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| Local Electric & Cable Wiring |
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| Long Legged Goats |
RC: The park was very nice, but Beanie skipped over the wild life (other than the romance rendezvous). There was a broad selection of birds. They have a species of raven that's good size with a wide, gray
band. Using the typical bird naming convention it's probably called a
grey necked raven. We also saw beautiful green parakeets - quite large
at ~12" tall or so. Lots of myna birds, several egrets and a various of water fowl. There was also this little "goffer dude" that was everywhere. He looked like a chipmunk, but with a bushy tail like a squirrel. Not too big, 5"-12" including tail.
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| The India Gate |
Tomorrow is a full day of site seeing with the driver and guide.
11 September
RC: What a very nice day. After some time for contemplation on the events of 911, we kicked off the day with breakfast in the hotel. I discovered a few Indian breakfast foods I really like. Ironically, it tastes very similar to their dinner food, spicy
and full of taste. They even manage to make a puffed wheat dish with
significant bite to it. We followed that up with a full day of site seeing.
Our guide was a woman who's actual name is Preeti Puri. Must be nice
going through your life with everyone calling you pretty or at least
something close to it. Delhi is much different than I expected. It's
one of the few places that I am aware of where there doesn't seem to be
too much of a conflict between Muslims and everyone else though from
what we learned there may be some on the horizon. Our driver, Mr. Ram, really earned his stripes today. Though we've been in worse traffic, there is definitely an art maneuvering between scooters, buses, tuk-tuks, and pedicabs. The roads, for the most part, are quite good. I'll leave the specifics of the day for the Bean to relay.
Kathy: Our guide Preeti was a delight. We did so much today it's all a bit of a blur, but here's the abbreviated version: In New Delhi we drove by India Gate, a war memorial to the one million Indian and British soldiers who died fighting in WWI, drove along a very wide Boulevard where most of the main gov't buildings are (Delhi is the capitol of India), and visited several tombs that date back to the 1500s, all quite impressive and very large. You could spend weeks in Delhi just visiting all the tombs. We then drove to Old Delhi, which
is a 370 year old city established by the Mughals. It's a jumble of
shops and markets. We walked and took a rickshaw down the narrow
passageways. We then visited a Sikh Temple and Free Kitchen where
hundreds of people are fed every day. This was one of the most
interesting parts of the day. We also visited a Bird Hospital in a Jain
Temple where the birds injured by kites flown by the children are
treated. I'm leaving a few things out, but you get the idea how jam
packed the day was.
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| RC & Preeti at Qutub Minar |
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| Sikh Temple Pool |
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| Sikh Temple Chandler |
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| Kitchen at Sikh Temple |
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| Kitchen at Sikh Temple |
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| Lunch Line at Sikh Temple |
We
had excellent Indian food at our hotel tonight. You know it's good when
most of the people in the restaurant are Indian. Before dinner we went
out onto the lawn in front of the hotel to see the bats again as they
headed out for the night. Earlier, when we told Preeti about the bats she said she calls the street our hotel is on "Bat Street".
Random things: Weather
has been good - mid 90s, sunny, humid. We've seen lots of dogs on the
streets and they look relatively healthy and well fed. Preeti said food
is not thrown out but fed to the dogs. We ask why we hadn't seen any
cats and she said that Indians don't like cats or coffee - they are tea
and dog people. We've seen no stray animals in the streets other than
dogs. Preeti said that in Delhi the gov't started a program about 8
years ago to get the stray cows and other domestic animals (other than
dogs) off the streets and into "retirement homes". It appears to have
worked. Animals that are owned are allowed and we did see several
horses pulling carts in Old Delhi. We also saw lots of goats (some were
quite large and beautiful) in the medians of Old Delhi. There's a big
festival in a few days and they'll be sold to eat for the celebration.
You could tell they were very well taken care of and well fed. We all
agreed it was sad to think it might be their last day. Delhi is a very
green city (especially what used to be the British area) and there are
over 14,000 parks. There are 14 million people. Through the course of
the day we learned a lot about Indian history, culture, religions, education system, etc., from Preeti. It was also nice to share information about our families.
Tomorrow we fly to Jodhpur, where we'll spend two nights.
