Rajasthan – A feast for the eyes

 

Our eyes are happy here in Rajasthan.  After a long day of sight seeing and traveling through India's cities and towns, we close our eyes and they feel as if they have just feasted on thousands of aesthetically pleasing images.

As we rode to our hotel today, we zipped through crowded streets and on both sides of the auto rickshaw we could see so many scenes of people in every day life.  Some of the things we saw were: cows, a barber shop, bright colored turbans, bright saris, shops selling only pots and pans, shops with candy, people deep frying all kinds of salty treats, dirty walls, paint shops, various craftsmen and women.  By the time we got to our hotel, our eyes felt like they had just feasted on a delightful meal. 

This same thing happens when we see expansive forts with such beautiful architecture and attention to detail in the carved stone. 

 Fatehpur Sikri

This fortified ancient city was the capital of the Mughal empire between 1571 and 1585.  Akbar (Tal loves that name) was an eclectic, broad thinking, and tolerant Emperor who constructed this whole city because saint Shaikh Salim Chishti predicted that the heir to the Mughal throne would be born there; and his prediction came true.  Akbar (again, Tal’s favorite current favorite word/name which he says spontaneously as we walk down the streets) built this impressive Mosque…

The entrance gate to the Mosque was breathtaking…

Below are some shots from Fatehpur Sikri’s palaces and pavilions….

 

 

Jaipur

We were in Jaipur for their annual Kite Festival which was fun to see.  There were literally thousands of kites flown by very excited children and then there was an impressive firework show after dark…

This crazy city is packed with cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, cows, and an occasional elephant. We found some great food in Jaipur, but our favorite two places in this crazy city were the City Palace and the Amber Fort.

The City Palace…

 

Amber Fort…

There were so many fun hallways to explore and it was all open to the public!

Jaisalmer

A city made rich by its location along the trading route across the desert of India, this whole city was built by the local sandstone and had incredible carved buildings everywhere.

A Jain Temple…

Our hotel used the sandstone and light really well.  We were happy with it…

Jodhpur

You will see many houses that are painted blue in the next set of pictures.  For those that are curious, there are four reasons that many of the houses are blue:

1. To distinguish who is from the Brahmin caste:  If the house is blue, that meant that the house anciently belonged to the Brahmin people.  The Brahmins found it vexing to have the warrior class caste drink alcohol and invade their homes so all of the Brahmins came together and decided to paint their houses blue, which meant that the other castes were not allowed to enter.

2. The blue is famous for handicraft work: because the sun shines off the blue and makes the workspace bright, which makes the fine work easier to see.

3. The limestone in the blue paint keeps the mosquitoes away.

4. It’s cheap: the limestone and blue color is inexpensive and yearly painting is necessary.

This was our view from our hotel rooftop…

Our hotel…

A nice father and son from Sweden that we enjoyed a few meals with.  It was fun to talk with them about various topics and compare notes on our travels.

 

Bundi

We liked this town because it was slower than other places and allowed us to walk around the markets and area without feeling like we will be run off the road.

 

The palace on the hill…

The sage cows…

We are excited to see Tal’s parents in Udaipur in the next few days and then go via Mumbai to Rising Star Outreach in Chennai.  We start our humanitarian work at Rising Star on February 1st. 

The Taj Mahal

 

The craftsmanship, the dimensions, the symmetry of this building (and surrounding area) really, to us at least, made the Taj Mahal live up to all of the hype.  Below was our first view of it as we walked through the gate.

As we looked at the beauty of the construction, we had differing thoughts.  Tal thought it was quite a love story: Shah Jahan’s second wife dies in childbirth and in his agony, his hair went grey over night.  He decides to build this memorial (the Taj Mahal) as her resting place.

Anita saw it differently.  She thought that the building of the Taj Mahal was this emperors way of self-aggrandizement rather than showing his love for his diseased wife. So, according to her opinion, the Taj Mahal was more about him than his wife. 
As for you, you can pick either side…

This 17th century masterpiece was constructed by around 3,000 stone masons and it took 24 years to build (from 1631 to 1653). 

