India, Part 1. The Pink City
It will soon be three weeks since I got back from my trip to India, and I only found time now to sit down and type something about it. I do have an excuse (which I'd rather NOT have): ever since coming back, I spent most of my time being sick in some way, not seriously enough to be concerned, seriously enough to be annoyed. But that's finally mostly over, so click below if you dare. :)
Travel
Mostly uneventful -- two hours to Istanbul and then about six more to Delhi. During the Istanbul-Delhi flight, the grave-sounding pilot with a very impressive British accent announced that we were going through a "bad case of turbulence." Now, either I'd had a wrong idea about bad turbulence before, or Airbus A330 just refuses to care about it. Cool aircraft, that.
Disappointed with the turbulence, I watched The Police Academy (first, second and third!!), and then it was time to land. I was crazy enough to turn on the camera with the cockpit view, only to realize that we were going to land in the midst of the thickest fog I'd seen in my life. That was exciting. *chuckle*
We arrived at about 3:30 local time, and it took me a good hour and a half to go through all the paperwork, customs check, frantic luggage search (some idiot had pulled my suitcase off the belt and set it aside!!) etc. The guy at the passport control complimented my "beautiful blue eyes," after which I informed him a bit snappishly that mine were grey. Hope that'll teach him to be more professional, especially that early in the morning. :p Then I was finally picked up by my hotel transfer. I'd been told the hotel was in Delhi, but the escort informed me immediately that it was in Gurgaon, and Gurgaon isn't Delhi, it's a Completely Separate Town. He repeated that at least three times, and I got out of the car thoroughly convinced that the worst offence one could commit against a person from Gurgaon is calling their home town a suburb of Delhi. It’s always useful to know such stuff! :)
Jaipur
After just three or four hours of sleep -- stupid time zones -- and a breakfast of...something (I distinctly remember eating pieces of pineapple; the rest is a blur), I joined the rest of the group, who'd already had their tour of the capital the day before. They were all from Russia, most of them really nice, except this one family I wanted to strangle from the moment I met them -- and I get a feeling I'd have done the Russian Federation a huge favor. The dad chain-smoked, talked politics and frowned at Indian food, the mom tried to boss everyone around, and the son was a 25-or-so-y.o. guy who traveled with his parents and shared a hotel room with them. Oh, and he also freaked out at the sight of the elephants. 'Nuff said.
The bus took us to Jaipur the Pink City, where we spend two days; called so after the color of its central part, a while ago painted pink - or what passed for pink in Jaipur, but looked orange to me - on the occasion of an official visit of some British high official. We didn’t see much the first day; we had a nice little stroll by the lake, took some shots of the Jal Mahal, or Water Palace, bought some fruit at a local market, checked out a small textile factory, where I got a wonderful silk scarf, and then finally were taken to the Lakshmi Narayan temple, a lovely white marble structure. The most exciting thing was actually being allowed to stay and watch the evening prayer. It was the first time I witnessed a religious ceremony outside my own faith, and I was beyond excited. The light was too bad to take decent pictures of the place with an amateur camera, but I still think ours was a perfect timing for visiting the temple.
The day that followed was very, very busy. Most of it was spent at Amer Fort (call me silly, but the moment I learned there were two acceptable names, I picked “Amer” over “Amber” and stuck to it stubbornly). Yours truly got to ride an elephant up there! Well, ride is probably too big a word, since I just sat sideways on a shabby-looking platform, but at least I didn’t freak out like that other guy. *chuckle*
Regarding the castle itself, I did fall in love with it immediately. It’s such a pleasant, warm color, it has - ahem - limestone and arches and murals, it somehow manages not to be noisy even with the endless crowds of people trickling in and out, and it offers a breathtaking view of the mountains from the walls, on all sides. At some point I managed to sneak away from the group and find a place with not another soul in it; I just stood quietly on the wall, listening to the squeaking of the little bright green parrots, watching the inevitable fog, feeling the warm breeze and nearly purring with pleasure. :) I don't think I would like to go back in time and live in Amer Fort several centuries back, especially as a woman, but if someone offered me a spot on the castle wall to stand on once a week or so, I don't think I'd say no.
It took us quite a bit of time to complete the tour of Amer Fort - and I’m pretty sure we only saw a little of it. The next stop was at the Jantar Mantar observatory, where I regretted to have forgotten most of my high school astronomy course. The guide didn’t seem to be too good at it either, so I had to be happy with just a walk among all the instruments. It gave me, personally, a rather eerie feeling: when I was a child, I’d often a have a nightmare about being in a room with a lot of strange shapes that suddenly started to grow and squeeze all the air out of me. Well, with the look of those astronomical tools, walking in Jantar Mantar felt like revisiting that old childhood nightmare! I was half-curious if the dream would return, actually. As it turned out, it didn’t. :) But anyway, seeing an observatory that size was a really interesting experience, and if I were to go there again, I’d go equipped with some preliminary reading.
In the evening, we got to see another former royal residence, City Palace, part of which was presented to the town to be used as a museum. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden inside, and the exhibits are pretty awesome! There were cotton clothes that I kept mistaking for silk, such fine fabric it was, the amount and quality of the embroidery made me gasp (and I daresay I know something about embroidery myself), and the colors were a little surprising, because they didn’t look half as bright as what we get to see in historical movies. Either the colors have faded over all those years, or we’re dealing with Alternate History in movies, as usual. *chuckle* Both possible, I suppose.
The other exhibition was probably even more exciting, because it was a small arsenal of different weapons (yeah, I’m a girl, so what?). I think I was the most impressed with inlaid sword hilts; you know, the very idea of first making a nice, elegant, balanced sword and then spending weeks on decorating its hilt, making the weapon both deadly and beautiful. A really poetic approach.