12/13 September
RC: It's been a couple of full days. We caught a domestic
Air India flight from Delhi to the city of Jodhpur (pronounced Jude
Pur). Nice flight, amazing that overseas you can still get a full
service meal in less than 2 hour flight. We're staying at the Raas Hotel
in the center of Jodhpur. It's a very nice place, almost a sanctuary in
the middle of a very hectic and old city. It's also interesting in that
it's next door to a pretty large mosque so we're casually invited to
prayer five times a days beginning at 0500. It's somewhat irritating to
be interrupted from our bacon sandwiches. LOL. Jodhpur itself is a
smaller city than Delhi but is still a very respectable 1.4 million
people. It seems so much smaller because there are no tall buildings. We
are staying inside the Old City which is also a walled city. It's an
interesting area to stay. The largest fort in India, Fort Mehrangarh, is
here and it's uniquely build into an existing mountain. It sits high up
and visible from almost any place including our patio door. Beanie can
tell you about our outings, guides, and just how much fun shopping can
really be. Of course when we travel it's always an educational
experience. We've learned many things thus far. For example, we learned
that any place that ends in pur means it is a Hindu place and if it ends
in bad it is a Muslim place, and if it ends is stan, it's just a place. We also learned that in some places a
Budweiser costs 1100 rupees ($17). When I asked the waiter why a Bud was
$17, but a Heineken or Corona or Fosters was $4 he said it was because
it was imported. I just smiled and said thank you. Spoiler alert -
there's so much crap Beanie is going to cover! Good fun. Cheers!
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| RAAS Sandstone Walls & Marble Floors |
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| RAAS View of Fort From Room |
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| RAAS Rooftop Restaurant |
Kathy: Oh my what an incredible two days! Jodphur is amazing and I'm
so glad we chose to stay in the old walled portion of the city. It's how
we pictured India - very narrow roads, buildings that have been here
for hundreds of years, a market that is complete chaos, the mosque call
to prayer blaring on loudspeakers, Hindu music just as loud blaring from
the small Hindu temples throughout the old city and people, motor
scooters, tuk tuks, cars and animals crowding the streets. When we did a
walk about with our guide yesterday afternoon, I was totally stressed
out by the crowds, sounds and smells for about the first 10 minutes but
then I got used to it and it was incredible. That evening we had dinner
on the rooftop restaurant at the hotel with a wonderful view of the fort
on the mountain behind us.
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| Blue House in Old City Jodhpur |
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| Jodhpur Clock Tower |
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| Jodhpur Clock Market |
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| Jodhpur Market Barber |
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| Gate Into Old City |
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| Horse Dressed for Festival |
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| Ladies Dress for Festival |
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| Step Well |
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| Rooftop Restaurant with Lit Up Fort Background |
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| Fort Mehrangarh Jodhpur |
Today we visited a crematorium for the Jodhpur royal family. It
didn't sound too exciting but it turned out to be a beautiful marble
temple surrounded by marble tombs for each member of the royal family.
The tombs are just for show and don't actually hold the ashes of the
dead as half of the ashes are returned to the ground and half are scattered in the Ganges River.
Our guide, Ragu (yep, just like the spaghetti sauce, told us so much
today about everything from the Hindu religion to the Indian education
system. We also enjoyed his good sense of humor - well, you can imagine
with him and Randy we had some good laughs. From there we went to the
Fort. I know I've already said amazing about 10 times but wow, it was
amazing. The photos don't do it justice. It's huge, made of sandstone
and very intricately carved. The royal family of Jodhpur lived there for
hundreds of years until the early 1900s when a new palace was built.
The fort was well defended and the walls never breached by invaders. At
it's peak, 5500 people lived inside the fort - royal extended family,
the Maharaja's concubines, soldiers and support staff. There were also
200 elephants and even more horses. From there we went to a huge
wholesale handicraft warehouse to find that one perfect item to take
home to remind us of this trip. Randy was a good sport and after what
must have seemed like hours (or days) to him, I made the all important
selection. It's a 50 year old box made of camel bone with intricate
painting on all sides. It holds two bottles of wine and is inlaid with
bone with scenes of the royal family painted on it.
