India Travels 2010 (part II)

Day 5: Agra, Uttar Pradesh

Yeah! Today we drove 6 hours or so to get to Agra to see the Taj Mahal!

We only had one rest stop on the way.... and well after making a stop at the washroom, we went into the souvenir shop, and one of the sales caught me and dressed me up in a sari. It was quite pretty, but I wasn't tempted to buy it at all because I knew I would probably never have a chance to wear one...


Not going to write much today, I'll just let the photos leave you speechless. My favourite site on this trip and the one that I was looking to most of all...

The Gates to the Taj Mahal

We entered the Taj Mahal through the east gates, only foreign tourists are allowed to enter through these gates, there are two other gates for Indians. It's a little weird that they separate the gates for different people...

While we were walking around the grounds of the Taj Mahal, I was stopped twice and asked for a photo... like what happened at Amber Fort in Jaipur. This time my dad helped me to take a photo as well. The first was quite funny because I saw this lady walk over to me, and ask I already had the experience I knew she wanted to take a photo with me, as with most Indians, she couldn't speak English, but she gently pulled me towards her family. One of her family members was ready to take a photo with a huge old school looking camera! Like it was probably as big as his face.... let's see if you can see him holding it in the photo.... and the lady in blue next to me took my hat to wear on her head for the photo! Hilarious! But so much fun, it's nice to see that they think "admire" my style.... hahaha.. or at least that's what I like to think =P

And then while we were walking back out towards the gates, a couple of guys stopped me to ask for a photo, but the funny thing is that in the photo it looks more like I asked them for a photo.... or I just jumped in beside them.... LOL, but seriously they were the ones to ask me!

My mom offers some of the funniest moments on our trip, she eats constantly, sleeps a lot and then her choice of wardrobe is quite hilarious..... or well it's more the little additions she adds to her outfits.... below she looks like a smurf! hehehe

Next we went to Agra Fort, which is close by to the Taj Mahal. It's the palace that the King who built the Taj Mahal was imprisoned in. From his room there, he had a view of the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately the camera wasn't able to capture the spactacular view...

Well, that concludes my trip to India!

Oh and I had lots of yummy curry there!

India Travels 2010 (part I)

This Chinese New Year I went on a trip to India, some friends asked if I was excited to be going, and to tell you the truth, if this was 4 or 5 years ago, I would be so excited I wouldn't be able to sleep and dreaming up all the things I would see and buy! hehehehe.... but this time I left for India with a peaceful heart and just wanted to see the Taj Mahal and eat some good Indian naan.... =)

**Please note that it's been almost three or four weeks since the trip and I had trouble getting the photos off my camera onto my computer, and in the process lost some photos so there will be lots of jumping around or seemingly abrupt cuts...

Day 1-2: HK --> Mumbai

We only stayed in mumbai for a day, but we saw some of the sights that you may have seen if you watched "Slumdog Millionaire" the movie. We stopped by the Central Station where, but didn't get a chance to go in to actually see the station, it was not safe or practical as it was very crowded and our tour guide didn't want to bring us in to a place where we might get mugged or lost. Then we visited an outdoor laundry area, quite interesting, the funny thing is that there were lots of tourists there as well..... it's almost like they do the laundry as a show....

Next we went to the famous Taj Mahal hotel! The security is pretty tight there, to get into the hotel we had to go through a metal detector and have our bags searched.... but it really is a five star hotel, the service was excellent and the interior decor was beautiful..... I only had an opportunity to take a photo of the sign... hehe....

That night we took a flight to Jaipur.



Day 3-4: Jaipur, Rajasthan

When I arrived at the hotel, I noticed that they had strung colourful fabric over the lawn, it was so pretty, I tried my best to capture it...

Let's see now what did we do in Jaipur..... (now you can tell that on this trip I wasn't paying as much attention to the places that I visited as when I went on my Korea trip...), I think the we woke up SUPER EARLY that 3rd morning in order to ride elephants....

We woke up at like 5am to get on the bus to ride to the Amber Fort. On the way there we stopped by the Hawa Mahal (left photo), historically it was used by royal women/ladies as a screen to view the cityscape and street scenes without being seen by the people. This has to do with the fact that the ruling family during those times were Muslims and so females were not permitted to show themselves to the public, even to other people inside the palace...

