Jaipur - elephants and the Amber Palace

In Jaipur we joined up with the main group.  Delhi and Agra were a pre-tour that we did with three other women.  We signed up to do both pre- and post-tours because I don't know if I will ever return to India, so I wanted to see as much as I could while I'm here.  The larger group consists of 20 people plus Charllotte Kwon, the organizer of this and so much more (more about her later), her assistant, and two tour guides.  I would travel anywhere with Charllotte, the organization and smooth functioning of her tours and the wonderful varied itinerary she plans for us make traveling with her non-stressful and fascinating.
  Jaipur is known as the pink city because many of its building are created with pink sandstone.  We visited a Red Fort in both Delhi and Agra, so you can see that this sandstone is a common building material.
  We started our tour with a visit to the Amber Palace, which offered both a different colour in the India palette, and an elephant ride.
 On the way to the palace, we stopped to see this building, which was where the royal women lived.  They were not allowed to be seen, and so they had the small windows shown in the second photo to look out through when they wished to see what life was like outside their residence.  They were not allowed outside at all, not even if they wore clothing that covered their bodies completely.  Once in a while, though, they could leave in a covered carriage to attend little parties at a private residence.

And here are snake charmers.

 These umbrellas were some of the items offered to the tourists as we stood in line for our elephant ride.  I love the colours, and small mirrors are incorporated into the designs.

 

 Finally, elephants.  Some of they were beautifully coloured, too.  They seemed to be well treated.  The mahouts did not use pointed or sharp goads, that can cut the skin, but had small rounded sticks to guide their elephants.

 It's a long way down from an elephant!  We got on by standing at the edge of a wall that was, conveniently, elephant height.  We then joined a parade of tourists riding up the steep and winding road to the palace.  The road was just barely wide enough for two elephants.  Ours was speedy, and kept passing the slowpokes.

  All of the forts and palaces we've seen are beautiful.  I think I mentioned before the attention paid to detail that is simply cosmetic.  The gardens are also amazing.  The one below was outside the palace, and the inhabitants could look down and see it.

Here's another inhabitant, although he's probably not part of a royal family.  There are many palaces and royal families, because India is made of up many states, and each was independently ruled until the British arrived and unified them.  British rule officially began in 1757, but the East India Company was given a British royal charter in 1600, and essentially took over large parts of the Indian states with their private armies. India achieved independence in 1947, and there is a federal government, but each state has considerable independent power, too, much like the provinces in Canada or the states in the US.

I am continually awed by the artistry shown in the decorations and small details inside the various rooms of these forts and palaces, which were essentially built for defence, but which were also luxurious homes.

In the picture below, you can see hooks in the ceiling, and also along the arches that lead to an outdoor courtyard.  The ones along the sides were used to hold carpets that were hung to serve as walls when weather led to a need for them.  The ones in the ceiling held huge fans which were manipulated by a servant pulling on ropes to waft the fan back and forth, creating a breeze

Here are some more pictures of the decorative elements.

In this one you can see how mirrors were incorporated in some ceilings.

Here is one of the courtyard gardens.

The next two pictures show the chamber of mirrors.  This was created for one royal lady who had loved to sleep outside to see the stars, before she was moved in to the palace.  She was no longer permitted to sleep where other people might see her, so this room was created with thousands of mirrored pieces on the walls and ceiling.  The room was designed so that two candles would light up all the mirrors and she was surrounded by these artificial, but still beautiful, stars.

Here is the fort from the outside, and couple of views of one of the oldest paintings.

I love taking portrait photos.  I always ask permission, which is an expected courtesy.  In some places I visit, there are people dressed in traditional clothes, present for the tourists to photograph.  This is how they make their living, and a small tip is expected.  100 rupees, or two dollars, is considered generous.

Here are some more cosmetic details.  These small paintings are located between the supports for an upper level's balconies.  Each painting is different, and there were probably at least forty of them, just along this one outside corridor.

After we left the Amber Palace, we stopped to see this step well.  It has served as a source of water for hundreds of years.  The water level is low at present, in part because India is using more and more water and so water tables are decreasing.  During and after the monsoon season, the water does rise.  The tradition in using a step well is that you never climb up the same set of stairs that you used to get down.
  The stairs are steep, and worn from the centuries of feet traveling up and down.  Even here, though, where poor people went, the design is one of beauty.

This picture shows flowers growing outside the door of our Jaipur hotel.