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| Royal Family Temple & Crematorium |
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| Tombs of Previous Maharaja |
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| Fort Living Quarters for Concubines |
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| Detailed Sandstone Carved Walls |
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| Mr. Ragu, Judhpur Guide and Elephant Sedan Chair |
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| New Palace From Fort |
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| Room In Fort |
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| View of the Blue City from Fort |
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| Royal Bassinet |
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| Fort Walls |
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| Fort Wall Integrate to Mountain | | | | | |
Random things: The strong smell of urine in parts of the old city and
the trash, not surprising considering the lack of infrastructure; the
hundreds of swallows and swifts in the fort; the art room in the fort
displaying the miniature painting that Jodphur is known for - miniature
refers not to the size of the painting but to the intricacy of the
painting as the brushes used for these paintings are made from a single
camel eyelash; realizing how completely different India is from any
other country we have lived in or visited; and understanding already why
many tourists keep going back to India.
Just got back from dinner. We went to a rooftop restaurant at a
haveli (historic home made into a hotel). Amazing - not that word
again!! There is a festival going on today and the streets are filled
with people, cars (and car horns), the loud speakers are blaring with
Bollywood music and the mosques are still joining in. Normally I would
completely shut down with this amount of noise but this was so exciting.
During dinner we talked with a young couple from Holland and we sat
with them a bit after dinner. It was lots of fun to share our trips and
experiences in India. They had made no plans ahead of time and were
completely winging it. She said she was terrified but so far so good.
They had stayed in a part of Delhi completely different than where we
had stayed and found out after they were there that it was the worst
part of the city, but still had a good time. And, yes, there were cows
and homeless on the streets there. Like us, they loved the fort here in
Jodhpur. They went zip lining from the fort into the city!!! Can you
imagine - Randy holds my hand on steps to make sure there isn't a
horrible accident in India! We're so glad there was a festival going on
while we were here. Of course, this is India and there are usually
festivals going on.
Time for bed. Tomorrow we have a 3 hour drive to a country fort that
has been converted to a hotel. The family still lives in the fort. It
will be fun to see some of the small villages on the drive. Oh gosh,
what a trip this has been!
RC: We're looking at sending pictures tomorrow or maybe later. We'll
probably change the way we've been sending them as it appears it's a bit
cumbersome for some of our friends. We want this to be fun and/or
enjoyable without any imposition so if the new way still stinks - let me
know. Cheers!
14 September: The Best Yet!!!
RC: Two
more incredibly full days have passed, but our stay at Chanoud Garh
deserves a dedicated entry. Our motor coach (sounds so much more
sophisticated than a Toyota minivan) drive from Johdpur to the Chanoud Garh was pretty uneventful. Good highways (really) followed by 20 KM of one lane ruts and bumps. To be honest, I was questioning (internally) Beanie's judgment for the 45 minutes it took us to get from the highway to Chanoud Garh. Chanoud Garh is a medieval fort that serves as the compound of what was once the local Maharaja. In it's hay day, it
was a sprawling estate overseeing more than villages and cities under
its umbrella. The head of the household, Mr. Singh, is the 17th
generation raja, an inspiring/interesting man, and a true gentleman.
From the outside the estate shows the wear and tear the last 300+ years
has unleashed, but the inside is a combination of history, luxury, and
opulence we've seldom experienced. The entire operation is run by his
family, two sons, a daughter, and a cadre of housekeepers, cooks,
landscapers, etc to keep everything in it's place. They are now in
their 3rd year of operation and from what we could see the
effort to transition a somewhat "weathered" fort into an exclusive
lodging experience is a daunting challenge. That being said, what's
been accomplished to date is exceptional. The room was incredible, the
staff attentive without stalking, and we really felt like we got to know
the family at a intimate level.
