Day 22 - Final day in India

Checked out of the Ginger with all our luggage following behind in its own people carrier - it trailed us round Delhi for the rest of the day. We had been going to attend a pottery demo at the Habitat Centre, by one of the visiting potters from the Terracotta exhibition, but instead we had the morning at the Crafts Museum - highly recommended by Kevin and the 2 Nigels who'd been previously. It has outside exhibits, like vernacular village buildings, carts etc



Strange looking pottery - must be the genie in the jar - textiles, furniture, sculptures and carvings are inside the museum area, and there is further outside area where craftsmen are demonstrating and selling.

Here the lady is singing the painting to Nigel - you had to have been there!
The whole museum was magical - I could have sketched a whole week away in there, but we were booked in to go to a friend of Pollie's for a late lunch. Anuradah was instrumental in the 2 year planning and execution of the Terracotta camp at Sanskriti and last night's Terracotta exhibition. As well as all that to contend with, her daughter had just got married, with all the planning and catering that entails, and now she had offered to do a cookery demo and lunch for 13. She lives in one of Delhi's leafy suburbs, in a very nice house furnished with lots of pots and paintings.





The demo was fascinating, lunch was delicious, but at 5 we had to take our leave for the airport - a convoy of taxis, luggage, memories, and images, we drove through the less salubrious areas of Delhi - the holiday all but over.




" This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations -the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined. "
Mark Twain
..........................................................................
I can't begin to thank Pollie and Garry for the amount of work that has gone into organising this trip. Their enthusiasm for India has, I think, rubbed off on us all - and I am eternally grateful for the chance to experience the past 3 weeks, and to have spent it in such good company. Thank you all. xxx

Day 21 - The missing Bazaar and the Terracotta Exhibition

Another free day to wander Delhi at will. Pollie and Garry were going to one of the bazaars to see a trader they've bought ethnic jewellery from before, so we tagged along to see how it's done. I ended up buying some strange sort of sewing contraption from an insistent street trader who kept repeatedly sewing the front of his own shirt to show me how it worked. I'm sure when I get home I'll wonder how I ever managed without one. I also bought some old necklaces, primarily of course to cover up the holes in my shirts from demonstrating how my sewing kit works. We then set off, on Pollie's recommendation, to see Sadar Bazaar -a mainly wholesale bazaar, very untouristy, stocking eveything the world would probably need if they could only find the place. Unfortunately we never did. Instead we walked for miles through the least salubrious areas of central Delhi, before resorting to a Tuk Tuk to take us back to the spice market so that at least we would know where we were. He saw us coming and drove us the extremely long way round - normally this wouldn't have mattered much but we were on a very tight schedule as we had to leave the hotel at 5pm to attend the opening at the Habitat Centre of the Terracotta Exhibition. (1000 pieces in all from Indian artists and invited guests from around the world.) Paul, Katherine and Francoise were exhibiting pieces they'd made at the Sanskriti camp and also pieces they'd sent previously ( unfortunately Paul had suffered quite a few breakages in transit )

We had all scrubbed up quite well, and didn't feel too out of place midst the Delhi art glitterati.

A Ray Meeker ceramic sculpture at the Habitat Centre.

The evening started with speeches and awards. Ray Meeker and his wife Deborah Smith from Golden Bridge Pottery at Pondicherry, S.India were honoured for their contributions to Indian ceramics, and finally the exhibition was opened. It was very well attended and quite a lot of the work was sold. We circulated, ate nibbles and drank. Anju who doesn't normally work in terracotta was showing some lovely intricately slip trailed plates - my overall favourites of the show were some pieces by a Swiss potter who's work we'd previously seen at the St Sulpice show in Paris.



Late supper - excellent day.

Day 20 - Around Old Delhi with Anju

Anju collected us at the hotel ( minus Nig 2 and Kevin who had decided to go it alone ) and we started with India's largest mosque, the Jami Masjid.