Agra and the Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan ruled during the early 1600s.  He had several wives, but was deeply in love with his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal.  He even accepted her counsel on affairs of state, something almost unheard of during this time of women forced into hiding from the world.  She died at age 40, after giving birth to her 14th child, and Jahan plunged into grief.  As she lay dying, she apparently asked that he never forget her and never stop loving her, and he decided to create the perfect mausoleum to show the world how deeply he had loved her.
  It took 20,000 men twenty-two years to build it.  He found the top craftsmen in their fields, including architects, stone masons, workers in precious gems.  By the end of the construction, only 7,000 remained, and they were not allowed to leave Agra, because the Shah didn't want them to work on something that might compete in quality to his palace.
   After it was completed, Jahan decided to build what he called a shadow palace - a similar building built out of black stone to contrast with the white of his wife's tomb.  At this point, his third son, presumable one by a different wife, imprisoned the Shah, in large part to prevent him from spending what remained of the family fortune, and he lived the remaining nine years of his life nearby,  in Agra's Red Fort, reportedly able to see the Taj Mahal from his rooms.  The third son wanted to rule and he killed his older brothers, but apparently he wasn't a good ruler, and the kingdom entered a decline.
  I wasn't sure what to expect, but the first view of the palace, seen through an archway, was stunning.

The building is known to be perfect in terms of its design and construction.  It has been well maintained, and so appears much as it did when it was first built.  You can see scaffolding on two of the towers.  Pollution is very bad in the area, thus the haze in the pictures, but the entire structure is cleaned once a year.  The four towers lean out slightly and this was done on purpose because the area is prone to earthquakes and this way if they fell, they would not land on the tomb.
   Jahan is buried here too, so this entire complex, 42 acres, I think, is a cemetery for two.  The actual tombs are below ground, but there are replicas at floor level in the center.  I couldn't take pictures inside, but the Shah's tomb is higher than his wife's.
   The work on the building is incredible.  I was most struck by the inlay work, precious stones set into marble.  The marble used came from 400 kilometers away, and is a special form of this stone that is non-porous, which is in large part why the palace is still in such perfect condition.

The inlay work is perfect, with no rough edges at all.  Gold and mirrors were used on the outside of the dome, and the best time to see the palace is at sundown, when the light is caught and reflected.

It is always crowded here, sometimes so much so that it's difficult to move about.  Above you see the line up to get inside.  We avoided the line, which made me uncomfortable, but we paid 750 rupees for our tickets, about $15, which the locals pay only 20 rupees.
  Everyone had to cover their shoes with paper booties, although many people preferred to enter barefoot.

At all of the historical monuments we visited, most of the people there were from this country.  Their history is important to them.  We had planned to see the house where Mohandas Gandhi lived and where he was assassinated, but our day here was on the anniversary of his death, and all the monuments relating to him were closed to the public.  Locals and dignitaries, though, were present to attend the special events organized to honour him.
   Here's another visitor.

  The parklands that make  up much of the surroundings are home to many animals and birds.  The chipmunks are especially cute.  They're a little larger than our chipmunks, and their tails are bushier.  And they're very quick, so I haven't been able to take a picture.
  This animal was not on the property, but was outside of one of the gates. 

 
A note on the pictures I am posting - we were strongly urged to never post photographs of women's faces on social media such as Facebook, because doing so can drastically change their lives, and not for the better.  If the men who know them see the pictures, they are angry at the women, wondering if they somehow invited this publicity and what it might suggest about their morality.  To westerners, this seems incredibly unfair, as it should be obvious to the men that the women had no say in whether their images were  taken or used in this way.  This is still a male-dominated culture, though, and disregarding this can only make things worse for women.  You'll see, as I continue my journey and write about it here, that in some areas we wear clothing that covers more of our bodies than we might wish in a hot climate, and in some areas, especially small villages, women use their shawls to cover their faces if men are present.  I believe in respecting the cultures of the places I visit, and so while I have taken many beautiful portraits of women here, I won't put them on the blog, unless I am given permission by the women..
  I have, however, wanted to show some of the beautiful clothing they wear, and so I will post some pictures of women's backs.
 

The image below is apparently one that everyone has taken, and so here is my version.

Our guide asked us for one word that told him our strongest impression of our visit here.  Many people used the word "love."  The entire complex is certainly an impression expression of one man's enduring love for a woman, and many people are swept up in its romance.  While I was impressed by the building's incredible beauty, and the artistry of its creators, my cynical side couldn't help wondering what could have been accomplished if the money and energy represented here had instead been used to improve life for the Shah's subjects.

More Delhi

Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort, also built the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in Delhi.  It has space for 25,000 worshippers.

We were asked to remove our shoes when we went in, and all women had to wear these stylish robes that covered us from neck to ankles.

   We did not have to cover our heads, though.
  Corn is scattered on the ground in the large courtyard for pigeons, who are believed to embody the souls of dead relatives.

I don't quite understand how this works, because pigeons are regarded as pests everywhere else.  They are numerous, and I quite enjoy their gentle cooing.

We then went for our bicycle rickshaw ride through one of the oldest and busiest bazaars.  The plaid shirt belongs to our cyclist.  You can see how crowded the narrow alleys are, filled with pedestrians, motorcycles, hand carts, table set up to sell many wonderful things.

I, of course, paid special attention to the wonderful fabrics.

We there mid-afternoon, and the rickshaws served as school buses, taking kids home.

Once we left the bazaar we were driven in our rickshaw through the streets to where our bus awaited us.

