The last few days have been pretty topsy-turvy. Not just because we've weaved in and out of countless
sights across Agra, Bharatpur, Jaipur and back to Dehli again; no that's fine, but with a bus full of travellers each with a belly full of Dehli one stop has often needed to become two or three. Everyone’s been sympathetic to each other’s needs though, as a sense of been there ruined the t-shirt is shared amongst all of us. The food’s great in the most part. The dishes have more layers than a Dan Brown novel but quite common amongst them all is a surprising use of cinnamon and chilli. Not too strong, despite North India’s reputation, Indians prefer to eat their food for flavour not for bragging rights as us English often might. The issue that became apparent to the weak stomached amongst us was that with three highly spiced dishes each day we were soon shocking ourselves by opting for a bit of tea and toast or simpler still a few chips. This is all made worse by the knowledge that it only takes one underdone chicken skewer to make you spring up and do your Forest Gump impression all the way to the washrooms. India tends to smell faintly of cinnamon and incense. No individual has smelt foul, but about to depart to Japan I worry this may be a shared sensory illusion – we’ll see if I get a bit more walking space on the streets of Tokyo. Despite all this, when well we’ve seen a lot. From the busy tourist attractions of the Taj Mahal, baby Taj and Red Fort of Agra, to the untouched temple and step-well in the remote village of Bharatpur and on to Jaipur’s Barbie-tastic ‘pink city’ attractions. However, I think I found a new idol in visiting Fatehpur Sikri, briefly Akbar The Great’s imperial capital. To give you a brief background on Akbar (1556-1605), as the third Moghul ruler he brought together Hindu, Muslim and Christian belief systems marrying a wife of each religion and utilising the architectural influences of all three in building this new kingdom. Although illiterate, he brought a sense of democracy in his reign as widows were allowed to remarry and criminals were only punished if there was sufficient evidence (if there was their heads would be crushed by elephants). But Akbar was also a player! With three wives and up to 5,000 mistresses he loved the chat up lines, one poetic verse of his reads, ‘I am not a drinker, but I drink. I am not a drinker, but I drink; not alcohol, but your eyes.’ He also liked a game or two, playing many games of ‘hide and seek’ around his kingdom and better still effectively a game of human chess with women naked but for see-through ‘Hollywood’ dresses. Best still he made them move squares by doing hop scotch! My new plan in life is to become and emperor – great Ganesha bring me luck! Just left my mum at Dehli airport and am flying to Tokyo via Sri Lanka. Not sure where I’m staying or how to get there, but that’s the fun of it right?
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With our plane delayed by a couple of hours, we arrived in Delhi around 1.30. After finally collecting our bags (and with a precautionary stop in the airports fully functioning toilets) we got into our pre-booked taxi. Unsurprisingly, even in the car park our driver was tooting more than a sensitive derrière after a Friday night binging at the Maharajah in Bexley village.The roads are insane, with a mix of cars, vans, motorised rickshaws, bicycles and seemingly suicidal streetwalkers. There is no order, as three lanes apparently translates as five and often cars simply drive on the other side - or otherwise will simply appear to park up in the middle of it all. In the city, cars and people are wedged together tighter than the loose skin on Gordon Ramsey's face.
It's not surprising though, as with a population of 15 million crammed into the bastis (shanty town districts) the stories of buses toppling over and passengers getting taken out by overhanging cables seems very conceivable. The busiest sections are probably on the metro system. Although we avoided the rush hour traffic, the coaches were packed. If we'd been a tin of peas we were near enough mushy by the end of it. It's all fascinating tough - even aside from the constant hooting from what my mum affectionately calls the toot-toots. Today we visited both a practising Sikh Temple and Jama Masjid (the largest Muslim temple in the world). This seemed strange as with 75% of Indians being Hindu, yet; as the architectural landscape of Delhi and the North is heavily influenced by the Moghuls rule (Persian based settlers) this seemingly makes more sense. Both the temples and the mosque required that we remove our shoes as we were very conscious not to offend or disturb. The Sikh Temple also required we covered our heads amd washed our feet (This may have just been so we didn’t make their shorts dirty as we trod over and around them as they prayed). Further to this we have also seen India Gate (memorial to those killed in WW1), Parliament, Humayan’s Tomb (supposedly the influence of the Taj Mahal), Red Fort and Connault Place. Currently travelling across Agra by coach, we have seen camels, cows, elephants and horses on route as well a whole load of people stuffed in and hanging out of far fewer vehicles. Oh, there goes another toot-toot honking up our boot-boot and a man walking in middle of a duel carriageway – but then again I wouldn’t have expected anything less! |
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Samuel FryTraveller Archives
June 2011
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