Cover up decency was the order of the day - can I just point out however that I really haven't put on all that much weight - I have my rucksack on under here.
We then walked along one of the main wide boulevards Chadni Chowk to visit a Sikh temple, which I found to be much more interesting. The Sikh temples ( Gurdwaras ) are open to people of all religions, and are generally open 24 hours a day. They offer shelter and food to any one in need, provide care for the sick, elderly and handicapped and are centres for promoting culture and health. The Sikh scriptures are recited or sung and sermons are delivered. The Langar in a Sikh Gurdwara is the community kitchen and every Sikh is expected to take part in the running of the kitchen. He may pay towards the expenses, bring provisions or personally contribute his labour, by cleaning utensils, fetching water or fuel, or taking a hand in the cooking or distributing the food. Anju took us all around the various parts of the temple and in the main bread-making and cooking area Margaret proved a dab hand at flipping the naans. It seemed so different from the exclusion we had felt at the mosque.
The rest of the day we were led through the different bazaars of Old Delhi -

very narrow lanes with hardly any natural light - and very interesting wiring!
Kinari Bazaar specialises in tinsel accessories for weddings

Khari Baoli is the biggest spice market in Asia, and you get the aroma from 2 streets away. One street away and I started sneezing, as the cumulative effect of pepper, cumin, mustard seed, garam masala, cloves et al got too much for my overwhelmed olefactory system.
We must have walked miles today - but it was all endlessly fascinating. I don't think The Lanes in Carlisle will ever do it for me again. Anju had given us the whole whistle-stop experience of Old Delhi, and had given us the confidence to dip in and out on our own now. The whole day has been remarkably hassle-free.

Day 19 - Jaipur to Delhi

Left Jaipur for the drive back to Delhi - our base for the last 3 days of the holiday. We went out past the Amber Fort again, scene of yesterday's first ascent. Elephant rush hour was in full snarl up again. We made the outskirts of Delhi by 2-ish and called back in at Sanskriti Kendra, where our idyll had begun. We were hoping to catch up with UK potters Katherine Winfrey and Paul Young , and Francoise Dufayard from France (well known Potfesters all ) who had been out at Sanskriti for a 10 day terracotta workshop, but their work finished and being fired, they had taken off for a couple of days to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple. We caught up with the Tamil Nadu potters, and saw the elephants they had built now fired - and they were just starting to fire another small kiln load of pots.

Our coach driver, Mahaveer, is leaving us in Delhi, and just before we left Sanskriti we took some group photos and presented him with a cricket bat and ball, for services above and beyond the call of duty. His unruffled demeanour amidst all the chaos of the Indian roads has been truly admirable, he was a very valuable addition to our cricket team and as Dustin Hoffman would say .... an excellent driver! Unfortunately his friend Rajkumar, who had travelled with us as back up and tax payer as we crossed from state to state, had had to leave us in Jaipur, as there had been a death in the family. They were both valuable additions to our party - we were probably not what they were used to escorting around India, but they coped with us very well.

Presentations over we drove into central Delhi - hardly scary at all now after the delights of driving in Jaipur. Our last home in India is the Ginger Hotel, next to New Delhi Railway station. This is part of a chain of Ginger Hotels, probably loosely based on an Indian Travellodge, that are now scattered all over India - very upmarket backpacking at a very reasonable price - I can't recommend them highly enough. The rooms were very clean and had everything you could need - clean big bed, hot hot shower, TV and tea making facilities. The location next to the Metro and main station meant that getting around Delhi was very easy. Our room on the 5th floor overlooked a sort of goods yard, where 24 hr activity took place - high tec TVs were trundled around on pull carts, men rushed around with enormous bundles of stuff on their heads - not a fork lift truck to be seen anywhere. The evenings adrenaline rush took place on the 15 minute ride right into central Delhi where we were meeting up with a friend of Pollie's, Anju, who had helped with hotel choices and bookings for all of us. Anju is a potter and keen quilt maker who also will be exhibiting some pieces in the terracotta exhibition that we will be going to see in 2 days time. Over dinner she offered to show us the sights of Old Delhi tomorrow - an opportunity too good to miss!

