Author: lindiki

Today was an hour drive to our hotel in Jaipur.

We had a leisurely breakfast (trying out masala omlettes) before hitting the road. En-route into Jaipur past the amber fort we met up with the returning elephants from the morning trek to the fort. The road was filled with people, dogs, pigs, chickens, cows, elephants and the odd camel – just for variety.

Tomorrow morning it is our turn to go to the fort on elephants – watch this space.

After check-in at the hotel we had the balance of the day – free time.

When the hotel heard it was birthday-time they made Adam a personalized cream/vanilla cake with candles and everything. It was really sweet and unexpected.

We opted for an Ayurveda massage at Charak Ayurveda Clinic and research centre. I had a Shirodhara therapy treatment. It is a full body massage with aromatic Ayurveda oils, indian head massage followed by the dripping of warm oil onto the forehead in pre-determined movements to enhance relaxation. I had a bruise on my shin which made me nervous whenever the therapist turned her attention to that region, although she was very careful around the area, but still needed to work there to stimulate the lymph nodes for the detox process. The dry head massage was really weird – admittedly my first indian head massage.

Then she put rosewater soaked cotton swabs on my eyes and started working her magic with the suspended warm oil dispenser. She swirled it above your head to make intricate patterns of warm oil across the forehead and hairline. There is no way to describe the sensation… it is mesmerizing. To be honest *hide face in hands* I fell asleep. I have never felt asleep during a massage before. I only woke up when she asked me to move so that she can start washing the oil out of my hair. She thought it was hilarious. I’m just very worried that i possibly snored and ruined the other clients experiences… treatment cubicles are not exactly sound-proof. We left happy and relaxed and was told to up the water intake for the next few days to flush out the toxins released by the treatments.

We returned to the hotel for a late lunch and experimented with lime water – either sweet or salty. I like the salty variation and the other guys prefer the sweet one. Sara and I had the vegetarian house speciality which turned out to be the best meal we’ve had so far. We cajoled the recipe out of the staff and they even showed us which spices to buy to make it at home. It is a mixture of cottage cheese and pomegranate seeds encased in chopped spinach (ball the size of a tennis ball). It is then deep fried and put in a warm spicy tomato gravy. for serving it is cut in half and swirled with plain yogurt. We are definitely having lunch here again and will all be having that. Apparently it is the creation of the house chef… Compliments to the chef on that one!!!!

After lunch the others went for a swim in the rooftop pool while I had an Skype IM conversation with my husband. I joined them for a few minutes where we chatted with a couple from england also staying in the hotel. Then it was time to shower off the massage oil and get dressed for Adam'[s birthday dinner. The tour company reserved a table at the Spice Court Restaurant.

Dinner was good – our eyes were bigger than our tummies. Could not eat another bite.

Still lazy from the massages and with no ‘power nap’ we decided to call it a night and meet up at 7:30 ish for breakfast to leave at 8:30. Apparently the line is long to get your elephant. We promised Csilla that if we are late and miss the elephants we’ll bring one back to the hotel on the roof 😛

I’m going to turn in now, it has been a long, but exciting day.

Regards
Linda

This morning saw an early beginning as with luggage strapped to the roof we took off to Shahpura. Everywhere there were groups of people carrying flags on their way to the hindu temples.

Eventually we took an obscure road to even smaller alleyways – streets filled with vendors selling coloured powders, kids, livestock, buildings a riot of neon coloured dust. We arrived at this beautiful hilltop Hotel, overlooked by a ruined fortress and a blue Hindu temple as ‘neighbours’.

There was initial confusion with our bookings as they did not recognize the tour company’s name. Light dawned when they heard Adam’s name – we were booked in under his name… LOL.

We then were shown to our rooms, more suites than rooms. It is out of this world luxury. I felt really bad having to shower off the holi paint in that stunning bathroom. yeah… they can definitely burn that white towel after today. After the mess of this morning, it was immaculately cleaned up by 5pm. Well done guys!

We received white gowns and pants and all the party-goers were sitting in the lounge, looking like we all joined some kind of cult. All white and pristine and not sure what we’re getting ourselves into.

We moved out to the lawns where tables were set out with plates of different powdered paints and there were water containers “sprouting” some serious water pistols.

We had a blast… no pun intended! The one guy ran around drenching people with buckets full of water. Poor Sarah got hit twice in 10 minutes. There were kids from the village that sat on the wall and watched us playing – at times pelting us with water balloons which we tried (in vain) to catch. At one point I decided that enough was enough and I’ll quit while I’m still ahead. If you get too much paint and water it becomes a brown mess and I want to take the gown home as a souvenir – colour splotches intact.

