Jaipur (Part 2), Bharatpur, Agra, Varanasi

Jaipur (Part 2), Bharatpur, Agra, Varanasi

Our day did not end with the movie. When we exited the theatre it was midnight and raining. The tuk-tuks had shut up shop for the evening, except for one lone ranger that was willing to take us. So we packed 12 people into a vehicle half the size of a Mazda 121. Vinit was hanging off the back, fully exposed to the pouring rain. I was in the cabin, but hunched over and leaning forward as if I were about to receive a medal.

It all happened very quickly. As precisely 12pm, and following a very quiet countdown, all 12 people in the tuk-tuk, including vinit in the rain, broke out into a chorus of happy birthday. They put garlands of yellow and orange flowers over my helpless and exposed neck. It was very thoughtful.

We had something of a sleep-in the next morning – 9am. We met at 10am for a walk around old Jaipur city.

Jaipur is called ’the pink city’. The existing ‘old city’ of jaipur was constructed in 1727, although the area has been settled for much longer than that. All the ‘old cities’ we have visited are narrow and cramped affairs with buildings that appear to organically grow out of one another, like an overgrown garden. Jaipur is completely planned. A square outside wall encloses nine city blocks cut by wide streets with median strips. The terraces and promenades have been converted into modern shopfronts – each with roughly equal space and a black and white sign above it – without altering any of the previous architecture. You can walk into an 18th century shop and buy a washing machine.

All the buildings were painted pink on the orders of a Maharaja because it is considered a welcoming colour. They have faded to a terracotta now, but the uniformity of planning and colour is striking in a country that, as far as we have seen, rarely exhibits the outwards trappings of what we might call ‘order’.
We strolled through these terracotta promenades, past streetside vendors selling 2m stalks of freshly cut sugar cane, red, yellow and orange flower arrangements, under gold and silver tinsel strung across the street. Horses and carts still trot down the roads and there is the occasional elephant. Hindi advertising blares over the loudspeakers on the median strip.

The usual haggle of ‘rickshaw.... rickshaw’, ‘yes, yes, okay, my shop, very nice things you buy’, was replaced with ‘Happy Diwali... Happy Diwali’. Little kids still asked you for money, but upon enquiring what for, they reply: ‘Bomb!’.

Our first stop on the walk was the palace of winds, or the Hawa Mahal – an arch-shaped facade that lifts from the surrounding terraces. Its face is pocked with hundreds of small, delicately crafted balconies. The idea was that royal women could sit in these balconies and watch day-to-day Jaipur pass by, without themselves being seen – lest the commoners get any idea. The palace of winds is the second most photographed building in India behind the Taj. I found it a little underwhelming – especially compared to the colour of the surrounding streets. It is the only monument we have yet visited that looks more impressive in photographs than in reality.