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| RC & Ajeet |
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| Local Villager with Mahiraj |
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| RC with Viking and Farishta |
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| Center Courtyard |
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| View of Courtyard From Balcony |
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| Archway into Courtyard |
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| Room Door Facing Courtyard |
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| Arched Walkway to Back of Compound |
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| Meeting Hall of the Maharaja |
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| RC & Ancient Manually Operated Fan |
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| Dome of Maharaja Sitting Room |
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| First Generation Air Conditioning |
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| Family Heirloom Room |
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| Beanie with Swati, Ajeet's daughter, & the boys, Viking, Baghetera & Farishta |
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| Our Room Facing Courtyard |
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| Our Room Facing Bedroom |
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| RC Early Morning Play With Viking |
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| Local Merchant With Coin Collection & Small Shop |
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| Portion of Local Merchant's Coin Collection |
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| Local Residents We Met Along The Way |
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| Children In The Village |
About 40 minutes into the walk, Mahiraj
was led into a local home with approximately 40 men crammed into the
front room. As it would happen, there was a wedding celebration. The
custom in the area is five days following the wedding, the men of both
sides of the wedding party meet for a celebration. The celebration
consist of sweets, nuts, hand-rolled cigarettes, a special local tea, and
sweet coffee. Mahiraj quickly escorted us in to sit at a place of honor
across from the father of the groom. I was given a seat to his left and
Beanie a seat to his right. Now keep in mind Beanie can't sit on the
floor following her back operation and I can't sit cross legged to my flexibility being equal burnt pretzels.
Beanie stood and I sat. Also note, Beanie is the only female in the
room so this is quite an honor for exempting the "man cave" rule. I was
able to involve myself in much (well some) of the conversation with Mahiraj
translating questions between me and many of the men. One other
gentleman, a retired school teacher, spoke English and for the next hour
we enjoyed the celebration. First non filter
cigarette I've had in 50 years!!!! They took the camera from Beanie
and took pictures of us. To look at these men, one could easily assume
they were poor peasants, but after chatting we quickly discovered they
had sons that owned their own businesses in Bombay and worked in the
banking business. They were so gracious. When we were ready to depart,
they told us of their local customary departure wish, Ram Ram (pronounced Rahm Rahm)
which, if we haven't screwed it up too badly, translates to, "when we
meet again". The funny part was Beanie kinda missed that portion of the
translation and kept asking them if they wanted her to take their
picture. Everyone got a big laugh out of that. We finished up by
visiting the "bat tree". Every place we've been, including Delhi, has
had a very healthy fruit bat population. Here we got to see them
roosting in the day. Pretty neat. After the walk about, I shared with Mahiraj
our appreciation for the time taken and how it was very special to
"meet the village" versus "see the village". It made it all so much more
personal.
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| Local Celebration With Tall Chick Standing |
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| Local Special Tea |
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| Sharing Treats At The Celebration |
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| Local Girls Peaking In At Celebration |
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| Fruit Bats Daytime Hangout at the "Bat Tree" |
Kathy:
Chanoud Garh far exceeded my expectations and I was expecting quite a
lot. It was neat to see a work in progress as they tackled the huge job
of renovating this over 300 year old palace/fort. We were the only
guests there so they put us in one of their larger, newly
renovated rooms. It was stunning and the pictures don't do it
justice. The entire fort was beautiful and felt very authentic. They
managed to incorporate the historical aspects of of
the palace with all the attention to detail of a fine hotel. The family
was very gracious. The father gave us a wonderful tour of the property
and told us about the history of this area and the role his family had
played in it. We had a little trouble understanding everything he said but his warm personality and sense of humor made the tour so much fun. The family no longer has any official
power but you can see how much the village people respect and revere
them, especially the father. They still seek his council. The morning
we left, four
village men came into the courtyard to meet with him and he greeted
them warmly. He sat in a chair and they sat on the grass by his feet.
It was evident that the family had been kind rulers and had helped the
people and were still helping them.
I felt a bit uncomfortable when we were invited to join the wedding celebration but Mahiraj assured
us it was okay and all the men seemed fine with it. It would've helped
if I could've sat on the floor but there was no way that was going to
happen so I really stuck out like a sore thumb! A couple of young girls
peaked in at the doorway and they thought it was the funniest thing
ever. I had read about the "special tea" celebrations but never thought
we would get to experience it. Also, as part of the village tour, we
met an old man who gave us a tour of his little store and the courtyard
of his house. He's the man in the picture with the tractor. He was
very proud of that tractor. He also showed us a very good coin and bill
collection. Mahiraj
told us that the old man came to him a few years earlier and ask him to
display his coin collection in the palace so that visitors could enjoy
it. Mahiraj
thought about it and told him that he should display it in his home and
he would bring the visitors there. The old man proudly showed us the
collection and pointed out the coins that visitors had given him to add
to the collection as well as some letters and pictures that they had
later sent. It will be fun when we get home to go through Randy's coin
collection and chose some coins and bills to send him. On a side note,
don't be misled by his appearance. He has a small store, but does very well in other businesses. He keeps an Audi Q7 under a tarp in the backyard for his son to drive when he visits from Mumbai.
