A Portrait of India
October 20 - November 6, 2024
Mike and Judy Henderson
I will leave this map on the top of this page just for reference.
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10/26/2024 (Saturday) We had a chance to sleep a bit later today. Breakfast opened at 7am and we departed the hotel about 8:30 for our tour of the city of Jaipur. We're heading first to see the flower market.
We walked a bit further and saw the Hawa Mahal. It is known as the "Palace of Winds".
And across the street were two snake charmers, featuring Carlos the vegetarian cobra and his pal, in their baskets. We think they had been de-fanged.
Martha bravely volunteered to have one of the snakes draped over her.
We left the city and went to the Amber Palace.
Jeep-like vehicles took us up the hill to the palace - four people per vehicle.
From there we had a good view of the city.
We entered through one of the gates with a huge throng of visitors, most of whom seemed to be Indians on their Diwali holiday.
In the courtyard there were elephants giving rides.
We're going up to the next higher level. Luckily, there is a ramp that makes it an easier climb.
I don't remember the names or purposes of most of the buildings on this level, but I did some research on Wikipedia. This is Gaqnesh Pol.
Doing some research, I think this is Sattais Kachen.
This is the interior of the Sheesh Mahal.
A detail from the building.
We gathered for a partial group photo.
As we left the palace, this musician was busking. Judy always appreciates musicians, so we gave him some money.
We left the Amber Palace and headed to lunch, preceded by a brief puppet show.
When we got to the Raj Palace Hotel - where the puppet show will also be held - I took this picture of a Sikh man who put his turban to use as a smartphone holder.
Here's a view of the hotel.
But back to the puppet show. Here's the stage.
A closer look at some of the puppets.
Some of our group ready for showtime.
These were the two men presenting the show. The older one was likely the creator and the younger was an apprentice who handled the puppets.
The older man surprised us with his long mustache. He keeps it out of sight by winding it around his ears. I wasn't prepared with my camera when he started unwrapping it and only got this shot after he had both sides unfurled.
He played the drum, narrated the story, and did some singing.
His assistant handled the puppets.
When the show was over, we went in for a royal thali lunch. The word "thali" actually refers to the platter that the food is served on.
The food was served with great fanfare. A horn was blown, a proclamation was read, and then the waiters marched in, each carrying a platter of food, one of which was set in front of each of us.
It was covered, and the waiters removed the cover to present the food.
Here's a view of the food - many small dishes, most vegetarian. A couple of the dishes had some pepper heat but most were bland.
After lunch a special proclamation was read.
It is Lisa's Birthday!
She made a wish and blew out the candle.
After lunch, we took the bus back to the hotel for a much needed afternoon of rest.
We leave Jaipur tomorrow to fly to Udaipur. Our bags will be placed on the bus and driven to Udaipur so we won't have to worry about them for the flight. We put our bags outside our door at 7pm.
Judy and I skipped dinner and went to bed early. We have a very early wake-up and departure from the hotel.
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10/27/2024 (Sunday) We fly to Udaipur today. We were up at 3am this morning. Neither of us sleeps well when we have an early wake-up. We met in the lobby at 4:30am for coffee and departed for the airport at 4:45am.
The drive to the airport was quick. The airport is smaller and we processed through all the formalities quickly.
The aircraft was an ATR 72-600, a turboprop. Here's a picture of an ATR 72-600 from the web. Boarding is from the rear, and cargo is from the front - unusual.
It had two seats per side, and the overhead was large enough for standard carry-on bags. It was a good flight and we arrived about 7:45am.
The Udaipur airport is small and modern. Since we didn't have to collect any bags, we went quickly to the bus.
With the early departure, none of us had much to eat, so we drove to the Lily Court for breakfast. The restaurant was outside the city so it was quite a drive. We arrived about 7:40am.
It's an art gallery as well as a private restaurant. The restaurant area is nice and modern, but I forgot to take pictures.
Here are of some of the grounds.
After lunch we sat and chatted with Phil and Joan, who are from Louisville, KY.
We boarded the bus and headed to the Hindu temple of Nagda.
We drove some back-country roads through small villages. We saw many cows wandering along the road and a couple of water buffalo. We had to stop for a moment while these Rhesus monkeys ran onto the road to play.
When we got to the temple, there were some people building a stone wall. This woman was carrying mortar in a metal bowl, on her head. I had promised that I'd attempt to get some pictures of Indian women, so I snapped her picture.