We retired to our rooms to try and scrub ourselves clean. The green and purple stains. I look like shrek. I have green patches all over my body and is not sure if my finger and toenails will ever come clean or if I’ll have to wait until they grow out. I feel for the one young lady whose entire face was covered in purple – I hope she gets it out. My ears were caked in green, but it was so much fun.

Then we got something to drink and watched the die-hard crazies play. Adam got his face covered in green (again) and us girls got some splashes of pink, but nothing serious.

Lunch was very good and we almost did not recognize our (now cleaned up) Holi friends. After lunch we took a power nap – kinda hard with the cleanup operation and kids playing outside. Our host looked horrified when we said we want to stroll through the village. Even after our driver said he’d accompany us, he still was as white as a sheet.

We looked at the school next to the hotel (part of the hotel building, still to be renovated) and then walked down the alleyways taking pictures of the monkeys doing trapeze acts on the crisscross of electrical wires. We stopped to look at some local women making bracelets (I bought a purple set) and also visited a small mosque. We then stopped at a shoe-shine “stall” opposite some cows to have Sarah’s shoe fixed. On the way back we visited the powder blue Hindu temple just outside our hotel entrance. This was a small glance into the India I expected.

Our host looked visibly relieved when we returned. We drank some coffee/tea on the 1st floor balcony, where we also had dinner some time later. We took some awesome sunset pictures and made friends with the four aussies that also stayed for the night. Later one guest had some birthday cake with a massive firecracker on it – quite spectacular.

Dinner was lovely with some tomato soup with honey in it and really nice dahl with peanut and coconut flavours. There was also chicken, spinach and mushrooms, rooti and rice. We had a refreshing cold rice pudding with ginger coming through strongly.

I shared some of the Delhi pics with our waitron. He is from Nepal and has been in India for three months. He has not been any further in India than Jaipur and is eager to travel the rest of the country.

Tomorrow we have a hour drive to Jaipur and our driver will collect us at 10am. I see Adam is busy editing pictures and posting on Facebook.

Still want to share with you follow up on the ladies on scooters issue. Apparently the government made a law that all scooter passengers must wear helmets for safety. There was a huge public outcry from the ladies that the helmets mess up their make-up and hair. Then the law was recalled for ladies and helmets are no longer compulsory for them. I did not google or verify this, this is purely the answer I got to the question. Beauty first – safety second, it seems.

Holi greetings
Linda

Today I meet my group for the first time. They are from the USA and their names are Sarah, Adam and Cislla. Cislla is originally from Romania and she does photoshop-work for a living. Adam is in online-marketing and Sarah is an architect. We are all around the same age… (I’m guessing – did not ask)

They are a very interesting group and I’m lucky to be exploring India in their company.

At breakfast I saw the weirdest thing – one of the Indian music videos was shot in Cape Town.

We take on the traffic in our little white Avanza and pick up our guide along the way. Our driver will be with us for the duration of the tour and we will have a different guide at every location. This is gonna make guide tip calculations interesting.

I asked our driver if we have the Avanza-like thingie for the entire tour. He answers in the affirmative. Soooo, tomorrow – where will we put the luggage? He points to the roof – as if its the most obvious thing in the world. Alllll righty then. Okay – stupid question I guess – this is India after all.

Our first stop is Jama Masjid Mosque. You take off your shoes and put them on the pile (and my South African question is… will they be there when we get back? I hope so, I really like those shoes – the Brazilian plastic ones) and then as western women we get funny floral gowns to wear. Should make for interesting pictures. They ended up more a hinderance – specially when climbing the 120 odd steps in the minaret. But I made it up there – tiny spiral stone staircase and took some pictures from the top. The (self-appointed?) minaret guide took the camera – jumped over to the other perch and took other pictures and we are just looking at each other… I’m thinking… dude, that’s my camera, don’t drop it. The mosque is beautiful, but we did not get to see the prayer-hall, only the courtyard and the ablution fountain. And yes – our shoes were waiting for us 🙂

Next was a bicycle-rickshaw ride through the maze that is Old-Delhi. We felt kind of guilty for having such a big breakfast and now this guy has to bicycle us around. To me it was a combination of Marrakech and Stone town, narrow roads, people, goats, dangerous electrical wiring, people, bicycles, scooters all weaving and honking and shops selling everything you can think of all round – clothing, barbers, food, VERY fresh chickens. One even advertised International and local air-tickets and visas – I’ll give that a miss.

