The experience started with first obtaining a visa which meant two separate days at India House, Aldwych.
Next the inoculations (free with our local nurse, although this may not always be the case). Finally, the all important purchase: to buy the anti-mosquito cream and malaria tablets, quite foul tasting, but essential. We were ready for Day 1 and the flight to Delhi via Amsterdam...
Day 2 - Delhi Arrived at Delhi 2.30 am local time almost 24 hours after the drive to Stansted and flights to Amsterdam, then Delhi. First experience of India at Delhi Airport: strong smell of sewerage as we leave the plane for the main body of the airport lounge. Delhi airport is currently under reconstruction, even at this early hour. A quite amazing reception: vast numbers of people all appear holding show cards with passengers' names on. Several hundred yards later, we track down our courier, who guides us to the bus and our first night at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
6.30 am. First light view out of the hotel window overlooking the main entrance and tree-lined streets. Many feral pigeons around, which are regarded in the same way as sacred cows here (just considered a nuisance in the UK, especially to farmers)! A first class hotel with a meal to match, we eat breakfast in The Cafe. The ceiling is 30' from the floor, with an indoor waterfall and wonderful displays of fresh flowers everywhere.
We tour the old city aboard the coach, along back streets looking up alleys only just wide enough to touch both walls if you were to stroll down the centre. Visit a very colourful shopping Bazaar area, called the Chandni Chouk. A Souk is a market place in Muslim countries. Totally congested day and night with vehicles and people.
Drivers honk their horns furiously at the slightest excuse. On the main highways (3 lanes wide) drivers heedlessly change lanes to avoid cyclists, cycle rickshaws or three wheeled motorised drives, otherwise known as 'taxi transports'. Overtaking is done at a full blast of horn to indicate, 'watch out, I am coming through'. The rickshaws are used to carry an amazing and diverse amount of merchandise: rolls of chicken and fence wire, sacks of onions, garlic piled precariously - and often dangerously - high, wooden stakes, boxes, wrapping paper and a great variety of vegetables, many defying identification.
A fascinating visit to the old walled city of Shahjahanabad, where self-employed Muslim tradesmen wail the call for work, selling anything from a vast variety of nuts / bolts / screws and car parts, to live fish and chickens - prepared for sale whilst you wait. NOT the place to leave your new car for any length of time, and expect it to be in one place when you return!
The Mogul empire was very short-lived, but magnificent. Guides appear from every corner to show you everything, apparently free of charge, then ask for a present meaning, in their terms, a tip of cash. One appears very disappointed with the R10 donation (20p) he receives: all part of the Indian experience learning-curve: that man now knows that ladies are not always the soft touch they first appear to be.
To the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan, who wished to move from Agra. The main Lahore gate of the Red Fort faces west toward Pakistan. The Red Fort and Jain Temple really are a revelation in contrasts: people trying to sell view cards, miniature chess sets, peacock feather fans and a lot more. We are not yet to know that this is just a small taste of the similar hassles which are to come at every stop of the bus. Pay R50 (£1) to take the photo of a snake-charmer: he had originally demanded £3 for having his soul captured on film. The monument to Mahatma Ghandi, after he was shot dead by Hindu fanatics in the home of the Birla family, is here in the Raj Ghat, and there is a small square platform where he was cremated. The flowers are quite beautiful.
A sit down formal lunch is taken about 2.30 pm at a restaurant recommended by the guide. We dine on soup of sweet corn and very finely shredded carrot, followed by fish with a lentil and pea mixture.
Visits to Humayan's Tomb, and the old Islamic Qutub Minar (under repair). Humayan's Tomb is a miniature of the Taj Mahal, and like the Qutub, a tree-filled green swarded flower filled series of gardens. The grounds of Humayan's Tomb also holds the grave of five of the engineers who built it, as a tribute or memorial to their work. The wider streets of New Delhi are in marked contrast to the narrow roads of Old Delhi. Dirty, smelly, run-down, generally clapped-out, but full of character.
We visit Connaught Place, which is a large British designed roundabout, marking the business and tourist centre of New Delhi, and the India Gate, in similar size and style to the Arc de Triomphe. A visit to a Kashmiri Carpet Factory (where we are given Cardamom herb tea) wraps up a hectic and enjoyable day.