Continuing on with our drive up a mountain to get to the Amber Fort (aka Amer Fort). One of the main attractions is that you can ride elephants up to the fort. The funny thing is that these elephant rides are a lot more fun than the ones you get in Thailand, I don't know if it's the risky feeling you get riding one of these animals, but I think that may be one of the contributing factors.

Amber (Amer) Fort in the back
Doesn't this photo look like a really old photo? hehehe.... the morning was so bright that a lot of the photos turned out a bit hazy...

The elephant rides in Thailand are quite bland compared to this. In Thailand, you sit facing the same direction that the elepant is walking to and you sway softly from side to side as the elephant walks, but in India, you side sideways, so we were facing the left side of the elephant outwards, I guess in a way this is so that we can get some amazing views while the elephant trudges up the mountain.

(left to right) Elephants trudging up to the Amber Fort, tourists lining to go up to the "podium" to claim their elephants, some of the goods that were being sold to tourists while they waited for their elephants

The whole process of "claiming" an elephant was like a bartering experience, hahahaha.... the elephant trainers are sitting on their elephant's neck, the tourists are lining up to go up a staircase to a little podium where they will climb onto the seat on the elephant's back. And everyone is shouting, it's really like a busy market. We quickly climed on to the wide "chair" on the elephant's back and held on tight to the railings along the "chair". But the journey was with a much more violent swaying than in Thailand....

Thanks to the camera's anti-shock function, most of the photos turned out pretty!

This here is Cadence, she was traveling with her parents too, and as it was only two to an elephant we ended up sharing an elephant.

(left to right) elephants and their handlers coming back down to pick up more tourists, the view of the old city walls across from the Amber Fort (similar to the Great Wall in China, but much less stunning and magnificant), Elephant painting

'Photographers' on the wall - these photographers take snapshots of tourists as you ride up to the fort and then they develop them and chase you down to buy those snapshots! Another opportunity to practice bartering for those who need it, it's really quite easy... they usually start by offering one photos for US$5 and then you can bargain it down to US$1 for 10 photos...
I got mine for free, but it was a really bad shot nobody was looking at the camera....

Then we arrived at the fort and were safely let off the elephant, but everyone bargains or asks for more money, they know we're tourists and just assume we have money to spend... even our elephant handler asked for more money, but I don't judge him for that, who wouldn't want more money, but as tourists, we were warned by our guide not to set a bad example and offer more, because if we offer one handler more, then others will ask for more or raise the price and future tourists will also have to pay more. However, I have to say our handler had a nice smiling face!

We then looked around the fort on our own, exploring and taking photos of the beautiful handiwork.... it was quite difficult to take photos that really capture the beauty of the fort, but I tried! In the large square in front of the palace, there was actually a whole film crew there to film a bollywood movie! Quite Cool!

As you can see, left, there's a huge poster of "Wanted" starring Salman Khan. I've watched a few bollywood movies with him as the lead, but he's just not my type, he's too muscular and walks with his arms sticking out .... hehehe.....

My mom was getting hungry by that time, she eats a lot, you won't be able to tell from looking at her, but it's true! But as we didn't expect to be up on the fort for the whole morning she didn't bring her stash of nuts with her so she was complaining..... fortunately next to the film set there were these stalls selling tangerines. At first I was reluctant to go over for some reason because NO ONE was buying stuff, like usually you would expect to see a tourist or two head over and buy a can of coke or something.... but there was no business, I thought they must have really bad food there or something, or everyone is afraid that they will get cholera or some other digestive illness after they drink/eat from there.

But in the end, my mom was persistent and dragged me along, we walked up and said "How much", pointing at the tangerines, then the store owner said "not for sale", we were like, "What, not for sale? Why, don't you want business? We'll pay anything!" and then he was pointing at the film set... that's when we got the point that these stalls were a part of the film set... that's why everything was so nice and clean and displayed so prettily! It's funny, because these are not what stores and street stalls in India REALLY look like....

