January 22, 2006

Taking Care of Business in Delhi

We spent our last three days in India in Delhi, wrapping up our business in India and preparing for the East African circuit of our trip. We stayed in luxury at the Marriot Hotel free of charge because my mother-in-law had points through their reward program. We are very grateful to the Marriot for their exemplary customer service and support of our trip, especially Tarana in the Business Center at the hotel. After a long day in the Business Center completing our travelogs for India, she treated me to a complimentary coffee and cookie tray in reward for my marathon efforts. She quickly became a fan of our undertaking. The daughter of an Indian air force officer, she also loves to travel and is currently applying for a flight attendant position so she can live out those desires.  We promised to send her postcards from many of our destinations in East Africa and Mediterranean Europe.

In our various errands across the city, we got a chance to see a little bit of Delhi, albeit fleeting. Significant tracts of land have been devoted to green space but because of the ever-pervasive air pollution in all of India’s urban centers, all the trees unfortunately bear muted green grey foliage. Though we didn’t have time to visit the Red Fort built by capital projects Moghul Shah Jahan at the same time as the Taj Mahal (!), we did pass it on the way from the train station to the Marriot and it was indeed impressive! Apparently the courtyard of this imposing red sandstone fortress, can hold 29,000 people, and, since it covers an impressive 82 square meters (1.5 miles or 2.41 kilometers in perimeter), we passed it for several minutes as we weaved through the also ever-present city traffic.

After all, India has a heck of a lot of humanity to house with the second largest population in the world (to China only) and three out of the top 14 cities in the world, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai.

None of us can believe that our Indian tour has come to an end. From Kolkata in the east to the western frontier of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and the Himalayas to tiger habitat in the plains of Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, we have experienced spectacular nature, culture and historical monuments and encountered the beauty and complexity of the Indian people throughout our travels. We will all hold cherished memories of this country and its people in our hearts always and pledge to return. especially since we unfortunately were not able to visit Punjab, the ancestral lands of our dear friends Dal, Nancy, Bayunt and Gobind in Eugene.  

January 18, 2006

Spires over the fort

After breakfast, we met our friend, Madu, who we had met on the train to Jaisalmer and who had escorted us with pride into the fort and to a hotel near his home. Madu was born and raised in the fort and now he and his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and 10-month old grandson still live in the family home imbedded in the fort’s wall. He sat us down on the porch along the narrow cobblestone streets and asked me to read aloud his “armchair notes” about the seven Jain temples in the fort. Madu will send us a copy of his complete and unique historical account of the fort at Jaisalmer and has asked Peter to record it, so that he can practice his English pronunciation and cadence and asked me to promote the publication of the piece in U.S. travel journals. Most of the ornately carved yellow sandstone Jain temples were built between the 12^th and 15^th centuries. They are designed in the architectural style influenced by the moghuls who invaded and shaped India’s landscape and the Chandela art of southern India and are typical of the grand temples of Khajuraho with wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling ornate carvings of Hindu gods and goddesses, women in seductive poses, and men and women engaged in various sexual acts, as well as borders of lace-like embellishments. He first took us to yet another rooftop to see the tops of the temples as they protrude and artistically and colorfully decorate the fort’s skyline. From this rooftop, we could nearly touch the seven, miniature Mosque-like domes and could see clearly the carvings of small elephants, cobras and lions on the perimeter of the domes, as well as the distinctive dhwarza or stambla, the pole at the top of the temple that bears a brightly colored flag when the temple is completed. The stambla at the top of the Parasanth temple is made of gold and glistened magically in the soft morning light over the fort. Upon removing our shoes and entering the first temple, Madu asked me to summarize what I had read earlier to the family about the Jain religion. There, amidst walls and walls of beautiful carvings, I told the story of Mahavira, a contemporary of Buddha and the founder of Jainism. Mahavira lived in 6^th century BC and, like many spiritual prophets from other religions, came from a wealthy family but denounced the material world. As a young man, he married and had a child, but his spirit was not content with this ordinary course, and he eventually retreated to the jungle in a quest to achieve spiritual enlightenment. He stayed in the jungle for 30 years. When he emerged, he wandered the earth, sweeping the ground in front of him so as not to tread on a living thing. He never stayed longer than one night in any one place. He was ridiculed by many but never returned the jeering in kind; indeed he never spoke a word again. The basic tenets of Jainism are: ahimsa, or nonviolence, in thought and deed, fruitfulness, self-control, and absence of stealing or hoarding. Followers believe that, like Mahavira, one can purify the soul by practicing fasting, meditation, and retreating to lonely place. Ironically, their temples, however, are often lavish, filled with images of joyful living and expensive adornments. As we examined the carvings, Madu took great delight in making sure that we noted the specifics of these expressive and erotic scenes, reiterating that the purpose of this unique and vibrant architectural style was to teach history, religion, culture, and sexuality through elaborate sculpture art and that this purpose can be realized today through us as well as in centuries past. Peter and Paul got a very interesting and unique sex education lesson that day as Madu and I elaborated on the various animated scenes depicted on the walls of the temples!

