INDIA
Going to India is like going to a different planet. Many other places one visits are really a lot like the USA. But India is totally different.
Everyone who likes to travel, and has the time, the means, and good health should visit India at least once.
There are some challenges to visiting India. But visiting India is worth it. You have to very carefully protect your passport and valuables. You have to drink and wash teeth with only bottled water, and you have to watch what you eat. Even then, it's likely that you will have a bout or two with 24-hour diarrhea. You have to be careful to not get run over and to not stumble on the obstacles and holes in the walkways nor step in a cow pie. You have to endure the heat when not in a hotel or bus. You can expect crowded conditions on the streets. You have to put up with the beggars and the extremely aggressive hawkers when you are on the streets or entering or leaving your bus; it's generally not a problem when you're actually touring a monument or temple. We were told to ignore them and that “no” just means “maybe” to them. In Varanasi we encountered women beggars trying to capitalize on their infant children they were carrying out in the hot sun. Som says begging is often a chosen profession and beggars can often “earn” more than laborers.
India is diverse. You have to be careful about generalizations because, in many cases, opposite things are true depending on location and other factors.
India is a land of contrasts. One is the contrast between the rich and the poor.
India is a land of many religions. (Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, a few Buddhists, a few Christians.) The majority religion nationwide (about 70%) is Hinduism. We were told that people of different religions get along well together – until stirred up by the politicians.
I've always know that Hinduism is polytheistic and Hindus are idol worshipers. But I learned that Hindus believe in the oneness of their gods. They believe there is one universal soul or cosmic force and that all people and living beings are part of it. And their ultimate goal is to reunite with it (which seems to me a contradiction if they are already part of it). They consider that their individual gods are various manifestations of this universal soul. Hinduism is so old – thousands of years -- that no one can say when it started, and there is no known founder. And there is no hierarchy or central authority. The priesthood is passed down father-to-son as the profession of the Brahmin caste, and priests are paid by the donations of worshippers. A family has a family priest.
Astrology is very important to Hindus. Important things are done at auspicious times.
Karma is very important. You build karma by doing good deeds – including giving to beggars and feeding the cows in the streets. Your karma determines your next life.
India is hot. And this was northern India. It's a dry heat. Fortunately we had air conditioning in the hotels, in the buses, and in the nice shops we visited.
Water is scarce. It is often hand-carried in jars from old-fashioned hand pumps. In Jaipur we were told the water table is receding rapidly, and wells are failing.
India is dry. They get monsoon rains, but apparently very little rain at other times.
Most of what we saw of India was mostly flat.
Fuel is generally “basic.” Firewood is scarce. In the country, dried cow (or water buffalo) dung is routinely used for fuel for cooking. A mixture of grain is used as fuel to fire pottery or to make bricks.
Cell phones are plentiful in India. India has more of them than does the US.
Driving in India, be it a rickshaw or a tourist bus or a motorcycle, be it in the city or in the country, is a miracle to behold.
We were told that there is no resentment among the poor toward the rich. Hindus believe their condition was “meant to be” and was determined by their behavior in their past life/lives.
Caste remains important in the psyche of Indians even though the constitution declares that all people are equal. Politicians seek to capitalize on people's loyalty to their caste. Couples patronizing a sperm bank demand to know the caste of the donor. There are four main castes and at least hundreds of sub-castes. A trade or profession is passed down father-to-son through the generations in a sub-caste.
Most marriages are arranged by the two families. The system apparently works quite well in most cases. However, when it works poorly, I think there is little the wife can do. Couples (who usually have not known each other) get acquainted during the many parties and rituals in their multi-day wedding (and in another way). Advertisements for prospective brides and for prospective grooms are place in newspapers.
A woman's life is different if she is a widow. Widows usually don't remarry. It would be extremely difficult for a widow in a village to remarry.
The dowry is important and has become, in many cases, a demand instead of a gift.
A family in India is an extended family who all live in the same building, the sons staying and the daughters joining the family they marry into. Grandparents on the bottom floor, children and grandchildren on second and third floors.
A marriage joins not only a couple but their families and, in Hindusim, is not just for life but for several lives to come. It seems a contradiction to me that conflicts over the dowry are sometimes a source of strife between the joined families and sometimes leads to murder or suicide of the wife.
It seems to me that India's biggest problem is overpopulation. John Sollid says India has had a population growth rate of 6% for many years. Som says the politicians will not touch the issue of birth control. Too sensitive. You can't get reelected that way.
Indians are socially conservative. There is no public display of affection, not even hand holding. Women's legs are always covered and not with transparent stockings (usually with ankle-length dresses, sometimes with thick, opaque stockings). Men's legs are always covered too, for that matter.
There are virtually no fences in the countryside. You can look across flat farmland as far as you can see, and you don't see a fence. In the region where camels abound, herds of female camels and their young are driven across the countryside, and the landowners apparently don't mind. Sometimes you see a group of 20 or 30 goats, always with a herdsman.
Animals do not graze in pastures. Cows and bulls wander in the streets. (They have owners and are said to come home at night to be fed, but we saw them in the streets late at night too. They're a source of milk, and feeding them is a source of karma for the people.) Kolkata, by law, is different -- no cows and no draft animals in the streets and strict controls on dogs. I think that is to avoid having droppings in the streets. Water buffalo (never used as draft animals but used for milk) are tied up in the farmyard.
Security is heavy. It may not be high-tech. (Policemen carry old bolt action rifles.) Policemen and guards sometimes seem to be almost ubiquitous. There are almost always two or more of them together. There are lots of walls and gates in the cities. Hotel complexes, monuments, temples, schools, universities are always walled and gated and often guarded. John Stewart says the walls are to keep people from camping in the yards. Security was very high in Agra. (Hotel guards looked in the trunks of all vehicles. Entering the hotel was like airport security.)
People revere Mahatma Ghandi as the father of their country. His philosophy was nonviolence. But there is violence in India. The newspapers contain stories of murders – not unlike in the USA.
Security was extremely high for the elections (many policemen at every poling station and motor traffic halted in the city) and with good reason. Nineteen people were killed in connection with the elections. There is a group of violent maoists call Naxals (named for a place name) who seek to disrupt elections in certain regions and are responsible for most of this. But voters generally were not deterred by the possibility of violence.
Cricket appears to be the most popular sport in India.
India has a rich history. India has many wonderful historical sites to visit and many interesting temples. In many cases, the grounds of these places are very large, very green, well landscaped with shrubs, and lovely.
Neighborhood parks exist in the cities, though they tend to be dry.
The hotels in which we stayed were all very nice. Wi-fi was generally offered. In two cases wi-fi was free. Sometimes, and especially in one case, the elevators are wholly inadequate – too small, too few, unpredictable.
The large air-conditioned coaches (buses) we experienced were all very nice, and the drivers were excellent -- in fact amazing the way they dealt with the crowded, sometimes difficult and chaotic driving conditions.
We were each asked what was our highlight. To me there were many highlights and it's impossible to single out one of them and I said so. But I also said a highlight for me was to ride the rickshaws – both in old Delhi and in Varanasi – and see the scenes along the streets and the chaotic, diverse, super-heavy traffic on the streets.
Indian English is different from American or British or Austarlian English. It's hard for me to understand. I don't think any amount of practice can change an Indian's way of speaking English. Invariably, different syllables of words are emphasized than we are used to.
Whereas American businesses tend to operate with a bare minimum of employees, this is not the case in India. It is required by law that buses above a certain size have a driver's helper as well as a driver.
There are some middle class families in India who have risen to that status through education and diligence. We met one of them.
There are families of great inherited wealth in India whose ancestors were royalty or semi-royalty. They are very proud, dignified people. They are more traditional than the middle class. We met one of them.
Men who would be Maharajas, had the pre-independcnce system continued, invariably enjoy great respect, even admiration from the people. If they choose to enter polities, they can get elected and reelected as members of parliament without affiliating with a party. Villagers come to them to mediate/arbitrate/settle their disputes.
Politics are multi-party, and people tend to be poorly versed in the issues. So they tend to vote for a name – like Ghandi. Politicians tend to prefer name-calling and smaller issues to the important issues. Consequently many people, especially young people, are turned off and don't vote.
In the newspapers I constantly saw differences, which I didn't always understand, between Indian democracy and American democracy, and other interesting differences. The Election Commission is very important. The law against hate speech is very important. I read of an instance where our principal against double jeopardy was violated. A politician was jailed for hate speech, then with the blessing of the Supreme Court and with a promise of good behavior, given a furlough to campaign. Shop owners were accused of encroachment on the width of their street. And on and on.
The residential real estate in some areas in Delhi is among the most expensive in the world.
Our guide Som was super-nice. Our step-on guides and our drivers were nice. Hotel personnel were nice. Both the middle class family and the wealthy family were gracious. The poor villagers and their children we encountered on the camel ride from the OAT camp were very friendly. Store clerks, although good salesmen, were at the same time gracious.
In the country, women as well as men work in the fields. In hotels some of the waiters and desk workers were women. Otherwise almost all workers we encountered were men – store clerks, hotel “maids,” drivers, guides, guards. Well, there were a few lady guards at airports.
We were told that in Delhi many wives go out to work. But in Agra, as in villages, this is not the case . Women there stay at home and take care of the household.
States in India apparently play a similar role as do states in the U.S. There are more than thirty of them, large and small. I don't remember the number. Delhi is not part of a state. It is the capital district, like our Washington, D.C. Kolkata, where we first visited, is the capital of West Bengal. We spent a fair amount of time in Uttar Pradash. We spent the most time in Rajahstan. The Rajputs are very proud of their heritage as warriors.
Indian cuisine is said to vary considerably from region to region. Indian foods tend to be spiced with curry. I don't like curry-spiced foods at all nor spicy foods in general. But not all of the food is spiced. I was able to stay well fed without eating spicy foods. This was especially true at breakfast.
Especially in the downtowns of old cities, the environment often appears old, run-down, shabby, dirty, and gritty.
A lot of work is done, on the farm and elsewhere, with hand tools. Draft animals are mainly used on the farm. In an extensive region in Rahjastan, the preferred draft animal is the camel, a native to India. There are no wild camels. We did see some nice tractors, but the average farmer does not own one.
Earth "ridges" about six inches high have been extensively formed manually in the flat, level fields to channel the flow of irrigation water. At least were we visited farms by the OAT camp, we were told irrigation is accomplished by pumping water from wells.
Woodlands are seldom or rarely seen, and very few trees are seen as you look out across the fields.
BHUTAN
Bhutan is a delightful little country to visit.
Bernie :-)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
DAY 28, APRIL 18, HOMEWARD
FLYING HOME
A great trip we've had.
To be going home we're glad.
Goodbye to Sikhs and Jains.
Long time spent in planes.
Wanting home food so bad.
FROM JFK AIRPORT
A clue we were without
As to how to get about
On the trains of New York City.
The Schardts on us took pity,
And they helped us out.
We boarded our British Airlines flight in Delhi about 2:30 AM. The flight was about eight hours, and the time change was 4-1/2 hours. The wide-body plane was full. We were comfortable. Helen slept a couple hours. I slept the whole time. They fed us a big breakfast. We arrived at Heathrow Airport in London just after daybreak.
The timing was good in that once we arrived at our departure gate we had to wait only half an hour to board our British Airlines flight to JFK Airport in New York. The flight to New York was about seven hours with a five-hour time change. I did some reading and a lot of snoozing and was comfortable. This wide-body plane was also full. They kept us well fed.
We weren't sure whether Hans would meet us at the airport when we arrived at about 11 AM. He did not. Helen reached him on his cell phone. Apparently he is driving back with Leo and Shelley from a week-long Easter stay in Cincinnatti. He said he would meet us tonight. Of course, it's not necessary for him to meet us.
We would have tried to get on a shuttle bus to the Pennsylvania Hotel downtown. We don't know the train system at all. Fortunately Helmut and Karen Schardt took us under their wing. They were taking the train to their other home on Long Island. We went together on the very modern Sky Train to a station where we got on a train to downtown, and they went another direction. Two stops and we were at Penn Station, and we walked across the street to the hotel. We managed all this fairly well with all our luggage. We were able to get a room overnight on the 12th floor. Airplane snoozing hadn't done the job, so we promptly took a very long nap until after dark in our room.
Then we went across the street to Penn Station for late night pizza and flan.
Bernie :-)
A great trip we've had.
To be going home we're glad.
Goodbye to Sikhs and Jains.
Long time spent in planes.
Wanting home food so bad.
FROM JFK AIRPORT
A clue we were without
As to how to get about
On the trains of New York City.
The Schardts on us took pity,
And they helped us out.
We boarded our British Airlines flight in Delhi about 2:30 AM. The flight was about eight hours, and the time change was 4-1/2 hours. The wide-body plane was full. We were comfortable. Helen slept a couple hours. I slept the whole time. They fed us a big breakfast. We arrived at Heathrow Airport in London just after daybreak.
The timing was good in that once we arrived at our departure gate we had to wait only half an hour to board our British Airlines flight to JFK Airport in New York. The flight to New York was about seven hours with a five-hour time change. I did some reading and a lot of snoozing and was comfortable. This wide-body plane was also full. They kept us well fed.
We weren't sure whether Hans would meet us at the airport when we arrived at about 11 AM. He did not. Helen reached him on his cell phone. Apparently he is driving back with Leo and Shelley from a week-long Easter stay in Cincinnatti. He said he would meet us tonight. Of course, it's not necessary for him to meet us.
We would have tried to get on a shuttle bus to the Pennsylvania Hotel downtown. We don't know the train system at all. Fortunately Helmut and Karen Schardt took us under their wing. They were taking the train to their other home on Long Island. We went together on the very modern Sky Train to a station where we got on a train to downtown, and they went another direction. Two stops and we were at Penn Station, and we walked across the street to the hotel. We managed all this fairly well with all our luggage. We were able to get a room overnight on the 12th floor. Airplane snoozing hadn't done the job, so we promptly took a very long nap until after dark in our room.
Then we went across the street to Penn Station for late night pizza and flan.
Bernie :-)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
DAY 27, APRIL 17, VARANASI, LAST DAY
HOLY SWIMMERS
We conclude our India surface skimming
By watching holy swimming.
Can you imagine
Swimmers in the Ganges,
All with Karma brimming!
Would you believe, we set out at 5:15 AM for our major adventure of the day. That was to return to the Ganges River and check out what goes on and how it looks there early in the morning. We had no rickshaw ride, but on our return we walked quite a ways on the streets back to our bus. Starting from the same ghat in the same boat as last night, we went downstream (southeast) instead of upstream like last night. People were taking their dips or swims in the river. At one location cremations were in progress. There are only two locations for cremations, which are done 24 hours a day. We saw a couple of priests conducting a ritual, and we saw several young men emulating a priest as they're learning to be priests.
Then we visited the temple which is not a temple. It is the Mother India Temple, built in 1936. It features an impressive relief map of India and its neighbors, about 40 feet square and done in Makrana marble. It's made up of carved marble blocks about a foot square.
Then we returned to the hotel for breakfast followed by about three hours of free time before departing homeward.
Dick Opsahl led a half-mile walk to Nehru park. There were only five of us. It's a nice little green space with a playground, some nice trees, and a concrete sidewalk “track” around inside it which Dick used for jogging at 6 AM yesterday morning. I was disappointed in not finding a stature of Jawaharlal Nehru or even the name “Nehru Park” posted.
It turns out that we made the local newspaper. There is a single color photograph of some us from yesterday morning's walk in which we are examining the registration card held up by a voter. It's not an English language paper. Dick asked the waitress at breakfast to translate the caption. It says: “The foreigners are taking photos of the voter.”
We had free time till noon. In the afternoon we flew to Delhi. It was about a two-hour flight, and we arrived about 5 PM. We were served a real meal with, would you believe, metal silverware.
We were bused to a nice hotel near Delhi where we were given rooms and had the opportunity to buy dinner get a little rest. We got to meet Som's wife Manisha and his eigh-year-old son Siddhartha. They had driven about 1-1/2 hours from their home to meet Som. We all gathered in their hotel room and Som presented a slide show of a visit of his to Tibet. And we saw them no more. We left the hotel for the airport at 10:30 PM.
Bernie :-)
We conclude our India surface skimming
By watching holy swimming.
Can you imagine
Swimmers in the Ganges,
All with Karma brimming!
Would you believe, we set out at 5:15 AM for our major adventure of the day. That was to return to the Ganges River and check out what goes on and how it looks there early in the morning. We had no rickshaw ride, but on our return we walked quite a ways on the streets back to our bus. Starting from the same ghat in the same boat as last night, we went downstream (southeast) instead of upstream like last night. People were taking their dips or swims in the river. At one location cremations were in progress. There are only two locations for cremations, which are done 24 hours a day. We saw a couple of priests conducting a ritual, and we saw several young men emulating a priest as they're learning to be priests.
Then we visited the temple which is not a temple. It is the Mother India Temple, built in 1936. It features an impressive relief map of India and its neighbors, about 40 feet square and done in Makrana marble. It's made up of carved marble blocks about a foot square.
Then we returned to the hotel for breakfast followed by about three hours of free time before departing homeward.
Dick Opsahl led a half-mile walk to Nehru park. There were only five of us. It's a nice little green space with a playground, some nice trees, and a concrete sidewalk “track” around inside it which Dick used for jogging at 6 AM yesterday morning. I was disappointed in not finding a stature of Jawaharlal Nehru or even the name “Nehru Park” posted.
It turns out that we made the local newspaper. There is a single color photograph of some us from yesterday morning's walk in which we are examining the registration card held up by a voter. It's not an English language paper. Dick asked the waitress at breakfast to translate the caption. It says: “The foreigners are taking photos of the voter.”
We had free time till noon. In the afternoon we flew to Delhi. It was about a two-hour flight, and we arrived about 5 PM. We were served a real meal with, would you believe, metal silverware.
We were bused to a nice hotel near Delhi where we were given rooms and had the opportunity to buy dinner get a little rest. We got to meet Som's wife Manisha and his eigh-year-old son Siddhartha. They had driven about 1-1/2 hours from their home to meet Som. We all gathered in their hotel room and Som presented a slide show of a visit of his to Tibet. And we saw them no more. We left the hotel for the airport at 10:30 PM.
Bernie :-)
DAY 26, APRIL 16, VARANASI
ELECTION DAY
Elections were held in India today.
Strict security was in play.
On the streets you couldn't drive.
This was the first phase of five.
Outcome knowledge is a month away.
CEREMONY
Was the ritual to Lord Shiva?
We watched if from the river.
Don't know much about it.
But there's no doubt about it:
It's special to a believer.
Today we have quite a bit of free time. The reason relates to the elections. We are again in a Radisson (as we were in Khajuraho) and again have FREE wi-fi.
The first thing today, even before breakfast, was an hour session of yoga, but both Helen and I declined to participate. But I looked in on the class. I hate yoga and can't really do it because of my lack of flexibility and balance. Nearly everyone else participated, and the level was very low.