Here's our first view of the temple.
This young woman was watching us as we arrived at the temple.
The temple is built on a platform, and we climbed the steep steps up to it.
A building on the temple platform.
Entrance to the main temple.
A view of the inside.
The door to the inner sanctum.
Looking up at the dome ceiling.
The entrance to one of the other buildings.
With that, we left Nagda and headed to Devi Garh for lunch. Here's a view from the distance - it's huge. It was a royal residence and has been converted to a luxury hotel.
The entrance gate.
The restaurant was on an upper floor.
From the restaurant we had a view of the city and the lower grounds of the hotel.
They gave us a tour of some of the hotel. Here's a courtyard viewed during the tour.
Judy's reflection in a mirror. You can see my hands and iPhone to her right.
The hotel bar.
A view of the city from the bar.
Then we went back to the restaurant and had a nice lunch. At the end of lunch, the staff brought out a chocolate cake for Lisa - today is her official birthday.
She made a wish, blew out the candles, and we all had a piece.
After lunch, we drove to our hotel, the Oberoi Udaivilas and checked in. I'll get some pictures of the hotel later, but here's our room. It's large, with a separate sitting area, a work desk for me, a reading nook, and the bedroom. It has all the usual amenities. The bath area is nice, with a walk-in shower, but only one sink. It's comfortable and well laid out, so it was easy to feel organized. There is a little private patio outside, but plain, with walls and no view. The reading nook has the view.
The sitting area.
I had terrible Internet access when we arrived so I went to the lobby and worked with their IT guy to improve things. But the best I could get was about 10Mbps down, which is okay, but not great.
Judy didn't get much sleep last night and was exhausted. She went to bed early and I worked for a couple of hours on this blog. But eventually I gave up and went to bed.
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10/28/2024 (Monday) We slept through the night but I got up a bit before 5am and took a shower. Judy was up when I got out of the shower.
We went down to the restaurant for breakfast at 7am. On the way, the sun was just coming up. Its a magical setting.
The hotel is decorating for Diwali. We saw two members of the staff working on this yesterday. I think the material is chopped up flower parts, and the work is exquisite.
This is a view of part of the grounds of the hotel. The Maharaja was considered to have descended from the sun
The breakfast restaurant. We arrived a bit before 7am and the servers came out and encouraged us to come in. Breakfast was mostly Indian food but we could order eggs as we liked them.
A part of the lobby area.
About 9am we loaded onto the bus for the City Palace Complex.
When we arrived at the Palace Complex there was a tram waiting to take us up to the palace.
The palace complex is built around a royal courtyard. It's actually bigger than it appears in this picture. One side of the courtyard is the palace and the other side has various shops.
There are some colorful gates leading to and from the courtyard.
Note the swastikas at the top of this gate. The swastika was used in Indian religions as a symbol of divinity and spirituality long before the Nazis appropriated it as a symbol of their regime. These arms of these swastikas fold the same way as the Nazi symbol, but you sometimes see the arms folded in the opposite direction in India.
Another gate.
A view of the palace from the courtyard.
Here we are standing in the shade on the shopping side of the courtyard while the tour guide talks about the palace. At this location, everyone was looking at the palace.
Then we walked toward the far side of the courtyard. We're going to the Jagdish Temple. As we walked to the far gate we passed these elephant statues. It represents a contest that was held for entertainment. The elephants would hook their trunks and try pull the other elephant to the wall.
We left the courtyard through this gate - this picture is looking back at the gate - we're already through it.
And then left the palace complex through this gate.
The city is beyond this gate. Here you can see the top of the Jagdish Temple.
As we walked along, the tour guide pointed out some small temples. Here's one.
A women's temple.
When we arrived at the temple, there was a set of very steep steps up to the temple. This woman was at the bottom of the steps, selling flowers. Orange is the color of divinity, and orange marigolds are everywhere, in welcoming leis and hanging in strands.
At the top of the steps we had to remove our shoes. This man was the watcher to make sure you only took your own shoes, and he was paid to watch our shoes in a group.
A view of the temple from the temple platform.
This temple is dedicated to Vishnu, one of the primary gods of the Hindu religion. It has been in use since 1651 (or 1652).
Here's a statue of Vishnu. He is most known to Americans because Robert Oppenheimer quoted a line from the Bhagavad Gita where Vishnu says to Arjnu, "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." Oppenheimer reported that the phrase occurred to him as he observed the explosion of the first atomic bomb (Trinity test).