January 17, 2006

Camels in the Desert: A tall order!

Once again my fear of heights is challenged. We drove 60 km into the desert of western Rajasthan and bumped off road to our camel safari’s hitching post, and there they were waiting for us—these elegant creatures of very grand stature! For some reason, I was the first to mount my camel, Gangoolie, and then was stuck up high on the hump contemplating how high off the ground I was and growing increasingly more anxious. My family was quite amused when no sooner had my camel rousted me up that I announced that I’d like to take a break! None of the guides took my request seriously so I remained stranded on my camel while the others got settled, breathing deeply and focusing on Soi, a little desert boy who came to see us off and became my camel-riding muse! As long as I focused on his sweet, encouraging smile, I remained relatively calm. I don’t think he was aware of my distress but we did seem to bond and when I saw him later in the trek, we sat and “talked” as best we could and I was grateful to him for his kindness and attentiveness to me during my camel adjustment period!

Once all of us were on our camels, the camels proceeded in a very orderly fashion, single-file, clomping along through the arid scrubland desert. Peter was on 8-year-old Bob Marley, Mom on 9-year-old Guna, which means “baby,” Paul on the elder of the bunch, 10-year-old Kalu, which means “black,” and Steve on 9-year old Rocket. Gangoolie was the baby at 7 years of age. Once we set off, my dis-ease quickly melted away as I adjusted my gaze from the dizzying height way up on my camel to the sweeping desert panorama of tumbleweed, cactus and brush in the foreground and pristine dunes in the distance. The methodical clomp of the camels lulled me into a meditative safari posture; I was in tune with the environment and suddenly transported back to another place and time. Mom said the song, “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” had come to mind, and I too was thinking of biblical times as we traveled by camel through the desert. At the time Peter, Mom and I were traveling in a pod, and it really reminded me of our recent celebration of Epiphany and the journey of the three kings from the east to visit the Christ child in Bethlehem. Later as we watched the first stars appear in the evening sky and the nearly full moon rise on the horizon, I was again reminded of the brilliant star that guided those kings over 2,000 years ago to a manger in a desert village, where the baby Jesus, our Prince of Peace, lay.

On the way to our camp that night we visited a desert village. Here two castes resided—untouchables and Hindu middle class. Both lived in dome-like, sandstone-mud houses. They appeared semi-nomadic, very poor and tending sheep and goats in the surrounding dry land.

Just before we arrived at our campsite, Gangoolie, my camel, wandered out of line to a nearby watering hole. Sham Baba, our main guide, stayed with me while Gangoolie drank and drank and drank. Boy, was he thirsty. It was a little disconcerting when he bent over to drink because he, like the giraffe, has a very long neck, and the view from the saddle is that of a very steep slide! Thankfully, Baba distracted me with conversation and we eventually lumbered to camp and I was finally able to dismount my perch.

We camped amidst the dunes and found a seat on the highest dune to watch the spectacular show of sunset in the desert. Peter and Paul went running through the virgin, windswept sand, making a clean trail of human footprints. As the sun set over the dunes, the low-lying clouds, tinted in pink, looked like fluffy cotton candy in the sky.

Under a star-filled sky, we gathered around the cooking fire, reflecting on our favorite destinations—the top 5 in Central America, Southeast Asia, and India—and had just started a round of our top 5 sightings in each of these areas when dinner was served. We had a lovely meal of vegetable curry, dal, rice and chapatis. Peter sat next to one of our guides and did an impromptu apprenticeship in chapati-making, flattening the dough and slapping it on the frying pan. He noticed that his chapatis were too fat, compared to those prepared by his Indian compadres, and set about trying to improve his technique as he kept molding and shaping one chapati after another! I think 20-odd chapatis in total, an Indian staple, were prepared per meal!