We strolled further down the street, past more streetside vendors - this time selling honeycomb complete with live bees still working –to the city palace. This yellow sandstone building is home to the maharaja of Jaipur. We took a fairly informative audio-tour of the courtyards and communal areas. The standout was the armoury, which has hundreds of preserved weapons, from gold plated muskets, to ivory hilted daggers, pronged scissor katanas and massive broadswords. The showcase even included a emerald hilted sabre that the Mughal emperor Shah Jehan (responsible for the Taj Mahal and red fort) had given to the Mahraja of Jaipur.
We ate back at the hotel because the restaurant we wanted to eat at closed. There was a massive Punjabi sweets shop downstairs with every sickly-sweet colour you could imagine, but even if I wanted to order something the system was incomprensible to me.
We returned to the old city after a shower. Lights were strung all over the shops, houses and streets. We walked down one street under fairly lights of fluorescent blue, green, red and yellow, dangling from the shops each metre or so.
I was beginning to get suspicious at this point – all the flowers, the shopping, the pretty lights the kids asking for bombs – but it was confirmed to me that all of India must have heard about my birthday as the remainder of the night unfolded.
After dark, we returned to the rooftop restaurant of our hotel. It began as just a rumbling and had been brewing all week. Every now and then you would hear a clap in the distance and see some light on the horizon. Less occasionally something would whizz and boom nearby. But the frequency built with each passing minute until the thuds and booms became a tide. It became incessant. I have never seen anything like it. Millions of people all over India had been stockpiling fireworks over the past weeks , spending their last rupee on them (and they are quite expensive) all to be let off on the night of October 17. There were big, deep ones that would thunk and whistle then spray red and green over the sky, smaller ones that spewed out streams of white hot magnesium, and reams of chat-chat-chat explosives let off on street level. For hours and hours the show did not end. It was a completely disorganised, 360 degree, 12 hour fireworks display. Everywhere you looked another firework was being let off. Every second in the distance, or right up close was the sound of something exploding. All I can think to compare it to is a battlezone.
Vinit let off some fireworks of his own from the roof. He and Kate had also organised a cake and a very thoughtful present. It was a truly unforgettable birthday.
Unfortunately it was also unforgettable for the animals of India. The festival we were witnessing, and the reason for all the excitement, lights and crowds during the day, is called Diwali, or the festival of lights. It is like Christmas for Hindus. Diwali is a celebration of the successful return home of Rama from Sri-Lanka. The story goes that his way was lit by candles, hence the lights and fireworks. Everyone buys presents for family and friends (apparently whitegoods are very popular).
One member of our group saw a dog with bad burns the next morning and we saw a child with his hands bandaged up and covered in burns cream. The paper said there were 270 call-outs for the fire department in Delhi on Diwali night, up from 260 the previous year.
We left early that morning on the bus to Bharatpur. The only attraction in Bahratpur is the Koledo Bird sanctuary, and after checking into our very roomy hotel, we headed for the park. What we really wanted were bicycles to take around the 15km or so of pathways through the sanctuary. As we arrived there were racks and racks of bicycles and two very large Americans before us seemed able to hire them, but for us, it was ‘not possible’. Even in the face of Kate offering outrageous sums for the hire (and becoming more and more enraged), the official was unmoved – the bikes were not for hire. We even offered a cycle rickshaw driver money to use his bike, but to no avail. We walked the 14km.
Walking turned out to be not a bad option. There were eagles, owls, kingfishers, turtles, peacocks and antelopes. It had not rained in Bharatpur in some time and the wetlands were dry around the edges. What water remained was matted in a thick layer of small, green lilypads.
Most impressive was the sheer concentration of wildlife. We expected to see a bird now and then, but every 10 steps or so would be another specimen poking out from a bush. We exited the park as the sun was setting.
That night, one of the women in the group, Jana, organised a game of trivia, at which Kate and I came a respectable second. The question that stumped us was – in what country were two brothers both prime minister and president (and, name the 10 incarnations of Vishnu, but that one was a write-off).
Again we left early in the morning, this time for Agra – a 2 hour bus ride away. There was another festival on this day – one where sister go to meet their brothers for a meal. So India was travelling, and by bus.
Queuing is not an institution the British left behind in India. Young, elderly, men, women, local, foreigner – all are equal in the melee to get on public transport. It is like there was a vacuum in the bus sucking all inside of it, regardless of who they were and of what number. The trick is to position yourself in the middle of the tide and ride it on. Of course, being amateurs, none of us, did this and were left on the banks trying to jump in, only to met by the scorn of an old lady or the arm of a young man. In the end it took a brilliant blocking play – a veritable dam – by Angus, a 6’4 member of our group to ensure we all got on.
