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Published: January 20th 2006
No proof reading !no editing! no grammar check! no time gor all that!
Hello all .... after six days silence I can report that I am safe, taking care about where I go, what I eat and who I speak to. Today I saw some men playing a board game for money. Theboard was a piece of cement, the pieces were chards of brick and the dice were halves of big seeds rounded on one side and flat on the other . The counting was done and the moves were made according to how these seeds fell.
We drove around Agra today with a "little old man" literally in his bicycle rickshaw. Of course he was sweating in the noon day sun pedling around two overfed tourists. He began with...hard work...go slow....and ended up with wiping his brow more than once and telling us how hard the work was! He was sweating... he had on a turtle neck sweater under his five day shirt and he made sure he got paid for 3 hrs even though the third hour was less than one third used. No extra tip for him. The tipping is driving me bonkers. Everyone from toilet boy to doorman with head turban to waiter and porter want something. I draw the line at ther guy that sold me stamps at the post office.
To send one postcard costs 8 rupees. Is there a 8rupee stamp...of course not! and the stamps are not pretty but I think I have mentioned that.
We have had a driver since getting off the train at Delhi which was three days ago. He took us from the train at 6:30 in the morning in Delhi and we beat it out of the city before the morning rush began. Wendy was much shagrined(sic) not to eat breakfast until around 10:30 in the morning. And then we ate at our first expensive tourist trap restaurant.....gift shop on the side and all. This driver knows only expensive restaurants and assures me he gets no cut... my foot... why not take ne where i want to go....because here the food is not good....when they cook and do not sell it on day one they serve it on day two, three, and four. There is probably a lot of truth in that. He has given us a lot of advice about how things work and that is much appreciated. He will get a 1000rupee tip for the two and a half days.
He did find us an alternative hotel to the one I booked from Canada. His hotel, Kashmiram Palace in Jaipur was clean, no carpet, no towels, no toilet paper, no restaurant, and no quiet. It was a nice place! for 680 rupees.
We stayed only one day in Jaipur, the pink city...all the buildings are painted terra cotta ... because much to our surprise the Taj Mahal is closed on Friday. It is written in the book but I somehow failed to read that.
The hotel in Agra, Chanakaya, was a 1600rupee deal but we got it for 970 because the driver made the deal ...yupti-doo!! No hot water here, only one solitary sheet covering the mattress and a fleece blanket, no carpet, toilet paper and a bathtub with shower curtain ...yuk! bad tv reception, a nice restaurant, and a doorman with a turban, a la Rajistan.
Yesterday evening we saw the Taj Mahal in twilight because the president of Netherlands was comig to see the Taj too. The Taj was closed from 11:30 till 4:30 and then there were many people waiting to get in. Our guide bought the tickets and we would have been in faster but a japanese group in front of us had not left their bags on their tour bus so each bag had to be searched. The men's line went much faster but because each person had to be frisked we had to stay in the women's line. Anyway we got to the actual marble building just before six, had to put on little protective slippers made of paper and get into a very long line. There is only one lightbulb in the whole place. By the time we walked past the two marble coffins ( replicas ... they closed the downstairs tomb about three years ago) and came out it was dark. I as being very careful because there are many tiny steps. Three days ago I fell down and had a huge egg on one knee, a bump on the other knee and a sor thumb .... all is ok now.
It was a wonderful sight and the thousands of people waiting, all wanted a picture of themselves sitting on a bench with the Taj in the backround... including me. I must confess I was more thrilled with the furtive patting of the behind of Michaelangelo's David!!!!
In the afternoon, because the Taj was closed we went to a place that stilll does the marble inlay work as the family who worked on the Taj did over three hundred years ago. Apperantly these workers are decendants of that original family and the family now numbers 10,000, not all of them working in marble. From what was demonstated it is quite the feat to get all the pieces cut, placed in the wanted pattern, traced, grooved ready for glue and then placing and glueing the tiny marble, lapiz lasuli, coral, tourquoise, etc into the grooves. When all is done the whole surface is polished so that the top is absolutely smooth.
I have a feeling we would have gone to the place even if the Taj had been open all afternoon. We were also taken to the ievitable carpet and shawl emporium ..... I do not want to see another emporium... I am shopped out because it takes a lot of effort just to look and not sucumb(sic) to the pressure of the hard sell!!!
today I ate a big lunch of rice, spiced potatoes, and lovely hard cottage cheese in a very tasty sauce. Wendy had mutton in a lovely sauce. She eats the meat and I taste her sauce and she tastes mine. We also ordered two bottles of water. The whole meal cost 410 rupees plus 40 rupees tip ... divide by 32 to geet $CAD. We will be going to Varanasi by night train and will only eat a smalll snack before boarding. We have to drive 45 km to get to thew train station... haven't figured that one out yet but will report all.
The last six days have been spent in a car, on the train and in one hotel after another.
The trip to Sarahan.... (north of Shimla, which as stated before is an armpit) was absolutely sublime. We drove in a small car high up into the mountain to over 2500m and then drove down again , finally coming to rest in the most perfect place I have seen since the Seychelles! The Hotel Srikhand named after the mountain which could be seen from our balcony, was clean, very well situated, and darned cold!!!
We were the only guests. We had a small elecrtric heater in our room but the dining room was an ice box. The first day we had tea outside in the sun and dinner in the cold box. Then it began to rain and then it snowed. It snowed alll the next day. I had to visit the wooden temple! So in the afternoon I braved the weather and I walked to the temple. I had to take my shoes off. To get to the goddess I crossed two open courtyard. There was snow in both. I climbed to the top and was in the presence of the goddess, a worshipper and a "priest?". Anyway evewn without bringing the token coconut I too received a Blessing.
to be continued......
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Fran Holland
non-member comment
Hello to you both, I'm so enjoying your tales and think of you often. Have fun and be careful.