I was spell-bound as our very own Arabian Night unfolded around us. Paul spotted the very first star of the night and we made our wish with this incantation, “I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight!” Soon, the indigo sky was filled with stars and we began to see familiar constellations but in the unusual orientation here in the southern hemisphere. Within an hour or two from sunset, the sky, remarkably, began to lighten and wash out the brilliant palette of stars, as the moon rose on the eastern horizon. The moon cast deep shadows over the dunes, and my path up and over the dunes to pee several times that night was well-illuminated! Burrowed beneath several layers of blankets, we slept under the open sky.

We awoke to wind and fog, the first fog for many months. Peter, Paul, Mom and I emerged from our cocoons when we saw a shepherd and his herd of goats come over the nearby dune, heading in our direction! As it turned out we had nothing to fear. The goats politely went around our camp. It was only later they invaded to scrounge the leftovers from breakfast! Our guides, Baba, Daniel and BaNa, prepared a warming breakfast of chai, porridge, scrambled eggs, and toast.

By mid morning, we had saddled the camels and packed our gear and were ready to set off for day 2 of our camel trek. After my successful expedition the day before, I was feeling quite confident and began urging Gangoolie to speed it up a bit with a little kick to the ribs. He didn’t much heed my signals and ambled along too slowly for Baba. Now riding with Paul on Kalu the camel, Baba came back to get Steve’s and my camel moving.  Kalu took matters into his own hands and, unbeknownst to me, nipped Gangoolie on the rear end! I was suddenly being bounced around on a bucking camel! I hung on for dear life as he bounded erratically and finally into a gallop and screamed for Baba to help me! Despite my hysterics, which were exceedingly comical for my family, especially Peter and Paul, I did have the presence of mind to pull back on the reins. Paul and Peter kept recounting from their unique perspectives, the hilarious antics of my head bobbing every which way and my shrieks of terror! My ordeal probably only lasted a minute or so but it left me badly shaken. When we stopped at a nearby village, Paul told me what had provoked Gangoolie. I found out later from Baba that Kalu is very jealous of Gangoolie because Gangoolie, whose name means “good cricket player,” is very famous around these parts; last year at the desert festival in February, he and Baba won first prize in the two-kilometer race, running at speeds of up to 50 km/hour! Baba plans to race him this year as well. Once I realized I was riding the steed of the herd, I became quite uncomfortable and ill-at-ease. Baba decided to have Peter and I swap camels as Peter was proving to be quite a natural on the camel. For the rest of the trek, I rode mellow, “no worries, be happy” Bob Marley. My only concern was that he kept sneezing on the return trip. Daniel said he must have caught a desert cold the night before. The whole way back I was hoping that he wouldn’t suffer any serious bout of respiratory distress with me on him!

In the meantime, Peter seemed to control Gangoolie with ease, turning him around, trotting and even galloping with him. We were all quite impressed to see Peter in the lead, holding the reins and steering Gangoolie or urging him into a trot and even gallop on a few occasions with a soft whip of the lead. Gangoolie of course was all too willing to oblige. Peter, who had learned some horseback riding at Camp Wilani, did admit to me that Gangoolie failed to heed him a few times as well and, even though it was fun, he had a hard time hanging on when Gangoolie decided to go really fast, jump over a crevice and race Baba, Paul and Kalu in the home stretch to our lunch campsite and back to the hitching post at the beginning of the trek. At the end, he announced that he preferred horseback riding.

In the last stretch, we encountered some beautiful wild camels and I prayed that our camels weren’t seduced by their wild state and take off in some rash, return-to-the-wilds frenzy! For most of the final segment of our trek, I followed Steve on Rocket. “Rocket” really didn’t fit Steve’s camel, who plodded along at an exasperatedly slow speed and even stopped significantly short of our final destination, seemingly unwilling to exert any more effort! This was a bit anti-climatic as we had seen the others gallantly trot into camp while Steve and I were herded back by Daniel and BaNa. Paul captured this humiliation on film of course. Never-the-less, I was grateful that we all made it back in one piece and was glad to get off my camel once and for all. 

