05-05-2006
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#47 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Got Wednesday already covered. Here is one addition to it though... while I was writing that report in the business center of the hotel in Agra the girl working there suddenly took a chair, sat behind me and read interested what I was writing and looked at what I was doing while occasionally asking me questions about myself. This is a strange behaviour for us. But for understanding this you need to know that there are so many people in India with lots of them living in the same place that they hardly have any private life. So the behaviour did not really astonish me (I know she didn't mean to misbehave she just acted according to her upbringing).
Thursday April 27 This was one of the most interesting days of the whole trip although we didn't visit many monuments. We left the hotel in Agra early in the morning and our guide came with us to Fatehpur Sikri where there is another Fort. The monuments started to repeat themselves a little bit as in Delhi and Agra most of them are built of red sandstone and white marble and the architecture is very similar. The one in Fatehpur Sikri was a little bit different only because two of the palaces in it had blue roofs. What was interesting in the Fort though was seeing how they are restoring it. They are doing everything manually even the water gets brought in buckets (I have pics of that). We are used to seeing restoring of walls and pavements ot be done with the help of machines but that's not how they did it. It's mostly work done with their own hands. And what is different there as well is that women are doing heavy physical work. Actually a lot of times when we saw workers (even building more lanes on the street between Agra and Jaipur) the women were working heavily while the men were lying in the shadow. Another observation was that for each person who actually worked you saw at least 2 or 3 more who watched that person working...   From Fatehpur Sikri we had another 6 hours drive to Ranthambore which is a National Park in the middle of a desert. This drive was an adventure as there is no highway and we drove through little villages which most tourists do not see. At one point the street consisted only of one asphalted lane and overladed trucks continued to come towards us so Odey had to go off the road all the time. I asked him why we were always the ones to go off the road and he told me that we were going downhill (no hill to see anywhere...  ) so we had to go off. But I guess it was just easier for us with the Jeep than for the fragile looking trucks. When trucks or cars break down (which happens rather often and this again is no surprise ) there is nothing like a warning triangle. What they do is they just collect stones and surround the broken down vehicles with stones. So this is the sign that the vehicle is not moving (needless to say that from far away it is not easy to see this... ).In the area we passed a lot of brickstones are made. So we saw high roofs which had awfully black smoke coming out. Don't know what they used for burning the brick stones (maybe used tires). Public traffic in that area seemed to be scarse as most of the tuk tuks were overloaded. We saw a lot of busses where people were sitting on top as well. As there were trees near the street I was wondering whether every now and then a bus looses a passenger due to him getting swiped down by a branch of a tree (yeah, I know I am being naughty... )We noticed then that the race of the caprines was changing as they had very long ears (looked like a mixture of caprine and bunny) but they might have been easier to handle as we saw children dragging the animals along by their ears. The water buffalos were different too as they had much more hair. Btw. all the milk you get to drink in India is from water buffalos not from cows. It gets mixed with water as it is too thick otherwise.When we arrived in Ranthamborne Odey seemed to be a little bit worried about us. He was a really nice guy and when there were no guides with us we had fun with him (when there were guides the hierarchy just allowed him to greet us all other conversation was done via the guide). So he told us that opium was grown in the area and people are smoking it in water pipes. And as he said that we were impressing people so much he asked us not to go home to anybody when getting invited (which we wouldn't have done anyways though). But it was nice of him to warn us. The ressort itself was very basic we didn't have a phone in the room but lots of insects instead... But that was not really surprising so we just accepted our fate (without liking the insects though  )As we were nearly the only persons in the ressort we got a lot of extra attention again. When we went to dinner at the main house in the evening the security guy came rushing and illuminated the already lit up way for us with his flashlight... Unfortunately that evening I started to be sick in the stomach so I didn't eat much indian food any more in the remaining days.