The third thing we did was visit a silk weaving center almost next door to the hotel. Silk weaving was demonstrated and explained. Wonderful silk goods were offered for sale at reasonable prices, and some were purchased. The proprietor was very gracious, humorous, and easy going (not a pressure salesman).
The second thing was a walk in the streets. For our first time we saw a Christian church. Except for motorcycles and scooters, there was almost no motor traffic (a very strange situation). That is because today is election day, and no driving is allowed during the daytime polling hours for security reasons. Security is very high for the elections. Campaigning for these elections has been going on for some time. We've been seeing reports of the campaigning in the newspapers and Som has commented on it. This is billed in the newspaper as the world's biggest electoral exercise. It involves 17 states, 124 constituencies (seats), 158 million voters, 1,715 candidates, 162 parties, and 180,000 polling stations. During our walk, Som gave a detailed explanation of the elections, and I want to repeat it in detail. The elections are for seats in the lower house of the Indian national government, the Lok Sabha, which is like our House of Representatives and Great Britan's House of Commons. India also has an upper house, but it has less power, its members are not directly elected by the people (but by groups of elected and appointed officials), and generally acts almost like a rubber stamp on the Lok Sabha. There are 543 MPs (members of the lower house, the Lok Sabha). The election is in five phases. This is phase one. Only 124 seats are up for election today. The whole process will take more than a month. The reason it is done this way is because the high security means so many policemen are needed that a lot of them must be brought in from other areas. Final results are announced at the end of the fifth phase, and nowadays they are then announced promptly then. But no results, not even exit polls, are announced till then. To win a seat, a candidate need only have more votes than any other candidate. (There are no run off elections.) The party that wins a “majority” of the seats forms a government and names the prime minister. But “majority” means 2/3 in this case. It's highly unlike that one party will achieve this 2/3 majority of seats. If no party achieves a 2/3 majority of seats, a coalition government will be formed. India has a President, but she is just ceremonial. When a government is formed, it will be presented to her for approval. The President is not elected directly (but by groups of elected and appointed officials). The terms of the Mps – I'm not sure; it's either 2 years or 3 years. During the elections period the Electoral Commission and its District Commissioners have great power and, to an extent, take the place of the regular government. There are rules against campaigning close to polling stations on election day. People queue up at a distance until allowed by the police to proceed to another queue at the polling station. The minimum voting age is 18. Schools are used as polling stations. Teachers MUST serve as election officials. This sometimes means they have to travel far from their homes to serve, and they may have to be away for a week. Voters, of course, have to be registered ahead of time and their registration is checked at the polling station, but they don't have to declare a party. There are local observers at the polls (who are acquainted in the precinct) who can challenge voters (to prove they are who they say they are and registered). We were shown what an election registration card looks like. There is a possible confusion in that some people also have a Ration Card (which we were also shown) which allows them to buy certain food items at a discount. Overall in India the voting percentage is 40 to 60%. It can be as high as 80% in areas where the education rate is high. Only 30% of people 18 to 25 vote. The age group with the highest percentage of voters is 46 to 55 years. There is no provision for absentee ballots or early voting. If you are away from home, you are just out of luck. Dye is put on the fingers of voters, presumably to prevent them from trying to vote a second time.
At a 4:30 PM meeting, Som reviewed all the places we have visited and helped locate the map of India that we were all given.
About 6 PM we began our evening adventure. It was an optional excursion that all but one of our group bought into. We rode the bus to the central part of the city and from there rode bicycle rickshaws approximately two mile across the center of Varanasi to the waterfront on the Ganges River. Riding a rickshaw in India is great fun.
After looking around on shore for ten minutes, we boarded a big boat rowed by two young men whose family owns the boat. We were taken to a point out from where the cremations are performed. It was explained to us, and we watched the half dozen fires from the boat. This is the most important cremation site in India. It is a very holy place to which all Hindus want to make a pilgrimage some time in their lives.
The ashes are placed in the river after cremation. Cremations are performed only by men (regardless of the gender of the deceased). In four cases, cremations are not performed: holy men, children 12 and under, pregnant women, and people who died of snake bite. In these cases the bodies are weighted with stones and dropped in the middle of the river. Eventually the bodies break free and wash down the river. It's only Hindus who live in or near Varanasi that are cremated here. Sometimes the ashes of people cremated at a distance are brought here and placed in the river. There are only two points on the river at Varanasi where cremations are performed. Cremations are performed 24 hours a day, usually several at the same time. Cremations are always performed where there is water -- even if it's a dried up river bed. (The ashes will eventually flow to the Ganges.) The Ganges also flows by Kolkata, which we first visited, but no cremations are not performed there -- at least not in sizeable numbers. You mustn't take photos of cremations -- well you can at a distance on the river where you're not directly out from them.
Then we were taken to a point just slightly off-shore from where a religious ceremony was in progress. This ceremony is performed every evening at sunset. The Ganges River is a holy river, and Varanasi is a holy city. It is the city of Shiva. There are many temples to Shiva in Varanasi. We watched the ceremony for half an hour. It is a ritual to Mother Ganges (a Hindu god), not to Lord Shiva. Seven priests were performing the ritual in unison, each on an elevated platform in a row of platforms. There were huge crowds around the platforms on shore. There were other boats lined up next to ours. It was very loud with a lot of intended noise as part of the ceremony. One of the priests was singing a melodic song in a deep voice over the microphone. The priests were making graceful motions mainly with their arms. They were burning incense, using bells, and using fire – sort of a tree of candles. It was certainly an exotic show to see.
Then we rode the rickshaws the two miles back to the bus in the dark, extremely crowded, chaotic streets crammed with mainly motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, and pedestrians. Fun! It's a miracle how the drivers avoid crashing or hitting a pedestrian. The rickshaw ride and the ceremony were both like being on a different planet.
Back at the hotel, we enjoyed our farewell dinner, a very fine dinner.
Bernie :-)
Elections were held in India today.
Strict security was in play.
On the streets you couldn't drive.
This was the first phase of five.
Outcome knowledge is a month away.
CEREMONY
Was the ritual to Lord Shiva?
We watched if from the river.
Don't know much about it.
But there's no doubt about it:
It's special to a believer.
Today we have quite a bit of free time. The reason relates to the elections. We are again in a Radisson (as we were in Khajuraho) and again have FREE wi-fi.
The first thing today, even before breakfast, was an hour session of yoga, but both Helen and I declined to participate. But I looked in on the class. I hate yoga and can't really do it because of my lack of flexibility and balance. Nearly everyone else participated, and the level was very low.
The third thing we did was visit a silk weaving center almost next door to the hotel. Silk weaving was demonstrated and explained. Wonderful silk goods were offered for sale at reasonable prices, and some were purchased. The proprietor was very gracious, humorous, and easy going (not a pressure salesman).
The second thing was a walk in the streets. For our first time we saw a Christian church. Except for motorcycles and scooters, there was almost no motor traffic (a very strange situation). That is because today is election day, and no driving is allowed during the daytime polling hours for security reasons. Security is very high for the elections. Campaigning for these elections has been going on for some time. We've been seeing reports of the campaigning in the newspapers and Som has commented on it. This is billed in the newspaper as the world's biggest electoral exercise. It involves 17 states, 124 constituencies (seats), 158 million voters, 1,715 candidates, 162 parties, and 180,000 polling stations. During our walk, Som gave a detailed explanation of the elections, and I want to repeat it in detail. The elections are for seats in the lower house of the Indian national government, the Lok Sabha, which is like our House of Representatives and Great Britan's House of Commons. India also has an upper house, but it has less power, its members are not directly elected by the people (but by groups of elected and appointed officials), and generally acts almost like a rubber stamp on the Lok Sabha. There are 543 MPs (members of the lower house, the Lok Sabha). The election is in five phases. This is phase one. Only 124 seats are up for election today. The whole process will take more than a month. The reason it is done this way is because the high security means so many policemen are needed that a lot of them must be brought in from other areas. Final results are announced at the end of the fifth phase, and nowadays they are then announced promptly then. But no results, not even exit polls, are announced till then. To win a seat, a candidate need only have more votes than any other candidate. (There are no run off elections.) The party that wins a “majority” of the seats forms a government and names the prime minister. But “majority” means 2/3 in this case. It's highly unlike that one party will achieve this 2/3 majority of seats. If no party achieves a 2/3 majority of seats, a coalition government will be formed. India has a President, but she is just ceremonial. When a government is formed, it will be presented to her for approval. The President is not elected directly (but by groups of elected and appointed officials). The terms of the Mps – I'm not sure; it's either 2 years or 3 years. During the elections period the Electoral Commission and its District Commissioners have great power and, to an extent, take the place of the regular government. There are rules against campaigning close to polling stations on election day. People queue up at a distance until allowed by the police to proceed to another queue at the polling station. The minimum voting age is 18. Schools are used as polling stations. Teachers MUST serve as election officials. This sometimes means they have to travel far from their homes to serve, and they may have to be away for a week. Voters, of course, have to be registered ahead of time and their registration is checked at the polling station, but they don't have to declare a party. There are local observers at the polls (who are acquainted in the precinct) who can challenge voters (to prove they are who they say they are and registered). We were shown what an election registration card looks like. There is a possible confusion in that some people also have a Ration Card (which we were also shown) which allows them to buy certain food items at a discount. Overall in India the voting percentage is 40 to 60%. It can be as high as 80% in areas where the education rate is high. Only 30% of people 18 to 25 vote. The age group with the highest percentage of voters is 46 to 55 years. There is no provision for absentee ballots or early voting. If you are away from home, you are just out of luck. Dye is put on the fingers of voters, presumably to prevent them from trying to vote a second time.
At a 4:30 PM meeting, Som reviewed all the places we have visited and helped locate the map of India that we were all given.
About 6 PM we began our evening adventure. It was an optional excursion that all but one of our group bought into. We rode the bus to the central part of the city and from there rode bicycle rickshaws approximately two mile across the center of Varanasi to the waterfront on the Ganges River. Riding a rickshaw in India is great fun.
After looking around on shore for ten minutes, we boarded a big boat rowed by two young men whose family owns the boat. We were taken to a point out from where the cremations are performed. It was explained to us, and we watched the half dozen fires from the boat. This is the most important cremation site in India. It is a very holy place to which all Hindus want to make a pilgrimage some time in their lives.
The ashes are placed in the river after cremation. Cremations are performed only by men (regardless of the gender of the deceased). In four cases, cremations are not performed: holy men, children 12 and under, pregnant women, and people who died of snake bite. In these cases the bodies are weighted with stones and dropped in the middle of the river. Eventually the bodies break free and wash down the river. It's only Hindus who live in or near Varanasi that are cremated here. Sometimes the ashes of people cremated at a distance are brought here and placed in the river. There are only two points on the river at Varanasi where cremations are performed. Cremations are performed 24 hours a day, usually several at the same time. Cremations are always performed where there is water -- even if it's a dried up river bed. (The ashes will eventually flow to the Ganges.) The Ganges also flows by Kolkata, which we first visited, but no cremations are not performed there -- at least not in sizeable numbers. You mustn't take photos of cremations -- well you can at a distance on the river where you're not directly out from them.
Then we were taken to a point just slightly off-shore from where a religious ceremony was in progress. This ceremony is performed every evening at sunset. The Ganges River is a holy river, and Varanasi is a holy city. It is the city of Shiva. There are many temples to Shiva in Varanasi. We watched the ceremony for half an hour. It is a ritual to Mother Ganges (a Hindu god), not to Lord Shiva. Seven priests were performing the ritual in unison, each on an elevated platform in a row of platforms. There were huge crowds around the platforms on shore. There were other boats lined up next to ours. It was very loud with a lot of intended noise as part of the ceremony. One of the priests was singing a melodic song in a deep voice over the microphone. The priests were making graceful motions mainly with their arms. They were burning incense, using bells, and using fire – sort of a tree of candles. It was certainly an exotic show to see.
Then we rode the rickshaws the two miles back to the bus in the dark, extremely crowded, chaotic streets crammed with mainly motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, and pedestrians. Fun! It's a miracle how the drivers avoid crashing or hitting a pedestrian. The rickshaw ride and the ceremony were both like being on a different planet.
Back at the hotel, we enjoyed our farewell dinner, a very fine dinner.
Bernie :-)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
DAY 25, APRIL 15, KHAJURAHO & VARANASI
KHAJURAHO
Here is sculpture exquisite
Of love-making explicit --
Thousands of examples
In thousand-year-old temples.
It's a fun place to visit.
Eighty-four ways to get it on,
Several shown the walls upon.
These folks had the loving knack.
Press the middle of her back
To turn the lady on.
In a method most outstanding
The couple up are standing.
She bends low as this point he's pressing,
While her from behind he's addressing.
Not shown is her stool for standing.
If bade to enter standing from behind
And assuming that she didn't mind,
Against her back I'd press my chest,
And I'd reach round and hold each breast.
A slightly different plan he had in mind.
In the position most repeated,
While the man is properly seated,
His lady to him is clinging.
Great joy to them it's bringing
Ere the task is completed.
BUDDHISM IN INDIA
In Buddhism's birthplace today
You'll scarcely find Buddhism per se.
Hindus are telling you
Buddha was a visit by Vishnu.
And the philosophies are the same, they say.
Khajura means date palm. The "ho" was just somebody's mistake.
Setting out at 6:30 AM, before breakfast, we toured the main temples of Kajuraho, the west site first, then the east site. At the west site we visited the Lakshman Temple and the Kandariya Mahadeva Temples. These Hindu temples were built in the 10th to 12th century by the Chandelas, who then ruled in the area. They were important until about 1400 AD and lost their importance around 1500. They were subsequently damaged by Muslims and consequently are not active temples. (A damaged statue of a god is no longer considered as or worshiped as a god.) They came to be unknown and were discovered in 1830 by the British and were quite a shock to Victorian morality.
There are wall carvings in great profusion depicting affection and love-making. Erotic carvings are well distributed on the walls. Some of the positions are very complicated and “athletic,” and sometimes there are more than two persons in the grouping. It takes some study to associate arms and legs with their torsos of the figures. In one instance I still am unable to do so to in a way that makes sense to me. I have the book and will study it further. It certainly appears that a couple would need assistance to achieve and maybe to maintain some of these positions.
One panel, in particular, is a highlight with several shocking positions shown in succession. There is a some oral stimulation included, one of the positions being a 69.
The rear entry position in my verses was only seen once. Our step-on guide explained that the center of a woman's back was thought to be a woman's key point of sexual energy.
Our step-on guide told of an ancient Hindu book in which all of the 84 possible positions for sexual intercourse are listed and described. They're not all depicted. (We didn't see such simplicity as the missionary position.)
Our step-on guide pointed out how the statuary are very rich in many ways other than mere eroticism: emotions, humor, symbolism, interrelations among neighboring statues, differences according to the viewing angle, and on and on. I take his word for it. Although at first I thought I would, I couldn't understand him well at all.
Some other aspects of daily life are also depicted. A lot of elephants are shown.
Even though this is a very small town, we were nevertheless plagued (when getting on and off the bus) with plenty of the usual extremely persistent hawkers. And, as usual, we were told to just ignore them, not say “no” because that means “maybe.”
We flew to Varanasi, which was just a short flight of about an hour. Varanasi has a population of approximately three million and is densely populated. It is one of the oldest cities in the world – thousands of years old, even older than Hinduism.
Sarnath, once a city of its own, is incorporated into the Varanasi metropolitan area. Sarnath is the birthplace of Buddhism (544 BC).
We visited the Archeological Museum of Sarnath. The artifacts displayed were dug up in Sarnath by a British archeologist in the 19th century.
We visited the Buddhist temple in Sarnath. It is very modest. It was built in 1931, really by foreigners, so there would be a Buddhist presence at Buddhism's birthplace.
It was all explained both by Som and by our day-guide. But I hear so poorly and it's all very complicated to me. Only about 3% of Indians are Buddhists. There is some growth in Buddhism occurring because some Indians are converting to Buddhism simply because it has no castes. Buddha gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and it is surprisingly short and mounted on a plaque. But Buddhism never really took root here in the first place, according to what we were told. Yet we saw artifacts in the museum of Buddhism from up till about the 9th century. Within only a century of Buddha's death, we were told, Buddhism was moved to Sri Lanka. From there it took root and spread north. Som says there is no difference in the philosophy of Buddhism and that of Hinduism. He also says Hindus see Buddha as the ninth reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu (the Protector and one of the three most important Hindu gods). Som, a Hindu, sees Buddhism as a reformer of Hinduism, much like Jesus set out to reform Judaism. Som says Buddhism has changed greatly from what it started out to be – that Buddha did not emphasize the gods at all but rather a way of living that can lead to nirvana.
We had our last happy hour. It was in Som's room.
We had a splendid dinner in another hotel a short walk from our Radisson. This was part of an optional tour which all but one of us opted to participate in.
Bernie :-)
Here is sculpture exquisite
Of love-making explicit --
Thousands of examples
In thousand-year-old temples.
It's a fun place to visit.
Eighty-four ways to get it on,
Several shown the walls upon.
These folks had the loving knack.
Press the middle of her back
To turn the lady on.
In a method most outstanding
The couple up are standing.
She bends low as this point he's pressing,
While her from behind he's addressing.
Not shown is her stool for standing.
If bade to enter standing from behind
And assuming that she didn't mind,
Against her back I'd press my chest,
And I'd reach round and hold each breast.
A slightly different plan he had in mind.
In the position most repeated,
While the man is properly seated,
His lady to him is clinging.
Great joy to them it's bringing
Ere the task is completed.
BUDDHISM IN INDIA
In Buddhism's birthplace today
You'll scarcely find Buddhism per se.
Hindus are telling you
Buddha was a visit by Vishnu.
And the philosophies are the same, they say.
Khajura means date palm. The "ho" was just somebody's mistake.
Setting out at 6:30 AM, before breakfast, we toured the main temples of Kajuraho, the west site first, then the east site. At the west site we visited the Lakshman Temple and the Kandariya Mahadeva Temples. These Hindu temples were built in the 10th to 12th century by the Chandelas, who then ruled in the area. They were important until about 1400 AD and lost their importance around 1500. They were subsequently damaged by Muslims and consequently are not active temples. (A damaged statue of a god is no longer considered as or worshiped as a god.) They came to be unknown and were discovered in 1830 by the British and were quite a shock to Victorian morality.
There are wall carvings in great profusion depicting affection and love-making. Erotic carvings are well distributed on the walls. Some of the positions are very complicated and “athletic,” and sometimes there are more than two persons in the grouping. It takes some study to associate arms and legs with their torsos of the figures. In one instance I still am unable to do so to in a way that makes sense to me. I have the book and will study it further. It certainly appears that a couple would need assistance to achieve and maybe to maintain some of these positions.
One panel, in particular, is a highlight with several shocking positions shown in succession. There is a some oral stimulation included, one of the positions being a 69.
The rear entry position in my verses was only seen once. Our step-on guide explained that the center of a woman's back was thought to be a woman's key point of sexual energy.
