So I haven’t spoken for a while and to be honest it has been
an intense and dramatic week, and I can’t say it’s been all good. So I have an
amazing tour guide and a great tour group, I really like all of them (at last)
haha, no my first one was ok but after my last tour group it’s nice to have
people who I get on with. So I can’t remember when my last update was and I’m
too lazy to go looking for it so I will start from Delhi. It was a dirty city,
that was my first impression of it, and to be fair it was justified, there was
rubbish everywhere, just huge piles of it in the middle of the street that the
traffic has to move around. It causes major jams but no one will actually move
it to the side of the road or better yet, put it in a bin. We visited the India
gate that has the names of all the 10,000 soldiers that died in the Second
World War carved into the marble. We managed to get there at the time that they
changed the guard so we watched the ceremony. I couldn’t help thinking imagine
if we done that every day we finished a shift we would be like come on, I wanna
beat the 5 o’ clock traffic!! We also visited a Sikh temple in Delhi. We
watched how they feed thousands of people with these huge pans full of curry,
all for free. The people there will come and do it as part of their good deeds.
Any one from any religion can come and eat there. I thought it was a great
thing to have in such a huge city, and it made me realise that the beggars just
wanted money for some kind of drug, be it alcohol, cigs or drugs, because they
had somewhere to eat every day, three times a day.
After Delhi we went to Jaipur. This was, if possible more
dirty than Delhi. However it was a beautiful city. Everything was a terracotta
colour. The city is painted this colour from when Prince Albert visited the
city. They wanted to make their city beautiful and this colour was the cheapest
so they painted all the houses within the walled city what they call ‘pink’,
though it really is just terracotta. In Jaipur we went to the amber palace. It
is such a beautiful place. It is set up high in the mountains on top of a hill.
There are really intricate paintings on almost every surface. My favourite
place was this area that had mirrors imbedded in stone. The mirrors are set on
a pattern on the walls and on the ceiling and we were told when the king lived there
would have been curtains hanging in the doorways and arches and the mirrors
would reflect the curtains colours and the room would be bathed in colourful
light. Of a night we went onto the roof of a house to see Jaipur away from all
the traffic. It was a great way to see Jaipur because it is sooooo busy there,
and it is full of constant noise.
On the tour we have optional extras every day but our tour
guide also takes us to things that he thinks we would enjoy which are not
included or even mentioned on the guide. So after the amber palace we went to
an observatory that was built hundreds of years ago by a king who was obsessed
by measuring time and the horoscopes. It was a really cool place to visit. They
also had the tallest sundial in existence. It was a good 5 stories high.
Ohh we also went to the windy palace. Didn’t bother to go
inside but it was cool to see where all the women would go to watch important
proceedings that where happening in the city.
The hotel we stayed in here was also beautiful, it was an
old mansion and the grounds had been converted to a hotel, the staff where so
attentive and literally every wall was beautifully painted. It was here that I
tried masala chai, the national drink of India. It is amazing. I am defiantly
getting some to take home to make for my mam and Nan. Ohh and a teapot to make
it in haha.
We travelled by bus to Agra after that, our tour guide
wanted to show us a hidden gem that wasn’t very touristy, he took us to this
place of worship that has I hugely deep dug out pool in the middle where once
every year the locals are allowed to drink from, it was so beautiful. From there
we carried on to Agra. It was here that disaster struck. Whilst visiting the
Taj Mahal we got caught in a monsoon. Now they are normally quite quick and
will be over in the max of 10 minutes, however this one was persistent. At some
point I took my shoes off and put my camera and phone in my shoes as I thought
the leather might keep them dry. Alas, it was not meant to be. Both my camera
and phone died after getting too much water into them. I also got too much
water on me and was stared at by every Indian that was there at the Taj because
my top and trousers had gone completely see-through. Rain 3-0 Danni that day.
The next day we headed to Agra fort, also known as the red
fort. It was really beautiful, however the mood was soured by the fact that I
couldn’t take any photos of the place, from there we caught a train to Orchha.