Day 18 - Northern Ramblers and rooftop R & R

Another free day loomed so the Northern chapter of the Ramblers Association ( Cox's and 2 Nigels ) had decided on an early start to return to the Amber Fort to stroll further the ramparts and hill paths. We left the hotel by taxi around 8-30am to get some walking done before it got too hot. Our taxi driver spoke excellent English, as he has a sister in Coventry, and we were amazed that he only used his horn once on the whole journey. The only crash of the trip happened today when we had to pull up sharply to avoid a cow in the road, and one of the two motor bikes that had been inches from our bumper thumped into the back of us. They both looked accusingly at each other, passed by on either side of the car and sped off through the traffic. What would have sparked a massive attack of road rage in the UK was nonchalently shrugged off and we carried on. We had mistimed our arrival at the fort and unfortunately encountered elephant rush hour. Apparently most tourists come here in the early morning to avoid the heat of the day, and the pathway up looked like elephant gridlock on the M25.

We narrowly avoided being squished against the wall whilst walking up the cobbled pathway, but once we were above the elephant drop off zone we had the whole area to ourselves. We took the quiet track up to Jaigur Fort, situated on top of the ridge above the Amber Fort.

We thought we were miles from anywhere but when we got up to the top there was a restaurant and 2 shops in the fort, and a back road to bring up coaches. However it was still early and we more or less had the place to ourselves. We were given a comprehensive tour of the fort area by an army guide - the fort is linked to the Amber Fort below by a series of narrow passageways - but most impressive were the wonderful views from the top.

View from the top

Where we started from - top left is where we walked to

We got back to Jaipur by lunchtime and just chilled out for the rest of the day - sunbathing and reading in the rooftop garden.

Day 17 - Bike Tours, Bartering, Block-printing & Bedspreads

The morning was ours to do with as we wished. The ladies hit central Jaipur's Fab India store, accompanied by some men worried as to the condition of the diminishing pile of rupees. Fab India is the home of mix and match, good quality Indian clothing, barter free, hassle free - a haven of calm retail therapy in the maelstrom of Jaipur. We could all now feature in our own Bollywood epic. Most returned to the hotel for a rest - Pollie and I went to sort out tonight's restaurant, find a bank, and barter our way through a jewellery store. We took a bicycle rickshaw for the first time this holiday - Pollie bartered the fare way down, then took pity on the driver huffing and puffing his way through the carbon monoxide fumes of Jaipur, dragging two fat lasses behind him - and upped his fare past his original asking price.
After lunch the coach took us out to Saganeer. For some reason I'd imagined a small craft village, specialising in paper-making, fabric block-printing and pottery - but in actual fact the sprawl of Jaipur had engulfed the area and it was now just a suburb of small factories and manufacturers outlets - no less interesting for that though.
We were given explanations of all the processes involved in the production of the paper-making, printed textiles and the production of the Jaipur pottery and invited to take part and "have a go"

A new career beckons for Edmondson sahib

We declined the jobs in the pottery as our knees weren't up to it.
We then repaired to the factory shop to be plied with masala chai (wonderful sweet tea with ginger and spices), be assailed with the all products for sale, and so began the bartering process.
We finished up with 2 bedcovers at a very reasonable price ( I think! )

In the evening we tuktuked back into Jaipur, for the daily whiteknuckle ride, and I had the best vegetarian thali ever at Dak Prakash.

Day 16 p.m. Lumbering up to the Amber Fort

In the heat of a Jaipur afternoon we drove 20 minutes out from the centre to the Amber Fort. The massive ramparts are some way up the hill above the road, following the contours of a natural ridge. The choice is either walk up the steep incline, or go on elephant back.

Eddie & Margaret, Jo and Rog take the easy way.