Delhi

Delhi is both old and New Delhi, and the area has as big a population as the whole of Canada.  We visited two historic sites and then took a bicycle rickshaw ride through a bazaar.

The red Fort withstood all attempts to take it until the Mughuls arrived in the 1500s.  (Please note, my historical details may be inaccurate at times, as we learned a lot in a relatively short time and I don't always trust my memory.)  The fort has three thick and high walls, drawbridges, narrow winding approaching, and two moats.  One moat held crocodiles, the other had hungry lions and tigers.
   I've been very impressed with the care of execution of decorative details used.  The Hindus include many beautiful images in their buildings, but the Mughuls were muslim and their religion forbids realistic images of people and deities..  The above picture shows that they defaced all the lovely carvings and other images, so as not to offend their religion.  Below, though, you can see how beautiful the carvings were.  Considering how laborious the building techniques were at the time, the extra work for cosmetic purposes only is even more impressive.
  

We saw the six-pointed star in many places.

 I usually assume this star is the mogendovid, or Star of David and associate it with the Jewish religion, but here it represents ying and yang, the entwining of men and women.  It's usually shown like this, with a representation of a lotus flower in the center.
  In one of the fort's courtyards is this iron pillar.

No one knows why it was built or what it represents, but it has stood here for 1700 years.  It is apparently the only iron that does not rust, and I was unable to find any information on why or how it has this remarkable property.

The above shows you the written Hindi language.  Isn't it beautiful?

The women here wear many layers of clothing.  Pants or a long skirt, a long tunic, and a large scarf that usually also covers the head.  Or they wear saris.  All the clothes are in vivid colours.  In general only muslims wear green and only hindus wear red, but you see every possible colour.

Traffic

My first impression of India was the traffic.  We arrived and were driven from the airport to our hotel at around 10:30 p.m.  The road was jam packed and I quickly realized that I was extremely grateful that I don't have to drive here.  Let's see if I can describe it.
   There are lanes, just like highways around the world.  A lane here is large enough for a bus or truck, one and a half cars, and almost two tuktuks.  A tuktuk (pronounced like the word two with a hard k on the end) is a small and cheap taxi.

I talk about fractions of vehicles because that's how it works.  People ignore the lane markings.  There is no right-of-way.  If you want to make a right turn, (which is like our left turns, since they drive on the left here, ) you turn.  If you want to move into the next lane, or do a u-turn, or stop for whatever reason, you do it.  And as well as the vehicles I mentioned above, there are bicycles, motorcycles, cows, carts pulled by bicycles, or by men on foot, or by horses or donkeys.  In rural areas, there are camels and elephants.  Everyone shares the road, and everyone is in a hurry.
  That first ride was scary.   On the highway, people regularly drove the wrong direction on the shoulder and even in the outer lane.  If there was a space between two vehicles in front of you, a space just barely big enough to fit your headlamp into, you moved into it.  Everyone weaves in and out and around everyone else, often with only an inch or two apart.  There are hundreds of near collisions everywhere you look.  And the key to all of this is use of the horn.

 At first I thought that the cacophony was simply people stuck in traffic, and honking to relieve their frustration.   But I quickly discovered there is a complex language of honks, one that was surprisingly easy to learn.  Some people do honk simply to let people know they are in the way or are moving too slow.  Most often, though, people honk to let others know they are there.  Sometimes they are saying, "I'm coming through, so you better get out of my way," but often it is a warning to let another vehicle know that there is someone else there, who will either pass, or weave, or stop.  The honk is a warning not to swerve, or move ahead into a space that seems empty but will be taken up by another vehicle.  There is total chaos on the roads, but as long as everyone is alert, and has a sure hand on the wheel and a ready foot on the brake, it works.  But it is  often terrifying.
  Motorcyclists don't always wear helmets.  Whole families, three or even four people, ride on one motorcycle.  Tuktuks have a bench seat that fits two people, but more cram in, sometimes hanging halfway out of the vehicle.  Riding in a tuktuk is like a roller coaster inside of a carnival House of Horrors, set in an obstacle course.  It is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
  The introduction to traffic was the first discovery that India is crowded.  There are over a billion people here, and 65% are under the age of 30.  The guide who told me this spoke with pride.  "This," he said, "is the reason the twenty-first century belongs to India and not to China." 
  I'll have much more to tell you about the tremendous resource its people are for India, and, no doubt, about crowds, too.

 
  
 

India

My daughter Melissa and I are in India!  We're here for a month, on a textile and cultural tour.  It's organized by the amazing Charllotte Kwon, who is the guiding light behind Maiwa.  I'll say more about Maiwa in future posts, but the month will be fabulous as we visit a variety of places, urban and rural, and have all sorts of adventures.  Here is one of the first adventures - riding an elephant.

And this is a map of our journey.
   Join us as we venture into crowded bazaars and rural villages, visit the Taj Mahal and all sorts of wonderful craftspeople.  India is filled with life and with colour, with crowds of people, cows, camels, dogs, and all sorts of surprises.