Jaipur- One for the Ladies

En route to Jaipur we had a whistle stop in Delhi where we took the opportunity to visit Jama Masjid- the largest mosque in India. We were denied entry in our first visit to Delhi as we then arrived at sunset, one of their prayer times. This time we tool full advantage, spending an hour or two viewing the hazy city from one of the towering minarets.

After breakfast we hightailed it back to the station for a further three hour delay on a rat platform. In our lively crammed carriage we befriended a wedding troupe, seventeen family members, bride included heading to Jaipur for a three day wedding celebration. They were great fun and the best part was that they fed us like one of the family and my Indian best friend accessorised me in a bindi to match my outfit.

We had a fantastic time in Jaipur. We stumbled across a lovely guest house with amazing food and a great city view. The next morning we arose well rested and ready to face the day. We opted to take a walking tour of the old city and it’s sites. On stopping to catch our breath and consult our map, we got the low down on the best spots from a really friendly local. He recommended a high rooftop across the road where we could view the city and orientate ourselves ‘and throw away the map’ as he said. He was right, the rooftop was incredibly helpful as was the local it came with, he told us which spots where worth visiting, which were overpriced and which were just worth photographing from the outside. Armed with this arsenal of information we made light work of the pink hued city centre and the sites it contained with plenty of time to catch the 20 cent bus (local info) to Amber.

Amber is a spectacular fort and palace 12 km outside of Jaipur. We were trilled that we had the time to visit. It’s a beautiful medieval, Moorish looking, muslim, Lord of the Rings-esque fort. The walls up to the city resembled those great ones in China. The palace, although in the process of restoration was still most definitely worth a visit.

We amused ourselves imagining our place in the ancient palace, thinking what it would have been like to have lived there in that bygone era. Naturally we set our musing at the level of king and queen rather than toilet clearer or eunuch! At sunset we returned to the pink city and finished our walking tour at an excellent Thali restaurant. Thali, similar to the Dal Bhat we ate in Nepal, is a meal containing mini portions of various dishes. It’s a great choice when you can’t decide what dish you’d like to eat and usually very cheap. But the best thing about Thali is that it’s unending! This particular restaurant specialised in Thali and we ordered the ‘executive’ menu. We were served enormous silver platters containing ten to twelve mini silver bowls housing curries, lentils, vegetables, pickles, sauces and sweets. In the centre of the platter rice, chapatti (flat circular bread) and poppadoms were served. As soon as you ate through the bowl’s contents, they are promptly refilled and continue to do so until you strongly protest. When Thali is good, it’s very, very good! We ate to our hearts content, as we had another overnight train ahead of us to do noting but digest.

Chandigarh and the Fantasy Rock Garden

After partition in 1947, India decided to create a perfect city as the capital of the newly bordered Punjab. After architectural deliberation Mr. Le Corbusier’s city plan was chosen, resulting in what seems to us like ‘America town’- with hotel prices to almost match! Chandigarh is all square blocks, straight streets and a surprising large dose of green. We bedded in zone 22, ate in zone 25 and toured in zones 17 and 22. If this sounds impersonal- it is! Despite this, we did like Chandigarh. During our time there the sky was smiling at us, and I don’t mean this metaphorically. A rare coupling of the moon in it’s first phase, looking like a smiling mouth, and the stars Jupiter and Venus shining directly above it acted like eyes, together gave the effect of a smiling face. Perhaps it was Nek Chand’s Fantasy Rock Garden that led the sky to smile as a visit there definitely put a smile to our faces!

Nek Chand was stationed in Chandigarh in 1950 as a road inspector He occupied a piece of jungle land where he hermitly worked on creating his fantasy rock figures. As raw materials he used everything around, from broken crockery, toilet bowls, bangles, electric sockets and general trash. He toiled away for 15 years with his unusual pastime until his creations were accidentally discovered when the government we clearing up the wasteland. Surprised and excited by his unusual recycling skills the government gave Nek the whole area to turn into a park, some staff and a wage to devote his time solely to expanding the marvelous collection. He is now over 80 years old and still going strong.

The garden/maze is delightful. We imagined we had entered a parallel universe where all the strange figures came alive at night like in Toy Story or Night at the Museum, except that Tim Burton would definitely be directing the action. I’ll let Malachy’s artistic renderings speak for themselves.

Dharamasala and the Dalai Lama

Due to a little Delhi Belly on my part, we decided not to catch the bus with the gang, however the next day in McLeod Ganj (4km above Dharamasala) shortly after arriving we ran into them- the town is that small! McLeod Ganj is the residence of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet. This northern hill station was very much like being back in Nepal for us- definitely quite different to everywhere else in India. It’s a major centre for Buddism and Tibetan culture. We met lots of volunteers who worked on community projects focused on the Tibetan refugee community We ourselves volunteered one afternoon to teach English conversation class. It turned out to be actually more of an informal chat with some monks then a strict teaching class. Malachy’s student was pretty much fluent in English describing to him his escape over the Himalayans from Tibet, his beliefs and his daily routine. He was a most interesting character. Perhaps I started on the wrong foot with mine by asking was he married and did he have kids! His English level was low and he confided that he rarely spoke during conversation class thus I think he found this 'one to one' session a little intimidating. However, after establishing how many brothers and sisters he had and his favourite season he eventually became more talkative, telling me about his life in the monastery.

