The Greatest Adventure Is What Lies Ahead

The final leg of our India trip: After hanging out with the tigers, we were back on the road for a three hour ride to Jaipur. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is known as "The Pink City" for its dusty rose colored buildings. To visit the main city sights, we entered the gates of the old city. It's striking to see how the modern traffic with buses, trucks, and taxis (plus the zig zagging motorbikes) all squeeze through the old gates. Inside the gates, in addition to the seemingly endless shopping heaven, are more palaces and attractions than we could see in one afternoon. I really wanted to do more shopping here (and in India in general), but I found the endless bargaining exhausting. Even just walking down the street, we'd hear the price on an item reduce to 80 percent of the original asking price just from walking away. I completely understand this is part of the market place culture, but it was well beyond the effort I wanted to spend for a table cloth or shirt or wood carving.

In town, we visited the City Palace, a sprawling complex built in the mid 18th century, which continues to house Jaipur's royal family. We did not tour the family's residence (a $$$$ attraction), but instead toured the older section of the palace which has been converted into a museum. The highlight for all was the most amazing collection of historic weapons. Our guide's natural gift for story telling and enthusiasm for the weaponry on display intrigued us all. Tyler especially liked the "hidden weapons" -- is it a hair clip or a knife? If it a sword or a pistol? It is a shield or a bow? The weapons were housed in the old queen's quarters in which the muraled walls and mirrored ceilings were equally as impressive!

Too sunny at the sun dial!

We were running fairly late in the evening, but we did get to slip into the Jantar Mantar just before closing. Built around 1720, Jaipur's Jantar ("instruments") Mantar ("calculating") houses one of the world's oldest, largest, and best preserved observatories. The grounds are home to crazy large sun dials - the larger of the two is still accurate within 2 seconds! A fascinating amount of astrological instruments complement the sundials. I'm not actually sure what most of the other instruments measure (our guide was moving fast...), but there was at least one device to tell the Earth's location around the sun and the celestial orbit. Again, not sure what that is, but it all seemed pretty amazing.

Right on time.

Outdoor seating area at the Jaipur hotel

The Khandela Haveli, our hotel in Jaipur, was fantastic! (http://www.khandelahaveli.com/) A Haveli is a small palace (home to a ruling elite family). As Jaipur was the regional capital, there are many havelis in town and a number of them have been converted into boutique hotels. In addition to the delightful rooms, courtyard, and common spaces, we ate several meals at the Haveli. At our first lunch, we asked the chef for classic Rajasthani food. The curries were delicious -- and very different from what we'd eaten elsewhere. Rajasthani curries are thick with spices (not hot spices, but just lots of flavors), with more chunky veggies and little sauce. For dinner, the chef -- delighted that we were into the local dishes -- made up a couple other samplings. The food here was the best of our trip. I'm actually getting hungry writing this. Our hotel also had a local father and son team visit to perform a Kathputli (a Rajanstani puppet show) following dinner. The kids totally enjoyed the show and somehow we ended up coming home with three puppets. The father selling us the puppets assured us they were great quality with faces made from mango root wood. To prove the wood's quality, he grabbed the puppet we were thinking of buying and beat it repetitively on the ground. Good sales technique. I think it actually has a chance to survive the wrath of Tyler.

Boys that sold me a some paintings and chilled with the kids while we killed some time.

A highlight of the Jaipur area is Amber Fort. The Fort was built over a long period with some medieval structures but with much of the palace erected in the 16th century. The capital was moved from Amber to Jaipur in 1727, after which the Amber structures remained as the royal family's vacation home until around 1940. Our guide at Amber Fort said that the capital was moved from Amber to Jaipur for several reasons, but one reason was likely the king's love for astronomy. Amber's setting in the rolling hills blocks the sun's rays in the morning and evening, so he needed flatter ground for his Janter Manter. With a location up a large hill, we opted to take an elephant ride up. At the top we joined up with an excellent guide, who has been giving Fort tours for 30 years. Sadly, he told us that his son was killed by an elephant 10 years ago. Following his son's death (one of several that year), the Jaipur government shut down the elephants. They brought in a veterinarian and elephant expert who, reviewing the herd, developed a set of strict regulations around the rides (e.g., no more than 2 people, no more than two rides in the summer, all rides must end by 11:00 am, fixed pricing). It's sad to think of people killed due to tourists wanting a lift to the Fort. But I was relieved to hear our guide reflect on the massive improvements to the animals' care and also for the people who train and care for the elephants. Throughout our India visit we picked up guides at nearly all our stops. These individuals absolutely enhanced our understanding and appreciation of the structures and provided interesting detail and stories. If you travel India, don't hesitate to pick up guides inside the historic sites. Just take a minute to arrange a fee upfront, so that you are not caught haggling as you try to leave. Jaipur had guide prices listed as 200 rupee for a one hour tour. No prices were listed elsewhere, but we tended to pay about 300 to 400 rupee.

Kids at a truck stop somewhere in Rajasthan

After Amber Fort, the ride from Jaipur to Delhi ended up being incredibly long -- nearly 7 hours -- because earlier in the day a truck had taken out a bridge on the highway, so we ended up diverting through the back countryside.