The
family also included us in a Hindu ceremony in their small temple in
the evening. Mahiraj showed us on the walls of the temple the hundreds
of years old drawings that they had uncovered when they were renovating
the temple. They had been covered up by layers and layers of lime wash
over the years. One of best surprise the family found as they worked
through the renovation.
The
food at Chanoud Garh was very good and we got a chance to try different
food than we normally get in restaurants. It's the same food the
family eats. They grow their own fruit and vegetable and make their own
yogurt, jams, jellies, butter, etc. They served a mango yogurt dessert that was SO GOOD!
15-17 September: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
RC: We're off to Udaipur, sounds like it's spelled. Beanie will tell you about the drive, but I'll chime in a little bit. The major roads can legitimately be called highways, mostly divided 4 lanes. What's on them is what's interesting. First, animals are allowed to go pretty much wherever they like and that includes the highways. We've seen just about everything from the farm, but mostly cows, goats, and dogs. Amazingly, the drivers seem to be used to driving around the cows and the cows seem to be used to cars coming within 18" of them at 80 KPH. The hotel was pretty good though it may be in the process of jumping the shark. That being said, the grounds are pretty incredible, You can definitely see some of the British holdover with guys mowing the grass wearing what looks like old time British uniforms. It's also interesting to see a bit of the "Indian" clock in place. Twice we called down to have someone pick up our laundry, both times in mid to late afternoon only to be told we had to wait until tomorrow as their hours are 9 AM to 6 PM. As breakfast is included in our room, we've been pretty good about eating every morning. I've been binging on Indian food and trying to branch out on the breakfast options Hey Pat, here's your pancake entry - I'm hooked on a spicy potato pancake called (don't quote me on this) parantha. It's stuffed with chili peppers, lots of Indian spices, black pepper, and is served with yogurt. That and Marsala omelets and fresh fruit platters (though not as good as the ones we have on the Big Island) have pretty much been my mainstay. I don't think we mentioned it earlier, but we picked up a new driver when we landed in Jodphur. We're still not really sure what his name is, but we've stayed with something like Panday. He's a bit of an odd duck and we've had a couple of issues with him. On a couple occasions we've told him what we would like to do and he's pretty much said, "yeah, but you should really do this". Most of the time it seems like a work avoidance recommendation. He never addressed Beanie directly making the huge mistake of thinking I was in charge. He's also supposed to provide bottled water in the van and it's been an ongoing battle to get him to see the light. Finally Beanie had enough, and emailed Mr. Singh, our tour coordinator for India. That didn't seem to make an impact. So we called Mr. Singh, and that at least brought everything out in the light, but when he showed up without water for our trip to Animal Aid center, that was pretty much it. We had a slightly more direct conversation with Mr. Singh and that seemed to have done the trick. He picked us up to drive us to the restaurant and the local guide (whom we had finished with the day before) was with him. We chatted with him and he explained Mr. Singh had called directing him to join us for the drive to the restaurant and "help" Panday better understand our expectations. Last night when we drove back to the hotel and this morning when he picked up us he was a new man. It probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but we've got several more days with this guy and we really didn't want to deal with the attitude.
Kathy: Udaipur, the Venice of India. Well, I wouldn't go quite that far but that's what they say in travel brochures. We arrived at our hotel, The Shiv Niwas Palace Hotel, in the early afternoon. It's located within the The City Palace, the second largest palace in India. The royal family still lives in a portion of the palace, some of it has been turned into museums and what used to be the rooms for visiting dignitaries has been turned into the hotel. The location is excellent, right on Lake Pichola and right next to the Old City area. But the hotel is way past its prime and in dire need of a complete renovation. A picture is worth a thousand words so here it is. Some of you may recognize this hair dryer and know it works about as good as it looks. On the plus side, however, there were three toilet paper dispensers. Talk about luxury!
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| The Ultimate In Modern Technology |
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| True Luxury - Three Damn Toilet Paper Rolls |
The views from our two balconies were incredible and almost made up for the scratched furniture, hard bed, poor sheets, and noisy air conditioner. We really enjoyed watching birds and fruit bats from our balcony every morning and evening. We saw parrots, hundreds of them, horn bills, kites, swifts and egrets. The sunsets were beautiful.
