The RHogue

End to a Journey

2008-06-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'm now back in the U.S.A, and this completes my 8 month round trip to India. I would like to thank all the great people I met and worked with while in India. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I would also like to thank IdentityMine for providing me the opportunity to be the guest to a wonderful host.

Of course, special thanks have to go to those I worked with at IdentityMine India. They opened their hearts and made me feel like part of the family.

I have always believed that people around the world are mostly the same. We wish to live each day wanting to respect and love our fellows. In times of joy, we are joyful, and in times of strife, we wish to band together. Many times, wishes do not come true without effort, diligence and understanding. I was privileged to feel the compassion of India, and I will be forever grateful. Sometimes, wishes do come true.

Warmest Regards

TheRHogue

New Dehli

2008-06-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

My last day in India was in New Dehli. I was able to visit a few parks and forts before my plane departed.

Here is a link to find out more about New Dehli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Dehli

Here is a map of New Dehli:

http://dcnewdelhi.delhigovt.nic.in/images/ndmap.gif

You can see from the map there a a number of green zones which are parks. A number of parks are based around important ancient structures from old tombs, temples to forts built in the 1600's.

The India Gate is a memorial to all those who died in World War I. The road to it was blocked off because there was an assembly of dignitaries scheduled to hold a procession sometime during the week, and the event was important enough that a number of security measures needed to be made.

I stopped by a local fort, and it was very similar the fort in Agra.

There was another park with a large temple.

Looking back from the temple

You an see the people sitting in the front and walking in the back right to get the size relationship.

There were some other areas in the park with really old temples which were much smaller. You can see from the architecture and materials the difference between the ages.

My next stop was at another park with even older ruins. Notice the people near the base of the ruin. The height of this structure is amazing. It's incredible that it is still standing after hundreds of years. The age of some of the structures in this park go back as far as the 4th century.

This pic shows the very basic materials used only small amounts of carving once again showing it's age.

Some ancient carvings on a wall.

In contrast here is a new building that was just built recently.

I also stopped by a 5 star hotel known to be visited by the super wealthy and high ranking politicians.

It's now time for me to go to the airport and leave India. I'll make my final blog post when I get back to the states. It was a great day, and I'm glad I was able to travel around New Dehli before leaving. I believe I saw the oldest ruins here in the entire 8 months I stayed in India. It was interesting to see the older carvings and structures change into the current ones we see today.

Agra - Taj Mahal

2008-06-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to the Taj Mahal. I visited this amazing structure during my visit to Agra while the sun was setting. Here is a wikipedia link to learn more about this site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal

Here are my two best pics:

When visiting the Taj Mahal, you are required to take electric carts from a parking lot which is fairly far away. This is to help prevent damaging exhaust which could get in the air. A lot of damage had been done in the past due to acid rain, and they try to keep cars as far away as possible.

The electric cart stops at the entrance courtyard.

There is a formal entrance into the Taj Mahal courtyard.

When you go through the doorway you see the Taj Mahal in all it's glory.

It is difficult to get a feeling of how large this tomb is until you get closer.

Here is a closer shot of the front entrance.

Let's get closer to see some of the inlay work.

The black stone has been inlayed into the marble with great precision.

There is a temple to the left and right of the tomb. In the pic below there is a man sitting and a girl walking out of the temple which shows the relative size of the structure. It is of course smaller than the tomb.

On the back side of the Taj Mahal is a river.

Finally, here is a look back from the Taj Mahal entrance. The symmetry of everything is amazing.

I encourage you to read about the Taj Mahal and the love story around why it was built. It really is a wonder of the world.

My next stop is in New Delhi which will be my last day in India. There are still a few places I have yet to see. So, stay tuned.

Agra

2008-06-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

My next stop was in Agra which is the home of the Taj Mahal. I will have a special post for the Taj Mahal, and this post will be about everything else I saw in Agra.

First, here is a wikipedia link to learn more about Agra:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agra

My first stop was at the Fatehpur Sikri which is a fort 35 km from Agra. This fort was abandoned by Mughal Emperor Akbar due to a lack of water, and his headquarters moved into Agra Fort.

