Delhi and Delays

For no reason in particular, I have ended up with very few photos of our time in Delhi. I guess it is because many places we have been while here have been strictly no-photography, such as the Metro, the National Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art and even the park in the centre of the city.
As you probably know, due to the unfortunate weather in Heathrow, our flight home on the 20th was cancelled. We have since rebooked a flight on the 23rd. Peter and Jamie's posts below were written the night before our initial departure date, whereas mine was written on the 22nd.

Delhi Gate, a memorial to the soldiers lost in WW2

Delhi has long been a significant capital in India and was the seat of power for the Muslim Mughal Empire prior to the British, with the Red fort and Jama Masjid mosque both being fantastic testament to Mughal power, wealth and architectural talent. In particular Jama Masjid was interesting because it is a grand building on the same scale as the great European cathedrals but with very few of the trappings and decorations that I am used to in major centers of worship. None of the golden hordes which fill European churches and also none of the dramatic imagery like that of Christ or of the Hindu Gods and their stories. Instead it establishes itself mainly with its shapes, clean and beautiful masonry and delicate patterns Embedded in the walls.
The old city where the Mughal Empire centered has an entirely different feel to New Delhi, composed of straight lines and roundabouts, built by the British. New Delhi monuments are grand and spectacular, built to impress but with cold efficiency always in mind they lose out on the haphazard charm and romance of Old Delhi’s busy streets.
New Delhi’s National Gallery of Modern Art gave me a glimpse of how Indian art changed and grew with the arrival of art from other continents. The Indian paintings from the early period of British influence were a stunning combination of European realism and bold colours and caricature figures of Indian art. The impact of Picasso was also interesting, having a clear and dramatic impact, almost immediately in a much more globalised world.
Two days ago we ventured into the south of the city on Delhi’s super modern super fast metro to find a modern, lotus flower shaped Baha’i temple. A small modern religion who have taken concrete and shaped and painted it to built an extraordinary temple where the petals of a lotus flower form the entire walls roof and structure.
It feels strange to have reached the end and I am certainly not looking forward to British winter, we are all just hoping the snow doesn’t mess with our flight too much.

Jamie

The Lotus Temple

Delhi’s Metro is one of the most notable things I’ve seen here. It’s fast, clean and train come every minute or two. When we first used the metro a train entered the platform moments after another one had left. It superior to our underground in some way but has two problems: First of all everyone walks through a metal detector and is searched on entry, and has to wait for their bags to go through an x-ray scanner. It’s not too bad off-peak but during rush our long queues of people form at the entrance and it slows everything down. The other problem is the pushing; when the trains arrive at the station people trying to get off sometimes have to use considerable force to stop themselves being taken with the crowd getting on. It’s ridiculous; everyone rushes because they want to get a space but they cram themselves into the part of the carriage by the doors when there would actually be plenty of space for everyone if they all spread out. This isn’t always the case and on occasion it is actually necessary to push trying to squeeze off or onto the train if it’s packed but If everyone trying to board just waited for everyone to trying to alight first then there’d be no chaos at all.
I mentioned that you’re searched as you enter the metro, you’re also no allowed to take pictures inside, which is also the case at eh central park oddly enough. The security we’ve seen around India is really quite something. At the Red Fort, not only were you and your bagged search twice on entry, but there are armed guards situated around the site and two sandbag bunkers with mounted machine guns facing the entrance!
The many people putting on English accents and acting like their interested in us and our travels before suddenly turning the conversation to try to sell us drugs is extremely irritating, although we’re much better at just completely ignoring them now we’ve been here a few days.
Delhi is a great place and I’ve enjoyed my stay here a lot, I haven’t said much good about it up to now but it’s pro’s certainly outweigh its cons. New Delhi is extremely different from the rest of India; its grand buildings are somewhat intimidating and its main square looks like it could be a London high street.
Today’s been a good day but also quite a sad one, there’s lots I’m going to miss. Having my last cup of Chai from a street stall tomorrow morning will be momentous occasion, it’s slightly different from that which you get in restaurants and it’s much more enjoyable outside, standing around the chef with the locals whilst everyone drinks Chai, about to start the day.
I’m really looking forward to going home tomorrow, hopefully we won’t be held up too much by the snow. Unlike Jamie I’m actually looking forward to the weather at home, Winter’s awesome!