Generally, Tibetans escape on a harrowing two/four week journey walking only at night until they reach Nepal. There is a refugee center in Kathmandu, here they attend to the refugees’ frostbitten weary starved bodies. Sometimes limbs are amputated, unfortunately some Tibetans are sent back and the really lucky ones expatriated to Dharamasala and in the case of the monks and nuns, to monasteries in Southern India. My student told me how he was placed in a monastery down south but he didn’t enjoy the experience as he felt alien there. The climate was much to hot and flat for him. He prefers living in the Tibetesque McLeod Ganj where he is close to a fellow friend from his monastery in Lhasa. We learned a lot about the Chinese occupation of Tibet from the museum. Basically the atrocities are horrific and all we can say here is FREE TIBET.

It was really surreal visiting the government buildings of a country outside of that country! There is an office called ''Tibetan Torture Survivors Program- Department of Health'' We spent a lovely day breakfasting, laughing, hiking, chatting, dining, drinking and card playing with our jeep and bus friends. A fun farewell to Dharamasala. It ever you feel the goodwill urge to volunteer abroad, this is a cracking place to do it.

Pakistan vs Hindustan

A sardine tin accelerated us to the infamously entertaining India and Pakistan (Attari/Wager) border 30 km west of Amritsar and 20 km from Lahore, Pakistan.

“Every late afternoon, just before sunset, the Indian and Pakistani military meet at the border to engage in an extraordinary 20-minute ceremony of pure theatre. The border crossing ceremony elicits machismo and posturing from the proud young soldiers on both sides, but also, despite the two countries’ uneasy relationship, a stunning display of harmony…” so says the Lonely Planet, and we have to agree. It was mental, the tallest, broadest, loudest Indians and Pakistanis you could imagine face off against each other, sending high kicks that skim past each others ears, all this while wearing massive peacock hats on their heads. The crowds love it, chanting Hindustan (India) and spurring their ‘side’ on. Queue the music and the women crowded onto the road en masse dancing and shaking their bootys as if there were in a Bollywood 'So you thing you can dance' dance off! While the men retaliated their movements from the stands as if they were the cast of Grease!

There was high entertainment in our jeep also as we were made up of a great bunch including; four fun Indians, who were on holidays from Bangalore, two Americans, a Kiwi and an Israeli. Although the high spirits were interrupted at one point by our lunatic driver crashing into the car ahead- thankfully it was a minor hit and nobody was hurt bar the bumper. Excepting the Indians who had their own plans we all agreed to meet the next day to catch the bus to Dharamasala.

Amritsar and the Guru’s Turban

Our passage back to India was fairly routine: we bussed it to the border, crossed, bussed it to Gorakpur (on which we met aalway couple- what are the odds?), waited until 6 am for our 11pm train on the rat frequented platform, eventually arrived in Lucknow with no time to explore but what a nice railway station- we’d recommend a visit! We eventually arrived in Amritsar via another overnight train…phew!

What a new Indian experience! I’m not sure if Nepal revived us or our attitudes have drastically but everything seemed mystical, the people extremely friendly and the place almost clean (well- less filthy). Punjab (Northwestern state) is known for its friendly people and we’d like to highlight this claim. Their genuineness, warmth and willingness to help us was amazing! The main reason for visiting Amritsar is to visit the Golden Temple- the Sikh’s holiest shrine.

Sikhism is the religion of the majority of the Punjabi people. It’s the one with all the Gurus, topknots and turbans. It’s a belief in the equality of all beings that lies at the heart of Sikhism. They are a truly inclusive people and this is evident in a visit to the Golden Temple. For a start, there is no entrance fee. People from all creeds, sects and walks of life are welcome as pilgrims or visitors we must first remove our shoes, wash our feet and cover our heads with the scarves provided thus enabling us worthy to enter the stunning complex. It appears like a Taj Mahal for the every man. The Golden Temple floating in the centre of the sacred pool is supposed to be gilded with 750kgs of pure gold!

A bridge over the pool leads to the temple, this bridge is a throbbing heaving queue of people which we accidentally avoided. We somehow managed to follow a few old men down the OUT queue and into the side door of the temple (walking all the while past the 2 hour long queue of friendly people). Inside we witnessed a live televised guru chanting, singing and praying. We couldn’t stay long inside as the queue and attendants ushered you into the upper chambers. The atmosphere was electrically charged with spirituality. We arrived as the Gurus were singing and the whole crowd joined in peacefully, joyously in unison. It was a priviledge to share the experience and one we will never forget. Back outside we felt like Guru Malachy and Stephanie as asmany photos were taken of us as of the temple.