Now, I gotta be honest. We didn't love Delhi. It was melt your face off hot (about 115 degrees Fahrenheit), so the temples all seemed a bit lackluster through our sweat-stung eyes. We also stayed in the downtown market area. The area seemed bustling, if you were in the mood to explore. But on the backend of our trip, I was most looking for a nice hotel with a bar and pool... and bar. This would have been a cool neighborhood to introduce a visitor to India, but on day 10, it just felt exhausting. The hotel, while upscale for the area, was a wreck. Our first room on a lower floor had a ceiling tile fall in on Brian (basically a A/C was falling down) right after we'd settled into the room. The hotel staff moved us, but the only other room was on the top floor and it was HOT.

On our Delhi sightseeing day, we ended up scrapping many of the major sites -- they just were not fun in 115 degree heat -- and we spent the day at the National Museum, which was impressive. The museum was fun for our technology-hungry kids since our foreigner tickets included audio guides. We finished off the day at the Mahatma Gandhi house, the home in which Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and the site of his assassination in 1948. Believe it or not, we even cancelled our final late afternoon market visit due to my bargaining fatigue and the oppressive heat. We instead asked for an earlier drop at the airport. But as my energy was feeling way low, our driver, Ashok, blasted his "farewell India" sound track on the car stereo. The final song he played, "I Love My India," totally rocked us out along the airport road. And while I was ready to get back home to KL and our cool 90 degree weather, the pulsing music made me completely agree -- I love my India!

Our chariot amid the trucks

Over the last few months, Violet and Tyler have each learned about the Taj Mahal in school. Violet’s teacher, for a timeline project, asked her to write about an event between 1600 and 1650. Foregoing the more obvious selection of the Mayflower’s landing at Plymouth Rock, Violet stumbled upon the building of the Taj Mahal. Needing to sketch the event, she was entranced with the symmetry and beauty of the structure and selected this as her timeline entry. In Tyler’s primary curriculum topic "Structures," he drew and reported on the Empire State Building, while his good friend drew and discussed the Taj Mahal. Truth is, the kids knew way more about the Taj Mahal than we did when deciding that our post-wedding time in India needed to include a trip to the Taj.

With seeing the Taj Mahal as an itinerary starting point, we were kinda locked into spending our visit in north India because India is huge. It’s called the Indian subCONTINENT for a reason! Trying to hit sights in both the north and south would have meant a lot of flights. Starting in Delhi, the nearest major city to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, we put together a pretty standard north India itinerary to visit the “Golden Triangle” highlights. With trusty TripAdvisor as a guide, I booked a car with a locally-owned small company, Ashok's Taxi Tours (http://www.i-love-my-india.co.in/). Ashok assured me that since it's the "ultra low season" prices were reduced and hotel bookings would be no problem. Why is it the ultra low season? It's hot. Right, hot is okay; we live in Malaysia. So I booked!

Pune to Delhi is a 2 hour flight. Before leaving Pune, we checked the weather in Delhi. 114 degrees. Excuse me? I thought there was a typo on weather.com? Not a typo. It was the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark hot (i.e., bad guys' faces melting off). That's why it's low season. Our trip started off on the right foot. As we were coming in for the landing into Delhi, the overhead speakers on our SpiceJet plane started playing "My Home Town," by Bruce Springsteen! Our lovely driver, Anil, met us as we departed the domestic terminal in Delhi. With the temperature right around 110 degrees, Anil said that our plan was to see sights in the morning and evening and drive during the day (in the air conditioned car).

As we said in our last blog entry, driving from Mumbai to Pune was a wild ride, but the drive from Delhi to Agra was no less a spectacle. First, the traffic in Delhi is a nightmare. It took two hours to get out of Delhi (not even rush hour). Then as we left town, the distances were magnified by the poor road conditions. Anil said, “Anything you might see on a road, you’ll see on a road in India.” He wasn’t kidding. Over the five hour drive we saw so many modes of transit. From ox carts to horse carts. Buses and trucks so packed that more people were on top than inside. Auto-rickshaws stuffed with 16 people. Milk trucks with huge jugs strung on the tailgate. A steamroller (not at a worksite, just cruising down the highway). We try to keep our blog light, but I can’t neglect saying that on our way to Agra we also saw the aftermath of a horrific accident. It appeared someone fell off a vehicle on the road and was hit by another car. It was time again to count our many, many blessings. We were inside a car, buckled in, with a careful and attentive driver guiding us.

I loved the decked-out trucks. See the black tassels hanging off the sides
and garland on the front. Many also had elaborate scenes printed on the rear.
All the permits and signs are also hand painted. I kinda want to deck out my car like this.