Below is the Diwan-i-Khas, which is a hall for private audiences. The fort's time frame is during the 1500's. So, the architecture is simpler than later structures.

Inside the audience hall.

Here is a close up of some of the carvings.

The couple below are renewing their wedding vows.

Here is a pic of the panchmahal.

This is the main courtyard.

The fort is on a small hill overlooking a valley which is mainly farm lands.

The entrance to the fort. On the left of the pic below there is a person sitting on a small landing. Even though Agra Fort is bigger wither later architecture, the Sikri was not small.

After I visited this fort, I went to the Akbar Tomb. The tome is in the white marble building, and next to it is a temple.

Akbar's tomb is very simple, but still done in marble.

The pic below is a sheet of marble with a carved pattern etched out of it.

The temple itself was very big.

Inside the temple there were some other tombs.

My next location was at a marble inlay shop. They took semi-precious stones, and ground them on a grinding wheel to create a number of mosaic designs etched out of the marble. For example a leaf on a flower. Some of these manufactured items were as small as a pin which required a very high level of sensitivity during the creation of the item.

This close up shows just how small and intricate these individual pieces become. The white part is the marble, and every piece is hand crafted on a grinding wheel using the appropriate colored semi-precious stone.

Here is a reproduction of the Taj Mahal done with inlay. For those who are interested in this type of product, you can visit Akbar International which has a website at www.akbarinternational.com

My next stop was at the Taj Mahal during sunset, but I'm leaving that for it own post. In the morning, I vistited Agra Fort. There is a couple on the left which will shows the relative size of the entrance.

There are a few inner courtyards with rooms and offices where business took place back in the 1600's.

Here is the main courtyard where the ruler made final judgements. There is a marble building in the center of the picture below where the ruler would sit.

The fort over looks the river, and on a clear day you can see the Taj Mahal.

Due to the fog in the morning, these birds were having a hard time seeing the Taj Mahal from the fort. They took some time to pose for the camera before flying off toward the Taj Mahal to see it during the sunrise.

The day at Jaipur

2008-06-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Jaipur around 4:00pm, and the traffic was heavy. Of course, the fact that Jaipur is one of the most densely populated cities in India means traffic is always heavy.

Jaipur is considered one of the best planned cities in India as streets run east to west and north to south. Based on this old 1875 pictures on wikipedia, it looks great, but now there are over 2 million people here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaipur - there is some great information here.

In one of the black and white courtyard pictures, you will see the Hawa Mahal. Here is a pic I took from the street. You will notice that the streets are no wider than they were back in 1875 when the picture was taken.

I visited the Jantar Mantar observatory - here is a link for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantar_Mantar_%28Jaipur%29

There are a number of interesting instruments created in the the early 1700's, and one of the largest time instruments in the world is here. In the pic below, there are some people in the upper left of the photo.

Here is a pic of the city palace.

I also went through the local fort which was up in the foothills.

It's a fairly steep climb up to the fort, and a number of lazy tourists took some alternate transportation.

They were shooting a movie in the courtyard while I was there. The actor and actress are to the left of the doorway in this scene. They had them stand on the pedestal and do a few dance moves. The film crew was generally moving around different places in the fort for the next couple of hours.

There is a great view from up on top of the fort. It really gives you a sense of the awe and beauty that the people of the time were witness too.

One thing to notice is the use of inlay work.

There was also some nice glass mosaics.

My next stop tomorrow is in Agra which is famous for the high skills of inlay workmanship. My guide for the day was Narendra Singh, and you can e-mail him at narendraguide@yahoo.com.in if you want a tour of Jaipur.

It was another great day, tomorrow I head for Agra and the Taj Mahal.

Udaipur Palace Day

2007-07-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Udaipur day 2 was a tour of palaces, temples and parks. Here is a link with some history about Udaipur.

