One Year Away

Penny

We have posted 4 new pictures in the India album, enjoy!

Another train ride, this time from Agra, took us to Delhi, a city where you should expect to see everything and anything.  We stayed in the backpackers’ ghetto of Paharganj.  The area is very dirty and filled with touts.  It is not a great first impression of Delhi but it is central and convenient.  Thankfully, the rest of Delhi is much more pleasant.

We spent a total of five days in Delhi.  Two days were spent recovering from Delhi-belly while the remaining three were spent site seeing and trying to enjoy some of the great Indian food that we had missed out on the two first days.

We spent some time relaxing at Connaught Place near the fountain in Central Park with hundreds of other locals as we enjoyed the relative coolness of the evening. 

In Old Delhi, we visited the Old Fort and Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India.  While there we also had the chance to enjoy some of the best butter chicken masala we have ever had at Moti Mahal Restaurant.  The next day we had the best jalebis (a circular, deep fried, squiggly sweet filled with sugar syrup) from Jalebis and Samosas where they specialize in what else but jalebis and samosas.  This small street side shop is constantly preparing the Indian treats fresh for customers.  For some reason, we were only allowed to buy one jalebi.  The vendor said that we could buy more after we had tasted them and liked them.  After only having one between the two of us, Joe and I were stuffed.  Although our taste buds wanted more, it was much safer to simply step away from the jalebis.

No trip to Delhi is complete without some shopping in the city’s many markets and bazaars.  If you are able to dodge the touts offering to take you to a store to buy silk saris and are able to bargain hard, Delhi has some great shopping for housewares and fabric.  We decided to splurge on some Indian spices from Roopak’s.  The store was filled with sealed containers of spices from tea masala to the spicy kashmiri curry.  But be prepared for an attack on your nostrils when you enter.  The smell was so powerful it was physically painful.

Delhi is a very large city with many different neighborhoods and you can easily spend a week visiting the many sites.  If you plan on visiting, make sure that you do it in the cooler months – i.e. not in April, May or June!

Penny

Take a look at the India album. We have added 4 new Taj Mahal photos!  Enjoy.

The second city that we visited in India was Agra.  We took a 15 hour overnight train ride on a non-air conditioned train to get there (we have pre-booked all of our future rides to make sure that we get air conditioning).  

As most tourists, we went to Agra simply to see the Taj Mahal.  The Taj is a Mughal mausoleum that was built by Emperor Shah Jahan to honor his wife who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child in 1631.  The Taj is a monument of love that took 22 years to build.  The structure is composed of beautiful white marble and inlaid with semi-precious stones representing flowers and Koran scriptures. 

We wanted to be there for sunrise, so we got up at 5 AM and were at the ticket office at 5:30 AM as the sun started to come up.  unfortunately, the ticket office only opened at 6 AM.  Thankfully, we were in the Taj by 6:30 AM and were able to take advantage of the soft dawn light for some pictures. 

We’ve added new photos from our time in India so far.  Not surprisingly it’s in the India album on the left.

Joseph

Hindus believe that if you die in the city of Varanasi you are freed from the cycle of rebirth and enter Nirvana.  We came to Varanasi for two reasons; to see the Ganges river at the holiest city along its shore, and far more practically, because it’s close to Kathmandu and there were inexpensive flights.

Our first glimpse of India came from the back of an auto rickshaw as we puttered along to the old town from the airport.  Our driver had his head turned completely around to speak to us while happily ignoring the honking trucks, rickshaws, wandering cows and their resulting piles of dung, bicycles, pedestrians, potholes and old Ambassador cabs.  Only by the grace of Vishnu did we arrived at the old town in one piece. 

The main reason to visit Varanasi is to see the ghats; wide stone steps that lead dow n to the river.  They are used as a place from which to bathe in the holy water of the river, wash clothes and just hang out.  On a narrow landing above the steps impromptu cricket matches are played by the young boys of the town. 

We woke up early one morning to take a ride in a row boat along the ghats as the sun was rising.  Even at that early hour the ghats were crowded with people washing themselves in the river.  The men lathered themselves up and then jumped into the river.  The women wore their colourful saris even while bathing. 

Unfortunately, 30 sewers dump raw sewage into the river at Varanasi and tests show that it has 3000 times the safe amount of fecal matter in it.  One rickshaw driver we hired insisted that since the river flowed from the feet of Vishnu the water was pure and good.   I remained unconvinced and there would be no bathing in that water for me. 

The most memorable sight along the river though was the cremation of bodies.  Out of respect for the families we did not take any photos.  Devout Hindus want to be cremated along the holy river and then have their ashes spread into the water.  We met the owner of a cremation service by one of the “burning ghats” and he took us through the process as we stood and watched 3 different cremations all going on at the same time. 

Since there is no way to preserve the bodies in the heat the families usually arrive with the body within 5-7 hours of the death.  The family informs the ghat workers what kind and amount of wood they want for the pyre.  The logs are meticulously weighed and the family is charged per kilogram of wood.  Rich families opt for sandalwood because it is more prestigious and smells nice when burned.  When the pyre is built, the body, covered in cloth, is laid on top and the male family members walk around 5 times then light it with a holy flame brought from a nearby temple.  The ghat workers tend the fire and  make sure that the body burns completely.  At one point they use a bamboo pole to break the charred remains and stir them into the coals. 

The whole process happens out in the open.  Within 5 meters of a body being prepared for cremation some local kids were playing cricket with the ball zooming past the family members.  In the river next to the ghat water buffalo cooled themselves, dogs lazed in the sun and onlookers watched the cremations. 

Women family members are not allowed to attend the cremation of their loved-ones.  One reason we were told is that women tend to cry during the cremation and their cries do not allow the soul of the deceased to leave the body and to reach nirvana. Another is that wives of the deceased used to throw themselves on the fire as their husband burned.  This practice of was outlawed 7 years ago…

Joseph

The top news story in India at the moment is headlining all the TV channels.  People are protesting  across the country.  The media is having a field day.  Effigies of Richard Gere are being burned in the street.  Effigies of Richard Gere are being burned in the street???  Yes, believe it or not.  Actor Richard Gere has caused a huge controversy here by playfully kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness rally in Mumbai.  In several cities across the country, including here in Varanasi, cardboard pinata-like busts of the actor were burned as people protested his conduct.  They complain that his kiss shows he has no regard for this country’s culture and should be kicked out.  Wow…

See here for photos…Pics of Gere and Shilpa. Oh, and we’re in India and doing well.  The heat though is almost unbearable and is only going to get worse.  We’ll post about the colourful and ancient city of Varanasi shortly…but we thought you should get the important Bollywood news first.