the Laughing Boomer

Hi:  WEll, we've been in India for about a week.  It's an amazing place - like no other we've experienced.  We found New Dehli a horrible town, confusing, dirty, full of beggars and realy quite scary to go out.  There are no street signs and little alleyways everywhere, so it's very easy to get lost.  We joined our group on the third day and things became much better.  We definitely would not travel to India without a group/tour.

 

We've 10 people in our group - and we're the oldest by far.  Mostly young Brits and one other Canadian.

Our first stop was Agra - home to the Taj Mahal.  It's an amazing edifice and worth the visit.  I'd love to post pictures but unfortunately we don't have internet access from our computer and all our pics are there.  We also visited the Red Fort - a huge fort on the top of a hill.  We hired a tuk=tuk driver for the day 350 rupees or abour $9.  Tuk tuks are little 22 seater vehicles - open.  They are all over Inida.

Our next stop was Jaipur. It's a much nicer city with wide streets and no nearly as many beggars.  We went to the Wind Temple, a gorgeous and amazing place built with around 1000 windows so the wives could maintain strict purdah and still see city life. After that we visited the Amber Fort - on the top of the hill an saw snake charmers and elephants along the way.  We visited the famous Lake Palace and went to another city palce. 

 In Pushkar, our next visit, we've walked at 6 am for 2 1/2 hours to the top of a mountain to see the sunset and visit a shrine, seen the ghats - steps where people walk into the lake and wash themselves and their clothes, had a massage and visited Sikh and Hindu temples.  We've had great food and our accommodation has been very good - pools in two places and generally good rooms.

This tells what we've done - but nothing of India.  Culture shock is the true term to describe what we've seen.  The streets are full of animals - not just cows, of which there are hundreds, but pigs, goats, water buffalo, elephants, camels, dogs.  In Dehli there must be a million homeless people so the streets are always full.  Men urinate everywhere and the dust and dirt are unrelenting.  Walking means being approached by hundreds of people as you go through a street. Using a tuk-tuk means incessant horns.

last night I went for a camel ride with 8 of our group.  It was a magical two hours. We went to the desert and it was most peaceful to follow the camel line slowly moving in a relaxing rhythm.

We are off to Uddapur now - the love city.  I'm going to close this as the electricity has failed at least 5 times and I don't want to lose this.  Internet connectivity is poor.

More later

Mahara