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| Balcony Sitting Area Outside The Entrance To Our Room | | |
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| Our Terrace Room |
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| Lake Palace View From Room Early Morning |
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| Lake Palace At Sunset |
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| Grey Indian Horn Bill Roosting In Tree Across From Balcony |
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| Pair of Green Parakeets - Male Has Ring Around The Neck |
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| View of City Across Lake From Room |
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| City Palace From The Boat Tour - Our Room Is Upper Right |
On the first full day we toured the Old City, the City Palace Museum, the Silver Museum and did a heritage walk to see the old, ornate homes (called havelis) with our guide Sandeep. After that we did a boat ride by ourselves. It was a full day, so we didn't have time to visit the Crystal Museum or the royal family's Vintage Car Museum.
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| Me & the Bean At A Palace Museum Courtyard |
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| Elephant Tug O War for Palace Games |
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| Swing Seat for the Queen |
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| King Reception Room - Queen Behind Curtain on Right |
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| Palace Museum Courtyard |
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| Yet Another Courtyard |
On the first and second nights we had dinner at two haveli hotels on the lake. Both were simple but beautiful. I checked out one of the rooms at Amet Haveli and it was very nice with a good view of the lake. When I was researching the trip I had the hardest time deciding on a hotel in this city. Prices are inflated because it's a popular city for Indians to vacation and honeymoon and consequently price and quality don't always go together. I thought it would be interesting to stay in a grand palace even though the reviews were average. In hindsight the Amet Haveli, where we had dinner one night, would've suited us better. Let's see how I do with the rest of the hotels!
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| View of Our Hotel From The Restaurant At the Amet Haveli |
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| Jagat Niwas Haveli Restaurant View of the Courtyard |
The next day we had the driver take us to Animal Aid Unlimited, about 30 minutes out of town. We had read about this place online. About 15 years ago an American couple and their daughter started this sanctuary to rescue and take care of sick and injured street animals. They currently have 500 animals. They've gradually educated the people to care about the animals and now they receive 30 to 50 calls a day about animals that need help. They have 3 ambulances that stay busy all day. A very nice young man, Raj, gave us a tour of the sanctuary. It was quite impressive. Dogs far outnumber the other animals but they have cows, donkeys, 3 goats, 2 cats, 2 pigs, and 1 grumpy, blind monkey. The goal is to treat the animal and then release it back into the community. This isn't always possible, so those that are disabled live out their lives here. They have quite a large population of paralyzed and partially paralyzed dogs, car accidents mostly. They have several large cage with soft sand for them so it is comfortable for them to drag their hind ends. We spent quite a bit of time them and they love the attention. They particularly love to be scratched under their chins since they can't do that anymore. We saw surgeries going on. They also have a hospice and this was very hard to see. Even though the animals they rescue are often in horrible condition (one was completely covered with tar and mange can be so bad that bone is exposed) they usually can save them but when it's not possible they euthanize them. But not so with the cows, since the cows are sacred (it's believed that the Hindu gods live in the cows) and it is illegal to kill a cow. Raj said the street cows have it far worse than the dogs. They eat plastic and that is a death sentence. The cows that are dying are laid on cushions for comfort and given pain meds. We thought that was wonderful and were glad to see that they had enough funding to be able to do that. Here's their website, http://animalaidunlimited.org/.
Here comes the picture onslaught!!
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| Entrance to Animal Aid Unlimited |
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| Surgery for Head Wound |
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| Soft Sand Cage For Paralyzed Dogs |
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| Richard the Paralyzed Love Puppy with Bean & Raj |
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| Twinkle Toes Gets Some Love & Food |
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| Cow Hospice - Notice Cushion To Provide Additional Comfort |
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| Suzie The Cat - Did Get Name Of Rat She's Eating |
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Back to the hotel by 2 PM and decided to take the afternoon off from touring. We walked to Jagat Niwas Haveli for lunch and then we sent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the balcony bird watching and catching up on the blog. It's always nice to take some time off - vacationing can be hard work!