January 15-16, 2006

A living sandcastle

We arrived on the overnight train in Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan in the middle of the afternoon and hailed two auto rickshaws and set off for the fort. Suddenly as we rounded a corner, there was unveiled a spectacular view of this golden sandstone city and the impressive fort high on the hill.  Also a Unesco World Heritage site, the fort is the last living fort in the world. The quaint cobblestone streets are teeming with life. Families live and work inside the fort, 99 of these families actually reside in the wall of the fort. Many of them run guest houses, usually with their own rooftop restaurant, small shops with traditional wood, textile and leather handicraft, snack vendors (stocked with the chips and chocolate bars foreigners love!), Internet cafes, and the… ubiquitous camel safari outfits! Built in 1156 by the Rajput ruler Jaisala, from which Jaisalmer’s name is derived, the fort was once an important strategic outpost on the camel-train trading route between India and Central Asia. As these routes fell into decline to shipping, the city once again gained strategic importance as an important military base in the ongoing border tensions between India and Pakistan. Today the military base remains but this giant sandcastle oasis arising from the surrounding desert enchants tourists by the droves. With the exception of the Taj Mahal, we hadn’t seen so many foreigners in a very long time.

Making friends on the rooftops of Jaisalmer

On our first evening in the fort, I took a walk through the narrow cobblestone streets vibrantly blanketed with colorful Rajasthani quilts. As I ventured up one street, I heard children calling to me from a nearby rooftop. They motioned for me to join them so I very ungracefully scaled the wall and descended with a thud on the other side. The group enthusiastically ushered me up to the rooftop and showered me with questions. I wanted to see them fly their kites, a favorite pastime in this city often whipped by fierce desert winds, but they were more interested in conversation. By the end of our visit, I had made several friends and had agreed to meet Kalu at his Nepali friend’s restaurant, Surya’s, that evening.

We ate dinner at Surya’s, overlooking the city by night from an enchanting castle archway, and were entertained by a musician playing a mandolin-like folkloric instrument. I introduced the family to Kalu, and Ram, his Nepali friend, and Paul and Kalu exchanged some coins to add to each other’s international money collection. Paul and I returned the next morning for breakfast. As we sat in our window seat on the wall of the fort, pointing out the unusual sites of camels hauling heavy loads, children flying kites, and people enjoying rooftop repose, there were more of my friends from the day before flying kites from one of the fort’s major cannon bays, waving to me and introducing themselves to Paul!

Ram must have alerted Kalu that we were back because he suddenly appeared to greet us. After breakfast, Steve, Mom and Peter joined us and Kalu escorted us to his home in the wall of the fort to meet his family. His mother was busily preparing chapati when we arrived and we visited with her in the kitchen, gleaning any technique we could from her dexterous manipulation of this savory Indian bread. Kalu proudly took out a family treasure chest that contained an article about his grandfather, who died a few years ago but who had been a driver and guide in the city. One British author that he guided published a book about the moghuls of India and recognized Kalu’s grandfather with a UNESCO award of appreciation for his services during his travels in India. Kalu told us that he would like to be a guide like his grandfather and we asked him if he would guide us on a tour of the fort and surrounds the next day. He very enthusiastically agreed and invited us to see the view of the fort from his family’s rooftop. What a tremendous view they have of the entrance to the fort and the grand palace.

A long line of Maharajas

Because Jaisalmer is off the beaten track in the western-most frontier of Rajasthan, it largely escaped the conquest of Moghul invaders and trumpets a long line of Singh maharajas, dating from 1156 to the present-day maharaja of Jaisalmer. These descendants of Lord Krishna successfully warded off wave upon wave of invaders from their formidable fort in the middle of the desert. On our tour the next day, Kalu brought us to the maharaja’s palace where Peter, Paul and I experienced just how formidable this fortress is. The king’s chambers are insulated by a thick, nearly impenetrable wall of bricks. From the rooftop of the palace, the highest pinnacle in the fort at 220 feet, we were afforded a sweeping panorama of the kingdom below and felt the stir of this ancient line of rulers. Peter, Paul and I greeted the masses in the courtyard below, including Steve and Mom, from the maharaja’s balcony from which he still makes public addresses today on special occasions.

Outside the fort, we went on the haveli circuit, visiting the mansions of this desert kingdom. The most magnificent of  the Jaisalmer havelis is Patwon-ki-Haveli, which was built in the early 1800s by five Jain brothers, silver, spice and textile merchants. We wandered in and out of the rooms of this ornately sculpted sandstone dwelling and peered out of a few of the 66 balconies in this magnificent complex. A display of turbans described the significance of various turbans in denoting caste, relation and social status. It is considered an insult to knock a turban over. We also found the folkloric instrument that we heard the evening before at Surya’s. It’s called the kamaicha.