Our step-on guide told of an ancient Hindu book in which all of the 84 possible positions for sexual intercourse are listed and described. They're not all depicted. (We didn't see such simplicity as the missionary position.)
Our step-on guide pointed out how the statuary are very rich in many ways other than mere eroticism: emotions, humor, symbolism, interrelations among neighboring statues, differences according to the viewing angle, and on and on. I take his word for it. Although at first I thought I would, I couldn't understand him well at all.
Some other aspects of daily life are also depicted. A lot of elephants are shown.
Even though this is a very small town, we were nevertheless plagued (when getting on and off the bus) with plenty of the usual extremely persistent hawkers. And, as usual, we were told to just ignore them, not say “no” because that means “maybe.”
We flew to Varanasi, which was just a short flight of about an hour. Varanasi has a population of approximately three million and is densely populated. It is one of the oldest cities in the world – thousands of years old, even older than Hinduism.
Sarnath, once a city of its own, is incorporated into the Varanasi metropolitan area. Sarnath is the birthplace of Buddhism (544 BC).
We visited the Archeological Museum of Sarnath. The artifacts displayed were dug up in Sarnath by a British archeologist in the 19th century.
We visited the Buddhist temple in Sarnath. It is very modest. It was built in 1931, really by foreigners, so there would be a Buddhist presence at Buddhism's birthplace.
It was all explained both by Som and by our day-guide. But I hear so poorly and it's all very complicated to me. Only about 3% of Indians are Buddhists. There is some growth in Buddhism occurring because some Indians are converting to Buddhism simply because it has no castes. Buddha gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and it is surprisingly short and mounted on a plaque. But Buddhism never really took root here in the first place, according to what we were told. Yet we saw artifacts in the museum of Buddhism from up till about the 9th century. Within only a century of Buddha's death, we were told, Buddhism was moved to Sri Lanka. From there it took root and spread north. Som says there is no difference in the philosophy of Buddhism and that of Hinduism. He also says Hindus see Buddha as the ninth reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu (the Protector and one of the three most important Hindu gods). Som, a Hindu, sees Buddhism as a reformer of Hinduism, much like Jesus set out to reform Judaism. Som says Buddhism has changed greatly from what it started out to be – that Buddha did not emphasize the gods at all but rather a way of living that can lead to nirvana.
We had our last happy hour. It was in Som's room.
We had a splendid dinner in another hotel a short walk from our Radisson. This was part of an optional tour which all but one of us opted to participate in.
Bernie :-)
DAY 24, APRIL 14, AGRA TO KHAJURAHO
ON TO KHAJURAHO
We took the fast train to Jahnsi.
And learned of a heroin from Jahnsi
As well as the Bandit Queen.
And saw a water pump like you've never seen,
Ox-driven and no wise fancy.
We got up early and, after breakfast, took a bus into town for our train ride of about two hours to Jhansi. This is the fastest train in India, capable of going 100 MPH. The ride was very smooth, at least as smooth as AMTRAK. It was clean, comfortable and air conditioned, though not nearly as spacious as the seating in AMTRAK.
From Jhansi we road we road our own nice large bus (like our previous two buses in India) to Khajuraho, with a stop at a restaurant in a village for a late lunch along the way. We arrived in Khajuraho about 4 PM. At 6 PM we took the walk (~3/4-mile) from our luxurious Radisson Hotel to the bazaar and back, had our happy hour at 7:15, and dinner at 8:15.
This hotel, unlike any other we've had, has FREE wireless Interntet connection for one's own laptop.
Khajuraho is a little town of only about 10,000. It is the site of the erotic sculpture in Hindu temples dating from ~950 - ~1150 AD. There are 85 such temples in the area. Some 28 of them are complete, the others being ruins of temples.
Judy Opsahl says these temples are very much like the Hindu temples of Angkor Watt, in Cambodia, the largest complex of temples in the world, but the latter are not as erotic as these.
This is very much out in the country. We drove over some very narrow country roads. Even the national highway we were on is barely wide enough to keep all wheels on the pavement at the same time.
As usual, on our long drive, Som gave us several “lectures” of information and long stories. In other situations I can understand him quite well. But on these occasions I only get maybe a third of it – just enough to be tantalized and wish I could understand all of it. Indian English is different than American English and British English. There is an accent. Words are pronounced differently. Soft sounds may be come hard sounds or vice versa. Inevitably, different syllables are accented than in American English.
So Som told the story of an Indian heroin from Jahnsi (Jansi Elani ??) who, during an anti-British uprising in 1857, tied her baby on her back, mounted a horse, and rode out of her palace into battle. And she is, to this day, cited as the symbol of feminine bravery in India.
And Som told an improbable tale of “The Bandit Queen,” who became the lady leader of a gang of bandits and later a member of Parliament, and was finally murdered.
Along the way we saw a statue of Jawaharlal Nehru and a statue group depicting the protest march lead by Mahatma Ghandi to make salt. Out the bus window, in the country, we also saw a “holy cow,” a decorated cow led by a man. People gain karma feeding the cow, and they pay the man.
We made a very quick stop in the country to photograph the home of a sort of faith healer with many flags that reminded me of the Buddhist flags in Bhutan. People come from great distances go get healed, believing that they can only be cured by such a man. Once cured, they come back and hang their flag.
We made a stop in the country to photograph what I'll call a Persian Wheel – because a similar machine in the Amber Palace was called a Persian Wheel. In the Amber Palace in was pushed manually. In this case it was driven by two oxen. In the Amber Palace it involved ceramic jars. In this case it involved metallic “buckets.” This is a water raising device. The well was deep and wide-open (no railing of any kind), a real safety hazard. Som remarked that he had no rope long enough. The oxen drive a wheel which drives a wheel which dives a “chain” with mounted “buckets” which scoop up the water in the well and dump it above the well. Then the farmer collected the water in big ceramic jugs to carry into the fields.
Som talked about politics and the election that is upcoming in two days. People of diverse religions get along just fine – until they are stirred up by the politicians, who turn one religion against another or one caste against another, and there is violence. The politicians fail to address the real issues but resort to personal attacks on one another, recalling their opponents' misdeeds of years ago. The young people are turned off by it all and most refuse to vote. And the average age of the population is about 35.
Bernie :-)
We took the fast train to Jahnsi.
And learned of a heroin from Jahnsi
As well as the Bandit Queen.
And saw a water pump like you've never seen,
Ox-driven and no wise fancy.
We got up early and, after breakfast, took a bus into town for our train ride of about two hours to Jhansi. This is the fastest train in India, capable of going 100 MPH. The ride was very smooth, at least as smooth as AMTRAK. It was clean, comfortable and air conditioned, though not nearly as spacious as the seating in AMTRAK.
From Jhansi we road we road our own nice large bus (like our previous two buses in India) to Khajuraho, with a stop at a restaurant in a village for a late lunch along the way. We arrived in Khajuraho about 4 PM. At 6 PM we took the walk (~3/4-mile) from our luxurious Radisson Hotel to the bazaar and back, had our happy hour at 7:15, and dinner at 8:15.
This hotel, unlike any other we've had, has FREE wireless Interntet connection for one's own laptop.
Khajuraho is a little town of only about 10,000. It is the site of the erotic sculpture in Hindu temples dating from ~950 - ~1150 AD. There are 85 such temples in the area. Some 28 of them are complete, the others being ruins of temples.
Judy Opsahl says these temples are very much like the Hindu temples of Angkor Watt, in Cambodia, the largest complex of temples in the world, but the latter are not as erotic as these.
This is very much out in the country. We drove over some very narrow country roads. Even the national highway we were on is barely wide enough to keep all wheels on the pavement at the same time.
As usual, on our long drive, Som gave us several “lectures” of information and long stories. In other situations I can understand him quite well. But on these occasions I only get maybe a third of it – just enough to be tantalized and wish I could understand all of it. Indian English is different than American English and British English. There is an accent. Words are pronounced differently. Soft sounds may be come hard sounds or vice versa. Inevitably, different syllables are accented than in American English.
So Som told the story of an Indian heroin from Jahnsi (Jansi Elani ??) who, during an anti-British uprising in 1857, tied her baby on her back, mounted a horse, and rode out of her palace into battle. And she is, to this day, cited as the symbol of feminine bravery in India.
And Som told an improbable tale of “The Bandit Queen,” who became the lady leader of a gang of bandits and later a member of Parliament, and was finally murdered.
Along the way we saw a statue of Jawaharlal Nehru and a statue group depicting the protest march lead by Mahatma Ghandi to make salt. Out the bus window, in the country, we also saw a “holy cow,” a decorated cow led by a man. People gain karma feeding the cow, and they pay the man.
We made a very quick stop in the country to photograph the home of a sort of faith healer with many flags that reminded me of the Buddhist flags in Bhutan. People come from great distances go get healed, believing that they can only be cured by such a man. Once cured, they come back and hang their flag.
We made a stop in the country to photograph what I'll call a Persian Wheel – because a similar machine in the Amber Palace was called a Persian Wheel. In the Amber Palace in was pushed manually. In this case it was driven by two oxen. In the Amber Palace it involved ceramic jars. In this case it involved metallic “buckets.” This is a water raising device. The well was deep and wide-open (no railing of any kind), a real safety hazard. Som remarked that he had no rope long enough. The oxen drive a wheel which drives a wheel which dives a “chain” with mounted “buckets” which scoop up the water in the well and dump it above the well. Then the farmer collected the water in big ceramic jugs to carry into the fields.
Som talked about politics and the election that is upcoming in two days. People of diverse religions get along just fine – until they are stirred up by the politicians, who turn one religion against another or one caste against another, and there is violence. The politicians fail to address the real issues but resort to personal attacks on one another, recalling their opponents' misdeeds of years ago. The young people are turned off by it all and most refuse to vote. And the average age of the population is about 35.
Bernie :-)
Monday, April 13, 2009
DAY 23, APRIL 13, AGRA
TAJ MAHAL
A beautiful sight to see
Is this ultimate luxury.
It truly is a marvel,
All done in Makrana marble
And perfect symmetry.
AGRA FORT
Lavish it was and large
And home of the man in charge.
And you can be sure
It was very secure.
(No enemy could in there barge.)
INLAID MARBLE
The technique is highly refined.
The workmanship is fine.
If you're smart,
You'll buy this art.
Would you like a floral design?
Fortunately, I was pretty well recovered from my diarrhea by morning.
We got up early and saw the Taj Mahal essentially at sunrise. It did not disappoint. It is truly magnificent, beautiful. It's very large – larger than it looks – 243 feet tall and 176 for the towers, which are not to call prayer, but to frame the building. The whole is elevated 26 feet. There is much more to the complex than the Taj itself, and all of it is entirely symmetrical – with one little exception. There is a mosque on one side (still in use) and a mirror image mosque on the other (no longer in use). The Taj features vast quantities of exquisite inlaid marble art work.
Shah Jahan was the fifth Mughal emperor. His wife, Mumtaj Mahal, married him at 20 and died of childbirth at 39 in 1531. In those 19 years of marriage she had 14 children and 3 miscarriages. Shah Jahan started planning the Taj Mahal, as her tomb, immediately upon her death. Construction was started six months after her death and completed 22 years later in 1553. Shah Jahan had planned to build a second tomb for himself, but that never. happened. He too was interred in the Taj Mahal. Since his burial there was not originally planned, his tomb is the only nonsymmetrical aspect of the Taj Mahal and its entire complex. Actually, there are the fake burials which can be seen by tourists, and below them, in the basement where tourists can't go, are the real burials.
The Agra Fort is a splendid walled of city of two square miles in view of the Taj Mahal, built (started) by Shah Jahan in 1565 as his palace. It is very secure with an inner and an outer wall, both very high, thick and impressive. It has a moat and a drawbridge and three gates.
Shah Jahan was eventually imprisoned in this palace by his third son, Aurangzeb, who killed his brothers to become the sixth Mughal ruler.
The Mughals were Turks.
After Agra Fort, we paid a visit to Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd where we watched artisans do inlaid marble art like that in the Taj Mahal. Then we examined the inlaid marble artwork for sale in the shop, and some members made purchases of it to have sent home.
We had dinner in the hotel. This hotel was so large and spread out and laid out in such a way that Helen and I had a hard time finding our way around in it and got “lost” several times. It was very frustrating. Security was very strict coming into the hotel. They guards looked into the trunks of all the vehicles. Entering the hotel itself was much like airport security.
Bernie :-)
A beautiful sight to see
Is this ultimate luxury.
It truly is a marvel,
All done in Makrana marble
And perfect symmetry.
AGRA FORT
Lavish it was and large
And home of the man in charge.
And you can be sure
It was very secure.
(No enemy could in there barge.)
INLAID MARBLE
The technique is highly refined.
The workmanship is fine.
If you're smart,
You'll buy this art.
Would you like a floral design?
Fortunately, I was pretty well recovered from my diarrhea by morning.
We got up early and saw the Taj Mahal essentially at sunrise. It did not disappoint. It is truly magnificent, beautiful. It's very large – larger than it looks – 243 feet tall and 176 for the towers, which are not to call prayer, but to frame the building. The whole is elevated 26 feet. There is much more to the complex than the Taj itself, and all of it is entirely symmetrical – with one little exception. There is a mosque on one side (still in use) and a mirror image mosque on the other (no longer in use). The Taj features vast quantities of exquisite inlaid marble art work.
Shah Jahan was the fifth Mughal emperor. His wife, Mumtaj Mahal, married him at 20 and died of childbirth at 39 in 1531. In those 19 years of marriage she had 14 children and 3 miscarriages. Shah Jahan started planning the Taj Mahal, as her tomb, immediately upon her death. Construction was started six months after her death and completed 22 years later in 1553. Shah Jahan had planned to build a second tomb for himself, but that never. happened. He too was interred in the Taj Mahal. Since his burial there was not originally planned, his tomb is the only nonsymmetrical aspect of the Taj Mahal and its entire complex. Actually, there are the fake burials which can be seen by tourists, and below them, in the basement where tourists can't go, are the real burials.
The Agra Fort is a splendid walled of city of two square miles in view of the Taj Mahal, built (started) by Shah Jahan in 1565 as his palace. It is very secure with an inner and an outer wall, both very high, thick and impressive. It has a moat and a drawbridge and three gates.
Shah Jahan was eventually imprisoned in this palace by his third son, Aurangzeb, who killed his brothers to become the sixth Mughal ruler.
The Mughals were Turks.
After Agra Fort, we paid a visit to Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd where we watched artisans do inlaid marble art like that in the Taj Mahal. Then we examined the inlaid marble artwork for sale in the shop, and some members made purchases of it to have sent home.
We had dinner in the hotel. This hotel was so large and spread out and laid out in such a way that Helen and I had a hard time finding our way around in it and got “lost” several times. It was very frustrating. Security was very strict coming into the hotel. They guards looked into the trunks of all the vehicles. Entering the hotel itself was much like airport security.
Bernie :-)
DAY 22, APRIL 12 (EASTER), OAT CAMP TO AGRA
CERAMICS DAY
We visited a man by trade a potter
And later some sandstone cutters
And, this being the day for ceramics,
Some folks engaged in making bricks
And their sons and daughters.
FATEPUHR SIKRI
Few rulers have been or are
Quite as great as was Akbar.
I wouldn't call him frugal,
The this emperor of the Mugals,
Who left this shining star.
Embarking on our day, after breakfast, we had a one-mile ride into Abhaneri on a Jugad. The word means "local original." It is really a very simple, crude pickup truck. They're only allowed in farming areas and villages and not in the cities. And we only saw them in this region, not in farming regions visited later. These are not old vehicles. They are low powered and slow. They have a small, uncovered engine of one cylinder with a big flywheel. They are hand cranked and make a big puff of dirty smoke when they start. A new one costs only about $2,000. The neat thing about them is that the engine incorporates a water pump used to pump water from wells onto the fields. They seem to be an ideal vehicle for the farmers of India. They reminded me of similar vehicles we had seen in the farming areas we visited in China, but the latter were very old vehicles.
Before we got underway in our bus, we visited a potter and his family in the village of Abhaneri. He was making large clay water pots. The wife was mixing some stuff having nothing to do with pottery. It's a mixture of dirt and cow dung which is used for flooring in their homes. It sets up like a cement, and it's so bad, and villagers are meticulous to keep the floors clean and take their shoes off before entering the house.
Early in our drive we passed an area with many establishments for sandstone carving because red sandstone and white sandstone are quarried in the area, and we visited one of them. Mainly animals and Hindu figures are carved. The first step is usually to saw the slabs into smaller slabs using an abrasive power saw.
Later we passed through an area with many brick factories because the clay soil in the area is suitable for brick making. We stopped at one of them. There was a lot of manual labor and a lot of use of camels in handling the bricks. The firing is continuous in that bricks are loaded in one side of the furnace and removed from the other side without shutting down the furnace. The fuel, interestingly, is a chopped up mixture of grasses. It's the same fuel the potter was using.
Today we drove from the OAT camp to Agra, arriving late in the day. Agra is a city of about 3 million – about the same size as Jaipur, but it has a very agrarian flavor like a small town. Security was very high in Agra.
Along the way we were very lucky to see two large wild animals out in the farm fields. They are a very large antelope called the Blue Bull because of a bluish tinge. They're said to be the largest antelope. But we've seen the Eland in South Africa, also a very large antelope.
Incidentally, there are no fences (almost never any fences) on the farmland that we saw in India.
Incidentally, once we got near Agra and thereafter we no longer saw camels. Instead we saw some ox carts.
Along the way we visited the palace of Fatepuhr Sikri. This was one of several palaces built by Mohammed Jalliladin, known as Akbar (meaning “The Great”). It was the home of Akbar and his Hindu queen, Jodaa (daughter of the Maharajah in the Amber Palace near the present Jaipur). And it was the home of Akbar's other two wives, a Muslim sultana, and a Christian wife. Akbar was the third ruler of the Mughal empire, which was founded by Babul in 1526 and lasted until the British took over in 1805. Akbar was the son of the second ruler, Muhayun. The fourth ruler was Salim (Jahonger), whose mother was Jodaa. Akbar was extremely moderate in regard to religion, was very diplomatic, had a “parliament” of two houses, nine “jewels” (treasured advisors). He was illiterate.
The onset of my second bout with diarrhea was at Fatepurh Sirkri. I had a rough afternoon, evening, and night from then on.
After settling in in our motel, Helen and I and half the group and Som attended the optional event that was billed as an opera. It was a mistake for me. I was miserable. I had Som send me back to the hotel by taxi while the others had dinner. It was announced that the “opera” was about no one in particular, but that was deceiving because it obviously was based on the history of the Taj Mahal. It was not an opera. It was part movie – a screen used in the background – part play (acting and speech without singing), and there was a lot of group dancing and simultaneous by colorfully-clad women. It was not in English. There were headphones so you could listen in English or other languages. Even with some help from the usher, I couldn't make mine work and didn't really care that it didn't work. (I often can't understand Indian English very well anyway.)