WikiPedia link to Udaipur

One thing to notice is that the ruler was called maharana, and not maharaja - both basically mean "great king", but if you use the term maharaja consider it a bit of an insult that may get you 30 days in the local dungeon.

My guide took me to the City Palace where the Maharana lived. It was enormous. Only part of the palace was open to tourists. This line of Maharana's believed in a sun god, and everything from building locations to furniture placement had something to do with the rising and setting of the sun.

The entrance door we used had the a plaque of the sun over it, and the door was facing east for the sunrise.

Just inside the doorway was large billboard with the genealogy of all the Maharana. It dates from 500 a.d. to present, and there are almost 80 rulers in the list.

We then started to go room to room.

One thing to notice is the use of semi-precious stones for inlay work, the use of mirrors, and colored glass from Belgium.

Here is an overlook from the upper floors of the palace.

There was a rooms for nothing but miniature paintings. Here is one of them. The paintins go from floor to ceiling. If you remember from my earlier blogs, miniature paintings are done using one squirrel hair as a brush.

There were rooms for artifacts also.

The Maharana had a stables on the grounds also. Here is one of his horses. There are other behind it, and they are all beautiful creatures.

We entered a few courtyards along the way. Here are two of many.

The detail in the picture above is impossible to show off because of the intricate inlay work. Here are some close inlay works around the palace.

Each inlay is made out of semi-precious stones. Each piece is created from hand on a grinding stone. Some of the pieces are as small as a very very small thumb tack. The ability to hold such a small piece with the fingers while shaping the stone against the grinding wheel takes years to master.

The work is so delicate that it's really hard to see the craftsmanship without a super close up shot on a very specific area. I equate this type of work to the miniature painting where only a squirrel hair is used.

After touring the palace, which took a few hours, we headed of to a nearby temple. There was a service in progress and the people inside where sitting on the floor chanting and praying.

The guide and I then headed toward a park which was used by the Maharana and his wives in the old days. The park was used as a place to keep cool during hot summer days.

We had a stop for lunch, and then we passed by a few shops. We stopped by Ali Baba arts, where there were a few guys doing miniature art paintings. They have old and new, large and small paintings. You can contact them at alibabaarts@yahoo.com . If you want to buy some miniture art in Udaipur this is the place to go.

There is also Cottage Industries Exposition in Udaipur if you want to buy what they have to offer - really beautiful stuff. Here is a link to their site - CIE Link

As it got later in the day, the guide set me up on a sunset lake tour where I could see some of the other palaces on the lake. These palaces were luxury hotels.

This shot gives you an idea of where things are located. The palace on the right is the City Palace, and then on the left is the white palace, and I'm taking a pic from another palace on the other side of the lake.

Here are some pics of flowers I took during the day. I like the first two the best.

Here are a couple more shots I took which I like.

It was a great day, and full of amazing places. I want to thank Sushil Joshi for being my guide for the day. If you are in Udaipur, and you need a guide his phone number is 91-294-2488750. If you just ask your hotel receptionist for him, they will know how to contact him.

Tomorrow is a travel day to Jaipur which is one of the more densely populated places in India. I'm currently on day 14 out of my 18 day non-stop trip. So, there is still a lot more to see here in the ancient kingdom of Rajasthan.

To Udaipur

2007-07-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

As promised, here come the monkeys. Today was a travel day from Mount Abut to Udaipur. While traveling down the mountain in the early morning, we came across a group of monkeys on coffee break.

The three monkeys on the left were socializing about local politics. They were not satisfied with the work being done by the road commission for garbage pickup. It seems the head of the road commission was in hot water for getting more than his fair share of the garbage being collected. The lone monkey on the right was mumbling on about global warming, and how the government should be responsible for giving out weekly rations of sun tan lotion due to lack of health care coverage to the poor monkey community.

Much to my relief, I found this mother and son playing this little piggy went to market on their toes. I was going to play itsy bitsy spider, but I had a lot of traveling to do to get to Udaipur. So, I said goodbye, and they wished me safe travels ahead.

The next stop was at a large temple area with a smaller temple next to it. Here are some pics of the smaller temple.