Last edited by Andiline; 05-05-2006 at 05:40 AM.. |
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05-05-2006
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#48 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Friday April 28
Had to get up at 5.30 am as the first safari was to start at 6 am. At the entrance gate of the park lots of street vendors and we don't have much of a chance to ignore them as our jeep is completely open and we can't just close the window. Fortunately we don't have to wait long till our guide comes back with the entrance tickets. Once in the park we drive around. What we see first are lots of monkeys. They just look at us but don't come near us. As in Ranthambore National Park the visitors do not feed the animals they are not interested in getting near the jeeps. We see lots of deer, some blue antelopes (Odey had already shown two to us and told us that they are mean animals and dangerous for human beings), a gazelle, 4 small crocodiles, lots of peacocks and a leopard. We are being told that we are very fortunate to have seen a leopard but somehow I am not really impressed. The whole morning tour is rather a delusion. Coming back from the safari we are the only guests left in the resort. The guy from reception brings us our breakfast to our bungalow (he does likewise with lunch and if we had wanted that they would have brought us dinner over as well). We spend the day on the veranda of our bungalow as there is nothing else to do. The pool has no shade whatsoever and we have not intention to get grilled in the sun with 100+ degrees. After lunch suddenly there is a cow in the garden but after about 10 minutes someone comes to take her away. 3 PM is the next tour and we have a different guide this time and an english couple in the jeep tells us he is great. Actually he is. Once in the park we drive another route than in the morning and after one hour of driving the big moment has come: there is the TIGER. These animals can hide so well that we know at least one jeep passed where she was and they didn't see her (it's a she). Kerstin (my friend) has to show me where she is as at first I don't see her. The camera has some problems detecting her as she is in the gras but we get some good shots. After having watched at her for about 15 minutes we drive on (she is asleep by that time anyway) and suddenly we come to a lake where deer, wild boar, peacocks and other animals are drinking. This is so beautiful that this compensates the rather boring morning safari. What is curious in the Park is that they have some fountains and there is always at least one person watching it. They have to stay 6 days near the fountain and then someone else comes to take over. Don't know why this has to be done. In the evening after dinner we talk to the guy from reception and he as lot of fun as he tells me he has 6 children. Of course we are impressed as 6 children are a lot. But he was just joking and is happy that we fell for it. Then he explains to us that hindus marry either as a child (then have to wait 4 years before the bride goes to the house of the groom), at 18 or later at 25. He told us he was not yet married and had still 4 years time so we could deduce that he is 21 years old. |
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05-05-2006
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#49 (permalink) | |
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Non-aggressive Dutch dude
 Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Posts: 8,167
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Quote:
Including predators. My guess is that the watchers were there in case human predators (poachers), interested in certain animals, would show up. Since it's a National Park, hunting/killing animals is probably prohibited. |
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05-06-2006
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#50 (permalink) | |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Quote:
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05-06-2006
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#51 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Have to continue with trip and pics later on. For those of you who are curious here is another story...
In India marriages are arranged by the parents. Once a suitable match has been found bride and groom meet and they still have the chance to say 'no'. If they don't they have to go to a priest who does or does not give his final agreement. If he does he calculates the right wedding date. In the sunday newspaper there are matrimonial adds and here are a few examples (I find them sort of funny ):http://www.timesmatri.com/timesmatri...74851&flag=yes http://www.timesmatri.com/timesmatri...ofileId=356123 http://www.timesmatri.com/timesmatri...eId=sunbud0209 When I read them in the newspaper often 'well shaved' was a criterium for possible grooms. As lots of indians have moustaches this was sort of surprising. If someone wants to read more adds, here is the link... http://www.timesmatri.com/timesmatri.../jsp/index.jsp Andrea |
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05-07-2006
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#52 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Good morning, it's time for some more pics....
Well, he always opened the door for us....  This is a close up of the Taj Mahal.  This is Agra, the city around the Taj Mahal.  Here we were already on our way to the National Park and we stopped in Fatehpur Sikri (don't remember who lived there):  And these are the manual works I told you about earlier....   Here are a few impressions from our drive after that (I could post so many pics from that drive...). That train was NOT standing...  The villages got more colourful...  I always liked the colourful sarees...  Guess who got off the street? 
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05-07-2006
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#53 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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And here we were on the safaris...
Lots of monkeys (but that one seemed to be comfortable enough).  A gazelle  Street vendors at the entrance....  This was the place which I just loved because it was so peaceful...  And here we are... here are the tigers!!!!   
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05-07-2006
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#54 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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Here are the last installments of pics....
First Jaipur, the 'Pink city' This expected us when we arrived at our hotel. Wa not specifically for us though The music they made was of the kind 'can someone please give them some medication against the pain'?  All buildings have this colour that's why it's called pink city... the city was painted in this colour when in eighteenhundredsomething the husband of the english queen came to visit.  And this is the famous 'Palace of the winds' (which is actually only a facade and behind there is nothing... ) Then we went to Fort Amber which was very different from the red sandstone buildings we had seen in Agra and Delhi     I liked the hairdressers in India you could see everywhere...  This is where the Maharaja of Jaipur is still living.  And on our way back to the hotel we came across this procession. Don't know for or against whom this was... 