Bernie :-)
We visited a man by trade a potter
And later some sandstone cutters
And, this being the day for ceramics,
Some folks engaged in making bricks
And their sons and daughters.
FATEPUHR SIKRI
Few rulers have been or are
Quite as great as was Akbar.
I wouldn't call him frugal,
The this emperor of the Mugals,
Who left this shining star.
Embarking on our day, after breakfast, we had a one-mile ride into Abhaneri on a Jugad. The word means "local original." It is really a very simple, crude pickup truck. They're only allowed in farming areas and villages and not in the cities. And we only saw them in this region, not in farming regions visited later. These are not old vehicles. They are low powered and slow. They have a small, uncovered engine of one cylinder with a big flywheel. They are hand cranked and make a big puff of dirty smoke when they start. A new one costs only about $2,000. The neat thing about them is that the engine incorporates a water pump used to pump water from wells onto the fields. They seem to be an ideal vehicle for the farmers of India. They reminded me of similar vehicles we had seen in the farming areas we visited in China, but the latter were very old vehicles.
Before we got underway in our bus, we visited a potter and his family in the village of Abhaneri. He was making large clay water pots. The wife was mixing some stuff having nothing to do with pottery. It's a mixture of dirt and cow dung which is used for flooring in their homes. It sets up like a cement, and it's so bad, and villagers are meticulous to keep the floors clean and take their shoes off before entering the house.
Early in our drive we passed an area with many establishments for sandstone carving because red sandstone and white sandstone are quarried in the area, and we visited one of them. Mainly animals and Hindu figures are carved. The first step is usually to saw the slabs into smaller slabs using an abrasive power saw.
Later we passed through an area with many brick factories because the clay soil in the area is suitable for brick making. We stopped at one of them. There was a lot of manual labor and a lot of use of camels in handling the bricks. The firing is continuous in that bricks are loaded in one side of the furnace and removed from the other side without shutting down the furnace. The fuel, interestingly, is a chopped up mixture of grasses. It's the same fuel the potter was using.
Today we drove from the OAT camp to Agra, arriving late in the day. Agra is a city of about 3 million – about the same size as Jaipur, but it has a very agrarian flavor like a small town. Security was very high in Agra.
Along the way we were very lucky to see two large wild animals out in the farm fields. They are a very large antelope called the Blue Bull because of a bluish tinge. They're said to be the largest antelope. But we've seen the Eland in South Africa, also a very large antelope.
Incidentally, there are no fences (almost never any fences) on the farmland that we saw in India.
Incidentally, once we got near Agra and thereafter we no longer saw camels. Instead we saw some ox carts.
Along the way we visited the palace of Fatepuhr Sikri. This was one of several palaces built by Mohammed Jalliladin, known as Akbar (meaning “The Great”). It was the home of Akbar and his Hindu queen, Jodaa (daughter of the Maharajah in the Amber Palace near the present Jaipur). And it was the home of Akbar's other two wives, a Muslim sultana, and a Christian wife. Akbar was the third ruler of the Mughal empire, which was founded by Babul in 1526 and lasted until the British took over in 1805. Akbar was the son of the second ruler, Muhayun. The fourth ruler was Salim (Jahonger), whose mother was Jodaa. Akbar was extremely moderate in regard to religion, was very diplomatic, had a “parliament” of two houses, nine “jewels” (treasured advisors). He was illiterate.
The onset of my second bout with diarrhea was at Fatepurh Sirkri. I had a rough afternoon, evening, and night from then on.
After settling in in our motel, Helen and I and half the group and Som attended the optional event that was billed as an opera. It was a mistake for me. I was miserable. I had Som send me back to the hotel by taxi while the others had dinner. It was announced that the “opera” was about no one in particular, but that was deceiving because it obviously was based on the history of the Taj Mahal. It was not an opera. It was part movie – a screen used in the background – part play (acting and speech without singing), and there was a lot of group dancing and simultaneous by colorfully-clad women. It was not in English. There were headphones so you could listen in English or other languages. Even with some help from the usher, I couldn't make mine work and didn't really care that it didn't work. (I often can't understand Indian English very well anyway.)
Bernie :-)
DAY 21, RANTHAMBHORE TO OAT CAMP
VILLAGE SCHOOL
We visited Adarsh Vidya Mandir
And met its superintender.
Students were being tested.
OAT has in this school invested
To augment its budget slender.
THE SAINIS' HOME
For us it was truly dandy
To visit the home of Narayan Saini
And there be privileged to
Learn how Indian folks make do
Who are no wise blessed with plenty.
DASTKARI KENDRA
To the park right next door
At Daskar Ranthambhore,
We made a short stop
So that we could shop.
It's a coop crafts and textile store.
LUNCH
Somewhere far from any town
In a colorful tent we chowed down.
Contrary to my surmising,
The John was right surprising.
'Twas just like downtown!
CAMELS
Farmers with camels happily abide.
Their value cannot be denied.
Working camels are males.
This rule never fails.
Females are herded through the countryside.
CHAND BAORI
Because he thought he oughta,
A ruler made a step well for water.
If you're fit and able,
Walk down to the water table.
If not, then send your daughter.
CAMPING
To the farms convenient,
We're sleeping in a tent
On a bed and not a cot.
Though roughing it this is not,
It wouldn't do for permanent.
CAMEL RIDE
We went riding on some camels,
And past farmers' huts they ambled.
This I can say for sure:
These folks are very poor
And by birth control untrammeled.
CULTURE SHOW
A culture show we watched then.
Performers there were ten
Who afforded us the chance
To enjoy their song and dance,
All local farming men.
We set out at 8 AM on a journey of about 155 KM to the OAT Camp near the village of Abhaneri and arrived about 4 PM.
First off, near Ranthambhore National Park, we visited the village of Ram Singh Pura, its school of Adarsh Vidya Mandir, and the home of one of the families there – that of Narayan Saini.
We next shopped at Dastkari Kendra, a shop near the park operated as a cooperative by women who come together and do their crafts while their men are off at work. They've been in business for 20 years and are the result of an effort by people displaced by the park to make new lives for themselves.
We drove over some very crowded, chaotic, bumpy country roads and finally arrived late in the afternoon at the OAT camp about at mile from the village of Abhanera.
Arriving in the village, before going to the camp, we visited the step well of Chand Baori and its adjoining temple, built circa 1100 AD. The impressive step well was much more than I expected. It is approximately 30 meters square with many steps progressing toward its center. It's about 70 feet down to the algae-covered water, which is about 20 feet deep.
At about 6 PM we had a camel ride from camp of about 1-1/2 miles past farm homes. These are one-hump camels. The saddle is such that you sit behind the hump. Each camel was led by a walking driver. The “road” was a sandy trail barely wide enough for a car and probably only very rarely saw a car but routinely saw camel carts and motorcycles. Sometimes it was less than that – barely a sandy walking trail. This is certainly a far different world than the one we know. Yet the people are not starving. They were very friendly. There were hoards of children.
In camp, before dinner, we had a little (very amateur) game of cricket.
In camp in the evening, after dinner in the dining tent, we were entertained by ten men – local farmers, not professionals. They sang and danced and played a large (nagada) and a small (dholak) drum and cymbals. Som explained that the dances told mythical stories from Hinduism. At the end we all joined them in the dancing.
After dinner some of us took a moonlight walk back to the step well.
Bernie :-)
We visited Adarsh Vidya Mandir
And met its superintender.
Students were being tested.
OAT has in this school invested
To augment its budget slender.
THE SAINIS' HOME
For us it was truly dandy
To visit the home of Narayan Saini
And there be privileged to
Learn how Indian folks make do
Who are no wise blessed with plenty.
DASTKARI KENDRA
To the park right next door
At Daskar Ranthambhore,
We made a short stop
So that we could shop.
It's a coop crafts and textile store.
LUNCH
Somewhere far from any town
In a colorful tent we chowed down.
Contrary to my surmising,
The John was right surprising.
'Twas just like downtown!
CAMELS
Farmers with camels happily abide.
Their value cannot be denied.
Working camels are males.
This rule never fails.
Females are herded through the countryside.
CHAND BAORI
Because he thought he oughta,
A ruler made a step well for water.
If you're fit and able,
Walk down to the water table.
If not, then send your daughter.
CAMPING
To the farms convenient,
We're sleeping in a tent
On a bed and not a cot.
Though roughing it this is not,
It wouldn't do for permanent.
CAMEL RIDE
We went riding on some camels,
And past farmers' huts they ambled.
This I can say for sure:
These folks are very poor
And by birth control untrammeled.
CULTURE SHOW
A culture show we watched then.
Performers there were ten
Who afforded us the chance
To enjoy their song and dance,
All local farming men.
We set out at 8 AM on a journey of about 155 KM to the OAT Camp near the village of Abhaneri and arrived about 4 PM.
First off, near Ranthambhore National Park, we visited the village of Ram Singh Pura, its school of Adarsh Vidya Mandir, and the home of one of the families there – that of Narayan Saini.
We next shopped at Dastkari Kendra, a shop near the park operated as a cooperative by women who come together and do their crafts while their men are off at work. They've been in business for 20 years and are the result of an effort by people displaced by the park to make new lives for themselves.
We drove over some very crowded, chaotic, bumpy country roads and finally arrived late in the afternoon at the OAT camp about at mile from the village of Abhanera.
Arriving in the village, before going to the camp, we visited the step well of Chand Baori and its adjoining temple, built circa 1100 AD. The impressive step well was much more than I expected. It is approximately 30 meters square with many steps progressing toward its center. It's about 70 feet down to the algae-covered water, which is about 20 feet deep.
At about 6 PM we had a camel ride from camp of about 1-1/2 miles past farm homes. These are one-hump camels. The saddle is such that you sit behind the hump. Each camel was led by a walking driver. The “road” was a sandy trail barely wide enough for a car and probably only very rarely saw a car but routinely saw camel carts and motorcycles. Sometimes it was less than that – barely a sandy walking trail. This is certainly a far different world than the one we know. Yet the people are not starving. They were very friendly. There were hoards of children.
In camp, before dinner, we had a little (very amateur) game of cricket.
In camp in the evening, after dinner in the dining tent, we were entertained by ten men – local farmers, not professionals. They sang and danced and played a large (nagada) and a small (dholak) drum and cymbals. Som explained that the dances told mythical stories from Hinduism. At the end we all joined them in the dancing.
After dinner some of us took a moonlight walk back to the step well.
Bernie :-)
DAY 20, APRIL 10, RANTHAMBHORE NAT'L PARK
RANTHAMBHORE 1
Monkeys and deer we saw and parakeets and pea fowl,
And cranes, two crocs, a blue bird, a vulture and an owl.
But, as our Rover lurched,
Hard in vein we searched
For a lion on the prowl.
RANTHAMBHORE 2
A great day it has been,
For a tiger we have seen,
And that was a lot of fun.
You seldom get to see one,
But a tiger we have seen!
Feeling much better today. Still eating lightly.
From 6:15 till about 9:45, accompanied by a naturalist, we went out on a drive through the lion preserve in an overgrown “jeep” that can hold about 22 people. Its brand name is Eicher. I noted the Mazda name on a similar vehicle.
There was a box lunch for breakfast in the “jeep” and lunch in the hotel at 1:00. Then we did another tour through the park starting at 3:30, from which we returned about 7:15.
It is extremely dry in the nature park (tiger preserve). Lots of scrubby trees, but no foliage, so you can see through them pretty well. There are some evergreen trees (but not pines). The others had not begun to leaf out yet, which is surprising to me. The terrain is very rugged and hilly (unlike the flat land we drove through getting here) and very rocky. There's no possibility of driving elsewhere than on the very rough crude roads. (There is a main road that is paved and then unpaved roads.) Although it is dry, there are lakes. So the wildlife have access to water.
The core zone of Ranthambhore National Park is approximately 400 square kilometers. Including the buffer zone, the park is 1390 square kilometers. It contains about 40 Royal Bengal Tigers and 70 to 80 leopards. The tigers are seldom seen because they are so few. The leopards are even more rarely seen because they work the night shift and are few.
There is a lot of wildlife in the park, and you see some at almost every turn. We saw scads of langur monkeys. We saw scads of deer. There are two kinds: the larger Sambar Deer, and the smaller Spotted Deer or Chital Deer, which have white spots like a fawn. We saw scads of peafowl and lots of parakeets.
At one point on our afternoon trip we heard the distress call of a deer and parked and waited a long time, hoping to see a tiger or leopard. A great number of other vehicles lined up and waited also. But no luck that time.
Later on our afternoon trip we got real lucky and spotted a big, handsome tiger and were able to get photos. There was a lot of excitement. I think I got some good photos. Dick Opsahl got several excellent photos of the tiger and had them on his computer for all of us to see at dinner.
Sometimes in the park you see evidence of where people have lived in the past – remnants of buildings, stone walls.
I greatly enjoyed our experience in the park.
There are still some people living in the buffer zone of the park. People who were displaced from the core zone when the park was established were aided by the government in their transition to a different way of life.
We had dinner at 8 PM, and at 9 PM we went for a moonlight walk out to the main road and back under a clear sky and full moon. It's a very rough road, and Helen forgot to change into her walking shoes and walked it in her sandals.
Three more members of our group have had some amount of sickness yesterday and/or today.
Although this is a mainly Hindu nation (70% to 80%) with only a low percentage of Christians, we learned that schools are closed today because it is Good Friday.
Bernie :-)
Monkeys and deer we saw and parakeets and pea fowl,
And cranes, two crocs, a blue bird, a vulture and an owl.
But, as our Rover lurched,
Hard in vein we searched
For a lion on the prowl.
RANTHAMBHORE 2
A great day it has been,
For a tiger we have seen,
And that was a lot of fun.
You seldom get to see one,
But a tiger we have seen!
Feeling much better today. Still eating lightly.
From 6:15 till about 9:45, accompanied by a naturalist, we went out on a drive through the lion preserve in an overgrown “jeep” that can hold about 22 people. Its brand name is Eicher. I noted the Mazda name on a similar vehicle.
There was a box lunch for breakfast in the “jeep” and lunch in the hotel at 1:00. Then we did another tour through the park starting at 3:30, from which we returned about 7:15.
It is extremely dry in the nature park (tiger preserve). Lots of scrubby trees, but no foliage, so you can see through them pretty well. There are some evergreen trees (but not pines). The others had not begun to leaf out yet, which is surprising to me. The terrain is very rugged and hilly (unlike the flat land we drove through getting here) and very rocky. There's no possibility of driving elsewhere than on the very rough crude roads. (There is a main road that is paved and then unpaved roads.) Although it is dry, there are lakes. So the wildlife have access to water.
The core zone of Ranthambhore National Park is approximately 400 square kilometers. Including the buffer zone, the park is 1390 square kilometers. It contains about 40 Royal Bengal Tigers and 70 to 80 leopards. The tigers are seldom seen because they are so few. The leopards are even more rarely seen because they work the night shift and are few.
There is a lot of wildlife in the park, and you see some at almost every turn. We saw scads of langur monkeys. We saw scads of deer. There are two kinds: the larger Sambar Deer, and the smaller Spotted Deer or Chital Deer, which have white spots like a fawn. We saw scads of peafowl and lots of parakeets.
At one point on our afternoon trip we heard the distress call of a deer and parked and waited a long time, hoping to see a tiger or leopard. A great number of other vehicles lined up and waited also. But no luck that time.
Later on our afternoon trip we got real lucky and spotted a big, handsome tiger and were able to get photos. There was a lot of excitement. I think I got some good photos. Dick Opsahl got several excellent photos of the tiger and had them on his computer for all of us to see at dinner.
Sometimes in the park you see evidence of where people have lived in the past – remnants of buildings, stone walls.
I greatly enjoyed our experience in the park.
There are still some people living in the buffer zone of the park. People who were displaced from the core zone when the park was established were aided by the government in their transition to a different way of life.
We had dinner at 8 PM, and at 9 PM we went for a moonlight walk out to the main road and back under a clear sky and full moon. It's a very rough road, and Helen forgot to change into her walking shoes and walked it in her sandals.
Three more members of our group have had some amount of sickness yesterday and/or today.
Although this is a mainly Hindu nation (70% to 80%) with only a low percentage of Christians, we learned that schools are closed today because it is Good Friday.
Bernie :-)
DAY 19, APRIL 9, ON TO RANTHAMBHORE NAT'L PARK
THRESHING
Threshing they've mechanized
With a thresher miniaturized.
Their thresher is, in truth,
Like I knew in my youth
But very much downsized.
NAHARGARH
Like Chomu, it's a splendid palace
In which to drink from a chalice.
It's been great to know 'em.
When I get back home,
Ill sadly have no palace.
It was my turn to be sick overnight last night. Deficated countless times. Vomited three times. Very weak and sleepy all day. Couldn't eat much, just some porridge (oatmeal) and some milk at breakfast and a little boiled potato, banana and pudding at lunch and dinner. Felt very weak and sleepy all day. Napped all afternoon and evening when we got to Ranthambore. Ate very little at lunch and dinner.
We started about 8 AM on our 180 KM drive to Ranthamore National Park (lion preserve) and arrived about 1:30 PM.
Most of the way the countryside was very flat, very dry, and very hot. Fortunately the bus is nicely air conditioned. Funny thing, though, the drivers' compartment is not air conditioned.
In addition to a couple stops to use “facilities,” we made one stop to visit a farm family (just from the outside of their home).
We also made a stop to walk out onto the field to where a threshing machine was working. The sheaves of wheat had been placed in a stack beforehand. There were about ten people working, bringing the sheaves to the machine and feeding them into it, and transferring the wheat with big pans to the bin of trailer behind a tractor. The thresher was powered by belt from another tractor. We took a lot of pictures and helped carry sheaves to the thresher. Even though I was very weak, I walked out into the heat and joined this activity. This threshing machine is a miniature version of the threshing machines I remember from my childhood on the farm in Wisconsin before the invention of the combine. They too were stationary and driven by belt from a tractor. In that case the grain was brought from the field to the threshing machine up by the barn on many wagons and pitched into it.
We are staying in a splendid hotel with beautiful gardens, and it's called Nahargarh. There is no city or town. It sits at the end of a dirt road in what seems like dessert and about a mile from the boundary of the park. I took it to be a former palace converted into a hotel. It sure looks like a palace to me. But I was wrong. Som told me it was built from scratch only four or five years ago. However, he said the owner is from a semi-royal family, is very wealthy and, among other holdings, owns some old palaces.
I certainly wasn't up to the afternoon activity, though I was sorry to miss it. I stayed in and napped, and so did Helen. What we missed was a hike up to the ancient fort on a hilltop within the buffer zone of the park. John Stewart told me they saw some old temples up there which are still in use.
Bernie :-)
Threshing they've mechanized
With a thresher miniaturized.
Their thresher is, in truth,
Like I knew in my youth
But very much downsized.
NAHARGARH
Like Chomu, it's a splendid palace
In which to drink from a chalice.
It's been great to know 'em.
When I get back home,
Ill sadly have no palace.
