Jaipur Journal in 30 seconds

A River Drives through it. traffic unlike anything you can imagine, flowing all in one motion, no one stops, ]no one bumps, everyone honks, no intersections, no lights, a random of rickshaws, a Mosaic of motorcycles, a waste of cars all getting as close to each other as possible to keep things moving. The only rules, watch each other and stay moving. After you get used to it, it is the only way to travel.
New Friend Harish takes us to "lac" --remember that from Nigel's tour? -- shop and bangles are made fr Kalli. go to village textiles with Harish and buy fabrics and shirts and suits and scarves. Best deal? who knows? it was fun and Harish treats us like royalty -- drives us all over town. takes us to Raj Mandir , the biggest Bollywood cinema in INDIA where we see classic Bollywood movie. Hindi? no matter... not too hard to figure out.
Reid is sick first day, Greg is sick all that night, hits the Cipro and pulls out of it. Kalli sick next day from malaria pills. Margo stops taking the pills and is our guinea pig...
Jantar Mantar astronomy park is fantastic, built in 1738 and tells time to within 2 seconds by sundial, plots zodiac, angle of sun, location of stars, eclipses, monsoons, weddings.
Two prices in Jaipiur -- 1) Don't Worry. 2) No Problem
Elephants at work, wind palace for the harem to peel out onto the street, spice shop slipper shop incense shop. Reid riding on back of Harish's cycle thru mad traffic. Ayuvedic massage.
Jaipur -- we love it
Working elephant
Reid hits the steeet in Jaipur
Dyeing cloth at Harish's sister's shop
Men sewing at the shop
The Spice dealer
Harish and Margo
Traffic in Jaipur
The Jantar Mantar park and sundial
The Palace of wind --viewing quarters for the Harem
The slipper shop

Qutib Minar -- 16th Century Muslim "Axis pole"

Reid, Kalli, Margo and Robert fischer
Detail
4th Century iron "flagpole" for Vishnu and arch
Arch detail
What do you mean don't turn around?

The Baha'I Temple -- The Lotus temple

This is for my mom and sister who are Baha'i's. the Delhi temple is beautiful and was packed with people....this was Kalli's favorite stop today
waiting in line to get in
The Lotus temple
Workers on the Lotus
Greg with Lotus hat
View upon leaving the Temple
View when you turn around

Xmas and the day after-- Seeing Delhi

Looking for Humayan's tomb

Izn Kahn's Tomb, Delhi
Izn Kahn's mosque, Delhi
Approach to Humayan's tomb (precursor to anmd model for Taj Mahal)
Next entrway to Humayan's tomb
Archway view of Humayan's tomb
And Here's Humayan's Tomb

Christmas Day
If its Christmas, it must be Delhi
People at play in the Lodhi Gardens

REID AND BOB AT THE LODHI GARDENS

Christmas Day in Delhi

For the first time in memory, the kids did not wake us for early Xmas gift opening. (tear...)We gathered around the Xmas tree around noon and opened an array of presents that can only be described as over the top considering bob and Dana are already giving us a huge present of their hospitality. "White Mughals" for me, "The Namesake" for Kalli, "India in Slow Motion" for Reid and a pashmina for Margo. Many more to boot. Sat down to great Indian meal from Rahjan. Played tennis with Robert and Kalli while Margo and Reid and bob went to the Lodhi Gardens. Gathered for terrific turkey dinner and went to bed full and tired.
Pretty great Xmas all in all. But no mistaking it for home with moderate temperatures and guard sitting around smoky fires outside our house all night
G

How we got here

35 years ago, I studied in Vienna for a year. My best friend was Patrice Davis from Portland, Oregon. We use to get together every weekend and listen to the new Joni Mitchell album -- Blue -- and think of home. We stayed in touch over the years and Margo and I got to know her sister Dana and Dana's husband Bob and their kids Robert and Claire Davis Fischer. Claire worked for me for a time in DC and has become a good friend to the kids and us. Dana works for US AID and Bob is retired now from NIH and WHO. We missed them when they were stationed in Cairo and vowed not to make that mistake again. They are stationed in Delhi now and we decided to go for it this year and they were nice enough to host us and I do mean host us. Their driver Ben meets us at airports and train stations and takes us around Delhi at an amazing clip. Their cook Rahjan and his wife Manjou have made the most amazing Indian and American meals you can have away from home, maybe even at home. Son Robert (25) arrived a few days ago and has been beating us all in tennis and chess. Dana's indefatigable planning coordination made this trip possible and organized to the nth degree -- pretty important when 7 people are getting ready to travel together.
Tomorrow we leave for Kerala -- Cochin , a backwater boat tour and several days at the beach in Varkala before going to Mumbai for a few days and then back to Delhi and home.
That's how we got here -- lord knows how we top this...
Greg

Agra:The Red Fort

Agra --
At lunch at the Oberoi we take a break from our driver trying to guide us to his shops, from the dust and grit and chaos of the street to catch our breath literally. The view of the Taj from the Hotel Oberoi terrace starts at the treetops , obscuring the filthy crowded streets below -- a metaphor for "Shining India."