Everything changes once you are on the bus. Outside, you were competitors. Individuals must work, individually, and against all other individuals to ensure the best place on bus (seat reservations are meaningless). Inside, everyone must work together to make sure that the journey is as comfortable for everyone as it can be. Inside the bus, although it is sweaty and cramped, the air assumes a calmer, more jovial vibe. Spaces for seats appear where there were none, conversations begin. When it is time to get off, women pass their children down the aisle, in and out of the hands of complete strangers.
I stood, squashed in the aisle for the 2 hour journey bus was kept entertained by the chains of babies coming down the aisle and the need to help old ladies hurdle my pack, which was sitting in the aisle too. Viniti was winding up old ladies with no teeth by telling them that he was old and they should stand for him.
Agra smells. It smells of concentrated urine and chlorine and comes in great unseen clouds. It wakes you in the night. I have never been woken by a smell.
In travelling to Agra, we also left Rajasthan and moved into Uttar Pradesh. UP and Bihar have been described by Vinit as the ‘criminal’ states of India because of the enormous power of the Mafia. Appropriately, the first person we met in Agra was a tall, Indian man who would have once been powerfully build but now sported a round belly, wearing a dark shirt and dark aviator sunglasses. He was officially the ‘intrepid local operator’. I think he was a fixer.
Our hotel was fairly basic, but clean and very close to the Taj. Unfortunately it put up little resistance to the sewerage ghosts patrolling the city.
Our first stop in Agra was the ‘Baby Taj’ –a second, much smaller Mughal tomb on the banks of the Yumna. The Yumna runs from the Himalayas through Delhi and meets with the Ganges at Illahabad. From the balcony of the baby Taj you can see that at its height, the Yumna would be a powerful river. But the lack of rain has left large patches of bare sand, around which the remnants of the river struggle in little rivulets. The baby Taj was a pleasant introduction with large, well maintained gardens and a domed, white marble tomb in the centre. Monkeys with enormous red behinds and chipmunks had taken up residence on the site.
We drove further up the bank of the Yumna to a spot where you can see the back of the Taj for sunset. The view was from behind a razor-wire fence, on the other side of which, hawks swept upon new born puppies searching for food in the dry banks.
The sunset was a fizzer. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant. Just after the drinks order a dud firework thudded into our table, spraying embers everywhere.
A few people ended up with holes burnt int their clothes, but everyone was okay.
We rose at 5:45am to see the Taj. Our hotel was 50m walk from one of the entry gates and we were first in the queue. The guard opened the gates 2 minutes early for us and we rushed in for a people-free view at sunrise.
You may already be aware, but the Taj Mahal is a tomb built by Shah Jehan for his wife when she died. His wife was pregnant 14 times, but had only 4 children, one who would eventually imprison his own father in the Agra fort, from where he could out of the memorial he had built. The Taj is every bit the emotions that gave rise to it – love, ego and absolute power.
It is magnificent. Everyone has seen a million pictures, but nothing can prepare you for the magnitude and beauty of this building. I will not try to describe it. All I will say is that its figure inspires both awe and astonishment. It is both megalomanic and gentle. It is imposing but not dominating. I have seen no building that inspires awe and emotion like this one.
We spent 2 and half hours or so wandering its gardens and being silenced, mid-conversation at the slightest glance toward the Taj.
We ate chocolate cake for breakfast at a local cafe and I had a proper coffee.
At 11 we left for the Red Fort of Agra – another landmark associated with Shah Jehan. We had previously watched a movie set in the Agra fort, so walking among the high, scarlet walls, narrow passages, and wide public gardens, it was easy to imagine it alive with activity. The red fort is everything the Taj is not – it is a dominating building, intended to communicate power and authority. Under one of the palaces was a chamber used for the private execution of any individual in the King’s 5000-strong Harem that was unfaithful.
I had more coffee that afternoon and wrote up some of this journal. Kids, adults and water buffalo passed the cafe window plastered in colour, pink, green and red, chanting and singing. Must have been another festival.
We took an overnight train to where we are now – Varanasi. Rebecca, a woman in our group picked up a stomach bug and was sick for the entire trip. Kate stepped in a blob of vomit left in one of the squat toilets as she got up early in the morning. She was very calm. Things are begging to just wash over us. I was lying in bed the other night thinking – someone threw a cane basket at me... someone threw a cane basket at me. The unusual is becoming commonplace and one expects even to step in vomit from time to time.
So we have arrived in Varanasi (and are about to leave, but I will update you later). Varanasi is on the septic (i’m not exaggerating, even Ecoli bacteria can only survive three hours in the water) Ganges river – A place where uncremated bodies float down the river, where goats are pink and stories of blind dolphins and flesh-eating turtles abound.
The most common sight in Varanasi? Ridiculously large photo lenses.
Thankyou again everyone for the birthday messages. And thankyou Kelly for sending the photos of harry – I have downloaded them all onto the computer now so we can look at him whenever we want.
Our love to you all. I will write about Varanasi on today’s overnight train, but it may not go up for quite a few days. We arrive in Kolkata tomorrow morning and have the day, then leave at 4am for our flight to Chennai and to the beaches of the south. I have checked a surf report for goa, flat, flat flat.
Love Charles and Kate.