In the temple complex you can stay in large dorms or eat in the canteen all for free or for a welcome donation- although we opted for a room in town.

Its Twins

The Elephant Breeding ground had very welcome visit from the stork as one of the elephants had bared twins 2 weeks previously. We were excited to see the little tots. Our modus apparatus was via an elephant who was parked outside our cabin ready to take us on our morning safari. We boarded our elephant as you would do a small plane by means of a tall stair tower. Rid yourselves of any notion of a velvety Maharajah throne. Atop our elephant was a wooden box. Well, there was a slab of wood with a little banister around the edge which we had to climb in and sit back to back with our legs hanging out of each corner. We thought it was snug until we laboured into the next guest house and picked up another couple for our box. That made four of us back to back star like in the box and the Mahou (driver) on the elephants head. Five in total. Ridiculous.

Malachy knew after the first few steps it was going to be a ball breaker. He wasn’t disappointed. We ambled through forested national park, our eyes pealed in both anticipation and fright for a rare sighting of the elusive Bengal Tiger. But this isn’t the life of Pi, we were content with a wonderful meeting with the endangered Indian rhino- quite a treat. The Rhino looks like a prehistoric creature; a cross between a large armadillo and a small elephant. It’s skin looks like plates of leathered amour molded for his irregular body. Battle ready…except our Rhino seemed to have long lost his fight even in the process of five elephants with 25 people on board snapping and flashing, oohing and awing, he had no notion of charging or escaping from the loose circle we had surrounded him in. What he did was this: paused, glanced, ate and peed. Magnificent! Our safari was a success! We also saw some deer with huge Christmas antlers, an eagle, peacocks, a colourful kingfisher and walked into lots of cobwebs so there was definitely spiders too.

We dismounted 3 hours later and watched the elephant bathe in the river. We decided not to lend a hand with the scrubbing as many tourists we paying to do but had fun instead watching them fall off the elephants back into the muddy water and being showered by jets the elephants trunk provided- a power shower that a Nepalese guest house would envy.

Our Canoe river safari awaited us after lunch. Our Nepalese canoe was a low lying crocodile like boat that seemed to be carved from a single hollowed out trunk and once we sat into the flat bottom our sides were hardly floating an inch above water. We glided peacefully down river for an hour barely making an audible ripple not even disturbing the Siberian migrating ducks resting in the water. According to our guide our mission was to spot the 2 types of crocodile: the man-eating crocodile and a more peaceful death trap. Mission accomplished. We saw many of each of the ancient looking feared ones.

We trekked back through tall elephant grass (a favourite of the tiger) thus caution was had and we eventually wound up at the elephant breeding centre. Here we saw the new borns who were walking, talking, 2 foot tall mammals, trying to eat like their mother with amateur success. Not bad for 2 week olds and definitely the biggest babies we’ve ever seen. Incredibly cute! Wow! What an adventurous day.

The Chitwan Detour

We loaded up snail like carrying our heavy load on our backs and said goodbye to Kathmandu. It took three attempts to locate the bus stop to Chitwan, which naturally didn’t leave from where we were originally dropped in Kathmandu…nor from the bus station, but from outside a random hotel not more than 300 meters from our own accommodation was. The frantic trotting around for the previous hour was all in vain and we arrived at the bus hot, sweaty and late, but thankfully it was delayed for a further 20 minutes, allowing us to breathe. There was a bright side however, we got great seats at the front near the driver and we were on the road to Chitwan, yay!

Now this road, this is what they’re talking about when they recall mangled cars, jeeps hanging precariously over cliff edges and last nights bus crashes being cleared for today’s re-enactments, and there were many. We were frequently held up road side as two large vehicles detangled themselves from each other after a misjudged over-taking-on-a-dangerous-blind-bend encounter. Thankfully we had a very calm Zen bus driver who delivered us safely to Chitwan.

Chitwan is beautiful, a great surprise stop on our trip as we hadn’t originally planned on visiting. Our previous plan of action was to take a bus straight from Kathmandu to Darjeeling in India, which hugs the eastern border of Nepal. Due to a huge landslide the road was closed and the route impossible but we will get there in a few weeks time. So down south to Chitwan it was for three days of Jungle fun.

Chitwan is Nepal’s third largest attraction, it is a huge 932 sq km nature reserve. It houses the endangered Indian Rhino, tigers, leopards and apparently rare Gangetic dolphins. We found nice accommodation at the Jungle Safari Camp and went for a long walk through what seemed to us to be a living folk village. The area is home to the Tharu people who live a very traditional lifestyle. We must have arrived at hay harvesting time because mounds of the stuff was piled hut high across the village. Hens, chicks, ducks, geese, goats and pigs live domestically alongside the people some in interestingly constructed pens.

Sitting riverside with a fresh cool juice in our hand, we viewed a most spectacular sunset over the river made more extraordinary by the bathing elephants, flying storks(don’t want to see them bearing gifts for another few years!) and creeping crocs. Malachy felt the familiarity of Africa in the surroundings.