It was my turn to be sick overnight last night. Deficated countless times. Vomited three times. Very weak and sleepy all day. Couldn't eat much, just some porridge (oatmeal) and some milk at breakfast and a little boiled potato, banana and pudding at lunch and dinner. Felt very weak and sleepy all day. Napped all afternoon and evening when we got to Ranthambore. Ate very little at lunch and dinner.
We started about 8 AM on our 180 KM drive to Ranthamore National Park (lion preserve) and arrived about 1:30 PM.
Most of the way the countryside was very flat, very dry, and very hot. Fortunately the bus is nicely air conditioned. Funny thing, though, the drivers' compartment is not air conditioned.
In addition to a couple stops to use “facilities,” we made one stop to visit a farm family (just from the outside of their home).
We also made a stop to walk out onto the field to where a threshing machine was working. The sheaves of wheat had been placed in a stack beforehand. There were about ten people working, bringing the sheaves to the machine and feeding them into it, and transferring the wheat with big pans to the bin of trailer behind a tractor. The thresher was powered by belt from another tractor. We took a lot of pictures and helped carry sheaves to the thresher. Even though I was very weak, I walked out into the heat and joined this activity. This threshing machine is a miniature version of the threshing machines I remember from my childhood on the farm in Wisconsin before the invention of the combine. They too were stationary and driven by belt from a tractor. In that case the grain was brought from the field to the threshing machine up by the barn on many wagons and pitched into it.
We are staying in a splendid hotel with beautiful gardens, and it's called Nahargarh. There is no city or town. It sits at the end of a dirt road in what seems like dessert and about a mile from the boundary of the park. I took it to be a former palace converted into a hotel. It sure looks like a palace to me. But I was wrong. Som told me it was built from scratch only four or five years ago. However, he said the owner is from a semi-royal family, is very wealthy and, among other holdings, owns some old palaces.
I certainly wasn't up to the afternoon activity, though I was sorry to miss it. I stayed in and napped, and so did Helen. What we missed was a hike up to the ancient fort on a hilltop within the buffer zone of the park. John Stewart told me they saw some old temples up there which are still in use.
Bernie :-)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
DAY 18, APRIL 8, JAIPUR
JANTAR MANTAR
It's really quite a story
How the Maharajah in his glory
Not only built a palace and a town
With wide streets for driving round,
But designed and built an observatory.
PALACE MUSEUM
The inlaid mirror hall,
The royal audience hall.
Clothes the royals wore,
Weapons used in war.
Art works on the walls.
No morning exercise today. Last night was too short.
Helen has recovered from her diarrhea.
We set out at 8:00 AM to have another look in the old town of Jaipur, where we passed but didn't stop at the dairy market. This has nothing to do with the pasteurized milk we drink here. This is fresh (unpasteurized) milk sold directly from farmers to customers. Indians are in the habit of boiling there milk and, being in the habit, they do it even with pasteurized milk. The milk produced here is from water buffaloes because Indian cows, whose milk is more nutritious, have a low yield. Also, the beef we eat here is from water buffaloes. The “sacred cows” on the streets have owners. They're smart enough to find their way home at night. People feed them so they (the people) will have good karma. You can buy alfalfa to feed them. Buffalo are too stupid to find their way home. So they don't wander the streets.
We stopped and photographed the most famous monument of Jaipur, the Palace of the Wind. built circa 1797. It isn't a palace at all but a five-story facade (looking like a palace) with 942 screened windows through which the ladies of the Maharajah's household could look out onto the street without being seen.
Then we toured the remarkable observatory built in 1728 by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II and repaired in 1901. It has 16 approximately house-size “instruments” for closely monitoring the heavens. Some amount to enormous, highly accurate sun dials, which measure the local time (when the sun is shining). Some I still don't understand so well. Astrology was and is very important in people's lives. So it was important to precisely know the timing of certain astronomic events such as eclipses. The maharajah, with the “instruments” he designed, was an expert in such measurements.
This maharajah came into power at age 12. He had an audience with the Mughal emperor at age 13. The emperor was very impressed with him, said he was the equivalent of 1-1/4 of any other maharajah and gave him the title “Sawai” meaning 1-1/4, and it has been used in the names of all his successors.
Next we toured the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, built in 1727 by the same Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II as was his home when he founded the city of Jaipur (when he moved from the Amber Fort Palace).
We ended our morning tour with a visit to the Carpet and Textile Mahal Hand Block Factory. We were shown how designs are added to long sheets of cloth by the hand block technique. And we saw weavers at work. Then we were given snacks and a sales pitch for carpets and had the opportunity to purchase carpets and/or select and purchase long sheets of decorated cloth to be made the same day into women's garments and delivered to the hotel in the evening.
On our way back to the hotel we passed a religious procession and stopped to photograph it. There was a lead “float” pulled by a tractor, followed by a long string of people, mostly women. walking. They are doing a two-day walk totaling 32 kilometers to a temple. They receive food and overnight lodging from villagers along their route.
In the early evening, out front of the hotel, we had a very short elephant ride.
We had our usual happy hour just before dinner. Som gave a long report of his five-day arranged marriage wedding. He really got wound up. Although Som is generally fairly easy to understand, I unfortunately had a lot of trouble on this “lecture” and failed to understand most of it. I really like Som. He's a great guy. You can't help but like him. Dorji in Bhutan was also very likable.
Bernie :-)
It's really quite a story
How the Maharajah in his glory
Not only built a palace and a town
With wide streets for driving round,
But designed and built an observatory.
PALACE MUSEUM
The inlaid mirror hall,
The royal audience hall.
Clothes the royals wore,
Weapons used in war.
Art works on the walls.
No morning exercise today. Last night was too short.
Helen has recovered from her diarrhea.
We set out at 8:00 AM to have another look in the old town of Jaipur, where we passed but didn't stop at the dairy market. This has nothing to do with the pasteurized milk we drink here. This is fresh (unpasteurized) milk sold directly from farmers to customers. Indians are in the habit of boiling there milk and, being in the habit, they do it even with pasteurized milk. The milk produced here is from water buffaloes because Indian cows, whose milk is more nutritious, have a low yield. Also, the beef we eat here is from water buffaloes. The “sacred cows” on the streets have owners. They're smart enough to find their way home at night. People feed them so they (the people) will have good karma. You can buy alfalfa to feed them. Buffalo are too stupid to find their way home. So they don't wander the streets.
We stopped and photographed the most famous monument of Jaipur, the Palace of the Wind. built circa 1797. It isn't a palace at all but a five-story facade (looking like a palace) with 942 screened windows through which the ladies of the Maharajah's household could look out onto the street without being seen.
Then we toured the remarkable observatory built in 1728 by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II and repaired in 1901. It has 16 approximately house-size “instruments” for closely monitoring the heavens. Some amount to enormous, highly accurate sun dials, which measure the local time (when the sun is shining). Some I still don't understand so well. Astrology was and is very important in people's lives. So it was important to precisely know the timing of certain astronomic events such as eclipses. The maharajah, with the “instruments” he designed, was an expert in such measurements.
This maharajah came into power at age 12. He had an audience with the Mughal emperor at age 13. The emperor was very impressed with him, said he was the equivalent of 1-1/4 of any other maharajah and gave him the title “Sawai” meaning 1-1/4, and it has been used in the names of all his successors.
Next we toured the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, built in 1727 by the same Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II as was his home when he founded the city of Jaipur (when he moved from the Amber Fort Palace).
We ended our morning tour with a visit to the Carpet and Textile Mahal Hand Block Factory. We were shown how designs are added to long sheets of cloth by the hand block technique. And we saw weavers at work. Then we were given snacks and a sales pitch for carpets and had the opportunity to purchase carpets and/or select and purchase long sheets of decorated cloth to be made the same day into women's garments and delivered to the hotel in the evening.
On our way back to the hotel we passed a religious procession and stopped to photograph it. There was a lead “float” pulled by a tractor, followed by a long string of people, mostly women. walking. They are doing a two-day walk totaling 32 kilometers to a temple. They receive food and overnight lodging from villagers along their route.
In the early evening, out front of the hotel, we had a very short elephant ride.
We had our usual happy hour just before dinner. Som gave a long report of his five-day arranged marriage wedding. He really got wound up. Although Som is generally fairly easy to understand, I unfortunately had a lot of trouble on this “lecture” and failed to understand most of it. I really like Som. He's a great guy. You can't help but like him. Dorji in Bhutan was also very likable.
Bernie :-)
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
DAY 17, APRIL 7, JAIPUR
AMBER FORT PALACE
Up in a jeep we rode.
Elephants in the fortress strode.
It's impenetrable as a fort,
With too many luxuries to report.
('Twas an info overload.)
With sights, its environs are replete.
It's really quite a treat.
There's the Sun Temple
And a Jain Temple
And cows and pigs in the street.
And no matter who you are,
You'll enjoy the Fort Jaigarh.
Best time I ever had!
But I am very glad
I'm not driving my own car.
JEWELS EMPORIUM
They showed how gems are polished.
Their skill we all acknowledged.
They're designing jewels as well,
And jewels they'll gladly sell.
Their salesmanship is polished.
STREETS OF OLD JAIPUR
Many scooters, single- to-quintuple-loaded motorcycles,
Push carts, horse carts, single- and double-loaded bicycles.
Cars, jeeps, not too fast, rarely stropping, scads of rickshaws,
Buses small, buses large, small trucks, lots of autorickshaws.
Walkers, honkers, sacred cows, and cart tricycles.
SHOPS OF OLD JAIPUR
Products there is galore.
Some you've never seen before.
Though I didn't see a fur
In the shops of old Jaipur,
There's every other kind of store.
The beggars are insistent,
And the foot venders are persistent.
On those crowded, gritty streets,
They ask and they repeat,
And you have to be resistant.
FAMILY SINGH
Gracious and traditional are family Singh.
They don't want for anything.
Smriti supports orphans at her expense.
Surendra works for the government.
Marksmanship is their daughter's thing.
WEDDING PROCESSION
Friends, horses, camels, elephant up ahead,
Two wealthy bothers grandly riding to be wed.
After the wedding and the party,
These young men hale and hearty
Will start to know their brides in bed.
Early this morning I was able to work in half an hour of walking around a little “track” of less than 1/8 mile in the hotel complex.
We boarded the bus at 7:45 A.M. and were joined by Groyal Singh, a “step-on guide” for Jaipur. So we have two guides in Jaipur (Som and Groyal).
This morning's big activity was our visit to the Amber Fort Palace. It's pronounced Amer. Amber means Lord of the skies. It was built in 1572 and was the home of the Maharajahs until 1727, when the Maharajah moved to what is now Jaipur and established his new palace their. It was owned by the royal family until the government took it over in 1956. It is very large, magnificent, and impregnable. It was never attacked. The maharajahs always maintained good relations with their neighbors and allied with and fought for the Mugals when they became neighbors. (Per their deal, the Mugals got the new lands, and the maharajah got the booty.) We had an extensive tour. It had separate apartments for twelve royal wives. We rode jeeps up to the Amber Fort Palace. Some tourists were riding elephants to and inside of the fort, but that option is not available to OAT tourists for safety reasons. (Elephants can panic, and injury or death can result.) Above the Amber Fort Palace is the Jaigarh Fort, which was the maharajahs' army garrison and is still owned by the formerly royal family. And there is an impressive wall, reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, in the distance. Also visible in the distance is the Hindu Sun Temple, a Jain temple, old Hindu temples dating to the 17th century, and buildings abandoned when citizens moved with the maharajah to Jaipur in 1572. And, yes, we did see some hogs in a street, as well as the cows, which became a common sight in streets after we left Delhi.
When we left Amber Fort we drove by and stopped to take pictures of the Water Temple. We merely took pictures from a distance and weren't told much about it. It's a peninsula on a lake, and we were told the lake is entirely formed from monsoon rainwater. This is amazing to me since this is very dry area and getting dryer. We were told the water table drops ten feet every year and many wells have failed.
We drove through the Old Town of the city of Jaipur. It's a lot different from Old Delhi. The street is a wide four-laner, which is amazing considering that the city was founded and designed in 1727 (by the Maharajah). But it is very crowded with an interesting mix of conveyances.
In Jaipur we visited Jewels Emporium where we were given a tour, then the opportunity to purchase jewelry. We watched people polish gems, saw people designing jewelry, saw people inlaying gemstones into gold and silver, and were showed how gold is melted, poured into little ingots, and rolled into sheets. We ate some sandwiches there, then were driven back to the hotel for a couple hours of free time.
At 4 PM we set out again for the Old Town of Jaipur. We went on a long stroll through the bazaar of shops led by Som, who explained many things. Then we had 45 minutes to shop or window shop in the Old Town on our own.
Helen had gotten diarrhea and stayed in the hotel.
Directly from the Old Town, we were driven to the home of the Singh family, and all of us were their dinner guests. The Singhs have money. Inherited money. A lot of it. Both come from nearly royal families – (something like dukes or barons in the days of the maharajas). They gave us a tour of their very nice home. They have it to themselves (no grandparents living with them). Surendra works for the government in some capacity – not for the money, Som says. Antlers and a taxidermied wild cat are on display on the walls – killed by Surendra's grandfather. Surendra showed us his double-barrel shotgun, his rifle, and his collection of swords. His eighteen-year-old daughter began shooting for pleasure at nine and is now a high-level competitive marksman (markswoman) with a rifle. She will be starting in the fall at a university in Delhi. According to their business card, they run a bed and breakfast. Smriti does a very remarkable community service. With her own money, she operates a home for ten orphan boys, ages two to eight, who have AIDs. In addition to a young man who was obviously a servant and an older lady in the kitchen who was obviously a servant, there was a young man of 18 who seemed to fit right into the family, apparently a friend of the daughter but not really a boyfriend. Because I asked him, and he said he is not her brother and not her boyfriend. He likes to play soccer and is also planning to enter college in Delhi in the fall.
The idea of India's “land ceiling,” explained by Som, was new to me. Upon independence in 1947, a law was enacted that no one could own more than 200 acres. Those who owned more – and the Singh family owned a heck of a lot more – had to give the excess up. Apparently the government compensated them but not very well. The government then distributed the land to landless families.
Quite fortuitously and unexpectedly, on the way home we passed an elaborate wedding procession involving wealthy families. The bus was stopped and we got out and watched and took photos in the dark. As is not uncommon, two brothers are marrying two sisters in an arranged marriage. (Ninety to 95 percent of marriages are arranged by the families, and the couples usually haven't met each other before their wedding day.) The grooms were on their way to the brides' home prior to the parties and rituals. They were riding on a sort of throne on a jeep together with a couple of young boy relatives. Ahead were many people, some bearing elaborate lights. Ahead of them were two saddled horses. The grooms would ride the horses the last stretch of the way. Ahead of that were a few camels. Ahead of that and leading the parade was an elephant. Som told us all the rituals and parties of such a wedding can last ten days, and in his own wedding they lasted five days. A wedding doesn't just join two people. It joins two families. And a marriage doesn't just last “till death do us part.” The union carries into the next life as well.
This was a long day. We got back to the motel about 10:15 PM.
Bernie :-)
Up in a jeep we rode.
Elephants in the fortress strode.
It's impenetrable as a fort,
With too many luxuries to report.
('Twas an info overload.)
With sights, its environs are replete.
It's really quite a treat.
There's the Sun Temple
And a Jain Temple
And cows and pigs in the street.
And no matter who you are,
You'll enjoy the Fort Jaigarh.
Best time I ever had!
But I am very glad
I'm not driving my own car.
JEWELS EMPORIUM
They showed how gems are polished.
Their skill we all acknowledged.
They're designing jewels as well,
And jewels they'll gladly sell.
Their salesmanship is polished.
STREETS OF OLD JAIPUR
Many scooters, single- to-quintuple-loaded motorcycles,
Push carts, horse carts, single- and double-loaded bicycles.
Cars, jeeps, not too fast, rarely stropping, scads of rickshaws,
Buses small, buses large, small trucks, lots of autorickshaws.
Walkers, honkers, sacred cows, and cart tricycles.
SHOPS OF OLD JAIPUR
Products there is galore.
Some you've never seen before.
Though I didn't see a fur
In the shops of old Jaipur,
There's every other kind of store.
The beggars are insistent,
And the foot venders are persistent.
On those crowded, gritty streets,
They ask and they repeat,
And you have to be resistant.
FAMILY SINGH
Gracious and traditional are family Singh.
They don't want for anything.
Smriti supports orphans at her expense.
Surendra works for the government.
Marksmanship is their daughter's thing.
WEDDING PROCESSION
Friends, horses, camels, elephant up ahead,
Two wealthy bothers grandly riding to be wed.
After the wedding and the party,
These young men hale and hearty
Will start to know their brides in bed.
Early this morning I was able to work in half an hour of walking around a little “track” of less than 1/8 mile in the hotel complex.
We boarded the bus at 7:45 A.M. and were joined by Groyal Singh, a “step-on guide” for Jaipur. So we have two guides in Jaipur (Som and Groyal).
This morning's big activity was our visit to the Amber Fort Palace. It's pronounced Amer. Amber means Lord of the skies. It was built in 1572 and was the home of the Maharajahs until 1727, when the Maharajah moved to what is now Jaipur and established his new palace their. It was owned by the royal family until the government took it over in 1956. It is very large, magnificent, and impregnable. It was never attacked. The maharajahs always maintained good relations with their neighbors and allied with and fought for the Mugals when they became neighbors. (Per their deal, the Mugals got the new lands, and the maharajah got the booty.) We had an extensive tour. It had separate apartments for twelve royal wives. We rode jeeps up to the Amber Fort Palace. Some tourists were riding elephants to and inside of the fort, but that option is not available to OAT tourists for safety reasons. (Elephants can panic, and injury or death can result.) Above the Amber Fort Palace is the Jaigarh Fort, which was the maharajahs' army garrison and is still owned by the formerly royal family. And there is an impressive wall, reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, in the distance. Also visible in the distance is the Hindu Sun Temple, a Jain temple, old Hindu temples dating to the 17th century, and buildings abandoned when citizens moved with the maharajah to Jaipur in 1572. And, yes, we did see some hogs in a street, as well as the cows, which became a common sight in streets after we left Delhi.
When we left Amber Fort we drove by and stopped to take pictures of the Water Temple. We merely took pictures from a distance and weren't told much about it. It's a peninsula on a lake, and we were told the lake is entirely formed from monsoon rainwater. This is amazing to me since this is very dry area and getting dryer. We were told the water table drops ten feet every year and many wells have failed.
We drove through the Old Town of the city of Jaipur. It's a lot different from Old Delhi. The street is a wide four-laner, which is amazing considering that the city was founded and designed in 1727 (by the Maharajah). But it is very crowded with an interesting mix of conveyances.
In Jaipur we visited Jewels Emporium where we were given a tour, then the opportunity to purchase jewelry. We watched people polish gems, saw people designing jewelry, saw people inlaying gemstones into gold and silver, and were showed how gold is melted, poured into little ingots, and rolled into sheets. We ate some sandwiches there, then were driven back to the hotel for a couple hours of free time.