Day 3 - Delhi - Samode Motorway driving to the Samode Palace (140 miles). En route we see several accidents - a way of life here - lorries nearly always just manage to give way to each other. Birds galore at the roadside, little egrets almost as common as sparrows in the UK.
The state of Rajasthan is famous for its delightful conversion of palaces into hotels: Samode is a good example. Here the Palace has been used as a hotel since 1982. A walk with Singh (local lad) up 365 steps to the Hill Temple provides a good view of the valley and hotel. See a black winged stilt on the lake. The Far Pavilions was filmed at Samode. We have a camel cart ride through, and around, the immediate environs of the village. A great deal of agriculture here, large allotment-like fields intensively cultivated, a very fertile area.
In the evening we watch a sitar player and young dancer entertaining a group of locals from Jaipur having dinner on the roof - gatecrashed by uninvited monkeys - accompanied by a firework display. Our own Foreigners dinner is served indoors, followed by folk dance entertainment. We join in a Morris Dance with sticks.
Day 4 - Samode - Jaipur 9.30 am start. Visit to the Samode village market, vegetables in abundance for sale. Saw a dentist with samples of his work. Visited a carpet maker and a textiles factory with reputedly 1,000 workers. Women weavers with their very young children beside them are carding wool for carpets, and others doing tie / dye printing. Blue rock pigeons are everywhere, and regarded as sacred.
Sounding the motor horn becomes standard as part of the daily driving performance. Notices 'HORN PLEASE' are on the rear of most lorries.
2.30 pm, arrived Jaipur Sheraton. Upon arrival, we enjoy an hour of rest until 3.30 pm, with a 'British' lunch of cheesy biscuits, half an orange, and Irn Bru (all brought from home). Spot a possible Sharma bird in the grounds of the hotel. Light wind, 70' of heat, very pleasant. We observe sparrows with light eye stripes in the Ram Nivas Gardens, and shady trees being enjoyed by the black faced, or common, langur monkeys.
Jaipur, with its broad shopping streets, is like the Mile End in London. Piles of coloured powder for sale for the forthcoming Holi-day festivities. Holi is the annual spring festival in northern India, when lovers - and others! - spray one another with coloured powder and water.
An obligatory visit to the Palace of the Winds (Hawa Mahal), which turns out to be all you see in the tour brochure photographs: just a terracotta pink sandstone facade. The Jaipur rock is naturally pink, and changes colour with the season and time of day. Much more impressive - but yet to come - are the workings of the Amber Palace, including an internal natural wind-cooling system, and a hydro system turned by miniature waterfalls. A somewhat long-winded stern-featured man is the local guide for our tour of the Indian Art and Weaponry Museum, and Astronomical Clocks at Jai Singh's Janta Manta Observatory.
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| Palace of the Winds |
Evening meal is at the Rambagh Palace, Jaipur, the top hotel until the Sheraton was built in 1994, and previously the property of Jai, the Maharaja of Jaipur until 1947. We have a pre-dinner drink in the The Polo Bar, one of the Rambagh Palace Hotel's main attractions, with a pleasant garden lit up at night. Prince Charles once played polo here, and was allowed to win. The Special Polo Club Cocktail, which is sampled by all in the party, is generally considered pretty poor value at £5. The food nutritionist in our party was the only one to get food poisoning after remarking that we should remove the fruit, rather than the ice, from the cocktail!!!! Dinner is £9 each - we opt for the hot buffet - and is, in comparison to the Cocktail, superb value. The decor in the Rambagh Palace dining room is well worth waiting for. These splendid surroundings are shared with members of the Australian cricket team, former Australian captain turned commentator Richie Benaud and various officials.
Day 5 - Jaipur - Amber - Jaipur The city shops and surroundings are a reminder of Alperton and the markets in this part of north London. Cricketers abound: Richie Benaud and South African officials are staying in the hotel. Back at the Mogul Sheraton we observe the New Zealand Polo team with a splendidly garbed driver in 'national' dress.
Our entry to the city of Amber (Hill Fort and former palace) is intended to be by elephant, but all elephants have been commandeered for the Holi celebrations. Instead, we go up the hill at great speed by Jeep, with much hassle from traders when we stop.
The Official India Brochure for the Tourist states that the Amber Palace, which Mark Twain described as a 'soft rich tint of strawberry ice cream', was actually painted for the visit of the Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VII.
