Gwalior

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Three hours on a local bus to reach this city. I spent much of the ride closing the window, as due to the almost complete lack of shock absorbers, the vibration of the bus even on relatively smooth roads meant that every 5 minutes or so the window would have worked itself open about 20cm, I would get tired of having my hair blown in my face and shut it, then a minute later it would slowly start to slide open again...

After arriving in the city we visited the palace of the Scindia family, the former maharajas of Gwalior. I am not a big fan of visiting recently inhabited palaces generally, they are usually full of dusty furniture, stuffed animals etc and this was no exception. Gwalior is one of the poorer cities I have been to in India so the contrast between the lifestyle of the inhabitants (they still live there apparently, in a part of the palace not open to the public) and that of the ordinary people is quite shocking. The chandeliers in the picture are apparently the biggest in the world and to make sure the roof would support them they suspended 8 elephants from the ceiling for several days. The chandeliers only weigh 7 elephants but they wanted to be very sure.

We then walked about 2 kilometres uphill to the old palace-fort which sits on a kind of acropolis overlooking the plain. There is a lot of history related to the fort which was retold at length by our guide all the way up the hill, and then we got to hear it again when we went back for the sound and light show that evening. Toru hadn't come across the concept of a sound and light show before and was hoping for dancing girls or similar, so he seemed a bit disappointed when I told him that a sound and light show was just that- sound...and light.

The history was this time narrated by Amitabh Bachchan, kind of the Sean Connery of India but even more popular. Due to financial problems he is now doing a lot of commercials and was also the host of the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire but he has recently been ousted in favour of someone younger, the heart throb Shah Rukh Khan.

Anyway, the guy has beautiful English and a very deep smooth voice, so even though it was as cheesey as any other sound and light show I've been to, it wasn't a bad way to spend an evening. Sitars by Ravi Shankar as well.

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Photos

Chandeliers
Each one weighs as much as 3.5 elephants...