The 16th century fort is built on earlier 11th century foundations and is very impressive
View from the ramparts

The Sheesh Mahal is wonderfully ornate, and the roof is embedded with tiny mirrors - when one candle is lit in here the ceiling transforms into a starlit sky. Conservationists are appalled however at the installation of a Cafe Coffee Day within the walls - akin to opening a Macdonalds outlet in the west wing of Buckingham Palace - but the toilets here got our vote as "the best in all India" - so some modernisation really is a good thing ( and I have to say the coffee was good as well )
On the way back into Jaipur we stopped off at Sagar Lake, just to take photos of the floating palace

The day ended with beer and sweeties up on the roof, then a hair-raising Tuk-Tuk drive, in the dark, into central Jaipur to have dinner at the "Copper Chimney."

Day 16 a.m. - The City Palace and the stairway to the stars.

Our coach drove us right into the centre Jaipur, back in the thick of things again - traffic, noise, dust, chaos, crowds - and we started the day at the City Palace Museum. We all agreed it was good to see a Palace with things still in it rather than just an empty shell.

Decorated doorway in the City Palace

The most famous exhibits are the 2 giant silver urns, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest silver objects in the world, that were commissioned by Madho Singh the second, so he could carry sacred water from the Ganges with him when he went to Edward VII's coronation - being wise of course not to trust the water in London - a nice ironical twist for English tourists who now come here and daren't drink the water.
We then walked down the road a couple of hundred yards to see the Jantar Mantar - the largest and best preserved of the 5 observatories built by Sawai Jai Singh II in the 18th century - this assortment of astronomical instuments on a monumental scale is the most wonderful sculpture park. The 16 giant instruments all have a different purpose. The Samrat Yantra - a 75 ft sundial - forecasts the crop prospects for the year, and looks for all the world like a stairway to the stars





Rashivalaya Yantra comprises 12 pieces, each part representing a sign of the zodiac and facing a different angle and constellation. This is used by astrologers to make accurate horoscopes.



The Jai Prakash Yantra comprises 2 sunken hemispheres and maps out the heavens - it's thought to have been designed by Jai Singh himself to verify the accuracy of the other instruments

Others determine the position of stars and planets at any time of the day or night, can plot the sun's arc from horizon to zenith as well as its altitude, can measure the angle of stars and planets from the equator, and can calculate Jaipur's local time to an accuracy of 20 seconds. Some of the instruments are still used to forecast how hot the summer months will be, the expected date of arrival, length and intensity of the monsoon and the possibilty of floods and famine. As an un-scientist all this complexity is way beyond me, but as an artist I found the whole layout staggeringly beautiful - it just knocks your socks off!

On the way back through the city we came across these jacketed goats - we think they'd probably just looted the shop behind the bus

Day 15 - Rushing into Rajasthan

Waved goodbye to the Atithi Hotel for a second time and headed off for Jaipur, calling in en route at Fatepur Sikri, another Mughal Palace complex. We had to run the usual gauntlet of desperate market traders at the palace. The Mumbai bombings seem to have hit the tourist industry very hard here, and times being hard make the pursuit of sales relentless. Unfortunately there are only so many chess-sets, necklaces, Taj Mahals in a snowstorm dome that you need.

This is a huge site - a whole Mughal walled city, and here is the pool associated with the legendary court musician Tamsen, who it was said could light oil lamps with the magic of his voice - it overlooks the vast Pachisi Court which is the size of a football pitch and is a place where the ladies of the harem used to play a game that was an early version of ludo. The emperor must have had one huge harem if they needed that all that space just for shaking a double six.

Waiting my turn for the dice.

Two more hours in the coach took us past lots of villages specialising in stone-carving - with the workshops and factories opening right out onto the road .......

and the ox carts trundling goods along the road have been superceded by camel carts. We must be in Rajasthan. Our base for the next few days are the Omni Vas apartments, about 20 minutes outside Jaipur city centre, in the quiet, leafy suburbs - they are clean, spacious apartments and come with a wonderful roof terrace, just soon proved to be ideal for drinking Kingfisher as the sun goes down.