Agra Fort --We hire a guide and good thing too as it is a hide and seek labyrinth. The remains of opulence, rose water fountains, harems, artificial lakes, peacock throne, perfect perspective for the royal court (9th photo down on the right). Shah Jehan -- creator of the Taj Mahal -- ruled from this fort, which he surrounded with a moat with crocodiles and a forest with tigers. His son Aurangzeb overthrew him and imprisoned him here with a view of the Taj Mahal -- 8th and 10th photo on the right.
Exhausted, we eat sweets for an hour. We await our train in the dusk with mosquitoes swarming. Beggars are everywhere, crippled, legless, arms misplaced. A girl of 3 or 4 who could not get any dirtier or more pitiful begs on the platform. We have seen gypsies who are born, live and die by the side of the road in a space between the road and a wall. India is a snake, the saying goes, with its head in the 22nd Century and its tail in the 16th. The trailing edge of humanity, living to survive just for the (literal) hell of it.

The few women we have seen all day are colorful foreground to the uniformly drab background of swarming men in motion, always in motion.
India was ruled from Agra for years by the Shah and his son. Now, the good citizens of Agra cannot get it together to make it appealing for even a nights' stay. The destruction of the Mughal opulence is complete...and almost the memories as well...

Agra and the Taj Mahal

December 20 Delhi-Agra-Jaipur
Still sans baggage, our strungout quartet boarded the train to Agra at 6 a.m., somethings borrowed, somethings blue. Red sun rising caught Kalli's attention. we avoided the tea an watered down juice -- day 3 in India and all still healthy. Agra, we meet our driver Arif, helpful if somewhat pushy about taking us to his favorite shopping stores. After a day in authentic working Delhi with Nigel, the relentless selling of India begins to wear on us--inlaid marble store, (more on The Marble Salesman later), the gem store, the cloth store. The workers deforming their fingers carving marble is horrific, the contrast to the final intricate beauty surreal.
THE TAJ. i had no idea I could still be impressed by a building. The Taj appears thru the main archway as an object floating in mist. Some fog remained to add the effect of looking through muslin. We clear the arch and there it is and you can't believe it. It sparkles for us, the sky turns blue, it fills up and we leave.

The Red Fort is next. And the fateful story of Shah Jahan, who envisioned, and had built, the Taj

Xmas Eve New Delhi

Arrived back in Delhi last night after 5 hour train ride from Jaipur where we have been for past three days. As our train arrived , we were invaded by men in turbans and Indian style pyjamas (the word started here) roaming the aisle and shouting-- the Delhi version of porters looking for customers. Ben, Dana and Bob's driver -- was right at our train door and whisked us --if whisked is ever the right word for moving through the crowds here -- to our home. Xmas party across the street went til all hours with Indian band playing Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka dot bikini, La Bamba and bad disco. What better proof globalization is going too far.

3 OF 4 BAGS HAVE ARRIVED! More exciting than Beaujolais est 'arrive! Chocolate capitol totally destroyed but Margo's ambition is appreciated.

Dana and I met with the Indian Minister for Science and Technology Kamil Sibal and Anjali Nuyyar from IAVI for an hour thanks to the good work of anjali and seth Berkley the head of IAVI. Excellent discussion, someone who is actually making things happen to improve life here -- would some of our "ministers" cared as much about actually doing something.

Then on to tennis with Bob and Dana's son Robert, Kalli, Reid, Margo and Bob and others who showed up at the American Embassy. Beautiful weather and a great break from the tension of travel and trying to cross the street in Jaipur. more on Jaipur later in the blog. Now preparing to eat drink and make merry.

Merry Xmas to all our friends and family. Reid has enabled comments, so send some back!

Day 5 (for us, I think)

Two days ago we left Delhi at 430am and went to the train station where we took a 2 hour ride to Agra. The train station itself is quite interesting seeing all kinds of people from Sihk men in tailored suits to poor women dressed in old saris. Once in Agra we went immediately to the Taj Mahal to avoid the rush. They do not allow any polluting vehicles or industries near it to preserve the white marble.It really is a huge magnificent creation with tons of intricate marble inlays. Our knowledgeable but rather pushy driver took us next to a marble inlay workshop after we ate at a huge American hotel just outside of the taj. The workshop salesman showed us how all the semi-precious stones are cut with hand wheels so there "are no gaps" when set into the carved out white marble. He then brought us into his huge showroom where he had servants waiting in the wings to bring drinks or turn off the lights to show the brilliance. We felt bad that we didn't buy anything if only because he knew how to make a sale so well!