Random thoughts: Once we left Delhi, we've seen animals on the roads everywhere. We've seen sheep, goats, camels, donkeys, water buffalo, pigs, camels, and, of course, cows and dogs. Traffic: The roads are incredibly congested, though we missed the worst of it in Delhi because of the weekend. In the smaller cities like Jodhpur and Udaipur (1 to 2 million) and particularly in the Old Town areas, the lanes are very narrow with barely enough room for one car and we haven't seen any roads marked as one way only. They're jammed with animals, people, cars and motorcycles. Outside of Delhi we've seen very few traffic lights and none that we've actually stopped for. That being said, our driver is very skilled and careful. Honking is a mandatory part of driving and there's a code for it. The short version is one honk for "on your side", so you can imagine the driver is honking every few seconds, two honks is "slow down" and three honks is "good luck". Even though it appears to be chaos, it works. Everyone seems to know the unwritten rules of the road and everyone seems calm. We have not seen one accident; unlike our experience in China where the drivers seemed very angry and we saw several accidents. Everyone is a traffic cop especially in Old Town, telling you how much room you have, helping you navigate. Male chauvinism is alive and well in India, no surprises there. But so far we've met only gentlemen with a couple of notable exceptions - the guard at Ranakpur, the Jain temple, and our driver. When we left Chanoud Garh on the way to Udaipur we stopped at Ranakpur. Before we left Chanoud Garh the family told us that Randy might not be allowed in because he was wearing shorts but my below the knee capris would be fine. But apparently the guard at the gate had his own standards about female propriety and became very angry and started yelling, pointing at me and saying "disrespectful, no come in" and a few other choice words. Before his rant ended we were already saying no problem and turning around. I suspect this guy has a problem with (1) women and (2) foreigners. Our driver directs all conversation to Randy and calls him Sir. He will speak to me reluctantly only if I speak to him first and I don't have a name - not even ma'am. Food: For dinners we've ordered mostly Indian food, with a couple of pasta meals for me. The food has been consistently good, if not inspired, and we shared a particularly good salad last night with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, lime juice and lots of peanuts. Most of the restaurants "dumb down" the Indian food for the tourists and we have to beg them to add a bit more spice for us. It hasn't come back too hot yet. As Randy mentioned we have had a few minor issues with our driver but after giving it a couple of days of not being able to get it resolved we contacted Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh called the driver while we were in a restaurant and when the driver took us back to the hotel he apologized to us both, we shook hands and agreed that we'd have a new start in the morning. So far so good. Whew, crisis averted - lol.
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| Camel Along The Road |
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| Local Ladies Herding Goats |
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| Street Cows Calling It A Night |
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| Street Dogs Calling It A Night |
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18 Sept: Off To Another Maharaja Home Country Palace
RC: We took off this morning at the crack of 10:00 AM for a four hour ride, a four hour ride (read it to the Gilligan's Island theme song) to Shahpura Bagh, a country palace that hopefully will parallel (high bar) our stay at Chanoud Garh. We saw our first elephant. He was walking in the breakdown lane on the northbound highway. Like I said, driving the highways of India presents its challenges. We also passed acres and acres of opium poppy fields. We were a little surprised to make this discovery. Our new Guide 2.0 pointed it out to us and even stopped our van to run down to get a couple flowers to show us.