…And wow, I only covered one town, and this entry is already looking quite long. I think I’m going to break my report into several parts, just to make it easier to read. Meanwhile, here are the pictures I took in Jaipur:
TBC!
Travel
Mostly uneventful -- two hours to Istanbul and then about six more to Delhi. During the Istanbul-Delhi flight, the grave-sounding pilot with a very impressive British accent announced that we were going through a "bad case of turbulence." Now, either I'd had a wrong idea about bad turbulence before, or Airbus A330 just refuses to care about it. Cool aircraft, that.
Disappointed with the turbulence, I watched The Police Academy (first, second and third!!), and then it was time to land. I was crazy enough to turn on the camera with the cockpit view, only to realize that we were going to land in the midst of the thickest fog I'd seen in my life. That was exciting. *chuckle*
We arrived at about 3:30 local time, and it took me a good hour and a half to go through all the paperwork, customs check, frantic luggage search (some idiot had pulled my suitcase off the belt and set it aside!!) etc. The guy at the passport control complimented my "beautiful blue eyes," after which I informed him a bit snappishly that mine were grey. Hope that'll teach him to be more professional, especially that early in the morning. :p Then I was finally picked up by my hotel transfer. I'd been told the hotel was in Delhi, but the escort informed me immediately that it was in Gurgaon, and Gurgaon isn't Delhi, it's a Completely Separate Town. He repeated that at least three times, and I got out of the car thoroughly convinced that the worst offence one could commit against a person from Gurgaon is calling their home town a suburb of Delhi. It’s always useful to know such stuff! :)
Jaipur
After just three or four hours of sleep -- stupid time zones -- and a breakfast of...something (I distinctly remember eating pieces of pineapple; the rest is a blur), I joined the rest of the group, who'd already had their tour of the capital the day before. They were all from Russia, most of them really nice, except this one family I wanted to strangle from the moment I met them -- and I get a feeling I'd have done the Russian Federation a huge favor. The dad chain-smoked, talked politics and frowned at Indian food, the mom tried to boss everyone around, and the son was a 25-or-so-y.o. guy who traveled with his parents and shared a hotel room with them. Oh, and he also freaked out at the sight of the elephants. 'Nuff said.
The bus took us to Jaipur the Pink City, where we spend two days; called so after the color of its central part, a while ago painted pink - or what passed for pink in Jaipur, but looked orange to me - on the occasion of an official visit of some British high official. We didn’t see much the first day; we had a nice little stroll by the lake, took some shots of the Jal Mahal, or Water Palace, bought some fruit at a local market, checked out a small textile factory, where I got a wonderful silk scarf, and then finally were taken to the Lakshmi Narayan temple, a lovely white marble structure. The most exciting thing was actually being allowed to stay and watch the evening prayer. It was the first time I witnessed a religious ceremony outside my own faith, and I was beyond excited. The light was too bad to take decent pictures of the place with an amateur camera, but I still think ours was a perfect timing for visiting the temple.
The day that followed was very, very busy. Most of it was spent at Amer Fort (call me silly, but the moment I learned there were two acceptable names, I picked “Amer” over “Amber” and stuck to it stubbornly). Yours truly got to ride an elephant up there! Well, ride is probably too big a word, since I just sat sideways on a shabby-looking platform, but at least I didn’t freak out like that other guy. *chuckle*
Regarding the castle itself, I did fall in love with it immediately. It’s such a pleasant, warm color, it has - ahem - limestone and arches and murals, it somehow manages not to be noisy even with the endless crowds of people trickling in and out, and it offers a breathtaking view of the mountains from the walls, on all sides. At some point I managed to sneak away from the group and find a place with not another soul in it; I just stood quietly on the wall, listening to the squeaking of the little bright green parrots, watching the inevitable fog, feeling the warm breeze and nearly purring with pleasure. :) I don't think I would like to go back in time and live in Amer Fort several centuries back, especially as a woman, but if someone offered me a spot on the castle wall to stand on once a week or so, I don't think I'd say no.
It took us quite a bit of time to complete the tour of Amer Fort - and I’m pretty sure we only saw a little of it. The next stop was at the Jantar Mantar observatory, where I regretted to have forgotten most of my high school astronomy course. The guide didn’t seem to be too good at it either, so I had to be happy with just a walk among all the instruments. It gave me, personally, a rather eerie feeling: when I was a child, I’d often a have a nightmare about being in a room with a lot of strange shapes that suddenly started to grow and squeeze all the air out of me. Well, with the look of those astronomical tools, walking in Jantar Mantar felt like revisiting that old childhood nightmare! I was half-curious if the dream would return, actually. As it turned out, it didn’t. :) But anyway, seeing an observatory that size was a really interesting experience, and if I were to go there again, I’d go equipped with some preliminary reading.
In the evening, we got to see another former royal residence, City Palace, part of which was presented to the town to be used as a museum. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden inside, and the exhibits are pretty awesome! There were cotton clothes that I kept mistaking for silk, such fine fabric it was, the amount and quality of the embroidery made me gasp (and I daresay I know something about embroidery myself), and the colors were a little surprising, because they didn’t look half as bright as what we get to see in historical movies. Either the colors have faded over all those years, or we’re dealing with Alternate History in movies, as usual. *chuckle* Both possible, I suppose.
The other exhibition was probably even more exciting, because it was a small arsenal of different weapons (yeah, I’m a girl, so what?). I think I was the most impressed with inlaid sword hilts; you know, the very idea of first making a nice, elegant, balanced sword and then spending weeks on decorating its hilt, making the weapon both deadly and beautiful. A really poetic approach.
…And wow, I only covered one town, and this entry is already looking quite long. I think I’m going to break my report into several parts, just to make it easier to read. Meanwhile, here are the pictures I took in Jaipur:
TBC!