(left to right) the People's court - where the king sees the commoners and hears their complaints/problems (usually, with the rare praise ... hehe), you'll see a lot of the doorways with this kind of arch design, a part of the palace - like a terrace area with the petal-arches

While waiting for the rest of the tour group to finish taking photo of the palace exterior

Diwan-i-Khas: the Hall of Private Audience is decorated with Mirrors, all the walls, ceilings, pillars are decorated with mirrors, this is to make the hall more bright as there were no lights, and also as the sun reflects off of it, it can also add warmth to the hall during the winter months.

I had to climb up on one of the railings to take a photo of myself in one of the larger pieces of mirror.... hehehe... ahhhh my height is really holding me back... hahaha...


More photos of the palace grounds and little nooks that I found to be interesting...

The last photo was a lot scarier, when I was actually walking through, it was literally pitch black! But because the palace was built all out of sand and red stone it was really cool and refreshing, and there's no musty smell now that I think about it. And while the outside walls are really elaborate and ornate, they kept a lot of the walls, floors and doors quite simple, really beautiful.

Then I visited the lattice windows that the women look out from. Even though the royal ladies live in the palace, all visitors from outside the palace are not allowed to see them, so once again you have the lattice windows.

Well there's a little window in the middle where if you stick your head out people on the outside can see you, but otherwise, these lattice windows were created so that only those on the interior can see out and not the other way around.

What's interesting in India, is that at all the tourist destinations, not only at the Amber Fort, you will find both foreign tourists as well as local Indian tourists! You would think that the only people you see at these sites are foreigners, but they are quite popular must-visit sites for Indians from other cities and provinces.

I was taking photos of just some arches and windows and the funny thing is that I can be so unself-conscious because I am in a different country, I was climbing up on pillars, and ledges to get the angle I wanted. I guess Indians find me interesting to look at cuz I caught some guys standing around me while I was taking a photo of some windows and then their friend had a camera and was taking a photo of me with them... hahaha... kind of hilarious, and so instead I just asked them if they wanted a photo - I was offering to hold the camera for them, but they explained (with lots of hand gesturing, they didn't really know English) that they wanted a photo with me and so we ended up taking a photo and they got in a little closer... hahahaha.... felt almost like some kind of celebrity or something... hahaha... no picture though as I didn't give them my camera to take a photo, but there will be other examples later on...

(left to right): my mom fit in perfectly with the muslim dress code... hehehe, it was these windows where I discovered the Indian guys taking photos of me, PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF STAIRS when you are in India - for some reason they built stairs with steps that are at least a feet or two high, which is weird as the people don't really have long legs...

The thing is, my tour guide told us later on, that even though millions of tourist come to India every year, Indians are still gawking at all of us. For some reason they are not used to seeing people with pale coloured skin.... hehehe... when we travel in our tour bus and are stuck in traffic a lot of times the bus next to us is filled with Indias commuting to work or school and they will wave enthusiastically at us! hahahaha....

To get down from the fort (which is on a mountain) we rode in jeeps, and that was another 'elephant bartering' experience once again... we quickly assigned to a jeep and driver with a lot of shouting, however as typical of India, there was traffic just to get down from the mountain. You would think that since there's only one way down and one road that people would be a lot more patient and just orderly in general, no we were stuck sitting in the jeep for 15 minutes as each driver yelled at each other to get out of the way and young boys with souvenirs kept popping their heads in and shoving whatnots into our hands and bargaining with us....

Once we got back down the mountain and onto our tour bus we headed back to our hotel for lunch. On the way we stopped to take a photo of a palace in the middle of a lake, I think it's called Jal Mahal. The first floor of the palace is submerged in the lake when the lake is full after the rainy season, the floors above are above water.

In the afternoon, we visited a mosque built entirely of white marble. It was quite small, but the white marble was stunning in the late afternoon glow. All the hand carved decorations on the marble and also in many of the other tourist sites are really astounding, they are so perfect! We had to take off our shoes to enter the mosque and also we weren't allowed to take photos of the interior. This mosque was built by India's richest man, owner of India's domestically manufactured cars - TATA Motors

The funny thing is that the photo on the right, with the two girls, initially I just wanted the marble floor and the railings, and I was taking photos crouched down almost lying on the floor (seriously I have no qualms about getting dirty for a good photo), and then these two girls just walked right into my photo, I don't know if they really didn't see me or just wanted to block my view, but I think that they actually made my photo more interesting. =) Thanks girls!

And tomorrow we go to the Taj Mahal!