At 4 PM we set out again for the Old Town of Jaipur. We went on a long stroll through the bazaar of shops led by Som, who explained many things. Then we had 45 minutes to shop or window shop in the Old Town on our own.
Helen had gotten diarrhea and stayed in the hotel.
Directly from the Old Town, we were driven to the home of the Singh family, and all of us were their dinner guests. The Singhs have money. Inherited money. A lot of it. Both come from nearly royal families – (something like dukes or barons in the days of the maharajas). They gave us a tour of their very nice home. They have it to themselves (no grandparents living with them). Surendra works for the government in some capacity – not for the money, Som says. Antlers and a taxidermied wild cat are on display on the walls – killed by Surendra's grandfather. Surendra showed us his double-barrel shotgun, his rifle, and his collection of swords. His eighteen-year-old daughter began shooting for pleasure at nine and is now a high-level competitive marksman (markswoman) with a rifle. She will be starting in the fall at a university in Delhi. According to their business card, they run a bed and breakfast. Smriti does a very remarkable community service. With her own money, she operates a home for ten orphan boys, ages two to eight, who have AIDs. In addition to a young man who was obviously a servant and an older lady in the kitchen who was obviously a servant, there was a young man of 18 who seemed to fit right into the family, apparently a friend of the daughter but not really a boyfriend. Because I asked him, and he said he is not her brother and not her boyfriend. He likes to play soccer and is also planning to enter college in Delhi in the fall.
The idea of India's “land ceiling,” explained by Som, was new to me. Upon independence in 1947, a law was enacted that no one could own more than 200 acres. Those who owned more – and the Singh family owned a heck of a lot more – had to give the excess up. Apparently the government compensated them but not very well. The government then distributed the land to landless families.
Quite fortuitously and unexpectedly, on the way home we passed an elaborate wedding procession involving wealthy families. The bus was stopped and we got out and watched and took photos in the dark. As is not uncommon, two brothers are marrying two sisters in an arranged marriage. (Ninety to 95 percent of marriages are arranged by the families, and the couples usually haven't met each other before their wedding day.) The grooms were on their way to the brides' home prior to the parties and rituals. They were riding on a sort of throne on a jeep together with a couple of young boy relatives. Ahead were many people, some bearing elaborate lights. Ahead of them were two saddled horses. The grooms would ride the horses the last stretch of the way. Ahead of that were a few camels. Ahead of that and leading the parade was an elephant. Som told us all the rituals and parties of such a wedding can last ten days, and in his own wedding they lasted five days. A wedding doesn't just join two people. It joins two families. And a marriage doesn't just last “till death do us part.” The union carries into the next life as well.
This was a long day. We got back to the motel about 10:15 PM.
Bernie :-)
DAY 16, APRIL 6, ON TO JAIPUR
FARMERS
It made our day complete
A farming couple to meet.
'Twas a window on their life
To see how, with but a knife,
They were harvesting their wheat.
CHOMU PALACE
The Palace of Chomu
Is a great place to eat stew.
It's full of charm and grace.
To dine in such a place
Was an experience new.
The service fit the scene,
The food the best we've seen.
'Twas more than enough to fill us.
Yet, outside the palace
Was quite a different scene.
SNAKE CHARMERS
To dance and play the flute
For not a lot of loot,
They must be nuts
In their mud huts
With cobra snakes to boot.
It made our day complete
A farming couple to meet.
'Twas a window on their life
To see how, with but a knife,
They were harvesting their wheat.
CHOMU PALACE
The Palace of Chomu
Is a great place to eat stew.
It's full of charm and grace.
To dine in such a place
Was an experience new.
The service fit the scene,
The food the best we've seen.
'Twas more than enough to fill us.
Yet, outside the palace
Was quite a different scene.
SNAKE CHARMERS
To dance and play the flute
For not a lot of loot,
They must be nuts
In their mud huts
With cobra snakes to boot.
DAY 15, APRIL 5, DELHI
INDIA GATE
We stopped at India Gate,
Completed circa twenty-eight.
In the first world war
And the Afghan wars
Many an Indian met his fate.
A canopy that stands nearby
Housed George the fifth in years gone by.
(At the museum
You can see him.)
It's empty now, and a big debate is why.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
Buildings to be admired
From the British were acquired
For ministries of the government
And a coliseum for the parliament
(Its members by the people hired.)
QUTUB MINAR
Came invaders like old Qutub,
And temples went down the tubes.
Materials from them they borrowed
To make their mosque and tower
To convert infidels they saw as rubes.
RUG STORE
Carpets made in Cashmere homes.
None better anywhere you roam.
Cottage Industries Exposition
Makes you a good proposition
If you want to take one home.
BANGLA SAHIB TEMPLE
In Delhi our Sykh temple
Was my first example.
The music was loud.
Thick was the crowd.
Good job we weren't trampled.
The crowd made me nervous.
Our head scarves well did serve us.
So we were properly dressed.
And I was well impressed
By their community service.
FAMILY GOYAL
You'd think that we were royal
From our reception by family Goyal.
It was great with them to connect.
Their artistry made me suspect
They're descendants of Mr. Goya.
We started with the India Gate, which is reminiscent of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. It honors the many Indian soldiers who were killed fighting for the British in WWI and in the Afghanistan wars right after WWI. The soldiers were all volunteers. (They needed work.) None of this fighting was on Indian soil.
The statue of King George V was moved to the Indian Museum. Some have suggested a statue of Mahatma Ghandi should be placed in the canopy. Others oppose that since the canopy is a symbol of the British. So the canopy stands empty.
We haven't seen the Supreme Court building, which is located elsewhere. We saw the buildings that house the ministries and the round building that houses Parliament. They are splendid buildings and the grounds are extensive and green. Of course, this a high security area these days. How can a country like India have such splendid government buildings? It is because they were built by the British for their administration before Indian independency in 1947. They were built circa 1910 to 1930. We saw a large group of monkeys crossing a major street between ministries buildings.
The first thing you see at Qutub Minar is the 234-foot tower or minar (minaret) built in 1193. It is impressive, but there is much more to see. There are extensive ruins from that era that make you think of Roman or Greek ruins. Som explained it all. Long before the Moslems came in and took over, they used to come in from Afghanistan, conduct raids, and go home. One of these raiders was Qutub. Or maybe Qutub was the raider's underling. At one point an underling was left behind to set up permanently, but he decided to break from his master and take charge on his own. They intended to convert the Hindus and Jains (“infidels”) into Muslims. They tore down the existing temples and used the materials to make their mosque. In some cases they merely removed the statuary carvings. So you see the remains of Hindu temples that were tampered with by the Muslims. Extremely amazing is a massive iron post which has survived five centuries in the elements without rusting, and it's a mystery where it came from and how it was transported.
We visited the store “Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd.,” which mainly sells carpets handmade in homes in Cashmere -- wonderful, long-lasting carpets of highest quality. Tea was served and the manager explained the carpets, how they are made, and their virtues. A 20% discount was offered since we are with OAT. A few of our group ended up buying one or two carpets.
We visited the Sikh temple called Bangla Sahib. Not only did we take our shoes off, but we also wore orange headscarfs that were loaned to us. It was extremely crowded and rather large. Holy music was being sung by the priest over a loudspeaker, and it was very loud. Sikhs are required to do community service. We visited their next-door Langar (community kitchen) where Sikh volunteers from all walks of life were working together preparing food and serving it to a huge crowd of poor people seated on the floor. The Sikhs do not have multiple gods as do Hindus. They are monotheistic. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists all believe in rebirth and reincarnation. The big deal with Sikhs is the worship of “The Book” in which all the writings of the gurus are kept . Sikh men wear turbans.
We had lunch in an Indian Chinese restaurant. The food was a lot like that in an American restaurant, except that they had sweet and sour potato chips, some of the food was a bit spicy, and they had no fortune cookies.
We walked through a shopping area outside the Chinese restaurant. Nothing exciting there.
We had a little free time back at the hotel. Som tried to help Helen and me get on the Internet using his computer, which has its own little wireless gizmo. We were only hoping to read our mail. We finally did get on AOL, and yet we could not call up our received mail.
This evening was a special occasion – the opportunity to be the dinner guests of an Indian family in their homes. We divided into two groups, and each went to a different family. The group Helen and I were in were driven to the home of the Goyal family – husband, wife, 24-year-old daughter, 36-year-old son. They're very friendly folks, and it was very enjoyable. The food, of course, was Indian, some but not all of it on the spicy side. This is a Hindu family of a caste that were traditionally merchants and businessmen. While 90 to 95 percent of Indian marriages still are arranged, as was the case of the father and mother, in this family the daughter has selected her own mate. He's a college student in Arizona and they expect to marry in December. She has a master's degree. This is a very artistic family – truly amazing. The wife/mother is a prolific artist, doing traditional art and selling it. The third floor is an art studio. Her art work is hung throughout the house and especially in the studio. The son does modern art and has had expositions of his work. The father is a graphic artist. The daughter doesn't do art, but she works for an art studio, doing its administrative work.
Bernie :-)
We stopped at India Gate,
Completed circa twenty-eight.
In the first world war
And the Afghan wars
Many an Indian met his fate.
A canopy that stands nearby
Housed George the fifth in years gone by.
(At the museum
You can see him.)
It's empty now, and a big debate is why.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
Buildings to be admired
From the British were acquired
For ministries of the government
And a coliseum for the parliament
(Its members by the people hired.)
QUTUB MINAR
Came invaders like old Qutub,
And temples went down the tubes.
Materials from them they borrowed
To make their mosque and tower
To convert infidels they saw as rubes.
RUG STORE
Carpets made in Cashmere homes.
None better anywhere you roam.
Cottage Industries Exposition
Makes you a good proposition
If you want to take one home.
BANGLA SAHIB TEMPLE
In Delhi our Sykh temple
Was my first example.
The music was loud.
Thick was the crowd.
Good job we weren't trampled.
The crowd made me nervous.
Our head scarves well did serve us.
So we were properly dressed.
And I was well impressed
By their community service.
FAMILY GOYAL
You'd think that we were royal
From our reception by family Goyal.
It was great with them to connect.
Their artistry made me suspect
They're descendants of Mr. Goya.
We started with the India Gate, which is reminiscent of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. It honors the many Indian soldiers who were killed fighting for the British in WWI and in the Afghanistan wars right after WWI. The soldiers were all volunteers. (They needed work.) None of this fighting was on Indian soil.
The statue of King George V was moved to the Indian Museum. Some have suggested a statue of Mahatma Ghandi should be placed in the canopy. Others oppose that since the canopy is a symbol of the British. So the canopy stands empty.
We haven't seen the Supreme Court building, which is located elsewhere. We saw the buildings that house the ministries and the round building that houses Parliament. They are splendid buildings and the grounds are extensive and green. Of course, this a high security area these days. How can a country like India have such splendid government buildings? It is because they were built by the British for their administration before Indian independency in 1947. They were built circa 1910 to 1930. We saw a large group of monkeys crossing a major street between ministries buildings.
The first thing you see at Qutub Minar is the 234-foot tower or minar (minaret) built in 1193. It is impressive, but there is much more to see. There are extensive ruins from that era that make you think of Roman or Greek ruins. Som explained it all. Long before the Moslems came in and took over, they used to come in from Afghanistan, conduct raids, and go home. One of these raiders was Qutub. Or maybe Qutub was the raider's underling. At one point an underling was left behind to set up permanently, but he decided to break from his master and take charge on his own. They intended to convert the Hindus and Jains (“infidels”) into Muslims. They tore down the existing temples and used the materials to make their mosque. In some cases they merely removed the statuary carvings. So you see the remains of Hindu temples that were tampered with by the Muslims. Extremely amazing is a massive iron post which has survived five centuries in the elements without rusting, and it's a mystery where it came from and how it was transported.
We visited the store “Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd.,” which mainly sells carpets handmade in homes in Cashmere -- wonderful, long-lasting carpets of highest quality. Tea was served and the manager explained the carpets, how they are made, and their virtues. A 20% discount was offered since we are with OAT. A few of our group ended up buying one or two carpets.
We visited the Sikh temple called Bangla Sahib. Not only did we take our shoes off, but we also wore orange headscarfs that were loaned to us. It was extremely crowded and rather large. Holy music was being sung by the priest over a loudspeaker, and it was very loud. Sikhs are required to do community service. We visited their next-door Langar (community kitchen) where Sikh volunteers from all walks of life were working together preparing food and serving it to a huge crowd of poor people seated on the floor. The Sikhs do not have multiple gods as do Hindus. They are monotheistic. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists all believe in rebirth and reincarnation. The big deal with Sikhs is the worship of “The Book” in which all the writings of the gurus are kept . Sikh men wear turbans.
We had lunch in an Indian Chinese restaurant. The food was a lot like that in an American restaurant, except that they had sweet and sour potato chips, some of the food was a bit spicy, and they had no fortune cookies.
We walked through a shopping area outside the Chinese restaurant. Nothing exciting there.
We had a little free time back at the hotel. Som tried to help Helen and me get on the Internet using his computer, which has its own little wireless gizmo. We were only hoping to read our mail. We finally did get on AOL, and yet we could not call up our received mail.
This evening was a special occasion – the opportunity to be the dinner guests of an Indian family in their homes. We divided into two groups, and each went to a different family. The group Helen and I were in were driven to the home of the Goyal family – husband, wife, 24-year-old daughter, 36-year-old son. They're very friendly folks, and it was very enjoyable. The food, of course, was Indian, some but not all of it on the spicy side. This is a Hindu family of a caste that were traditionally merchants and businessmen. While 90 to 95 percent of Indian marriages still are arranged, as was the case of the father and mother, in this family the daughter has selected her own mate. He's a college student in Arizona and they expect to marry in December. She has a master's degree. This is a very artistic family – truly amazing. The wife/mother is a prolific artist, doing traditional art and selling it. The third floor is an art studio. Her art work is hung throughout the house and especially in the studio. The son does modern art and has had expositions of his work. The father is a graphic artist. The daughter doesn't do art, but she works for an art studio, doing its administrative work.
Bernie :-)
DAY 14, APRIL 4, DELHI
INDIA'S ARMY
Eleven lakh has the Army Corps.
With their families they make a crore.
At the polls they'll have their say.
As for the amount of their pay,
They wish it were somewhat more.
DELHI'S DOGS
Though not her problem sole,
Delhi's dogs are hard to control.
Of a program not haphazard,
Reduction of this hazard
Is the worthy goal.
LOTUS TEMPLE
Beautiful it is, oh my –
The Lotus Temple of Bahai,
A faith of a attractive kind
Stressing unity of mankind.
And you don't kiss your old faith goodbye.
RICKSHAW RIDE
A rickshaw was our convenience
As old Delhi we experienced,
Riding on its chair, oh,
Through streets so very narrow,
With humanity packed so dense.
JAMI MOSQUE
One of the things we did
Was visit the Jami Masjid.
Twenty-five K muslims in can hold.
The reason for the shawls, we're told,
Is to keep ladies' shoulders hid.
RAJ GHAT
We visited the samadhi
Of Mahatma Ghandi.
Like a god, he is worshipped.
With love and charisma equipped,
He was the father of his country.
We learned from Som that Delhi has an estimated 16 million people.
Som also told us Old Delhi was built in the 18th century and New Delhi circa 1910 to 1930.
I learned from an article in the Hindustan Times that “There are 11.3 lakh men and women in the Indian Army and together with their families and ex-servicemen, they add up to a cool one crore, according to one estimate.” A lahk is 100,000. A crore is 100 lahks or 10 million. An Arab is 100 crores or one billion.
In the morning we visited the quite new Lotus Temple of the Bahai faith. The temple and its spacious grounds are beautiful. There are no religious symbols inside or outside the temple. It is built to look like a lotus, which is an important symbolic flower for several religions. Man should emulate the lotus because it maintains its beauty and purity regardless of its surroundings. Bahai was founded by its profit Bahaullah, who lived and was persecuted in the nineteenth century in Iran. He is presented as the most recent in the line of profits including Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and others. The Bahai faith stresses unity of mankind. It's kind of an amalgamation of all religions. People of various faiths hold services in the temple. The headquarters of Bahai is in Haifa, Israel. There are Bahai temples in several countries including the one in Chicago. Bahai has no clergy or hierarchy. Those who convert to Bahai don't have to discard former beliefs. They just enlarge their perspective while continuing their former faith.
Incidentally, it was interesting to me to learn that Zoroastrianism (the ancient religion of Iran/Persia) is a living religion in India, although it is declining. Believers tend to be wealthy and include some very wealthy persons. It seems that when the Muslims took over in Iran, they drove most of the Zoroastrians out, and the latter settled in India.
With an hour to apply to it, I went ahead and spent $9, to Helen's chagrin, to get on the Internet and tried to post my blog entries. I had a lot of frustration, got only half of them posted.
Before lunch we had an orientation and everyone introduce themselves (again). Californians Margaret and Sandy joined our group, having arrived at the hotel at 1:00 AM.
At lunch we were on our own. Helen ate in the hotel room on things she'd saved from the breakfast line. Lunch in the hotel would have been exorbitant. John Stewart and I walked over to – not a McDonald's although there apparently is one nearby – but to an Indian equivalent. It was dirt cheap. We had a hamburger with french fries, and I had a pepsi. It was OK, so-so, not spicy at least. We scraped away the lettuce that came in the hamburger.
In the afternoon we experienced a short ride in Delhi's underground metro system (packed in like sardines).
We came out of the metro into a totally different world, hard to describe, never experienced before – that of old Delhi. Extremely crowded, decayed, very narrow streets, a tangle of old electric wires overhead, lots of sounds and smells and movement, people on foot, on bicycle rickshaws, on motorcycles, people pushing and pulling various types of handcarts, shops of various kinds. We all had a nice, long ride through this environment on bicycle rickshaws. At one point we were stalled out for several minutes by the crowd. This has to be a highlight of our visit to India.
We then toured the Jami Mosque, which is right there in old Delhi. It was built (started) in 1648 and is the largest mosque in India. All or our ladies were loaned shawls or robes so their shoulders would be covered – each being a single pastel color with white polka dots.
The memorial to Mahatma Ghandi is at the spot where he was cremated. At time (1968) the river flowed right by the spot, but now the river is nowhere close. The extensive, attractive grounds includes a lot of lush green grass. The monument is a simple marble slab bearing an eternal flame. Indians filed by to pay their respects. Som gave a detailed history of the Mahatma. He concluded by noting that, while everyone looks to Ghandi almost as a god, Ghandi's lessons of unity and nonviolence seem to be ignored in India.
Back in the bus, Som gave the history of the Ghandi political family. First he said there is no relationship except in the name between Mahatma Ghandi and the political family. And he feels that the family is capitalizing on the Ghandi name, and many people vote for them only because of the name. But there is a relationship, as he explained, because former prime minister Indira Ghandi (daughter of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru) married the adopted son of Mahatma Gandhi – after breaking from her love of another man she could not marry because he was not a Hindu. Indira was eventually assassinated. Her first son, prime minister Sanjay, died in the crash of a light aircraft. Her second son, Rajiv, had not been interested in politics, but then was trained in politics, became prime minister, was assassinated. His widow, Sonja, an Italian Catholic, is head of the Congress party and the most powerful person in India, could be prime minister under the constitution, arranged for the present prime minister, Dr. Singh, to stand in for her instead, while she wields power behind the scenes.