Last edited by Andiline; 05-07-2006 at 04:55 AM.. |
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05-07-2006
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#55 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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And lastly here are the pics from Samode Palace where we stayed the last two days....
This was our room (we have been upgraded to a deluxe suite)  Unfortunately this was NOT in our room...   This is the marble pool where we spent most of the time....  And here are some more impressions from the Palace. It was a dream staying there and although we wanted to go home we would have liked to stay there a little bit longer.    
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05-07-2006
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#56 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Cologne, Germany
Posts: 9,870
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And to complete it here is the last part of the trip report...
Jaipur April 29 and 30 On the first safari that morning we had 4 tigers but as far as I know we saw only 2 of them. The other two were hidden somewhere or I might even have them on the pics but they are hidden so well that you can't see them... After the morning safari Oday came to pick us up and we went to the next stop Jaipur. Jaipur was different from the other cities we had seen so far. Not only because the buildings are painted in pink, this city had something special although we could not quite name exactly why. From our room on the 6th floor we should have had a great view over the city and the surrounding mountains and we had it when we arrived. Unfortunately we didn't take any pics then. Later on it became foggy and in the evening there was a big sandstorm. The pool in this hotel was ugly and didn't have any shade so we stayed in our room where we got disturbed about every half hour by someone. One asked whether we wanted tea bags, the next wanted to know whether we had any laundry... my guess was that among the 'guys' word had spread that there were two european women in the room (one of which didn't even wear trousers but that was because the inflammation of my leg had opened up and was an open wound then) and everybody wanted to have alook. When we finally put the 'do not disturb'-sign on the door, they finally had to leave us alone. It was in Jaipur that we got a little bit depressed as it is not so nice to have to stare at the walls of your hotel room all the time...The visit to Fort Amber and the Maharajas Palace were nice though but visiting the Observatory in the heat at noon (it was about 108 degrees) was not nice as there was no shade. Our guide got a bad vote from us for that. One of the things we discovered in India was that you have to comment on everything. In every hotel we had to fill out a comment form, for each tour guide we had and then again one for the whole tour... Samode May 1 to 3 We were not unhappy about having to leave Jaipur. Although we had liked that city it was not really great having to stay in the room most of the time. That morning my friend got diarrhoe too (I already had it for a couple of days) so we both did not really feel well. But then we arrived in Samode... it was what we had dreamed of. To arrive at the inner courtyard where Odey would drop us off we had to go through 3 gates and then to arrive at the reception we had to walk through another two. The days in Samode were a dream. Not only because the staff left was very inobtrusive but because although not staring much and leaving us alone they were always there to do everything for us (and when I write everything this means everything!). They would put us the towels on the chairs at the pool or bring us the plates so we could fill them at the buffet in the evening and and and... The staff was great and we finally felt completely at ease. Spent most of the day at the pool where usually there weren't many people. On the second day we had an Ayurveda massage at the Spa and that was nice too. I would have liked to use the jacuzzi in the white marble house but unfortunately my leg had this open wound and I didn't want to get any dirt in it (there were lots of doves who drank from the water at the pool so I didn't wanna risk anything). One evening there was a traditional rajastani welcome ceremony for a german tour group and they had fireworks and illuminated the palace. That was nice too as we were allowed to watch. During the 2 days we stayed there we discovered lots of places within the palace. It is a huge palace and I am sure we didn't see all of it. Our room was just great, we both had our own Air Condition device and so far none of us had stayed in such a room before... we definitely enjoyed the two days there and were glad that we had made it a 2 days stay and not just an overnight like everybody else.... May 3 Uneventful... after breakfast Odey came to pick us up and we returned to Delhi. As our flight home would depart only at 2:30 am we had booked a room at a nearby country club so we spent the day at the pool of the country club till finally in the evening it was time to go to the airport. The airport is a little bit chaotic but we finally made it into our plane and then we were... BACK HOME...
Last edited by Andiline; 05-07-2006 at 05:42 AM.. |
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05-07-2006
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#57 (permalink) |
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my own peon
  Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Body in San Marcos Tx....Tankah in my mind
Posts: 37,180
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 as always, great detailed report and awesome pics.........I like the architecture but I don't think India is for me though...........thanks for your work putting this together andrea, it was very interesting |
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