Advertisement
Published: November 2nd 2010
Delhi Rajasthan Tour - Oct 22 - Oct 30, 2010
Friday, October 22 - The Next Stretch - Hyderabad to Delhi
This is the day we fly to Delhi. It's just over an hours flight, barely enough time to finish the amazing lunch they provide. The service up to this point here in India is world class. We're greeted at the airport by Kan Singh, our guide who sweeps us away in our hired car and the driver, Rakesh. We're right away wondering how we'll get through the week not staring at his wolf like ears with 2" hair. It's hard not to be distracted, but as the hours pass by, we realize Kan is a very gentle, intelligent and friendly guy. As we talk about the next week, the information has come from he himself. Sometimes overwhelming, but by the end of the week, we're brimming with true Indian culture and a relatively good understanding of their heritage and the dynasty's.
We leave the airport and immediately realize we have an extremely competent driver on our hands. Rakesh, although he barely said two words during the entire week, covering well over 1000 kms. We would like to
personally thank him for our safety!
It's a 2 hour drive to our first hotel. We're crawling through villages and rough road, but end up at one of the most beautiful hotels we have ever seen (we ended up saying this about every hotel after this!) The Ramandan Fort is a labyrinth of tunnels, walkways and terraces. It's easy to get lost. It's an exquisite hotel brimming with history and very romantic. We're staying in the Suryah Mahal Suite. A two story, two bedroom along with two bathrooms. We cant decide which bed to sleep in. This will be our first adventure into the luxuries of India and what it has to offer.
There are many programs available and we're anxious to see it all! First on our list is a camel ride to the nearby Stepwell. It will be Shelly's first time riding a camel and it turns out to be quite comical as they are awkward and sloppy.The camels name is Radu. The Stepwell is dated back to the 1500's and is quite the advancement in plumbing. It's deep, cold and full of garbage and and we wonder why it isn't a bigger tourist site. We're
only out for a short trip and back to the hotel for high tea.
And of course, to finish off the day for the weary travellers, we take in a massage. Off to dinner on the terrace over the fountain, looking over the Avarali Hills.
Saturday, October 23 - drive to Agra
This is a long day in the car covering over 200 kms on a lot of narrow, broken up roads. We're beginning to see the differences between the south and the north. Camels traveling along the side of the road, sometimes in large herds. We made a quick stop at the Dadhikar Fort in Hazibur near Alwar for tea and cookies. The Fort, like many, has been transformed into a beautiful hotel, sitting on top of a very high hill overlooking a village and the hills.
We make one more quick stop where Mike is compelled to 'fit in' by purchasing a turban and a long smock.
We arrive in Agra by 4:30 just in time to take a tour of the Agra Fort. Built with red stone, very large and overlooking the Taj Mahal. We're exhausted from the long drive and anxious to get
to the hotel. We're already feeling the overload of information from Kan. He loves his history and wants to ensure we get every detail We're feeling there may be a test at the end of the week!
We're staying in the Trident Hotel. Modern, clean and the first and only time we'll take advantage of their pool.
Sunday, October 24 - Agra to Jaipur (The Pink City)
Up at 5:30. We've decided we would like to see Taj Mahal with the sunrise. Apparently it's suppose to change colour as the sun rises. Taj Mahal is a romantic display of unconditional love and admiration. It was built by Shah Jahan as a monument and display of his love for Mumtaz Mahal in 1637, taking 22 years and 22,000 people. There was no limit in the cost and it's beautiful with the marble and inlay-ed semi-precious stone. As you enter into the grounds and it stands before you, we realize it;s real and we're not looking at a photo. The Taj Mahal is massive, glowing yellow and precious. It's only until you get right up to it we realize it looks big from the outside, but when you
enter, it's actually quite small containing two tombs, Shah and Mumtaz. There are no photos allowed and it's dark except for the odd tiny flashlight the tour guides are carrying to show the workmanship and to show how one particular stone actually glows when light hits it.
As we leave, Kan reminds us of the love it took to construct this masterpiece and asks us to stand in silence and take it into our hearts.
We have a quick tour of the Fatehpur Sikri Palace that is again stunning with the inlay work but anxious to go as we have a special night ahead of us. We've been requested to join Maharaja Narendra Singh, Prince of Jaipur, Son in Law of Maharaja Bhawani Singh, King of Jaipur for a drink in the palace.
We're treated as special guests and are greeted by Narendra and Bhawani. Bhawani is not well as he has suffered a stroke but you can see by the many photos and historical paintings this is a great man. Mike and Narendra instantly have a Polo bond and the conversation flows naturally. One would expect it to be awkward, but in our opinion, he's another
Polo player. We've scheduled some stick and balling for the next morning at the Rajasthan Polo Club.