Here is a closeup which shows more detail:

Now off to the main temple which was huge.

The inside was spectacular.

While I was roaming around looking at all the intricate carvings, a security person pointed something out to me which was interesting. This is a honey hive attached to one of the stone figurines on the outside wall.

Here are a couple of other photogenic pics I liked.

So far this has been a great travel day. We continued over a mountain pass toward Udaipur, and I was able to get this shot back into the valley of the temple.

After a few more hours, we arrived at the hotel in Udaipur. I will provide more about this area in the next post.

Here is the hotel room.

I had a wonderful room on the top floor. Here is a vista shot from roof.

The sun was setting by this time, and it was time to call it a night. But was a great place, and what a great day. Udaipur seems like a really nice and romantic place.

Tomorrow, forts, temples, shops and sight seeing. I wonder if those monkeys are still sitting around talking about politics, or they have now advanced their discussion to the best way to groom ones fleas.

Of course, it's hard to end this day without a nice sunset.

Mount Abu

2007-05-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

My next couple of days were spent traveling and looking around Mount Abu which is a hill station known as a cool get away from the heat of the lower valleys. There is a great link on WikiPedia which gets into some details on elevation, climate and history. For example, the highest peak is 1722 meters (5500 feet). It's called the "oasis in the desert" because of the waterfalls, lakes and cool temps. Also of note is that Mount Abu is the only hill station in Rajasthan.

Jodhpur - Day 8

2007-04-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

In the morning, it was time for some local site seeing. I headed for the Jaswant Thada which is a memorial in memory of Maharja Jaswant Singh II. It's made out of marble, and here is a link with more info:

Link to Jaswant Thada

The pic below is the memorial for the wife.

This pic is different memorials for other relatives and generations. The more affluent the person the bigger the memorial. What is interesting is that there are still relatives that exist, and when they die, the body is burned in a sacred location on the grounds. Apparently there are no relatives today that are worthy of even on of the smaller memorial stones, but being consumed by fire to ashes in this sacred place is still an honor.

Of course the main memorial is much bigger than the others.

As you can see, the main memorial is made all out of marble with intricate hand crafting all around. Because marble is semi-translucent, the sun filters through the stone into the inside burial area. Even today people still come to pay respects in hopes for good fortune.

The next site was a visit to Mehrangarh fort. It's one of the largest forts in India, and it's 400 feet above the city. This link goes into a lot of detail on the history of the fort and what is inside.

Link to Fort Mehrangarh

Notice the blue houses in the pics below. These are Brahman houses. I was also told that painting a house blue made it cooler in side. I guess Brahman's are the privileged few who can afford visual air conditioning.

There were a lot of rooms, and the link will help explain them. Here is a pic of one of them to give you an idea.

After the fort tour, I headed to a garden temple where the wives of the Maharja would go when it was hot. There were canals for water around the garden and many shade trees for keeping cool. Again, a lot of intricate carvings were on all the structures.

After the temple, I stopped by a few shops and came across a major exporter of fabrics which are created by local tribes and villages. Here is a sample of the work which is all done by hand. This export office was one of the largest I've seen. It was eight stories high, and it was full of stuff going out to different places around the world.

I promised the owner to give him a plug on my site. So, as promised.

Maharani Art Exporters is the name of export house, and the e-mail contact is maharanitextile@sify.com. If you are in Jodhpur and you want to buy something to take back to friends or for yourself, this is the place to go. Forget all the other export shops locally or in other cities, as the best deals are here because of the huge volume. I spent a few hours there just looking at things, and I never bought anything. So, window shopping is fine.

At this point, I called it a day, and I headed back to my hotel. In the morning, I stopped by the palace of the Maharaja which had been converted into a luxury hotel.

I was told that this palace was built before the Taj Mahal, and it inspired the architects of the Taj. So, the locals call this the mini-Taj. Right now, I'm still a number of days away from visiting the Taj Mahal. So, if this is a miniature version, the Taj must be enormous.