After the chaos of Old Delhi we escaped to the sanctuary gardens of Raj Ghat – Ghandi’s place of cremation. It is beautiful and quiet surrounded by lovely colored flowers.

Then onto India Gate, the parliament buildings and Humayun’s tomb. In the complex we saw the most beautiful old tomb and mosque – I’m such a sucker for Islamic Architecture…. Jenny – you would have burned your camera out. Then onto the ‘main event’… Humayun’s tomb. It is stunning – once you get up the really steep stairs. And you can see a lovely white Jain temple from the platform – thank you for our guide for giving us that tip to go and look for it. It was the first (and last) Mogul tomb with ‘mixed stone’.. from then on with the exception of the Taj Mahal, Mogul tombs were built in red stone. It is hard to describe, but it is light and airy and not depressing like the western idea of a tomb.

By now it is 2:30 and we went for lunch – curry, rice and roti’s and naan bread.

After this break we went shopping at a shop that specializes in carpets and pashmina’s. We skipped the carpets and me – being me – fell in love with the 2nd most expensive pashmina in the shop (the most expensive being silk – don’t go there). I walked off with my soft woolen aubergine pink/purple indulgence and will probably repent in leisure. The others bought multiple items and we drove the sales-people crazy… LOL!

After that – surprise – we visited the Qutb complex – one of the oldest towers in the world. The entrance ticket is the same ticket as the Humayun’s tomb, so I guess our guide figured – why not we already paid for it and I could see he has a deep spritual connection with the site (originally a Hindu temple). It was not in our itinerary and ironically one of the places I would have liked to see – but had to accept, you cant have it all. Well, maybe you can 🙂 The site was awesome and just up my alley (old buildings and ruins). It makes one sad that so much destruction takes place in the name of religion – all over the world.

We arrived back at our hotel around 18:00, tired, hot, dusty and ready for a shower and as some-one said – a power nap. I settled my room-service account and ordered us breakfast packs for tomorrow morning as we hit the road at 6am. Supper was a bag of chips (Uncle chips – spicy treat) Some sort of masala curry flavour – apparently made by the same company as Lays – they claim. Also black tea with sweetner.

Can’t wait for tomorrow and Holi. Going to wear an old t-shirt as we were warned of random colour-bombs (balloons filled with coloured water). Celebrations already started today and some people were multi-coloured in the streets. We get white clothes for the celebrations at the hotel in Shahpura Village – but that is a five hour drive from Delhi and anything can happen.

Well – that’s me for the day. It is 21:15 and I have to get up at 4:30 to be ready (in the lobby, suitcase packed etc ) at 5:30 if we want to hit the road on time.

I heard today that my internal flight on the second leg has luggage limit of 15kg. Already my case was 16 kg for the flight here. Apparently I can leave some stuff at the hotel in Dehi (same one we are in now) as I return here before going to the tiger park. I have a luggage scale and we’ll see how that pans out closer to the time.

Check-in with you guys tomorrow after Holi…. Best not put any chocolate in my luggage if it is going on the roof – rather eat it now – if only I had chocolate.

Happy Holi from Delhi
Linda

This is my first post and its day two in Dehli.

Just had a delicious breakfast at the hotel. Sauteed vegetables, chickpea curry stew, scrambled egg and fresh watermelon and paw paw slices with sprinkling of coconut.  The waiter was horrified that I want milk in my ‘black’ tea.  Yes, we drink milk in black tea… strange, but true.

All the dishes were marked with a dot – green for vegetarian, red for meat.  Tomorrow I plan to try the fried flatbreads and spiced rice.

Brushing your teeth with bottled water makes you realise how much we take water for granted at home.

I’m not yet brave enough to venture much further than the convenience store a few blocks from the hotel on my own and will spend the day reading and maybe watching tv (now that I figured out how to make Discovery speak english, instead of the default Hindi).

Everyone is very friendly, the hotel is clean, hot running water, working aircon and fridge. I love the fact that it is not a ‘tourist’ hotel, loads of locals speaking Hindi in the restaurant this morning.

From my window I see busses, bicycles, tuk-tuks, bicycle-rickshaws, heavily decorated trucks going by – hooters blasting – lanes optional.  On the scooters the men wear helmets, most of the ladies perched daintily (side-saddle) on the back – not.

This blogging is new to me, but its one way I can share the experience with my traveller friends, in more ways than just posting photos. Plus record the memories, cause I’m already starting to forget way too easlily – this 40+ thing is killing me 😛

Posting a pic from my comfy perch – drinking coconut-lichi juice. I love anything coconut, so the battle for India to win my heart – its a good start!