We all had an Indian dinner at the restaurant Lazeez Affaire. Lazeez means religious.
Fortunately the Indian foods have not been as spicy as they were at Nathu's Sweets the first night here.
Bernie :-)
Eleven lakh has the Army Corps.
With their families they make a crore.
At the polls they'll have their say.
As for the amount of their pay,
They wish it were somewhat more.
DELHI'S DOGS
Though not her problem sole,
Delhi's dogs are hard to control.
Of a program not haphazard,
Reduction of this hazard
Is the worthy goal.
LOTUS TEMPLE
Beautiful it is, oh my –
The Lotus Temple of Bahai,
A faith of a attractive kind
Stressing unity of mankind.
And you don't kiss your old faith goodbye.
RICKSHAW RIDE
A rickshaw was our convenience
As old Delhi we experienced,
Riding on its chair, oh,
Through streets so very narrow,
With humanity packed so dense.
JAMI MOSQUE
One of the things we did
Was visit the Jami Masjid.
Twenty-five K muslims in can hold.
The reason for the shawls, we're told,
Is to keep ladies' shoulders hid.
RAJ GHAT
We visited the samadhi
Of Mahatma Ghandi.
Like a god, he is worshipped.
With love and charisma equipped,
He was the father of his country.
We learned from Som that Delhi has an estimated 16 million people.
Som also told us Old Delhi was built in the 18th century and New Delhi circa 1910 to 1930.
I learned from an article in the Hindustan Times that “There are 11.3 lakh men and women in the Indian Army and together with their families and ex-servicemen, they add up to a cool one crore, according to one estimate.” A lahk is 100,000. A crore is 100 lahks or 10 million. An Arab is 100 crores or one billion.
In the morning we visited the quite new Lotus Temple of the Bahai faith. The temple and its spacious grounds are beautiful. There are no religious symbols inside or outside the temple. It is built to look like a lotus, which is an important symbolic flower for several religions. Man should emulate the lotus because it maintains its beauty and purity regardless of its surroundings. Bahai was founded by its profit Bahaullah, who lived and was persecuted in the nineteenth century in Iran. He is presented as the most recent in the line of profits including Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and others. The Bahai faith stresses unity of mankind. It's kind of an amalgamation of all religions. People of various faiths hold services in the temple. The headquarters of Bahai is in Haifa, Israel. There are Bahai temples in several countries including the one in Chicago. Bahai has no clergy or hierarchy. Those who convert to Bahai don't have to discard former beliefs. They just enlarge their perspective while continuing their former faith.
Incidentally, it was interesting to me to learn that Zoroastrianism (the ancient religion of Iran/Persia) is a living religion in India, although it is declining. Believers tend to be wealthy and include some very wealthy persons. It seems that when the Muslims took over in Iran, they drove most of the Zoroastrians out, and the latter settled in India.
With an hour to apply to it, I went ahead and spent $9, to Helen's chagrin, to get on the Internet and tried to post my blog entries. I had a lot of frustration, got only half of them posted.
Before lunch we had an orientation and everyone introduce themselves (again). Californians Margaret and Sandy joined our group, having arrived at the hotel at 1:00 AM.
At lunch we were on our own. Helen ate in the hotel room on things she'd saved from the breakfast line. Lunch in the hotel would have been exorbitant. John Stewart and I walked over to – not a McDonald's although there apparently is one nearby – but to an Indian equivalent. It was dirt cheap. We had a hamburger with french fries, and I had a pepsi. It was OK, so-so, not spicy at least. We scraped away the lettuce that came in the hamburger.
In the afternoon we experienced a short ride in Delhi's underground metro system (packed in like sardines).
We came out of the metro into a totally different world, hard to describe, never experienced before – that of old Delhi. Extremely crowded, decayed, very narrow streets, a tangle of old electric wires overhead, lots of sounds and smells and movement, people on foot, on bicycle rickshaws, on motorcycles, people pushing and pulling various types of handcarts, shops of various kinds. We all had a nice, long ride through this environment on bicycle rickshaws. At one point we were stalled out for several minutes by the crowd. This has to be a highlight of our visit to India.
We then toured the Jami Mosque, which is right there in old Delhi. It was built (started) in 1648 and is the largest mosque in India. All or our ladies were loaned shawls or robes so their shoulders would be covered – each being a single pastel color with white polka dots.
The memorial to Mahatma Ghandi is at the spot where he was cremated. At time (1968) the river flowed right by the spot, but now the river is nowhere close. The extensive, attractive grounds includes a lot of lush green grass. The monument is a simple marble slab bearing an eternal flame. Indians filed by to pay their respects. Som gave a detailed history of the Mahatma. He concluded by noting that, while everyone looks to Ghandi almost as a god, Ghandi's lessons of unity and nonviolence seem to be ignored in India.
Back in the bus, Som gave the history of the Ghandi political family. First he said there is no relationship except in the name between Mahatma Ghandi and the political family. And he feels that the family is capitalizing on the Ghandi name, and many people vote for them only because of the name. But there is a relationship, as he explained, because former prime minister Indira Ghandi (daughter of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru) married the adopted son of Mahatma Gandhi – after breaking from her love of another man she could not marry because he was not a Hindu. Indira was eventually assassinated. Her first son, prime minister Sanjay, died in the crash of a light aircraft. Her second son, Rajiv, had not been interested in politics, but then was trained in politics, became prime minister, was assassinated. His widow, Sonja, an Italian Catholic, is head of the Congress party and the most powerful person in India, could be prime minister under the constitution, arranged for the present prime minister, Dr. Singh, to stand in for her instead, while she wields power behind the scenes.
We all had an Indian dinner at the restaurant Lazeez Affaire. Lazeez means religious.
Fortunately the Indian foods have not been as spicy as they were at Nathu's Sweets the first night here.
Bernie :-)
DAY 13, APRIL 3, ON TO DELHI
ON TO DELHI
At Himalayan peaks
We were treated to a peek
Er Katmandu
We passed on through
And on to Delhi streaked.
DELHI
Hinduism is no wise simple.
We got an intro at the temple.
Delhi has some residences
That are extremely expensive.
Som showed us some examples.
HINDUISM
The number of gods is near infinity.
There is a Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trinity.
There is a great universal soul.
Merging into it is the goal.
Of all the gods, there is unity.
Hinduism has no founder.
How old it is we can only wonder.
Its priests are of the Brahmin caste.
From father to son their job is passed.
No hierarchy are they under.
I got out early and jogged about 3-1/2 miles alone on the straight, flat, country, gravel road in front of our hotel, The Village Hotel near Paro.
At 8;15 AM we left for the airport to fly to Delhi.
I was very fortunate to have a window seat on the right=hand side. So I had a front-row seat for viewing and photographing the snow-covered mountains as they rose above the clouds.
Our flight made a half-hour stop in Katmandu, during which we had to stay in the plane. My impressions based on nothing more than the view from the plane are that Katmandu is much larger than Thimphu (Bhutan's largest city) and Katmandu's buildings are less exotic and more western-looking than Bhutan's (except, I suppose, in the old section, which we did not see).
We were met at the airport by our Indian guide, Som Bose. Dorji was easier to understand than our Kolkata guide, and Som is easier for me to understand than Dorji. Som speaks slowly and has a deep voice, as did Dorji.
As we drove from the airport, Som told us that Inida is in the midst of a multi-day Hindu celebration.
Outside city the highway was four-lane each direction and the traffic flowing nicely and looking not so much different than at home except that there were quite a few motorcycles. But when we got into town, traffic bogged us down and we saw the expected crowds of people and the numerous little three-wheeled taxi vehicles and a few bicycle rickshaws.
We settled into the swank Crown Plaza Hotel and had a couple hours to rest. Helen washed clothes, and I worked on this blog.
At 5:30 we met Som in the lobby, and he led us on a walk in the neighborhood. There were bicycle rickshaws. Immediately after leaving the gated hotel compound and crossing the street, we walked through a park with grass, trees, and a circular walkway of about 250 meters. On the other side of the park, Som showed us nice, very large, very expensive houses. The areas are sometimes fenced and gated and the individual houses fenced, but not with electric wire or razor wire. The buildings being large, we thought they might be divided into apartments. But they are single family homes. But a family in India is an extended family – grandparents (on the ground floor), sons' families, grandchildren. The daughters marry and become part of someone else's extended family.
Som took us to the temple, and it was our first time in a Hindu temple. It had more worshippers than usual, he said, because of the holiday. But it wasn't extremely crowded. An evening service was in progress with energetic singing and clapping to a lively rhythm supported by a drummer. There were several booths having the statue of a god or three gods together. There were priests attending these idols. A priest is a Brahmin by caste, and this is his job/profession, and his earnings are the donations given him by worshippers, and the profession is passed down and taught father-to-son through the generations as are other professions in India. Only a priest, not a lay person, may go into a booth with the idols. Gifts for offerings to the gods are purchased downstairs next to where we left our shoes with the attendant of the shoe storage room. There are different kinds of gifts to offer, depending on whether it's a male or female god and, indeed, each god or goddess has its own likes in gifts. As we always knew, Hindus worship many gods, but Som told us they believe in the oneness of their gods. All the gods are different manifestations of the universal divine force. The three most important gods are Lord Rama, the creator; Lord Vishnu, the protector; and Lord Sheeva, the procreator. I was happily surprised that we were allowed to take photos, even flash photos, in the temple.
We were approached by what turned out to be beggars right inside the temple, mainly children. Even Som was surprised that a certain lady turned out to be a beggar; she was well dressed and carrying a child in her arms. Helen admired the child and the lady asked for money. Som had told us that you don't say “no” to beggars because “no” isn't always “no” Inda. You just ignore them, don't look at them, pretend you don't see them.
At the entrance to the temple were uniformed guards, one holding an automatic rifle. Some held long place wooden poles, which got my attention. Som said later in the evening there would be large crowds and people respect those sticks.
On the walk back to the hotel, we selected a restaurant and had dinner. Som wanted us to choose the restaurant, and we rejected the first one, a bar-like place, as too noisy with its music. We ate in the restaurant Nathu's Sweets. Som explained the foods on the menu. With difficulty, we made our choices. The foods were very cheap. Helen and I shared a meal for about $3.20, including my glass of Pepsi for about fifty cents. We had a variety of foods, and every one of them was too spicy for me. Even the pancake-like bread, by itself, was hot. Likewise the yogurt. I think eating will be difficult for me in India; I knew the foods would be spicy; it's something to endure; maybe it will keep my weight down. Well, I'll load up at breakfasts and sneak a few breakfast items back to the hotel room. We're very careful not to eat salads or unpeeled fruits.
Back in the hotel, lying on the bed with the TV on, we fell asleep early. We didn't have TV in Bhutan, nor newspapers with world news. So we were in a news blackout. Here we get some of the worlds' news from TV and, on the plane and in the hotel room, the newspaper Hindustan Times, which also has a few strange stories that could become poem fodder.
It's possible to get on the Internet in the hotel room, but it is very expensive -- ~$18 for 24 hours or ~$9 for one hour.
Sadly, Helen has lost her little digital camera -- Eric's old one that he gave. So she has resorted to carrying one of the disposable cameras that we brought.
We're VERY CAREFUL of our valuables here. I carry about $25-worth of rupees loose in my pocket. Everything else is locked in the safe in our room – my travel wallet with passports and cash, Helen's purse, my billfold with credit card.
Som says Indians tend to eat their evening meals very late – like 9 pm or 10 pm.
Bernie :-)
At Himalayan peaks
We were treated to a peek
Er Katmandu
We passed on through
And on to Delhi streaked.
DELHI
Hinduism is no wise simple.
We got an intro at the temple.
Delhi has some residences
That are extremely expensive.
Som showed us some examples.
HINDUISM
The number of gods is near infinity.
There is a Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trinity.
There is a great universal soul.
Merging into it is the goal.
Of all the gods, there is unity.
Hinduism has no founder.
How old it is we can only wonder.
Its priests are of the Brahmin caste.
From father to son their job is passed.
No hierarchy are they under.
I got out early and jogged about 3-1/2 miles alone on the straight, flat, country, gravel road in front of our hotel, The Village Hotel near Paro.
At 8;15 AM we left for the airport to fly to Delhi.
I was very fortunate to have a window seat on the right=hand side. So I had a front-row seat for viewing and photographing the snow-covered mountains as they rose above the clouds.
Our flight made a half-hour stop in Katmandu, during which we had to stay in the plane. My impressions based on nothing more than the view from the plane are that Katmandu is much larger than Thimphu (Bhutan's largest city) and Katmandu's buildings are less exotic and more western-looking than Bhutan's (except, I suppose, in the old section, which we did not see).
We were met at the airport by our Indian guide, Som Bose. Dorji was easier to understand than our Kolkata guide, and Som is easier for me to understand than Dorji. Som speaks slowly and has a deep voice, as did Dorji.
As we drove from the airport, Som told us that Inida is in the midst of a multi-day Hindu celebration.
Outside city the highway was four-lane each direction and the traffic flowing nicely and looking not so much different than at home except that there were quite a few motorcycles. But when we got into town, traffic bogged us down and we saw the expected crowds of people and the numerous little three-wheeled taxi vehicles and a few bicycle rickshaws.
We settled into the swank Crown Plaza Hotel and had a couple hours to rest. Helen washed clothes, and I worked on this blog.
At 5:30 we met Som in the lobby, and he led us on a walk in the neighborhood. There were bicycle rickshaws. Immediately after leaving the gated hotel compound and crossing the street, we walked through a park with grass, trees, and a circular walkway of about 250 meters. On the other side of the park, Som showed us nice, very large, very expensive houses. The areas are sometimes fenced and gated and the individual houses fenced, but not with electric wire or razor wire. The buildings being large, we thought they might be divided into apartments. But they are single family homes. But a family in India is an extended family – grandparents (on the ground floor), sons' families, grandchildren. The daughters marry and become part of someone else's extended family.
Som took us to the temple, and it was our first time in a Hindu temple. It had more worshippers than usual, he said, because of the holiday. But it wasn't extremely crowded. An evening service was in progress with energetic singing and clapping to a lively rhythm supported by a drummer. There were several booths having the statue of a god or three gods together. There were priests attending these idols. A priest is a Brahmin by caste, and this is his job/profession, and his earnings are the donations given him by worshippers, and the profession is passed down and taught father-to-son through the generations as are other professions in India. Only a priest, not a lay person, may go into a booth with the idols. Gifts for offerings to the gods are purchased downstairs next to where we left our shoes with the attendant of the shoe storage room. There are different kinds of gifts to offer, depending on whether it's a male or female god and, indeed, each god or goddess has its own likes in gifts. As we always knew, Hindus worship many gods, but Som told us they believe in the oneness of their gods. All the gods are different manifestations of the universal divine force. The three most important gods are Lord Rama, the creator; Lord Vishnu, the protector; and Lord Sheeva, the procreator. I was happily surprised that we were allowed to take photos, even flash photos, in the temple.
We were approached by what turned out to be beggars right inside the temple, mainly children. Even Som was surprised that a certain lady turned out to be a beggar; she was well dressed and carrying a child in her arms. Helen admired the child and the lady asked for money. Som had told us that you don't say “no” to beggars because “no” isn't always “no” Inda. You just ignore them, don't look at them, pretend you don't see them.
At the entrance to the temple were uniformed guards, one holding an automatic rifle. Some held long place wooden poles, which got my attention. Som said later in the evening there would be large crowds and people respect those sticks.
On the walk back to the hotel, we selected a restaurant and had dinner. Som wanted us to choose the restaurant, and we rejected the first one, a bar-like place, as too noisy with its music. We ate in the restaurant Nathu's Sweets. Som explained the foods on the menu. With difficulty, we made our choices. The foods were very cheap. Helen and I shared a meal for about $3.20, including my glass of Pepsi for about fifty cents. We had a variety of foods, and every one of them was too spicy for me. Even the pancake-like bread, by itself, was hot. Likewise the yogurt. I think eating will be difficult for me in India; I knew the foods would be spicy; it's something to endure; maybe it will keep my weight down. Well, I'll load up at breakfasts and sneak a few breakfast items back to the hotel room. We're very careful not to eat salads or unpeeled fruits.
Back in the hotel, lying on the bed with the TV on, we fell asleep early. We didn't have TV in Bhutan, nor newspapers with world news. So we were in a news blackout. Here we get some of the worlds' news from TV and, on the plane and in the hotel room, the newspaper Hindustan Times, which also has a few strange stories that could become poem fodder.
It's possible to get on the Internet in the hotel room, but it is very expensive -- ~$18 for 24 hours or ~$9 for one hour.
Sadly, Helen has lost her little digital camera -- Eric's old one that he gave. So she has resorted to carrying one of the disposable cameras that we brought.
We're VERY CAREFUL of our valuables here. I carry about $25-worth of rupees loose in my pocket. Everything else is locked in the safe in our room – my travel wallet with passports and cash, Helen's purse, my billfold with credit card.
Som says Indians tend to eat their evening meals very late – like 9 pm or 10 pm.
Bernie :-)
DAY 12, APRIL 2, PARO
TIGER'S NEST
In my senility
I'm short on agility.
So I chose to abort
While a long way short
Of the Tiger's Nest facility.
WINNERS
At travel no beginner,
I know what is a winner.
It was the visit to the home
Of Dorji's aunt and grandmom.
And likewise the farewell dinner.
Both Dick Opsahl and Karma, our driver, did some jogging early in the morning. Had I known or been invited, I would have planned ahead and joined them.
Today is Dick Opsahl's 77th birthday. I want to be as strong as he is when I grow up.
The weather was clear and nice, and for starters we drove to a good spot for taking pictures of 7,200-meter-high, snow-capped Mount Jomalaari, which sits astride the Tibetan border. Bhutan does not permit any climbing of snow-capped mountains. The reasons are that mountains are holy places and because mountain climbers leave trash on the mountains. When trekkers go into the high hills, officials count their plastic bags when they leave and when they return, and levy a fine if the numbers are not the same.