My destination this morning is to get to Mt. Abu where there is one of the best Jain Temples in India.

Jodhpur Day 7

2007-03-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

On day 7, I was on my way to Jodhpur. I took one last morning pic before I left.

While heading out of the dessert, we med some kids who wanted to have their picture taken.

Pokaran fortress was along the way, and I stopped in to look around. It is currently under renovation, but what you will see is that the stone color. There are different stone quarries from region to region and each has it's own unique color.

Here is a link with some of the history, which I found interesting. It said that the first underground nuclear bomb was detonated in Pokaran. Since I didn't notice an abundance of five legged cows and sheep running around, I assumed it was safe to stay there for a few hours.

Info on Pokaran

There was a small temple residing on an upper floor with the walls where you could get a blessing.

Here are some guys who are doing some of the renovation work. They are carrying a small slab for a sidwalk. There is also a woman who was going around sweeping dust and debris from one corner of the fort to the other all the while being bent over at the back. I think I'd rather be carrying the stone all day than bent over smelling the earth all day.

Here are some other shots of the fortress.

There was a museum on some of the different floors which had weapons and clothing. I noticed these wooden sandals didn't look like they very good arch support.

This hallway had different gods represented. The rings and threads on the left handing between the pillar is where woman ask a god for a boy or girl baby.

A fort would not be a fort without a few cannons. If I'm a homeowner on the other side of the wall, I'm not sure my home insurance would be higher or lower. On the one hand, the firing of the cannons might place a cannon ball through your house rather than over it as these cannons didn't look in very good condition. On the other hand, the invading army might be stopped by a few cannon balls that reached their mark.

The sign says to tell foreigners these pottery items are relics of an ancient past because foreign tourists will believe anything you tell them.

We then left the Pokaran fortress, and I stopped to take a pic of the quarry where the stone came from.

When I reached the hotel, I was very impressed. Notice that here is a picture above each bed. These are Raja's who slept here from other regions. This was quite the honor to be sleeping in the same bed as a former ruler, and since I would be there for two nights, I could sleep in the other bed to claim I slept in the bed of two great rulers of India.

I probably should add that these rulers were dead at the time.

I may also want to add that they were not in the bed at the time. Misunderstandings are so easily made these days.

As the sun was starting to set, I took a walk around the grounds. I discovered that this place was a garden getaway for the ruling Raja, and it was enormous. Just out side my room was one of the gardens which hosted a nice looking peacock who was eating an early dinner.

This is the garden area where the peacock was eating. The rooms are in the back of the pic.

At this point in the walk, I really didn't know how big this place was. I walked some more and I found some tent rooms which were available for those who wished to stay outdoors. These would be used in the summer. Currently, it was fairly chilly at night, and you wouldn't get the privilege of sleeping in a Raja's bed.

After this I reached a bridge. When I looked to the sides, I then realized how big this garden may be. What you are seeing in the right pic is a canal which encircles the entire garden area. There are multiple bridges with multiple canals which look 2 meters high and 20 meters wide. There isn't any water because that is only allowed during the wet season or during important functions.

Another garden area. One thing to remember is that I'm still in Jodhpur. Take another look at the quarry shot. This is truly an oasis in the dessert.

I continued to walk, and I found this center piece of flowers. I really didn't know where I was standing until I got another perspective which I will show you shortly.

I turned up a long walkway, and I saw the pic below.

There is a lot going on here. First notice the large slabs of stone. They appear three meters square. If you remember the pic above of the four guys carrying that one stone. You can imagine the effort needed to carry something that was 100 times as massive - if not more.

In the center there is a water fall area which looks like scales while around it there are different circular rows of flowers. What is being created here is a peacock with it's feathers out stretched.

The pic below is on top. In front down the walkway (upper middle of picture) is the center piece I was at before. There is a man walking on the walkway if you look closely. Behind me is a small lake which feeds the peacock water fall and will fill up all the canals. The Raja and queen had seats up here, and they would get to see the procession of elephants, rituals and dancing among buy a few items of entertainment.