Before we left Agra we visited a couple more shops and also had a tour of the Agra Fort given by one of the locals. It is a huge fort built by the Shah emperor for his three wives (one each Hindu, Muslim and Buddist I believe) and 365 harem! It has two defensive walls and a moat in addition to a huge garden, architecture drawn from all religions (there are stars of David over one entryway) and an "air-conditioned" room built with plaster of Paris with water cooled piping. After our extremely long day we took a 4 hour train ride to Jaipur where we are now.

Yesterday I was not feeling very well and slept most of the day while the rest of the family went clothes shopping at the market and befriended one of the shopkeepers. Today I am feeling much better but my dad has fallen sick pretty badly (which leaves me way too much time to write this).

Although we have been staying in clean places with mostly American and British travellers we go through a lot of very filthy streets and markets and we must still make sure all our food is cooked well, water is either boiled or bottled, and we wash our hands frequently.

--Reid

(P.s. This is via Blackberry but we'll upload some more pictures soon.)

Delhi day one

Nigel Hankin is an 87 year old Englishman who stopped here when the dropping of the bomb spared him being posed to Burma in 1945. He has been here ever since. For the past 40 years, 6 days a week he has given the most sought after tour of "working Delhi." And i can see why. We began at the home of Indira Ghandi which is now a museum. A crystal walk way marks her last steps before her guards shot her. We went from there to a Sikh temple, a 14th century well, the government buildings of New Delhi designed by Lutyens and then to a cremation site on the Ganges -- see photo of a body being sprayed with water from the Ganges -- the river is too filthy to go stand in or dunk a body. At least half a dozen funeral pyres were going during our stop. Bodies are burned within two hours of death.

After lunch we wandered -- Nigel knew where HE was going -- through the old Delhi working bazaar, all wholesale stand for everything from chemicals to nuts and spices and wedding dresses and silver. We walked through shops separated by one person width on a meandering path that led thru time back to another century. Men carrying enormous sacks of whatever you can think of on their backs and heads, pushing carts piles 6 feet high with sacks of tea and grain and rice. We were unnoticed mainly except for a young child who followed Kalli, w were the only white people we saw . Nigel knew all the shopkeepers, would stop by one, grab a handful of something out of a sack and tell us -- this is "lac" for making lacquer, this is myrrh, this is shellac, you name it. We all coughed and choked --along with the natives --in the spice alleys. We saw women only in the wedding alley, trying on gowns.
Earlier we stopped in the abandoned grounds where George V of England had come to announce the new capital would be Delhi. His statue was removed from New Delhi to this now empty field after India's independence -- all well described in William Dalrymple"s "City of Djinns."It was a great lecture from Nigel complete with a picture of the English planning committee roaming around delhi on an elephant looking for a place to build the new city.

We ended the day with another great meal from Bob and Dana's cook Rahjan and head out tommorow at 6 a.m. on the train to Agra. Packing will be easy since our 3 bags are lost with a thousand others (not making that up) somewhere in British Airways' baggage claims. But if it were not for Jan Nowak of British Airways -- may her numbers increase -- we would not have made it here at all after we missed our connection in London due to our plane being 2 hours delayed leaving Washington after a truck hit the wing!

three hours later

Desperately seeking seats on tonights flight. Nothing in airline world is true for more than fifteen minutes. At least I'm not as bad off as the woman next to me trying to get to lagos thru addis abbaba. Now THAT'S a problem

London

We are currently standing in line at London Heathrow Airport waiting in line for security...again so I figured I'd post my first Blagpost from dad's Blackberry because what else am I going to do?!

Instead of leaving Dulles at 21:55 as we were supposed to, some idiot managed to run into the wing of our 747 with a truck WHO RUNS INTO PLANES!!!!!

Anyway that meant we did't leave until after midnight which put us in at noon London time (6:45 flight time wasn't bad,) just in time for our 1140 connection to Delhi NOT.

So here we are trying to catch another flight...looks like we'll be hanging out in or around LHR for ohhh at least eight hours! The joy or modern air travel!

--Reid

The India Blog

We have enough medicine for the whole plane. We have Rupees. We have plans and trains and planes and cars and auto rickshaws, hotels and houseboats and absolutely no idea of what we're about to get into. The definition of India.