Next we drove to the starting point of our hike for the day. The Tiger's Nest Monasery (Taktshang Monastery) is a monastery and temple perched seemingly impossibly on the edge of a very high ledge on a sheer cliff. It was built in the 17th century by Desi (Administrative Leader) Tenzin Rabgya on top of the cave where in the eighth century Guru Rinpochee, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, is believed to have mediated after flying there from eastern Bhutan on the back of a tigress who was in fact his wife. Our plan was to hike up the trail to an observation-point-and-mountain-cafe. Cynthia was sick and stayed in the hotel. Karen stayed in the bus at the bottom of the trail. Helen slowly hiked part-way to the lookout together with Karma, our driver, and very much enjoyed meeting tourists along the way, including a group from Thailand. The rest of us made it to the lookout. Dorji gave us permission, and after a while five of us (Tom, Joy, Dick, Helmut, and I) set out from there to hike the rest of the way up to the Tiger's Nest. It was for me a 40-minute hike up to the lookout and about a 50-minute hike from there up to the highest point on the route. The trail was steep and wide and busy, and a few horses were being used to carry some of the tourists up. Along the trail as far as the lookout, there were several women vendors who had laid their souvenir goods out on blankets on the ground. There are several temples in the vicinity of the highest point on the trail. At the highest point on the trail, things change dramatically. From there the route is steeply downhill on a long stairway of flat rocks with a sheer drop on the outer side and no railing. Eventually the route goes back uphill again on a similar stairway to the temple. I have plenty of climbing energy, but I am very deficient in agility and balance and perhaps in courage, with a certain amount of fear of heights. I had two hiking poles, and there is at least a theoretical possibility of utilizing the rock wall on the inner side. I went a little way down the steps, became fearful, and wimped out. The other way to look at it is that I know my limits and was prudent. I walked back up to the highest point on the route, which affords a wonderful view, and waited there an hour and 20 minutes for my four friends to return from there visit to the Tiger's Nest. Then we walked back down to the mountain cafe, had lunch, and walked on down to the bus at the bottom of the trail and were bused to where the other members were waiting for us. We spent about five happy hours up there.
Meanwhile the rest of the group enjoyed two activities which I and my four hiking companions missed. One was an archery exposure where each had the opportunity to shoot a bow and a little contest was held among them. John Stewart “blew everyone away.” The bows and the arrows are both made of bamboo. The bows were too stiff for the women to pull all the way back. The other was a visit to the oldest temple in Tibet, the Kyichu Lhakhang temple which was built in 659 AD by a Tibetan king who came into Bhutan, built the temple and returned to Tibet. This was approximately a century before Buddhism was introduced to Bhuatan by Padmasamba, aka Guru Rinpoche, who came form Tibet to Bhutan in 746 A.D. The temple is small, and only the central part of was built in the seventh century, additions having been made through the centuries thereafter.
When we were all together again, Dorji took us to meet and visit a farm family in their home. It was the home of his maternal aunt and grandmother. This, of course, was a real highlight of our visit to Nepal. We sat together and visited for quite a while in the main room with Dorji's aunt, a very gracious and cheerful person who never married. She doesn't speak English'; so Dorji translated. Then we had a tour of the house.
Then we drove back to the hotel, and there was a happy hour in Dick and Judy's room, and then – with singing happy birthday to Dick -- our farewell dinner, this being our last evening in Bhutan.
We've often seen men and women working with hand tools along the road. It doesn't look to me like they could do much with hand tools. Dorji says they work for the highway department and do minor cleaning and maintenance, more substantial work being done with machines.
Ponies and donkeys are seen, particularly in the Paro area. They're mainly used to carry supplies to homes high in the hills not accessible by roads.
We've felt quite safe in Bhutan. The people are honest and won't rob you.
There are a lot of dogs to be seen in Bhutan. But I only saw one cat during our stay.
Bicycles seem to be rare in Bhutan.
The average wage in Bhutan amounts to $100 to $120 per month.
Bernie :-)
In my senility
I'm short on agility.
So I chose to abort
While a long way short
Of the Tiger's Nest facility.
WINNERS
At travel no beginner,
I know what is a winner.
It was the visit to the home
Of Dorji's aunt and grandmom.
And likewise the farewell dinner.
Both Dick Opsahl and Karma, our driver, did some jogging early in the morning. Had I known or been invited, I would have planned ahead and joined them.
Today is Dick Opsahl's 77th birthday. I want to be as strong as he is when I grow up.
The weather was clear and nice, and for starters we drove to a good spot for taking pictures of 7,200-meter-high, snow-capped Mount Jomalaari, which sits astride the Tibetan border. Bhutan does not permit any climbing of snow-capped mountains. The reasons are that mountains are holy places and because mountain climbers leave trash on the mountains. When trekkers go into the high hills, officials count their plastic bags when they leave and when they return, and levy a fine if the numbers are not the same.
Next we drove to the starting point of our hike for the day. The Tiger's Nest Monasery (Taktshang Monastery) is a monastery and temple perched seemingly impossibly on the edge of a very high ledge on a sheer cliff. It was built in the 17th century by Desi (Administrative Leader) Tenzin Rabgya on top of the cave where in the eighth century Guru Rinpochee, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, is believed to have mediated after flying there from eastern Bhutan on the back of a tigress who was in fact his wife. Our plan was to hike up the trail to an observation-point-and-mountain-cafe. Cynthia was sick and stayed in the hotel. Karen stayed in the bus at the bottom of the trail. Helen slowly hiked part-way to the lookout together with Karma, our driver, and very much enjoyed meeting tourists along the way, including a group from Thailand. The rest of us made it to the lookout. Dorji gave us permission, and after a while five of us (Tom, Joy, Dick, Helmut, and I) set out from there to hike the rest of the way up to the Tiger's Nest. It was for me a 40-minute hike up to the lookout and about a 50-minute hike from there up to the highest point on the route. The trail was steep and wide and busy, and a few horses were being used to carry some of the tourists up. Along the trail as far as the lookout, there were several women vendors who had laid their souvenir goods out on blankets on the ground. There are several temples in the vicinity of the highest point on the trail. At the highest point on the trail, things change dramatically. From there the route is steeply downhill on a long stairway of flat rocks with a sheer drop on the outer side and no railing. Eventually the route goes back uphill again on a similar stairway to the temple. I have plenty of climbing energy, but I am very deficient in agility and balance and perhaps in courage, with a certain amount of fear of heights. I had two hiking poles, and there is at least a theoretical possibility of utilizing the rock wall on the inner side. I went a little way down the steps, became fearful, and wimped out. The other way to look at it is that I know my limits and was prudent. I walked back up to the highest point on the route, which affords a wonderful view, and waited there an hour and 20 minutes for my four friends to return from there visit to the Tiger's Nest. Then we walked back down to the mountain cafe, had lunch, and walked on down to the bus at the bottom of the trail and were bused to where the other members were waiting for us. We spent about five happy hours up there.
Meanwhile the rest of the group enjoyed two activities which I and my four hiking companions missed. One was an archery exposure where each had the opportunity to shoot a bow and a little contest was held among them. John Stewart “blew everyone away.” The bows and the arrows are both made of bamboo. The bows were too stiff for the women to pull all the way back. The other was a visit to the oldest temple in Tibet, the Kyichu Lhakhang temple which was built in 659 AD by a Tibetan king who came into Bhutan, built the temple and returned to Tibet. This was approximately a century before Buddhism was introduced to Bhuatan by Padmasamba, aka Guru Rinpoche, who came form Tibet to Bhutan in 746 A.D. The temple is small, and only the central part of was built in the seventh century, additions having been made through the centuries thereafter.
When we were all together again, Dorji took us to meet and visit a farm family in their home. It was the home of his maternal aunt and grandmother. This, of course, was a real highlight of our visit to Nepal. We sat together and visited for quite a while in the main room with Dorji's aunt, a very gracious and cheerful person who never married. She doesn't speak English'; so Dorji translated. Then we had a tour of the house.
Then we drove back to the hotel, and there was a happy hour in Dick and Judy's room, and then – with singing happy birthday to Dick -- our farewell dinner, this being our last evening in Bhutan.
We've often seen men and women working with hand tools along the road. It doesn't look to me like they could do much with hand tools. Dorji says they work for the highway department and do minor cleaning and maintenance, more substantial work being done with machines.
Ponies and donkeys are seen, particularly in the Paro area. They're mainly used to carry supplies to homes high in the hills not accessible by roads.
We've felt quite safe in Bhutan. The people are honest and won't rob you.
There are a lot of dogs to be seen in Bhutan. But I only saw one cat during our stay.
Bicycles seem to be rare in Bhutan.
The average wage in Bhutan amounts to $100 to $120 per month.
Bernie :-)
DAY 11, APRIL 1, ON TO PARO
ON TO PARO
Lucky to have a perfect day,
To Paro we made our way.
No way could our spirits sag.
At the summit we hung our flag.
There at Dochula it will stay.
Pleasant were our stops, --
Right nice photo ops.
Good it was to see 'um --
The old things in the museum
And the snowy mountain tops.
The Watch Tower was top rung.
Likewise the Castle Rinpung.
The rehearsal dance was interesting.
Likewise the instruments with strings
And the songs by the ladies sung.
BUDDHISM
This life is temporary.
Only a short time here we terry.
Pray for every living being
Ere the judge you're seeing.
Some realms are pretty scary.
Pray that your next life
With trouble will not be rife.
Be you monk or farmer,
It's important to have good karma
And to heed the Wheel of Life.
Follow the eight-fold path
And you may escape the judge's wrath.
This point should be stressed:
The judge is not the least impressed
If you've cut a giant swath.
There'll be a period of transition
Ere you assume your new position.
Some places you might go to
When the judge is through with you
Are a whole lot like perdition.
If you're a Pollyanna,
You might expect Nirvana.
But I really do believe
It's right hard to achieve
No matter how much you wanna.
The weather was perfect, clear as a bell, and comfortable was the temperature in the fresh air. And the scenery was gorgeous.
We set out at 8:30 on what was to be a big day, retracing our steps, driving back over the Dochula Pass to Thimphu, then on past the airport (which has two flights in and out each day), and on to Paro, which is about the same altitude as Thimphu (~7600 feet). Along the way we had several stops to take pictures – of the general mountain scenery with terraced fields; in one instance of a group of half a dozen or so yaks; at the higher elevations, of the distant snow-covered mountains (which we couldn't see earlier because of the weather); and at the provincial check point with the apple-and-oriental-pear stand next to it.
Maybe it was because I had a better seat this time (we rotate) or maybe because we made more stops that I remained comfortable this time. Nor did Helen get carsick.
Dorji had purchased a long Buddhist flag for us, bearing all the Buddhist colors since it represents all of us. At the summit, Dorji used everyone's camera to take a group picture of all of us side-be-side holding the flag. Then we (actually John Sollid and John Stewart because they are tall) fastened the flag to a tree branch on one end and to another flag on the other end. So our flag will forever remain among the myriad of flags up there. Dorji said the thing to do is to get your flag blessed by a monk first rather than just put it up as-purchased, but I don't think he had the opportunity to do that.
We had lunch at the Hotel Jigmeling in Paro. And it was a good lunch. Eggplant again, a little different than yesterday's. And for dessert, deep fried slices of pears. Dessert is usually a tangerine; in one instance it was chunks of watermelon. Meals are almost always picked up from a buffet line. As you enter the buffet line, a waiter hands you your (clean) plate after wiping it with a (clean) napkin.
Next we visited the National Museum. The extensive collection of antiquities in the museum is interesting and impressive. The cylindrical, seven-floor building the museum is housed in is very interesting. It was built in the 17th century as a watchtower to overlook and protect the Rinpung Dzong below it (also built in the 17th century for protection, like the other dzongs). The building had decayed almost beyond saving, when the third king in 1968 had the fortuitous brainstorm to restore it to house the National Museum.
From the museum we moved toward the castle. On our way we stopped for quite a while to watch what to me was the highlight of the day. It was a group practicing outdoors to perform in an upcoming festival. They were not in festival clothing. Seven men and seven women were doing a type of folk dance. Four musicians provided the music – a simple little flute about the size of a piccolo; a Bhutanese lute, played by plucking like a guitar; the oriental string-and-bow instrument; and a long, flat stringed instrument played with little hammers. And there was a chorus of about half a dozen ladies singing. The dancers and the singers appeared to me to be college age.
Dorji gave us a tour inside the dzong (fortress or castle, which is also a temple, housing monks). This time we did not go in the altar room. Standing beside its depiction on a mural, Dorji gave us a detailed explanation of the Wheel of Life. This has to do with the several places you might be next sent after your life as a human, and what would happen to you there, and where you might go on from there. There is a judgement -- a judge who weighs your sins against your good deeds.
Then we had an hour to check out the short main street of Paro before moving on to our hotel.
This is a very nice, small hotel (only ten rooms) with a rustic flavor in a country/farm setting. It is owned by the same people who own our travel company (Overseas Adventure Travel). Everywhere we've been, our hotel rooms have been spacious and cheery. In getting to the hotel, we walked about a quarter mile from the bus on a dirt trail through the fields while our bags were brought with a farming implement – a rototiller-looking-rig-with-trailer.
Again there is no possibility of getting on the Internet with my own computer. The hotel has just one computer, which you can use for free. It wasn't in great demand. It works, and yet I have been unable in two tries to log onto AOL.
The currency in Nepal is the Ngultrum or Nu. It has the same exchange rate as the Inidan Rupee, namely about 2 U.S. pennies each. Rupees can be used in Bhutan, but the Nu cannot be used in India. I haven't seen any Nu coins at all; even a single Nu is a paper note.
The children all wear uniforms to school, and the uniforms are of the traditional costume.
If we're close up, before taking someone's photo, we always ask them if it's OK. At first I was timid to ask, but I've gotten over that. The answer is almost always positive; I've only had one negative response. Then we almost always show the “victim(s)” the picture on our digital camera screens, and they delight in seeing themselves that way – especially the younger ones.
It seems to me I don't see many older citizens – let's say 55 and over – out on the streets. Dorji says the elders tend to either stay at home or spend their days in temples.
I had read that Bhutan would be very expensive. In my experience here, the opposite is true.
Bernie :-)
Lucky to have a perfect day,
To Paro we made our way.
No way could our spirits sag.
At the summit we hung our flag.
There at Dochula it will stay.
Pleasant were our stops, --
Right nice photo ops.
Good it was to see 'um --
The old things in the museum
And the snowy mountain tops.
The Watch Tower was top rung.
Likewise the Castle Rinpung.
The rehearsal dance was interesting.
Likewise the instruments with strings
And the songs by the ladies sung.
BUDDHISM
This life is temporary.
Only a short time here we terry.
Pray for every living being
Ere the judge you're seeing.
Some realms are pretty scary.
Pray that your next life
With trouble will not be rife.
Be you monk or farmer,
It's important to have good karma
And to heed the Wheel of Life.
Follow the eight-fold path
And you may escape the judge's wrath.
This point should be stressed:
The judge is not the least impressed
If you've cut a giant swath.
There'll be a period of transition
Ere you assume your new position.
Some places you might go to
When the judge is through with you
Are a whole lot like perdition.
If you're a Pollyanna,
You might expect Nirvana.
But I really do believe
It's right hard to achieve
No matter how much you wanna.
The weather was perfect, clear as a bell, and comfortable was the temperature in the fresh air. And the scenery was gorgeous.
We set out at 8:30 on what was to be a big day, retracing our steps, driving back over the Dochula Pass to Thimphu, then on past the airport (which has two flights in and out each day), and on to Paro, which is about the same altitude as Thimphu (~7600 feet). Along the way we had several stops to take pictures – of the general mountain scenery with terraced fields; in one instance of a group of half a dozen or so yaks; at the higher elevations, of the distant snow-covered mountains (which we couldn't see earlier because of the weather); and at the provincial check point with the apple-and-oriental-pear stand next to it.
Maybe it was because I had a better seat this time (we rotate) or maybe because we made more stops that I remained comfortable this time. Nor did Helen get carsick.
Dorji had purchased a long Buddhist flag for us, bearing all the Buddhist colors since it represents all of us. At the summit, Dorji used everyone's camera to take a group picture of all of us side-be-side holding the flag. Then we (actually John Sollid and John Stewart because they are tall) fastened the flag to a tree branch on one end and to another flag on the other end. So our flag will forever remain among the myriad of flags up there. Dorji said the thing to do is to get your flag blessed by a monk first rather than just put it up as-purchased, but I don't think he had the opportunity to do that.
We had lunch at the Hotel Jigmeling in Paro. And it was a good lunch. Eggplant again, a little different than yesterday's. And for dessert, deep fried slices of pears. Dessert is usually a tangerine; in one instance it was chunks of watermelon. Meals are almost always picked up from a buffet line. As you enter the buffet line, a waiter hands you your (clean) plate after wiping it with a (clean) napkin.
Next we visited the National Museum. The extensive collection of antiquities in the museum is interesting and impressive. The cylindrical, seven-floor building the museum is housed in is very interesting. It was built in the 17th century as a watchtower to overlook and protect the Rinpung Dzong below it (also built in the 17th century for protection, like the other dzongs). The building had decayed almost beyond saving, when the third king in 1968 had the fortuitous brainstorm to restore it to house the National Museum.
From the museum we moved toward the castle. On our way we stopped for quite a while to watch what to me was the highlight of the day. It was a group practicing outdoors to perform in an upcoming festival. They were not in festival clothing. Seven men and seven women were doing a type of folk dance. Four musicians provided the music – a simple little flute about the size of a piccolo; a Bhutanese lute, played by plucking like a guitar; the oriental string-and-bow instrument; and a long, flat stringed instrument played with little hammers. And there was a chorus of about half a dozen ladies singing. The dancers and the singers appeared to me to be college age.
Dorji gave us a tour inside the dzong (fortress or castle, which is also a temple, housing monks). This time we did not go in the altar room. Standing beside its depiction on a mural, Dorji gave us a detailed explanation of the Wheel of Life. This has to do with the several places you might be next sent after your life as a human, and what would happen to you there, and where you might go on from there. There is a judgement -- a judge who weighs your sins against your good deeds.
Then we had an hour to check out the short main street of Paro before moving on to our hotel.
This is a very nice, small hotel (only ten rooms) with a rustic flavor in a country/farm setting. It is owned by the same people who own our travel company (Overseas Adventure Travel). Everywhere we've been, our hotel rooms have been spacious and cheery. In getting to the hotel, we walked about a quarter mile from the bus on a dirt trail through the fields while our bags were brought with a farming implement – a rototiller-looking-rig-with-trailer.
Again there is no possibility of getting on the Internet with my own computer. The hotel has just one computer, which you can use for free. It wasn't in great demand. It works, and yet I have been unable in two tries to log onto AOL.
The currency in Nepal is the Ngultrum or Nu. It has the same exchange rate as the Inidan Rupee, namely about 2 U.S. pennies each. Rupees can be used in Bhutan, but the Nu cannot be used in India. I haven't seen any Nu coins at all; even a single Nu is a paper note.
The children all wear uniforms to school, and the uniforms are of the traditional costume.
If we're close up, before taking someone's photo, we always ask them if it's OK. At first I was timid to ask, but I've gotten over that. The answer is almost always positive; I've only had one negative response. Then we almost always show the “victim(s)” the picture on our digital camera screens, and they delight in seeing themselves that way – especially the younger ones.
It seems to me I don't see many older citizens – let's say 55 and over – out on the streets. Dorji says the elders tend to either stay at home or spend their days in temples.
I had read that Bhutan would be very expensive. In my experience here, the opposite is true.
Bernie :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)