Delhi. Meh.
I wasn't in Delhi for long, but by gum was it hot. All of northern India so far has been hellishly hot and really dry with it. I've been drinking more water than ever before, I think because as soon as you sweat in the heat it immediately evaporates and then your body needs to sweat some more.
Anyway, Arrived in Delhi about 10pm and was driven to the hotel by a lady from 'Women on wheels', a charitable organization giving women work as taxi drivers. We certainly got there, but there were times it didn't feel that safe, the car stalled multiple times.
The following day I couldn't find too much near the hotel to sight see, but I did go out for a late breakfast and a bit of a (poke)walk. In the afternoon my roommate for the trip arrived (Chris, aka Sideshow Bob the ginger ninja), and we got on really well. He regaled me of his story of being mugged the previous night by 3 blokes on a scooter. He punched 2 of them in the face and number 3 ran off.It reminded me of how fortunate I've been on this trip without any trouble like that at all so far!
We met with the rest of the group at 6, and they are a lovely fun bunch of nutters: Canadians, Australians and Brits.
Next morning we headed out for Jaipur, the Pink City, by bus. We drove past the War Monument in Delhi, but couldn't stop as it was closed to the public over some sort of security alert.
We did stop just before we got to Jaipur when we got to the Amber Fort. On Googling, it's actually Amer Fort, Amber is an British mis-hearing of Amer, but that hasn't stopped the name sticking around! To be fair, it is quite yellow/orange in colour, so you can understand the confusion.
The fort has a 7km wall around the local town and to me was very reminiscent of the Great wall in China. Apparently the fort and wall were never needed in earnest as the various kings negotiated and traded with their neighbors and were never attacked. That said, the warriors had a reputation for being fierce and did go out and expand the kingdom's borders.
The fort itself was built and expanded over 4 or 5 generations. We took jeeps up the hill to the fort, which I am glad of as it would have been a hot climb.
The particularly famous parts include the Hall of Public Audience with it's mixture of different architectural styles...
... the highly decorative gatehouse ...
... and the more impressive Mirror Palace. The walls and ceiling are covered in thousands of small convex mirrors. In the dark, hundreds of candles and oil lamps were used, and the light reflecting of all the lamps is said to look like the night sky.
The palace was also famous for having 99 indoor toilets, unheard of in it's day. Our local guide asked us what we thought this meant. I responded that they must have been full of shit. He laughed, and said no, that they were just planning ahead for there being a lot of people there. I liked my answer better.
Next we went past the Water Palace, built in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately closed, but looked lovely.
Our hotel for the night was once a palace itself. It looked very nice, though the room I had was a bit rubbish by way of AC that didn't do much and a ceiling fan that didn't fan the bed. Ended up putting the mattress on the floor under the fan to get cool enough to get to sleep. There was a pool which was fairly nice, and the group are mad enough to be up for building human towers and pyramids, so much fun was had. Also spotted a Russet Crowned Green Bee Eater and a Common Tailorbird (which I thought was a wren)
As well as these birds, I saw a kite. No, not that sort of kite, a kite kite! Turns out there was some sort of festival/religious significance to the kites, they were up really really high, even when there seemed to be no wind down at ground level.
We had a short wander into the old city for dinner, seeing one of the city gates, and a variety of other photogenic sights. Jaipur is known as the Pink City (among many other names), for the colour all the houses in the main streets are painted. It's really more terracotta rather than pink, but lets not be picky. Dinner was on a rooftop overlooking the city.
Next morning, Millie, Leah and myself were up at 5am to go on a cycle tour of Jaipur. It was fantastic. I think we were all a little nervous about how hot and sweaty it would be, but being up that early meant it was still relatively cool, cycling along generates a nice cooling breeze too, and there was little other traffic on the roads for most of the tour, which was a real blessing! Our guide was excellent, very knowledgeable, funny, and ridiculously fit!
We fed some holy cows, Visited the Prince Albert Museum, saw sunrise, had some early morning spiced chai and visited the 'Wind Palace' (it's mostly facade, but allows the women to watch the street festivals without being seen).
Next we walked around the fruit and flower market, and seeing the weight of the stuff the ladies were carrying on their heads was quite amazing. Leah showed off her kickboxing skills and we took part in some Laughter Yoga, which was a surprisingly good core workout. Then it was on to the Govind (Krishna) dev ji temple for morning Aaarti. It was very jolly.
On to some back streets where we saw old Muslim architecture buildings, specifically designed to encourage wind flow. Buried deep in the buildings were some vintage cars. A stop at a statue carving place, and finally it was through a traffic jam to grab a nice lassi (chilled yogurt drink) and we were done. It was a really, really good tour, in spite of having to get up so early.
That evening we all went to see a Bollywood movie in a local historic theater. I think it's an acquired taste. There was occasional cheering when famous people appeared on screen, there was an interval, there were no English subtitles. Our guide, Manu, said that the film hasn't received great reviews.
I wasn't in Delhi for long, but by gum was it hot. All of northern India so far has been hellishly hot and really dry with it. I've been drinking more water than ever before, I think because as soon as you sweat in the heat it immediately evaporates and then your body needs to sweat some more.