Village traffic calming roadblock

Climbing and jumping off the Fort Agra walls

Approaching Arga, we stopped by the Ackbar mausoleum, the resting place of the grandfather of Shan Jahan (the ruler who built the Taj Mahal). The structure was beautiful but the coolest part of this place was its 300-year-old herd of African antelope wandering the grounds. We continued on to Agra. The evening of our arrival, we visited the Agra Fort. We were fortunate to pick up a wonderful guide who walked us through the vast structure. The huge red stone walls surround a 16^th century palace -- the pictures here don't show the scale of the walls at all. The kids latched onto one fact about the fort – the fort had both a wet moat with crocodiles and a dry moat with tigers – and peppered our guide with questions about the advantages and disadvantages of the tiger/crocodile dual defense system. Tyler was particularly struck by the pre-battle strategy of depriving the tigers of food so they would be extra hungry and aggressive for foreign invader meat! Agra Fort looks out over the Taj Mahal, so we saw the sunset on the Taj as the Fort closed for the evening. It was our first real glimpse of one of the most incredible structures we've ever seen.

Early to bed and early to rise for our sunrise Taj Mahal tour. We met our guide who provided us the context and history of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum to his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is a structure of symmetry and beauty. The kids were totally impressed with the structure's optical illusions, like the four-sided pillars that looked eight-sided from a distance and the script that seemed condensed at the bottom from far away, but up-close looked in correct scale. Put your worries to rest, the Taj Mahal of glowing white marble with decorative inlay is as beautiful and magnificent in person as it seems from photographs. The scale and placement over the river makes the building seemingly float in the sky. The ultra low season paid off here as we had no lines and wandered around the complex enjoying the calm.

After seeing the Taj, we were in for another long car ride. The ride length was much worse since Brian came down with "Delhi Belly." It is a common occurrence in India, so common in fact that most reviews on TripAdvisor talked about the bathroom facilities at hotels in case you came down with "The Revenge." TripAdvisor unfortunately did not rate the roadside bathrooms on the northern state highways. As the ciprofloxacin, immodium, peptobismol, ibuprofen and oral rehydration salts from our ziplock bag mobile pharmacy worked their magic, we drove into the Indian state of Rajasthan, in India's far northwest. Driving along, we were treated to a picture of life in rural India as we watched the landscape change from pasture to all out desert. Drying cow paddies rested on stucco-decorated mud huts to be later used for fuel. Miles and miles of brick factories sent trucks, tractors, and ox carts filled to the brim with bricks out along the roadway. The scene soon gave way to arid farmlands as ox carts were replaced by camel carts. The many areas we past were a flurry of activity with villagers preparing for the upcoming monsoon season. All along the way people loaded hay into gigantic burlap sacks that hung over the sides of flat bed trucks. As the landscape changed, women's attire shifted to bright orange saffron saris, worn over the head mostly for sun protection.

Is it a truck stuffed with hay?

The same truck from the front!

Stopping for cows crossing the road.

Rajasthan is home to Ranthambore National Park, the largest tiger reserve in India, and our destination for this leg of the trip. (http://www.ranthamborenationalpark.com/) There’s not a lot in this little town outside a strip of hotels and the park. Lacking in places to eat, most hotels provide full board. The park is closed from June 30 until November 1 because monsoons make the park roads impassable, so we were catching the tail end of the season. This has the advantage of uncrowded jeep tours and great prices on hotels. But it is a bit odd staying and eating in a giant hotel with no other guests. Brian was worried it was going to be a hot weather version of The Shining (especially when we learned that the hotel was no longer selling liquor for the season).

Our first sign of a tiger - a massive paw print in the mud.

We went on two rides in Gypsy jeeps which sit six guests, plus a guide and a driver. The reserve is divided into ten regions into which the park rangers randomly assign each tour group. Our first visit was in Region 1. From the onset, everyone set up low expectations. It’s not prime tiger-spotting weather. The rain the night before made the tigers not need to go to the waterhole to drink. Plus it was relatively cool (like 95 degrees), so the tigers did not need to swim to cool down. The rain also made the tigers harder to track since there was less dust to look for tracks. The rocky, arid landscape was beautiful. The pre-monsoon rains were just adding touches of green to the landscape. The park is known for its many birds, most notably the peacock, the national bird of India. Our guide called the peacocks “tiger cupcakes” (looks nice, but not so filling). One nice part of visiting with the approaching rainy season is that the peacocks were in full dancing glory. During the dry season they lose their feathers and just kinda hang out. But with the approaching rainy season, there is love on the peacocks' minds. The feathers grow in and they start putting on a rhythmic circular dance, with a distinct mating call. We also saw male spotted deer fighting for the affections of a doe, several antelopes, and other types of deer. Right as we were giving up the tiger search, we heard from another car that there was a sleeping tiger by the road right at the border of Region 1 and 6. We went into high gear – racing through the jungle to find the tiger. Tyler loved going fast in the open jeep -- up and down the rocky hills. He was definitely airborne a few times. Here’s a picture of the three year old male we found. You most definitely appreciate his massive scale from up that close and how amazing is the tiger's camouflage! Our second safari took us to Region 5. We were fortunate to also see a tiger on this visit, but this time a bit more in the distance. This region has a beautiful watering hole in which we saw all the grazing animals as well as some crocodiles. The kids were pleased to have seen in the wild both animal occupants of the Agra Fort moat.