The advice given by our guide here is not to agree to buy anything, not even to hint at possible purchases later. Afternoon spent at the hotel poolside. Vultures drift in heat spirals overhead, with the occasional buzzard and other raptor, continually disturbing the rock pigeons, who merely take off, circle, and land back on their temporarily adopted hotel window ledges again. 4 pm We take a cycle rickshaw ride to see the elephants being decorated for Holi.
Day 6 - Jaipur - Fatepur Sikri - Agra - 2.30 am. Very early start to Fatepur Sikri to avoid the coach being stoned or splattered with paint from drunken Holi celebrants. Driving through the very early morning mist, many cyclists appear out of the ether, many carrying milk churns strapped to the back of their bikes, always one large and one small one. People walk miles from any village, giving the impression of a Chinese painting. Many trees line the road, three to four deep.
Had a tea/coffee break at 6 am at a wayside cafe, quite a disgusting taste, possibly responsible for the 'Delhi belly' after we had returned home. The guide had to wake up the proprietor to enable us to be served.
Fatepur Sikri is a royal palace, built 1570-1586 in red sandstone, the natural material of the locality. A very hard material and most buildings are still in a very good state of repair, quite unlike sandstone in European countries. This is a perfectly preserved replica of a Mogul city, when Moguls were at their ascendancy.
Legend says that Emperor Akbar the Great was without a male heir, and made a pilgrimage to the area where Sikri now stands to see the (Saint) Shaika Salim Chisthi, who forecast a son would be born to him. In gratitude, the son was named Salim, and Akbar transferred his entourage to Sikri, which became his capital city. Akbar was a very tolerant person - himself a Muslim - and held audiences with other religious peoples here.
A Banyan tree in the courtyard of Fatepur Sikri is used by the populace to clean their teeth (locally, the people have free dental treatment, hence most have wonderfully clean white teeth).
Forty to fifty vultures are seen in a group on a rooftop nearby in the palace, not far from two puppies, one becoming stuck in a water gutter, giving concern to some of the women in our party. Greeted in Agra by a snake charmer with a cobra / python (which I held), and a mongoose nearby.
Another truly superb hotel in Agra, we have an attractive ground floor room overlooking the Gulbatan Gardens - very attractive gardens with a tree planted by Peter O'Toole - enabling bird watching from our bedroom window. We stayed at the Mogul Sheraton Hotel here, a very plush place. Internally long and wide corridors, floored with marble to make it feel, and be, cool. The hotel is built in bricks resembling Fatepur Sikri.
Peter O'Toole had,on another occasion, planted a tree just to our left, with colourful dahlias in the garden ahead. There are more parakeets here than sparrows. March is the last month of the Indian winter and early spring, so many people are in short sleeved sweaters. Squirrels are in the hotel garden and on the hotel walls, 200 feet off the ground. We do not see any lizards (very common on most of the tour).
The Mogul Sheraton is not far from the Taj Mahal, which can be seen from climbing the stairs of the hotel tower observatory floor. The Taj Mahal is surrounded on all sides by houses of poor quality. Holi confines us to the hotel until 2.30 pm, by which time it is all officially over. Roads are still blocked off to stop traffic, enabling people to hurl their paint or load it in a tube with water: it does not wash off for two to three weeks when this is done. During our period of incarceration in the hotel, Joan finds a Collins Bird Book in the hotel book shop. Many bonfires are seen through the night in celebration of Holi, lads making holes in the tarmac of the road to provide the central pole for their version of Guy Fawkes.
Day 7 - Agra to Delhi 8.30 am, Mogul Sheraton Hotel. The morning mist rises and burns off quickly in dawn's early light. Briefly visit the Taj Mahal - about which, all has been said many times before - and Agra Fort. Espy some hoopoes in the Taj grounds. En route to Delhi, we see some 40 white back vultures eating a dog, which is thought to have been killed or maimed in an accident on the motorway. We break at a superb restaurant midday. An adjutant stork is seen on a wayside pool.
Day 8 - Delhi The Hyatt Hotel, Delhi, then home.
Thoughts on the tour staff everywhere have been most helpful, could not have been more so. Everyone speaks English (after a fashion), but do not necessarily understand what they say. Certainly all of the Indian staff appear to have phenomenal memories for faces.
First published in VISA issue 45 (spring 2002)
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