A view inside the temple.
This group of people was using a drum, clapping, and singing a chant. It was good music that got you tapping your foot. Sounds strange, but true.
At the back of the temple was an image of Jagannath.
A young girl in the temple.
We walked around the outside of the main part of the temple, put our shoes back on and negotiated the steep steps again. We walked back to the palace courtyard to take a tour of the palace. A sign on the palace entrance said it was built in 1620.
We broke into two groups. One group went on a difficult route that required climbing many stairs, while the other group took the easy tour. Judy and I chose the easy tour.
We saw this wall painting as we entered.
A statue of Ganesha was in a nook in the wall.
I couldn't hear the tour guide so I can't give you any information about some of these pictures.
An older Indian woman.
An Indian woman with a great smile. Makes you smile just to look at her.
Then we left the palace and went to lunch. It was sort of a thali lunch, fixed menu of many small dishes, mostly vegetable based.
After lunch we walked down to the lake to take a boat back to the hotel.
Some of our group on the boat. The rest of the group took a second boat.
A palace out in the middle of the lake.
The area around the lake reminded me of Venice.
Our hotel as seen from the lake.
We had the afternoon free. At 5pm there will be a sari and turban demonstration, and then we leave for dinner at the Bedla home.
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At 5pm we gathered in one of the ballrooms for the sari and turban demonstration. It was given by a married couple, but they didn't speak English, so one of our local guides explained how saris and turbans were assembled, and the couple demonstrated.
Here are our women dressed in a sari, sporting a bindi, assisted by the local lady.
The men had turbans done, but I didn't take individual pictures of them. Here's a group shot of everyone.
A group shot of just the women in saris.
It was nearly 6pm so everyone took of their costumes and we met for dinner.
After traveling some distance, the bus dropped us off and we had to walk single-file along a busy road to get to the restaurant.
Here's the entrance to the Bedla home.
We gathered in their living room.
Our hosts, the Bedla family, talked to us about the restaurant and about India.
Then we moved to the dining room. Their grandfathers and fathers had been royal chefs, so fine cuisine was in their heritage.
The meal was buffet style, with many different local dishes, sort of thali style.
After the meal was over, their daughter came out and was introduced to us. I couldn't hear her name.
When we left their place, we had to negotiate the busy road single file, again, but everyone made it safely. We boarded the bus which took us back to the hotel, and Judy and I went immediately to bed. We get to sleep in a bit later tomorrow.
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10/29/2024 (Tuesday) We were able to sleep in this morning, but still got down to breakfast about 7:30am.
We met at 9:45 in the lobby.
We moved outside to one of the gates and the tour guide gave us a briefing. We're going to the market this morning in tuk-tuks.
I took this opportunity to take a picture of Sylvia and her daughter, Catherine (Kate). Catherine is a champion pole vaulter (in her age group) in Australia. I thought that was really something. You don't meet a pole vaulter every day:-)
The tuk-tuks were waiting for us.
Judy in a tuk-tuk.
They dropped us off at the market area.
This market area is the same as you will find in many countries in southeast Asia. I find them interesting and exciting.
The market area is made up of many small stores selling everything imaginable. Here's one selling things for Diwali.
This woman was selling small cups that are used for a candle for Diwali - the festival of light.
We went to the vegetable stalls.
These men were obviously friends, sitting together in the vegetable market and having a good conversation. They invited me to take their picture.
Another man in the vegetable market area.
A woman seller in the market.
A store selling spices.
A man drumming in the market.
A young girl riding on a motorbike behind her father.
A man selling Diwali adornments.
One last picture - a street scene.
We boarded the tuk-tuks again and went to the Royal Women's Gardens, built by a Maharana for his second wife. She was from a hot, dry area of the country, and he wanted her to have a cool place to go in the summer. Only women were allowed in, the Maharana being the only exception. The entry walkway has the first water feature.
A swimming pool, which was called the "rain pool with no clouds", thanks to the sprinkling water sounding like falling rain.
Another pool. The tour guide had us clap our hands and the fountain would spray higher.
The fountain spray was actually being turned on by a gardener who was watching us, a little Tauck giggle.
After our visit to the Royal Women's Gardens, we went to a jewelry place as a shopping opportunity. We didn't purchase anything and took the tuk-tuk back to the hotel.
We have bag pickup at 7pm this evening, and we fly to Kochi via Bangalore tomorrow. But that's a story for another installment.