I really wanted someone to turn the water on as it would have be glorious in sight and sound.

Farther toward the left, is a building and garden with the swimming pool.

I can only say this was a very grand place, and certainly worthy of the ruling Raja.

Here are some final pics of a few of the flowers growing in the different gardens.

It was a great travel day, and I was looking forward to heading into see the palaces of Jodhpur in the morning.

Jaisalmer

2007-03-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Day 5 and 6 was getting from Bikaner to and touring Jaisalmer. I got up early in the morning, and I took some pics of the Palace\Hotel I was staying in before leaving to go deeper into the desert.

This is one of the many hallways. The Hotel\Palace is like a mini-museum. There are artifacts and historical paintings and pictures describing the history of the area.

In the previous post, I showed a pic of the outside of the Hotel\Palace. Here is an interior courtyard pic.

Before reaching Jaisalmer, we stopped by another Palace\Hotel, and I took some pics there.

This was a very beautiful hotel with a the lake while being in the middle of the desert. I continued to be surprised by the number of areas with large lakes while traveling deeper in to the desert.

About midway to Jaisalmer, we stopped for a rest on top of a large sand dune. I was talking with the owner, and I asked, "How big is this hill." He replied, "This is a dune, not a hill." This was my first lesson in desert lingo. In order not to offend anyone else I would ask locals if I'm on a dune or hill when I found myself climbing upwards on rough terrain.

My driver and I then continued heading for Jaisalmer which is called the "Golden City" because of the yellowish sandstone used to build the forts and palaces. There is a great link about the history here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaisalmer

I will let the link above fill you in on details, you will notice that Jaisalmer is fairly close to the Pakistan border. It relies on tourism for a lot of it's income. So, there are no security worries for foreigners. We passed a few military bases along the way, and tourists were everywhere.

Here is a pic of the room and my view out the window. My day was not over yet though as I was going to a temple area to see the sunset over the city.

After driving a few kilometers, I was able to take these pics during the sunset. This was an area where priests were buried. The level of priest could be determined by the size of the marker or the size of building in which the priest was buried.

While I was watching the sunset and taking pics. An old man sat down nearby and started playing some tunes. It was great to hear him play while being around the temples during sunset. It's as if you have gone back in time. Of course, history may be a place I'd like to visit, but I really don't want to live there - most people didn't live very long in ancient times.

The temple area overlooked the city and the fort. I would be visiting the fort the next day.

I also noticed a bunch of electricity making windmills on another "hill".

This was my favorite desktop pic.

Here is a night shot from the hotel room which was also on a "Hill". The had lots of lights shining on the fort. It was a great site.

The next day I took a tour of the city and the fort. I'm going to assume you read the Jaisalmer link I gave above at this point.

There was a lake area that supported the city, and I went there first.

Here is a temple that was by the lake.

I then went and explored the fort with a guide. This is a living fort, but you know that because you read the link...right. This is an inner courtyard. Because this is a living fort, there were a lot of sales people and performers. There was a girl walking back and forth on a tight rope. My guide told me not to buy anything as it was all junk.

The cows also performed as well, but I didn't have any feed. Otherwise, I may have been entertained by the local cow dances.

There were lots of Haveli's. If you don't know what a Haveli is, please read my previous posts. My guide told me that the stature of a person could be determined based on how ornate the craftsmanship was on the out side of the Haveli.

We then went to an overlook point on top of the fort wall.

Again, the history is in the link I gave. So, I'm not getting into details.

Our final fort stop was in front of the largest haveli owned by three bothers who had an export business. You could go look around at their stuff, which of course was for sale and not junk.

In the pic above, notice the guy in the red turbin in the lower right. He is currently attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest mustache. He will show it to you for a small price. I figured the cow dancing would be a better bargain, but I still didn't have any feed.

One of the things I was not able to show was the inside of a wonderful ornate temple. It was dark and enclosed which made it hard to get a good pic.

My next stop for Day 7 and 8 is Jodhpur. So, time to get some rest for another day of adventure and sight seeing.