Peter

Unfortunately, we have reached the end of our travels, finally landing in the capital of India, Delhi. And, as I've said many times before, it is a place quite unlike any I have been before. Still present is the feel of large Indian cities similar to those we have visited previously; Mumbai, Jaipur, Panjim, Varanasi and others, but it is a city of contradictions. This maybe purely due to the commonwealth games earlier in the year, but New Delhi is by far the cleanest place we have been in India. As the others have said above, there is the brand-spanking-new Metro system and the central shopping area Connaught Place, which made me constantly feel like I was walking around Covent Garden back home.
We are staying in an area of Delhi walking distance from New Delhi train station, called Paharganj. Filled with craft shops and budget hotels, it seems like a fitting place to stay for our last few days, giving us easy access to souvenirs to casually browse. However, it has earned a reputation for being popular with budget travellers and backpackers, and as a result the number of touts trying to sell you scarves, rickshaws and drugs are immense. Still, I like the place, and have spent a number of hours wandering up and down the main street and the surrounding area.
The Baha'i temple was fascinating. It is a modern religion that basically teaches that all major religions are essentially correct, and that they are all part of the bigger picture of the one true God. They invite people of all religions to worship in their temple, and avoid having any specific idols or images to worship to. It all sounds very nice and positive, though their self-proclaimed prophet Bahá'u'lláh from the 19th century sounds a bit full of himself. Their temple however was beautiful, and was one place that I took hundreds of photos of.
We leave India behind tomorrow (weather permitting) to travel home to negative temperatures in London, and although we are all very sad to go, we are definately looking forward to being home. The journey has been incredible, and amazing way to spend three months, and we have seen so many truly unforgettable sights. It feels like only yesterday we were stepping onto the plane at Heathrow, nervous and completely oblivious as to what to expect once we landed. I can't really believe I'm going to be home tomorrow.
I very much hope that you have enjoyed this blog, and that it has allowed you to see India through our eyes. Its been great fun writing it, and I have had immeasurable pleasure in taking the photographs.
Thanks for reading.

John

You can see all the photos I have posted by clicking on the slide show to the right.

Cities of Pink, Blue and Gold

Rajasthan has a reputation for being colourful, and in accordance with this, Jaipur is known as the Pink City, Jodhpur as the Blue, and Jaisalmer as the Golden Fort. These have been our last three destinations, and they've been great.

The Blue City of Jodhpur

Since last time we have nearly travelled the length of Rajasthan, moving from Jaipur to Jodhpur and now staying in Jaisalmer. Traveling west has taken us deeper and deeper into desert country. Here millet (which is ground to make flour) is the major staple unlike rice in the wetter, southern parts of India. Further the Greens of the south have been replaced by yellows and browns of endless dry plains. Jodhpur was a wash of blue houses all looking up at the ancient fort which dominates the skyline. from Johdpur we took a "village safari" which showed us a lot about local rural life. For me the most interesting thing was learning a little about local customs: in the Bishnoi tradition men all sleep outside and women inside, including married couples and children as little as one year old. I was also fascinated by the traditional buildings built from local material to achieve ingenious results. For the Bishnoi people all wood used had to be dead and collected from the ground as they believe cutting down trees to be sinful, a very practical belief in an area where drought is much worse as a result of tree felling.
Jaisalmer is a beautiful golden town, in which the nicer old homes are built with intricately carved sandstone fronts. Full of hairy-smelly pigs as well as cows, its suburbs stretch wide around the old city wall which originally protected a tiny hill top village closed within. The major draw of Jaisalmer for most is a "camel safari", we took a three night trip out into the desert with camels to ride and blankets for the night. The landscape makes for hot days and cold nights so after tiring days of riding a bumpy camel we slept wrapped up tightly under the stars at night. On the first day , while getting used to the camel, riding was not very pleasant but as things progressed they got much more fun. Our enjoyment was however, entirely down to our 3 wonderful guides Ali, Murad and Suban who cooked us fresh food and generally looked after us. To see sand dunes with my own eyes was amazing, they seemed to randomly slice through the desert landscape. On the third day it was particularly exciting riding fast in a mock chase of some deer we spotted, which of course outpaced us with ease, making graceful leaps carrying them many metres at a time.

