside roads, we arrived at the base of the hill on which Amber Fort sits. There were many hawkers, and as Sanjay described, they were particularly 'Sticky'. We walked quickly through the entrance gate and headed for the stairs. A ten minute walk up a ridiculous number of stairs later and we were there, in the first courtyard of Amber Fort. This is were the general public would gather in times of war or crisis.

Sanjay walked us through, offering brief explanations of each area.

There are four parts to Amber fort; the public section, the general meeting section, the royal living section and the wife and concubine living quarters. The royal section in particular was stunning, with marble inlays and mirrored mosaic adorning the walls and ceiling.

The final area, where the women lived, was very plain but also very interesting. They each had their own room, and above the door was an illustration from the Karma Sutra to remind the King where he was. It was designed so that he could visit whoever he liked, whenever he liked, without the others knowing.

At the time when the fort was built, royal women were not allowed outside, and so the whole place is a maze or corridors and grated windows. Even though they weren't allowed to participate, they could watch everything that was going on through grated windows.

This was also the period during which women began to wear veils. Before then, women followed the '40/60 rule', covering 40 per cent of their body with fabric, and 60% with jewellery. This proved too 'enticing' in a time of constant war and invasions, and so they were made to cover up.

After a tour of Amber fort, we traipsed back down all the stairs and back onto the bus. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the edge of town, which had drawn curtains and no lights on when we arrived. It seems to be pretty common practice for restaurants and stores to turn everything off until a customer arrives, to save power and keep things cool.

As always, the food was incredible, but there was far too much of it, and so Debbie and her parents offered to take everyone's leftovers back to the hotel for dinner.

The rest of us were dropped near the observatory, and after a brief kerfuffle with finding the place and buying tickets, we we inside. It looked like a sculpture garden, full of sandstone shapes which looked like modern art. We found a guide, and he walked us around, explaining each of the instruments in turn.

This observatory is roughly 300 years old, and is host to a number of incredible astronomical and astrological tools. We were shown some sundials, and an instrument which predicts where the planets are so you could find them with a telescope. There was also two concave domes, with stripes of etched marble inside. If put together, the marble would form a complete dome. There was a metal ring suspended at ground level above each one, and the shadow it cast showed the star sign of a baby born in Jaipur at that exact moment. In India, astrology is considered very important, and babies are given a star sign accurate to their place, date, and time of birth almost immediately.

This observatory is also host to the largest sun dial in the world, accurate to within two seconds (even more impressive when you remember how old it is!). There were also small sun dials dedicated to each star sign individually, and an instrument for working out the trajectory of the sun.

After a fabulous walk around the observatory, Gabby, Tye and I headed back toward the Wind Palace to explore some of the stalls along the sides of the road. There was all sorts of beautiful jewellery, clothing and nicknacks on show. After a while, we all started to get a bit over the heat, and so we flagged down an auto (tuk tuk) and went back to hotel for a rest in our air conditioned rooms.

Half an hour later, Amie (Debbie's mum) popped by to let us know that there would be a yoga class at 5. Debbie, Amie, Arpi, Kirstie (the younger British woman) and I were met by a man who had been practicing yoga for over 40 years, and he walked us through a number of techniques for relaxation, posing and breathing, and the importance of each. It wasn't a typical yoga class (much less movement), but if anything it was more interesting to hear first hand why certain things are incorporated, and a little bit about the history of the practice.

We had a quick meeting about the following day's itinerary, then I ate my cold curry (still delicious) with some fresh garlic naan from the hotel's restaurant and went almost straight to sleep.

Photos: Day Four :)

violet — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 23:55:00 GMT

Photos: Day Three :)

violet — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:30:00 GMT

Day Three

violet — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:12:00 GMT

We had to get up ridiculously early today, at like 4:15, because we were catching an early morning train to Jaipur. We all met in the lobby at 5 o'clock, and left anything we wouldn't need for the next 5 days (which for me was most of the stuff I had packed), and set off for the station. The car trip wasn't very long at all, maybe fifteen minutes, and we made it quickly through security (another bag scanner and metal detector), so we had plenty of time to kill when we reached our platform.

By 6:30 we were well on our way, and had been given a bottle of water each by the carriage staff. I read for a while, ate the breakfast we were served, and looked out he window for most of the five hour trip. We passed many rickety, ramshackle houses, and piles and piles of plastic rubbish with cows and goats and people rummaging through it. There were also lots of people using the hill beside the tracks as a bathroom, which is apparently quite common.

The weather in Jaipur is still very hot, but much drier than Delhi, so it feels a bit more manageable. Arpi led us to a tuk tuk rank, and we loaded all our bags and ourselves into them.

We arrived at the hotel and got settled in, then headed back out to explore Jaipur.

Jaipur is known as the 'pink city', because when Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales visited in 1876, the King decided to paint the entire city pink in their honour. Admittedly now it's much more of an orangey colour, but the old city, surrounded by a giant wall and seven spectacular gates, is still very beautiful. Our hotel, though not pink, is also very beautiful.

We settled in, then were loaded into two air conditioned white cars, and taken to an enormous gem and jewellery store for a demonstration on how jewellery in crafted in Jaipur. Apparently this is one of the things Jaipur is famous for, and there are mines throughout Rajasthan which provide the gems and metals for the thousands of jewellers in Jaipur. We browsed for a while, drinking the soft drinks we had been offered, admiring the beautifully crafted (if still very expensive) jewellery.