Monday, October 25 - Our big Polo day!
We arrive at the Rajasthan Polo Club at 8:00 and Narendra, his grooms and his horses are waiting for us. We're the only ones riding today and we feel so privileged and thankful. The horses were beautiful. We each had a chance to ride two each, all being thoroughbreds and all very good. Shelly's second horse she barely knew it was cantering it was so smooth. Narendra is very hospitable and allows us to ride as long as we want although the heat and lack of exercise caught up to us an hour in so we dismounted and headed into the club for coffee and cookies. There we met one of his friends and Bhuprenda, the man that arranged the elephant polo for later that day.
We headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and get ready for our special lunch in the palace that the Maharaja has arranged for us. It worked out perfectly because we could then head into the palace for a tour. We move Kan along
because we have a very big event that afternoon, Elephant Polo.
We're blown away when we get to the Polo grounds and see that we're getting more that what Mike and I expected. Almost uncomfortably outdone with the elephants, camels, marwari horses, musicians, photographer and the walkway lined with the petals from marigolds and roses. Narendra is comfortable as he arrives with our new cool Jaipur Polo jerseys. He's not playing, he's refereeing
Tuesday, October 26 - Jaipur to Jodhpur
The day got off to a slow start. We realized the photographer from our famous Elephant Polo had only provided the prints and we wanted the disc. So we killed some time in Jaipur by visiting a jeweller while we waited for the delivery of the disc. Kan, of course, knows the jewellery store owner and we are immediately given the grand tour of how they make their beautiful, one of a kind creations. The region is famous for semi-precious stones and fine workmanship. They offer us beer, at 10 a.m., while we browse, and keep filling up our glasses. We're figuring out the system. The salesman is a funny little man who loves his
job and is clearly seeing Shelly's eyes light up. He proceeds to push along a very expensive, semi-precious set.
We're finally on our way as we have yet another long drive ahead of us. It's lunch and we make a detour into Pushkar, the Holy City. You've seen pictures...steps leading into a lake where people are worshipping, bathing and meditating. We stop at a very quaint hotel that has lunch on the terrace overlooking the lake. What a perfect spot as it seemed so peaceful. We've had some quick tips from Kan on how to meditate so the three of us take to the floor and do our Ohm's and meditate. It was a first for both of us. A little awkward, a little uncomfortable (again, the inability for Mike to cross his legs), but magical.
We arrive in Jodhpur after dark but were so impressed with the hotel already. It's a combination of old with new and they've outdone themselves with the pool area. We quickly get cleaned up and head down to the garden for dinner. We enjoy live music by candlelight and another amazing meal. The room is spacious and tastefully decorated and so far, with
the most comfortable bed.
Wednesday, October 27 - Jodhpur to Rohet - Wilderness Camp!
Rohet is a short drive and we make our first stop at the Maranga Rao Jodah Fort, situated on top of a hill overlooking the city of Rohet, also known as 'The Blue City'. Have we mentioned how hot it is? At this point, we've seen many forts, palaces, temples and we're more interested in taking the 2km walk down into the village. What an adventure. We get an invitation to go into a man's home that is near the start of our hike down. It's a beautiful blue home overlooking the city and he's proud of the surprise mini-shrine his wife has made him before she went off to work that day. We carry on and are immediately greeted by many children that try to dig into Mike's pockets. We make fun of it and end up taking many photos of them. Our next stop is for tea. A very old gentleman that has basically a closet for a storefront is making fresh Chai. We sit and take in the locals and all the activity around us.
We continue strolling down the
winding street, hitting a textile store that was overwhelming with all his bed covers, clothing, pillow cases etc. We end up in Sardar Market that has just about everything you could ever want. It's crazy busy and colorful and hard not to buy something. We had already decided we were shopped out but couldn't resist.
We get on the road to Rohet as this again, is one of our highlights of the trip. We're going to finally get to ride a Marwari horse! We check in at the main building and we're taken 20 minutes out to the wilderness. This is the Thar Desert. Our tent is not your typical pop-tent, roll it up tent. We are staying in a luxurious, palace like tent that is fully equipped with a full washroom, a terrace overlooking the desert and the sunset and with an amazing restaurant. And, it happens to be the same tent Madonna and Guy Ritchie stayed in 2 years before us! We are the only one's checked in and we feel like royalty. We change and head back to the main hotel to get on our horses.