Jamie

A Potter Giving Us a Demonstration

Our trip to Amber fort in Jaipur was a fun day out. The palace inside was an interesting maze of winding corridors and staircases around a couple of central courtyards. We got a free ride back from the fort provided we browsed 4-5 shops on the way. From the top of the fort in Jodhpur we had a fantastic view of the old town and were able to spot our guest house in amongst the hundreds of blue washed buildings in sight. It’s believed that the blue wash, made from indigo, keeps homes cool in the summer and repels mosquitoes. The village safari was really interesting, well worth it. We we’re taken to a memorial placed in remembrance of the 363 lives that were taken at the sight by the local Maharajah’s men. They we’re killed because they clung onto the trees there which they believed to be holy and which the Maharajah’s men had been sent to cut down. A few villages later we found ourselves trying out a bit of pottery, being guided by the shop’s craftsman, which was great fun. The potter made it look ridiculously easy as you’ll be able to see if the video uploads. The honey coloured walls of the old hill top village in Jaisalmer are quite beautiful, the inside is less impressive but it does offer some great views of surrounding city.
The 3 night camel safari from Jaisalmer has been one of the most exciting things we’ve done recently. The daytime temperature was fine because we had a breeze when riding the camels and we stopped and ate in the shade through the midday sun. At night we found ourselves wearing a couple of layers of clothing, a sleeping bag, 2 thick sheets and thin bottom one to keep us warm. In the end we were sometimes a bit too hot but we still found ourselves sleeping with our sleeping bags up over our heads and pulled tight leaving just enough room for our mouths and noses to breathe through. The nights were pretty uncomfortable at times but an amazing sky filled with more stars than I’d ever seen before made it much more bearable. Speaking of uncomfortable, the camels shook us around a hell of a lot as when they ran which was thrilling but left us all feeling quite tender below the waist! Once you take your mind off of it, it becomes really enjoyable. Our safari guides were great; they were very polite and eager to please and constantly checked to make sure we were ok. They made the whole safari such a great experience.

Peter

Trekking Through the Desert on Camel-back

We only stayed in Jaipur for a couple of days after our last post (all those weeks ago), but we managed to squeeze in a visit to Amber Fort before heading to Jodhpur. Jodhpur was a lovely place, an old blue city with winding streets that were easy and lovely to get lost in. We stayed at the lovely 'Cosy Guesthouse', possibly my favourite accomodation so far. The kitchen chef even gave me a free cookery lesson! The fort was great, offering fantastic views over the blue-washed city. To be honest I could have stayed for another couple of days at least, but we had already booked tickets to move on to Jaisalmer, our penultimate stop.
I like the feel of Jaisalmer a lot. Although it is slightly busier than I expected, and seems to have very recently turned into a slightly more touristy place than it used to be, I have spent a couple of very enjoyable afternoons wandering the streets of the bazaar and the old town in the fort itself. The whole fort and town is made of sandstone, giving all the buildings the same golden colour. It is famously called the Golden Fort, and in the sunlight really lives up to its name.
Five days ago we embarked on a three-night camel safari through the Thar Desert, where we rode camel back during the day and slept on the dunes under the stars all night. It was an incredible experience, absolutely great fun, and something I'm not going to forget for a long time. Our three guides were invaluable, taking us miles through the desert, cooking us delicious indian curries and chapati and waking us up each morning with a hot cup of steaming chai.
We are heading to Delhi in a couple of days as our last stop on our amazing tour of India, where we will spend our last week before flying home. It is going to be a massive contrast to the calm of Jaisalmer, but I'm excited to see what its like.

John

Please leave a comment below, there are more pictures to the right. Click a picture to embiggen.

Our Morning Chai

This is Where we Slept on the  Second Night.

Murad making Chapati