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| Of Course Safety First - Lorrie Overloaded With Cement, This Could Be Bad |
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| Cow Powered Farm Vehicles |
We arrived at Shahpura Bagh around 2:00PM - it was a bit hot so getting into the air conditioned room felt pretty good. A walk about of the grounds revealed a large lake filled to the brim by the recent, very heavy monsoon rains. We met the owners of the palace, Maya and Sat Singh. Sat's family history at Shahpura goes back centuries. We did a short excursion to a local fort also owned by the Singh family, for a tour and sun downers. Unfortunately an overcast sky cancelled our sunset, but we enjoyed a glass of local wine and the nice evening breeze while Kahn, our guide for the activity, gave us a brief history of how this fort supported the trade routes of the Silk Road era providing food and shelter for merchants making the journey not to mention making a pretty good business from providing goods and services along the way. We returned to the palace, got cleaned up, more evening cocktails on the veranda and then headed over to the main house to join Sat for dinner. The food was very good and the conversation most enjoyable. Sat's grandfather was a prominent player in the military history of India. As independence dawned on India, Lt Gen Nathu Singh, was selected to be the first Commander in Chief of the Indian Air Force. This position was elevated to be the senior military position in all of India - the equivalent of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for the DoD. Nathu was uncomfortable with this selection as he was junior in rank to many of his friends and colleagues and declined the position. He was asked again to accept the appointment and somewhat reluctantly agreed at the urging of his peers and superiors. His military record is very impressive, especially in the fight against Japan in WWII, More impressive was his dedication to India. He was instrumental in the push to reintegrate those Indians that had joined the Indian National Army (INA), a group of Indian military members, that after extensive and excessive mistreatment by the British, fought against the British and sometimes with the Japanese. It's all a very interesting time in Indian history. We also discussed the Indian-Pakistan war of 1971. It was interesting to hear the Indian side of the story. You may or may not recall, but the US pretty much backed Pakistan in that conflict. Pakistan was a significant foreign military sales customer of the US. Well, enough Indian history. We were also joined by Sat's father over dinner. He's 84 years old, a big time old school jazz fan (Glenn Miller to Dizzy Gillespie, to B B King) and a former Admiral in the Indian Navy. He is an interesting man who speaks slowly and softly, but has a spark in his eye. Both he & Sat were very interested in my time in the Air Force. I'm pretty sure I'm the first nuclear launch officer they've had over for dinner. We had very candid discussions about world affairs, US politics and how anyone in the US could possibly vote for Hillary Clinton. We told them that this was a very unusual election year with two very flawed candidates. We were also joined by 3 of their 4 dogs. An African Ridgeback named Zulu, a beautiful, long legged hound; a mix breed that closely resembled an Australian sheep dog that could not get enough attention, and a 14 year old Dachshund who was the Alfa. They all circled the table as we spoke, going from person to person, getting all the petting they could scrounge until Sat chased them away and the Dachshund fell asleep on my feet. And oh, before I forget, the food was delicious and the homemade ice cream (mango) was to die for. We said our good nights, pet the dogs one last time, and called it a night
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| Side of Building Housing Our Room | |
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| Front of Building Housing Our Room |
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| Front Veranda - Real Nice Place To Hang Out |
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| Reception Area - Door To Our Room Is On Left |
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| Our Room - It's Actually Even Bigger Than It Looks |
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| Our Room |
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| Pool Area - All Our As We're The Only Guests |
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| One of the Resident Peacocks - Talk About Squawkers!!! |
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| Lake On The Property - Lots of Birds & Flowers In The Area |
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| Breakfast with Sat and Beanie's New Best Friend |
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| The Big Bad Alfa Dog On My Feet During Dinner |
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| 1The Guru Temple For The Most Import Guru In India |
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| Fort Dhikhola, 300 Years Old & Still Owned by Family |
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| Fort Dhikhola With Kahn |
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| Caretaker for Fort Dhikhola |
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| Panoramic View From Fort Dhikhola |
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| View of Fort Dhikhola Walls |
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| Beanie With The Fort Caretaker |
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| Doing A Couple Sundowners At The Fort |
Kathy: Shahpura Bagh is a magical place. Like Chanoud Garh, this is a country palace but it doesn't look like a fort but more of a combination of Rajasthani and colonial architecture. It consists of two properties - the main house where the royal family still lives and the second house where Sat's grandmother used to live. In fact, our room was her bedroom. We were again the only guests. The room and bath were beautifully done and very comfortable. Both homes were filled with so much history - from all the old black and white photos to the stuffed animals in the living room. We really enjoyed the time spent with Sat and his father. Sat's father was quite a hunter in his day and even worked as a guide for a couple of years. He told us that he would love to hunt Elk in the US. He and Randy had a good time discussing hunting and jazz. It was also very nice to be able to walk the trails on the property and do some exploring. The fort visit was fun (I love old forts) and the views from the top were excellent. I'll let the photos show how lovely this property was.
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| Family Residence - Couple Hundred Yards From Room |
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| Family Residence, Guest Entrance For Meals |
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| Trophy Room - Note Mounted Leopard and Tiger |
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| Family Residence Front Parlor Off Breakfast Room |
I knew that, for me at least, the places we would be staying would be a large part of the trip and that has proved to be true, especially at the properties where we've interacted with the owners. Spoiler alert: Wait until you see the completely over the top Sujan Raj Mahal Palace in Jaiper!
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