This was a tiny little town that had many many old temples and buildings just
plonked in random places, we had one at the side of our hotel. It seemed that
they had to be built around. However it was a beautiful little place, we went
to see a paper recycling plant where they make recycled paper. It is a project
that is supported by g adventures, just like the school in Cambodia. It was
really interesting to learn that the recycled paper was made with old reused
cotton. The finished project felt like sugar paper.
In Orchha I opted not to do the sightseeing and cooking
class to save a bit of money and have a day of rest. I spent the day chilling
at the pool and catching up on some much missed books. When I was there I also tested
my camera to find that it was working again. If looking a little waterlogged.
So thankfully I could begin to take photos again. Later I also found that my
phone was marginally working. The touch screen was reacting however I couldn’t
do any high powered applications like taking a photo or playing Sudoku, but I
could now get in touch with people. YAAYYYYY. This brought me to a nice Danni
2-1 Rain. Because nothing will happen that will wipe the fact that I was see-through
to the natives L.
Over the next couple of days my phone got better and it is
now fully working! It has lead me to believe that HTCs really are
indestructible. GOOOO HTC.
After Orchha we headed to Varanasi. On the night that we
arrived our tour guide said that he wanted to show us a ceremony. We thought
that he meant the flower ceremony that we had included on our tour. Instead he
took us down to the Ganges where we watched men wash dead bodies (Hindi’s
believe that the dead must have a final bath). We then went in a building that
was completely open, the windows had not been put in and there was no
electricity. From the windows we could see bodies burning on big pyres beside
the Ganges. There were also lots of old people in the building.
Now let me explain what all this means. Hindi’s that you
must be cremated by a body of water. The most holy body of water is Ganges, especially
in Varanasi, so if the family have the money they will travel with the dead
bodies to burn them at Varanasi. The Hindis also believe in reincarnation. They
believe that the only places that they can escape reincarnation is in by dying
in Varanasi, or travelling to this place in the mountains and completing a pilgrimage
and ceremony there. Now, if people have had a particularly bad life they might
decide they don’t want to be reincarnated they will travel to Varanasi when
they think they are going to die. The building that we were standing in was
where these old people have travelled to to die. It was such a sad thought.
They had left their family and loved ones to sit in a concrete shell with no
electricity, surrounded by the bodies of friends that they had made during the
time there. If they were men they could attend their funeral however if they
were woman they would have to watch their friends burn from a window like us.
It was such a desolate place. It really had an impact on me. It just seemed so
hopeless. What had happened to these poor people that they thought that their
life had been so bad they wanted to be surrounded by this constant death until,
they, then died their final death. I can understand why people go to this place
to die though; it was so bleak that you couldn’t spend any length of time here
without your body and soul not giving up the fight to live as well.
I cannot even describe the feelings that press upon you
there. The air was tangible with emotions and expectation. One girl went back
the next day and seen bodies floating down the river. People are placed in the
river rather than burned then placed in the river because they are either
pregnant and they do not want to burn the unborn baby who doesn’t need its sins
burnt away. They also place foetuses in the river rather than burning them because
of the same reason. It was so sad to know that wrapped bundle in one way or
another was carrying a child.
On another note, I almost joined the funeral procession that
night as we took a rickshaw ride down to the Ganges, this is just a big seat at
the back of a peddling bike. As we headed on our way, there where children
playing with kites on either side of the road. I looked at them and had an
image of the kite wire wrapped around my neck, and then passed it off as being
ever the dramatist. The next thing I know, I see something falling in the
corner of my eye and I swing my hands up, my mind flashing to the image of my
neck. Instead it slices me on the forehead and I have a huge slash from one
side to the other, I kid. It did tangle around my neck but as I had my hands
there I could break the wire before it done any serious damage.
After we went to see that we went and watched a local
ceremony that happens at the bank of the Ganges. We stood there in the Ganges
water, the water of the dead, and watched this lone holy man of about fifteen stands
and light this object of fire whilst the sun went down. We then passed our
hands through the flame and pushed against our foreheads, our guide said we
were passing the warmth of the flame into us.
The next morning we were up at half four to take
part in the flower ceremony in Varanasi.
We headed back down to the water and placed our little lit bowls of
flowers on the ganges whilst the sun rose behind us. It was beautiful.
Taj Mahal, or as we took to calling it Raj Mahal after our tourguide
sunrise flower ceremony
and the day after.
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