Anyway, Arrived in Delhi about 10pm and was driven to the hotel by a lady from 'Women on wheels', a charitable organization giving women work as taxi drivers. We certainly got there, but there were times it didn't feel that safe, the car stalled multiple times.
The following day I couldn't find too much near the hotel to sight see, but I did go out for a late breakfast and a bit of a (poke)walk. In the afternoon my roommate for the trip arrived (Chris, aka Sideshow Bob the ginger ninja), and we got on really well. He regaled me of his story of being mugged the previous night by 3 blokes on a scooter. He punched 2 of them in the face and number 3 ran off.It reminded me of how fortunate I've been on this trip without any trouble like that at all so far!
 |
| Squirrels in the park |
We met with the rest of the group at 6, and they are a lovely fun bunch of nutters: Canadians, Australians and Brits.
Next morning we headed out for Jaipur, the Pink City, by bus. We drove past the War Monument in Delhi, but couldn't stop as it was closed to the public over some sort of security alert.
We did stop just before we got to Jaipur when we got to the Amber Fort. On Googling, it's actually Amer Fort, Amber is an British mis-hearing of Amer, but that hasn't stopped the name sticking around! To be fair, it is quite yellow/orange in colour, so you can understand the confusion.
The fort has a 7km wall around the local town and to me was very reminiscent of the Great wall in China. Apparently the fort and wall were never needed in earnest as the various kings negotiated and traded with their neighbors and were never attacked. That said, the warriors had a reputation for being fierce and did go out and expand the kingdom's borders.
The fort itself was built and expanded over 4 or 5 generations. We took jeeps up the hill to the fort, which I am glad of as it would have been a hot climb.
The particularly famous parts include the Hall of Public Audience with it's mixture of different architectural styles...
... the highly decorative gatehouse ...
... and the more impressive Mirror Palace. The walls and ceiling are covered in thousands of small convex mirrors. In the dark, hundreds of candles and oil lamps were used, and the light reflecting of all the lamps is said to look like the night sky.
The palace was also famous for having 99 indoor toilets, unheard of in it's day. Our local guide asked us what we thought this meant. I responded that they must have been full of shit. He laughed, and said no, that they were just planning ahead for there being a lot of people there. I liked my answer better.
Next we went past the Water Palace, built in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately closed, but looked lovely.
Our hotel for the night was once a palace itself. It looked very nice, though the room I had was a bit rubbish by way of AC that didn't do much and a ceiling fan that didn't fan the bed. Ended up putting the mattress on the floor under the fan to get cool enough to get to sleep. There was a pool which was fairly nice, and the group are mad enough to be up for building human towers and pyramids, so much fun was had. Also spotted a Russet Crowned Green Bee Eater and a Common Tailorbird (which I thought was a wren)
As well as these birds, I saw a kite. No, not that sort of kite, a kite kite! Turns out there was some sort of festival/religious significance to the kites, they were up really really high, even when there seemed to be no wind down at ground level.
We had a short wander into the old city for dinner, seeing one of the city gates, and a variety of other photogenic sights. Jaipur is known as the Pink City (among many other names), for the colour all the houses in the main streets are painted. It's really more terracotta rather than pink, but lets not be picky. Dinner was on a rooftop overlooking the city.
 |
| Honest it's pink! |
 |
| I've heard of Bird on the Wire before, but this is Monkey on the Wire! |
 |
| "Goat Rider" |
 |
| Jaguar motorcycle? |
 |
| Reconstructing the entire street. Did not help the traffic flow. |
Next morning, Millie, Leah and myself were up at 5am to go on a cycle tour of Jaipur. It was fantastic. I think we were all a little nervous about how hot and sweaty it would be, but being up that early meant it was still relatively cool, cycling along generates a nice cooling breeze too, and there was little other traffic on the roads for most of the tour, which was a real blessing! Our guide was excellent, very knowledgeable, funny, and ridiculously fit!
We fed some holy cows, Visited the Prince Albert Museum, saw sunrise, had some early morning spiced chai and visited the 'Wind Palace' (it's mostly facade, but allows the women to watch the street festivals without being seen).
Next we walked around the fruit and flower market, and seeing the weight of the stuff the ladies were carrying on their heads was quite amazing. Leah showed off her kickboxing skills and we took part in some Laughter Yoga, which was a surprisingly good core workout. Then it was on to the Govind (Krishna) dev ji temple for morning Aaarti. It was very jolly.
On to some back streets where we saw old Muslim architecture buildings, specifically designed to encourage wind flow. Buried deep in the buildings were some vintage cars. A stop at a statue carving place, and finally it was through a traffic jam to grab a nice lassi (chilled yogurt drink) and we were done. It was a really, really good tour, in spite of having to get up so early.
That evening we all went to see a Bollywood movie in a local historic theater. I think it's an acquired taste. There was occasional cheering when famous people appeared on screen, there was an interval, there were no English subtitles. Our guide, Manu, said that the film hasn't received great reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment