India-ana Jones and the Last Crusade

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I apologize for my absence, several times throughout India I sat down to post but so much was happening but that I never had time, this is actually my third post that is "saved" to send but the other two I did not finish and did not want to send out half written. I am now back in the US and have had time to catch up- so my last post will be all photos and their captions, India seems like the kind of place better than shown then explained (or at least, explained with the aid of photos and videos). I had an incredible time and hopefully I will still do a written entry but I wanted to get something done because I know how these things go, get back and caught up in things and I wouldnt be back to this blog until next time... whenever that is (not too far in the future, Im sure).

Enjoy the pictures below, and here are links to a few videos to back up the photos- better to look at the photos first, as they follow a chronological order better.
VideoPanorama of Monsoon Palace, Udaipur
VideoPanorama of Daulatabad Fortress, Aurangabad
Video Clip of Camel Safari in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan
Video Clip of Camel Standing up with Mara and the guide (sorry, this video is sideways... turn your computer moniter on its side if it really bothers you).

Thanks for reading and thats for your words of encouragement- I never answered messages or comments that I got but read every one of them (and I get very excited every time I got a new comment). I hope you enjoyed reading and Im glad I had people keeping up, because if I didnt, I never would have kept up a blog and in ten years I would have remembered this as that time I went somewhere in asia and ate duck.
until next trip,
~mark

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Photos

Truck side
Took this picture off the side of a truck.

Street Ox
This scene is not unfamiliar in India but, not being from India, I found it awesome. During my whole trip, I have seen tons of animals up close, in the street, in herds, etc. Including sheep, mules, horses, oxen, bulls, cows, camels, elephants, peacocks, dogs, cats, weird chimpunk things, and many more.

Walking Tree
This is a fantastic tree, my new favorite kind of plant. It drops roots down from it branches, making entire new trunks of the tree, at which point the old trunk dries up. [Note: I just changed this because I had called it a neem tree and someone corrected me]

Fruit Vendor
Fruit Vendor in Pune

Jodhpur from the Rooftops
This is the northwestern city of Jodhpur, our first stop in Rajasthan (which is the province). We were looking in a tapestry shop that was huge and someone working there was nice enough to bring me to the roof to let me see the view.

Instrument guy
The man on the right is the man who sold to me, and taught me to play, my (first) instrument that I bought in India. He is holding it in the picture- its called a ravanhatta.

Indian girls dancing
I took this picture from a high level of the City Palace in Jodhpur of the courtyard below, where a bunch of Indian girls were dancing in their incredible colors. All women (except for those dressing more western in the cities) were this style dress (or a style that is different to Indians but looks similar to us whities).

Awesome apes
These are some awesome-looking apes at the monsoon palace.

Ash and Camel
We took a Camel Safari from Osiyan, which is a desert city about an hour outside of Jodhpur. The safari was two guides and the three of us, the guide saw us as we walked off the bus and picked us out as wanting a camel safari (he was, of course, right... I guess white people dont go to osiyan for anything else) but his price was low and he seemed okay so we took it.

Desert Huts
These are the huts that people lived in on the desert, some houses has small structures that were brick and mortar, otherwise huts from clay, stones, and sticks. These are the children of one of our guides, he invited us to break at his house and have tea. It was good tea, with milk from the cow 10 meters away.

Desert Meal
We stopped for lunch at another guides house, where we were serves traditional Rajasthani Thali [Rajasthan is the province we were in; Thali is the style of eating in which you get several 'samples' of different "wet" foods and a kind of bread with which to try them]. The food was all made from locally grown (i.e. outside the hut) foods, which was pretty break. Note the sweat on my and mara's foreheads- this was spicy food.

Indians love the white skin
This was one of the many times my picture was taken by indian people, who pulled me aside to take a photo with my pale white skin. Im famous.

View of the Taj
This is a view of the Taj Mahal from the behind (couldn't tell? Thats because the Taj is identical on the front and back), it is over the view of the Yamuna River, with a camel in front.

Stereotypical short of the Taj
Mandatory shot of the Taj Mahal. Interesting factiod: to enter the Taj Mahal grounds and first floor, an Indian citizen must pay 20 Rupees (appr 50 cents); a foreigner must pay 750 Rupees (appr 19 dollars). Yeah. Don't worry, we got them- I told them Mara was my 14 year old little sister and she got in for free. Fighting the man, worldwide.

Commuting to work...
Stressful commute to work?

Spice Market, Delhi
This is from a shop at the spice market in Delhi, the largest spice market in India. The spices were so strong, Mara and I were sneezing. It was great.

Ba'hai Lotus Temple
The is the Ba'hai Lotus Temple in Delhi. The Ba'hai religion is really interesting group, I couldn't even begin to explain their beliefs but they have temples worldwide (including the US and Israel).

Guide by Torch
This is our brief tourguide who showed us, by torch, the insides of the Daulatabad Fortress. The insides were built to help the defenders get an advantage over the attackers, the pitchblack tunnels provided areas of hiding, ambushing, secret cannons, places to spill boiling oil or water, and misleading escapes (which lead the attacker to the alligators in the moat). Pretty incredible.

Daulatabad Fortress, Maharashtra
Delhi was our last stop in the north, from there we went back south to Pune for one day, then it was on the 7 hour bus ride to Aurangabad. Daulatabad was a beautiful old Fortress on top of a small mountain. This was a monkey, his name is Phil.

Ajanta Caves
This is a cave from the Ajanta Caves, which are man-made temples carved from mountain sides. These caves are most famous for their well preserved paintings, which date back to ______(a long time ago). [They are similar to the Ellora Caves, which we visited the next day but Ellora is famous for the sculptures, while Ajanta is famous for the paintings].

Ajanta Caves
This a picture of many of the caves from far away, to give you an idea of how cool they are. Imagining how these are made is near impossible- their creators just walked up to a mountain with a chisel and started chipping away. They carved from ceiling to floor- finishing the ceiling before they carved lower, so they would not need ladders or scaffolding.

Ellora Caves
The Ellora Caves are, in my opinion, more impressive and beautiful than the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China- how they are not a wonder of the world is totally lost on me. They are also temples carved from caves, but there are more of them, they are much bigger, the carving more intricate, and the creativity more impressive. There are three groups of caves- Hindu, Buddhists, and Jain- and they were made over a half of a century. Most of the temples are equipt with many meditation chambers- small roomswith nothing but a spot to sit privately- the reverberations in these chambers was incredible- the chanting and Oms that went on must have been really intense.

Ellora Cave 16
Cave 16 is the most famous of the Ellora Caves (for a reason). The entire cave is twice the size of the Parthenon and 1.5 times its height (ALL carved from stone, by hand). This picture barely captures a fraction of it, which would only be possible to do from a helicopter (if at all possible).

Comments

[olivia]

neem trees....
might be my favorite now too!

[Elke]

Hi, on your photo is not a Neem Tree, sorry, go to Google pictures and search for Neem Tree and Neem Leaves or http://www.plan-verde.org/index_2.htm Best Greetings

[Ganesh]

Indians love the white skin - response
Indians love white skin but they also look for goodness in a person. If you have a bad behaviour they might not accept you at all. I don't think they have pulled you across, may be they were eager to take a pic coz you were friendly to them. The thing about india is irrespective what race, caste, religion people are from, despite the fact that three points are often discussed, at the bottom they look for behaviour/manners/goodness/dharma from a person.

[gokul]

its not neem
Its banyan tree.. fig tree family.... Its the Nationl Tree of india.... Good to see your comments and photos... I am an Indian and I live in souther india... which is famous for temples