Next stop: a block printing workshop, where we were shown the method in which fabric has been printed for about three centuries. Up to seven wooden blocks can be used in a single pattern, to add different colours and depth to the design. We were invited to try it, and I put the final layer on a tricoloured elephant we printed. We wandered inside, and were shown the wide variety of textiles on offer, including silk and cotton printed fabric, quilted and patchwork fabric and fine embroidery. We wandered around the store for a while, but again everything was quite expensive, and so all I bought were some wooden blocks to print with at home. Again, I'm not sure I'll be allowed to bring them back to Australia, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Back to the hotel again for a short rest, then out for dinner, a delicious buffet at a nearby hotel. It was much harder to squeeze everybody into tuk tuks on the way back, given the amount of food we'd all eaten, but it was definitely worth it.

Photos: Day Two :)

violet — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:50:00 GMT

Day Two

violet — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:37:00 GMT

Welcome back to day two of my Indian adventures!

update: I have photos for this day, but can't seem to add them all...They have their own gallery, if you can find it :)

now on with the day!

At about 7:30 I pottered downstairs to the breakfast buffet in the hotel's restaurant. Most of the group was there, eating toast, eggs and fruit, as well as some 'breakfast' curry and this delicious Indian bread called 'puri'.

After breakfast, Arpi led us through some back streets to the local metro station. We collected our tokens (instead of cards or tickets they have little round chips) and went through a metal detector. There are metal detectors absolutely everywhere here, but you can never be sure if they're even working. We found our platform, and split into two groups. All the girls got on the women only carriage, and the guys got on the next one. The first train was completely packed, but the second one we transferred to was only about half full, positively roomy by comparison. We got off in old Delhi, and Arpi took us to see an old mosque. It could hold up to 25 thousand people at a time! It was raining by this point, which was actually rather lovely as to enter the mosque you had to remove your shoes. Walking on the cool wet stone was very calming. You also had to be sufficiently covered, and so most people in our group were given smock-like gowns to wear.

The mosque had a large central courtyard, surrounded by walls and buildings. It was virtually empty when we went, and it was hard to imagine 25 thousand people all squeezing in at once.

Next we walked further into old Delhi, to a spice market. On the way we bought samosas from a street vendor, and Arpi taught us about how wedding cards work in India. We went into a little spice store where a man talked us through all the different spices on offer. They were all sealed in airtight bags, so I bought some to take home. Hopefully I'll be allowed to take them through customs...

The next stop on the tour was a Sikh temple. Arpi took us down some stairs, to a little information room. She told us to leave our shoes there, and offered us scarves to cover our heads (it's mandatory in Sikhism). She told us that to enter the temple, we had to wash our hands and step through a trough of holy water, first with the right foot then with the left. We did this, entered the temple and were immediately greeted by opulent gold decor and live music from a band in front of the worshipping area. A carpet around the edge of the room led us past a holy book in a glass cabinet and out onto a balcony. Arpi explained that the Sikh community is very well-connected and very charitable, and so every day they cook an enormous amount of food and feed anyone and everyone who comes to eat it. We were led into a kitchen area, walking past a man stirring an ENORMOUS pot of something that smelled like béchamel sauce (some concoction of ghee and grain?) and out onto a second balcony where volunteers were peeling a mountain of vegetables. We went into a small room where some women and a man were rolling out chapatis, and we were invited to sit down and try it. I rolled out a couple, but then we had to move on.

We had lunch at a chain restaurant, but because I was still full from breakfast I just had my second samosa of the day. We were all pretty pooped by this point, so we headed back to the hotel. I had yet to get to get cash out, and tried a couple of ATMs before finding me that a) actually had money in it and b)bwould take my card. There was a scary moment where I had to contemplate what I would do if neither of my cards worked, but fortunately I found somewhere to get money before dinner.

I bummed around the hotel for a couple of hours, before meeting Gabby and Tye at 6 as we had arranged earlier. Debbie and her mum, and the two English women came too. We wandered the streets for a while, looking at stores and buying snacks for tomorrow's long train ride, then went to a little vegetarian food court for tea. Even the little run down touristy restaurants serve such delicious food, it's hard to ever stop eating. We went back to the hotel, pottered around some more and went to bed.

Day One

violet — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 20:33:00 GMT

Hi, and welcome to my new ~travel blog~!

I'm in India for five weeks, firstly touring around for a bit, then working for a local NGO in Delhi for about a month.

ive decided to keep this blog mostly as an incentive to write things down, and as something to look back on, but you're also welcome to read it :) I'm running a few days behind, and I'm also typing on an iPad, so please excuse any typos...

There's not that much to report from day one, and no fancy pictures I'm afraid, but stay tuned!

I arrived in Delhi at about 10:30AM. It took a good hour to get out and find my bag, but there was no customs to speak of so that at least was easy (pity I threw away an almost full packet of Shapes though :( ). I was met by an Intrepid representative who took me to a car, and I was driven to a hotel (Metro View Hotel, in case anybody wanted to google it). I showered, changed and lay down for a bit, and I felt much more human afterwards. I met my room mate for the tour, Debbie, a woman from America who is traveling with her parents, and who LOVES India. Ths is her third trip.

I was pretty exhausted from almost 24 hours of travelling, and so I pretty much just bummed around for the next we hours. I did go downstairs to the lobby to change money (I still had some US dollars in my beside table from space campin year 10), and ventured outside, but quickly found it too hot for my muddled brain to handle. Ilooped back around after about two steps, and a long stare from a passing Indian guy, and went into the hotel's restaurant instead. I ordered too much food, and ate to much of it because it was so delicious.

At six o'clock, there was a meeting downstairs in the hotel where I met the rest of the tour group and Arpita, the guide. Everyone is super friendly. There's a young couple from Australia, Gabby and Tye, an American girl travelling with her dad as a graduation present, two older British women and a youngwe British girl as well.

Arpi walked us through the itinerary, and then we all went for dinner in a restaurant down the road. The food the was delicious as well, which is a trend that I can get behind. As soon as I got back to my room I fell asleep, and it was blissful.