The picture below has a fun background, because I (Anita), as I was walking through the adjacent Mosque, found an open door that lead up to the roof of a side building. So I snuck up to to explore the area. I was really not supposed to be there, because I made it past a guard, who happened to be on his cell phone and did not notice me. When I made it up there, this was my view.

Tal hanging out with a local Muslim family.

The sun finally came out towards the end of our 4 hour stay… When we got there it was a miserable 4 degrees, Celsius that is, so we really appreciated these sun beams.

The details of the craftsmanship on the Taj Mahal are beautiful…

On both sides of the Taj Mahal are decorated with identical red sandstone buildings.  One is a “Guest House”…

and one is a Mosque…

As you can see, because of the cold, Anita and I had about eight layers of clothing on in these pictures…

Delhi

 

As we arrived in Delhi, we noticed three distinct differences from the south of India: 1) Delhi had a “city feel” and reminded us a little of NYC - people dressed differently, there is a subway, and the streets seemed a little cleaner and much wider than in the south.  2) The food had more taste. 3) It was much colder than we had anticipated!  We were told by multiple news sources and our travel books that the average temperature was 70 degrees …

Nope! We were lucky if the high reached 50 degrees! On one day it was barely 36 degrees….

So we each put on two pairs of pants, every t-shirt we own, and one sweat shirt/fleece per person and tried to enjoy a few sights in Delhi. 

At one point, Anita had 8-10 layers on and in her opinion she looked like a “stuffed chicken.” We only ended up seeing two sights because the cold was really unbearable.  We saw the Ashkardam temple, which was unique experience in Indian culture… We were not allowed to take our cameras into the temple area, but here are a few bad pictures from the outside…

We also saw the Gandhi Smirtri, which was Gandhi’s home in New Delhi and where he spent the last 120 days of his life.  It is also the place where he was shot to death by a Hindu extremist in 1948. The memorial was quite poignant and we are reading his autobiography, which made the visit even better. 

Gandhi’s last steps… and the place he was shot is under the little pavilion…
And yes we are very much in love, but hugging this tightly was also one of the only ways to keep warm on one of the coldest days in Delhi this year.

 

I asked a lady to take my picture in front of the above place where Gandhi spent his last hours and I got the following picture of just me…

Love it when that happens!

It seemed that the whole city was under construction as Delhi is preparing for the Commonwealth games in about 6 months. 

On to Agra and Rajasthan!

Alleppey

 

Tourists from India and from around the world go to Alleppey to board a houseboat and cruise the laid back palm tree lined backwaters. Alleppey is said to be the Venice of the East, but because the New Year is a peak of the peak season, we decided to take a public ferry for 3 hours from Kottayam to Alleppey. The price difference was immense – 21 rupees A(about 50 cents) for both of us on the public ferry versus 12’000 rupees (about $240/night) on a house boat for about the same vistas. We were pretty happy to have beat the system especially when we saw (from the public ferry) that there was a house boat traffic jam.

Alleppey was not so great until we found a quiet guest house at the beach. We had a very relaxing four days, filled with reading, listening to the waves and enjoying new vegetarian dishes with morning runs on the beach. Here are some pictures.

The 21 rupee public ferry

The 12’000 rupee houseboat

The backwaters

Our fellow passengers

Our spot at the beach

On one of the days we watched a local basketball tournament. They loved that Tal was there – an American basketball player (and twice their size).

The score keepers…

And cricket players on the beach…

The next day we headed up to Delhi for a tour of Rajasthan.

New Year in Munnar

 

To steal the words of our travel bible, the Lonely Planet, we could “hear the collective sigh” as we entered the mountain air of Munnar. We decided to round the year off the best way we could and set off on a 7 hour hike in the hills of Munnar. The views were absolutely breathtaking as you can see from the pictures below. We hiked around the many tea plantations of the region and loved to see the scenery. But what topped it off is that we could actually hear birds chirping versus cars incessantly honking.

This is the group we hiked with. A highlight of our trip has been to meet people from everywhere. Here we are with a couple from Sweden and a couple from Scotland.

Munnar is surrounded by tea plantations.

Even the cows drink tea here…ok not true, but they love the leaves.

Happy New Year!!!