The Marwari horses are unique, beautiful and spirited. We
have an audience seeing us off, including David Stahl from Sweden and his wife. They were informed of us coming and have arranged for the owner to meet us during our stay.
The start of the ride was a little eventful as Shelly's horse, Kajal did not like the male horse I was on. She bucked up, pinned her ears back and was about to kick again. Shelly got control and got a good space between the two and that's how we rode into the Desert. However, Kajal was not settling down so we switched horses. The groom insisted that the horse is fine and that maybe it was Shelly. Didn't care, we made the change and everything was fine after.
We rode until near sunset. We invite David from Sweden for dinner out at camp. He's a very nice man, very intelligent and clearly a worldly guy. We're exhausted and we're anxious to climb into our tent and settle in. He takes the hint. The ambiance is incredible.
Thursday, October 28 - Rohet to Udaipur
Initially we were going to stay at Rohet two nights and do an 8 hour horse trek the next day.
Number one, the heat is unbearable during the day. Number two, we have been invited by the royal family to be their guest in the Shiv Niwas Palace hotel in Udaipur, overlooking Piccola Lake. We're hoping to meet Maharaje Arvind Singh, father of Ravi (who we had dinner with earlier in the week and the oldest dynasty in the world)
Kan has arranged a surprise for us. We pull up to a home in a very quaint village and realize we've come to meet his family. We also realize Kan has caught on that we love to take in the culture and the people. He's full of history and information and our journey has been to say the least, educational. They have arranged a special welcoming party including his niece Moneka, waiting at the threshold of their home with a Mala and a bright red powder to mark our foreheads. We both receive a bindy welcoming. There's also his daughter Rashika that is 4 that is so cute with her little Indian dress on, his two brothers, his wife Vanderan, the sister-in law, some friends and his mother. The house is segregated for men and women and they are
all living together in a modest but beautiful home. The younger brother is a phys-ed teacher and he has his camera busy at work taking photos of his guests. Kan is so generous and offers us rum and Pepsi, and keeps offering it. We get a tour of the house and receive gifts wrapped in Christmas wrap. They are celebrating Diwali and the home and their spirit is festive.
We're driving through the lush Aravali Hills. We're constantly amazed at how the landscape changes so drastically each kilometer we drive. We stop at the Shri Ranakar Temple-Jain Temple which is so far, the most intricately carved temple we've seen. It's made entirely of marble. We're not Indian so not allowed to step up on the higher platform where you can give thanks to Siva, the Goddess of Destruction.
We get to Udaipur at a relatively good hour and are taken to our suite. The Palace is very large and stunning. The Maharaja lives there and has the hotel built onto his private residence. There's also two palaces on the lake, one of which will take a year to reserve and is very exclusive. It's an extremely generous offer
for the Singh family to take us in. We're shown to our suite that is massive and princely that has a perfect view of the lake. We watch the sun go down before we go for dinner in the courtyard overlooking the pool and take in the light show at the palace. We've also been given complementary tickets for the next day for a boat ride and tickets to the museum. Unfortunately we wont be meeting Arvind as he is out of town.
Friday, October 29 - last day for Shelly
We have to make it a quick morning as we are heading to the airport today to get to Delhi. We have a quick breakfast and meet Kan at 8:30. We're taking advantage of the tickets today. Our first stop is the palace and spend over an hour exploring it. Kan is telling us about the paintings and rounding out the weeks history lesson for us. We speed through it to get to the next stop, the boat ride around the lake. It was refreshing to be out on the water, taking in the activities on the waterfront. People doing their laundry, boys swimming, hotels. We're taken
to the Lake Palace where were let out for a 20 minute walk-around. There's a spa and 7 rooms you can stay in. We hop back on the boat where Kan is waiting for us on shore. He tells us he wants to take us for a special Indian lunch before he drops us off at the airport. It was special and delicious! It was the first time our driver sat with us over food, but still, not a word from him.
We're dropped off to catch our 3:30 flight to Delhi. We've had a great week with Kan and hope to see him again. We invited him to Canada and promised to give him a special Canadian experience!
We arrive in Delhi and head straight to the hotel, The Imperial. It's big, modern, with 4 world renowned restaurants and busy. Shelly and I have only a couple hours left before she heads to the airport to catch her 3 a.m. flight. We decide to go for dinner and as her last meal, something other than Indian. We settle for Thai infusion at the Spice Roure.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.324s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 13; qc: 49; dbt: 0.089s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Linda Boag Moores
non-member comment
Awesome
What a wonderful experience to have lived. Your blog and photos just take the reader (myself) along for the ride. Thanks.