Day 14 - Valentines Day & an Indian wedding

Got my first ever Hindi Valentines Day card and hung it up in the coach window all day

We're on our way to Jaipur now, but are stopping tonight in Agra, as we missed out on Agra Fort last time we were there. It was early afternoon when we arrived at the Fort, along with half the Indian sub-continent, and it was our hottest day yet. The fort was built in the 16 century, and its imposing ramparts form a crescent along the banks of the R. Yamuna. Inside the walls are an extensive complex of court buildings built in different styles. My favourites are always the most ramshackle, delapidated bits of the monuments - visually much more interesting to me than the pristine parts.



Inside Agra Fort - Taj Mahal in the background ( ramshackle part in front )

At the hotel tonight we had no choice about dinner - they were mass catering a large wedding feast in the garden at the back at the hotel, so it was feast or famine - delicious! Later in true northern tradition of not wanting to miss out on anything we gatecrashed the wedding.

The groom arrives ........ full report later from our nuptials correspondent Pollie Uttley .........

Day 13 - Numb bums in transit

Left Khajuraho, via Orchha on the way back to Agra to tick off Agra Fort before getting to Jaipur. Visiting Orchha briefly again just reinforced how much we all liked the place - we lunched overlooking the river. The only highlight of the rest of today's trip was seeing a pig with a large collar made of two pieces of wood sticking out horizontally - to prevent it from getting through hedges and onto the road. We are thinking of ordering one for Harrison, made just wider than most shop doorways - to impede his retail mania. After Khaj. we were glad to return to the Tamsen at Agra, and were treated to a free concert of Indian singers and musicians playing 11 specially selected songs from Bollywood performed by tutors from the local university.

Day 12 - Tiger hunting - and the Day of the Jackal

The hunting party rose at 5am to spot tigers in the Panna Tiger Reserve, about a 25 minute bone-crunching, swerving, bouncing, juddering endurance jeep ride from Khajuraho. I spent the rest of the day trying to re-adjust my internal organs and re-align my vertebrate in the correct sequence. A safari holiday has now overtaken a cruise ship holiday at the top of my "Avoid at all costs" list.

Garry hypnotises a tiger

We knew before we went that we weren't going to see any tigers - the locals had all given us pitying, knowing looks when we told them where we were going today - but when I saw that the guide wasn't carrying tranquilliser darts for emergencies, and we actually picked up hitch-hikers out walking in the park then I really realised we weren't going to see any. Actually I blame Pollie, as organiser, for blatantly forgetting to reserve us any. However there were creatures in abundance - deer, antelope, one mongoose, a skeleton of something dragged suspiciously close to the roadside so we could spot it, one domestic elephant brought in to devour industrial quantities of bananas for the photo opportunity, and some of our party, who had probably paid Pollie a back-hander, saw 2 jackals.



Beasts feeding at the watering hole

By 10am we were all safaried out, and bruised and battered we returned for a late breakfast in town.

On the way back to town we passed by a village pottery and were treated to a throwing demo Indian style.

Some of us had recovered sufficiently from the rigours of tiger hunting by late afternoon to partake of a shopping safari, and we bagged some stuff. Evening meal was at a Swiss-Indian restaurant - curries and rosti - a marriage made in heaven!

Day 11 - Khajuraho Temples

Last night's rain freshened the humid atmosphere and today is glorious again. We walked through town to the Western Temples - in Nigel's words " a storyboard for the Kama Sutra" - superb temples - a World Heritage site, set in lush gardens.



Feeling slightly jaded today and find myself more interested in the various monkey troupes in the trees rather than the stunning carvings on display.





The bird life we've seen on this trip has been amazing - great swathes of green parrots, eagles, vultures and today in the park a breathtaking Indian jay - like a flying sari - irridescent blues.

Indian green parrot.
Geoff spent ages at the site, then later we wandered down to the old village escorted by two young men who really, really didn't want paying to guide us around, just wanted to practice their English, so of course by the time they'd finished with us we'd donated to the school, paid for a photo opportunity with the local potter, bought some stuff at the local emporium and tipped them for their trouble - babes in the wood or what!