Last days in India

Once again we ended up in Delhi - the home of some 13+ million people and some of the best shopping in the world. Our original plan was to go visit Jaipur briefly but as it seemed to be even more chaotic then other cities we decided to rest one extra week in calm Pushkar.

Nightbustime

So for our last days we took it easy, checked some landmarks and markets of Old Delhi, sent one more parcel to home and preparing to leave India behind.

Rickshaw in Old Delhi

Pushkar, Rajasthan

Countryside around Pushkar

No meat (but delicious replacements!), no eggs (but still pancakes for breakfast!), no alcohol (but everywhere bhanglassi!), no kissing (but having a private room!): welcome to holytown Pushkar. Being now used to Indians being mainly vegetarian but still using egg in many ways, following those easy Pushkar-rules is almost like being home again.

 

As we arrived to the busstation we were slightly disorientated without having a map. So we walked towards the lake, central point of Pushkar and by lucky chance ended up in Seventh Sea Guest House. Our hotel is slightly odd; it's the cheapest place we ever stayed (2€ per day) and we have a nice room with hot water & TV on 'our own' second floor. They have a restaurant but we've never seen anyone in there. There's seven rooms to let but we've only once seen (one) another tenant.  Most of the time we seem to be the only people in hotels premises.

Pushkar is not only one of the most holy Hindu pilgrimage sites (the only Brahma temple in India is here) but also famous for something lot more earthly - shopping. The streets around the lake are full of small shacks selling all kinds of Rajasthani handicrafts, tailors, jewellers and as we are living 21st century also plastic kitch items (mostly themed around Hindu gods) have reclaimed their space. We, not unsensitive for all those bright colorful crazy items, also finally bought some nice clothes to take or send home. 

 

Ghats

Pushkar is concentrated around the holy lake surrounded by ghats. As it is religious ground you are not allowed to photograph worshippers or wear shoes nearby it. This is kinda hard as stone ghats are boiling hot under desert sun.

 

Holi colours

Ritual-evening before Holi

Last couple of days there has been Holi Festival - a spring harvest welcoming. Or more commonly known as festival of colours.

 "after the party"

Bundi, Rajasthan

This time the nighttrain was nicely empty. We shared our 6-person area with only an older Indian couple that immediately offered us food; a sort of small pancakes with spicy cooked potato-pieces. The woman, chubby, loud and traditionally dressed in sari, clearly liked talking to us. After a while she layed down to sleep on the small bed, her scarf that normally covered breast and belly dropped off, shockingly reveiling an enormous amount of meat we wished we wouldn't have seen. A little uneasy with this halfnude personification of Gaia herself in front of us (everybody knows those beautiful round sculptures of mother earth), we also made our beds ready to hop in. Only once woken by conductor checking our tickets and dreaming/waking with visions of a very loudly snoring hippo with a red bindi between the eyes, we arrived in the morning to a warm and sunny Bundi.

Roadworks in progress

Bundi is a layed back, small town where time seems to stand still. Surrounded by hills and a beautiful fairytale-like fort and palace up in the air on a hill. We arrived early to R.N. Haveli and woke our new landlady from sleeping on her sofa. She is a sweet grandma, living together with her daughter and grandchildren in an enormous Havelihouse with very nice rooms. 

We walked up to the dusty Taragarh Fort, a steep rocky climb at first but once up the hill it's very nice to explore through ramparts and ruins of carved rock. We both had to carry a walkingstick to scare monkeys in case they would attack. 

A loyal stray dog kept us company the whole way, which made me feel like real wanderers! 

 Bundi as seen from the Fort

After having spend a few hours up there, we were so hot and dizzy that we walked down for fresh water, an icecold popsicle and for Jaakko a refreshing lassi (yoghurtdrink usually mixed with fruit,  spices, mintleafs or other 'special' green flowers).   

Bundi Palace

The next day we visisted the Bundi Palace and Chitrasala, the ladiesarea of the palace; a courtyard looking out over the whole town with it's lightblue painted houses and rooms with nice traditional (gold-)paintings and colored glass.

 Gold painting

 Bundi as seen from ladies courtyard

At saturdaymorning we took an early local bus that would bring us, after 5 hot and bumpy hours, via Ajmer to Pushkar.

Agra & Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh

From New Delhi station it was only 3 hours in a much more relaxed AC (airconditioned) train. When we arrived we took a rickshaw to backpacker-area Taj Ganj, all hostels are very close to the Taj Mahal.

Streetparade in Agra

We stayed in India Inn, which seemed to have a muslim staff and a group of old men gathered every day for bidis, chai and chat. Almost every restaurant has a nice view over town and Taj Mahal. All souvenirshops sell out on small marble figurines, postcards and other kitch items of the... 

Everybody, Westerner and also loads of Indians, come to see the... 

As you see there is not much more to Agra than the...

Of course we walked as close as we could get to this mausoleum, built in 17th century by the emperor in memory of his wife. A little overrated and slightly overpriced entrance fee made us decide to do it the low-budget-way; via a millitary back-entrance we had a great close-up view on the Taj, shared with only a few grazing cows and a silent river, in stead of with hundreds of men waiting in line to have a glimpse of 'the teardrop on the face of eternity'.

On our third and last day we took a local bus to Fatehpur Sikri. A fortified ghostcity with beautiful red sandstone Indo-Islamic palaces of Emperor Akbar dating from the Mughal empire in the 16th century. 

The area with ruins, palaces, pavillions and courtyards is nowadays on the World Heritage List and the mosque is still in use. Many women come there to pray that their next child will be a boy.

The mosque gates (tallest in Asia)

Less nice to see was the many begging children following all tourists around asking for money, chocolate, ballpoints etc. We gave away our entrancetickets to a poor boy as he claimed to get a meal for it in return.

Back in Agra we took a nighttrain to Bundi in Rajasthan.

Delhi continued

Change of plan. Because the nighttrain to Varanasi was overbooked (suffocatingly crowded with very poor people and no place to even sit, while we payed for two sleepberths) we decided to get out of the train. We stayed a few more days in Delhi, in the cheaper Sky View Guest House this time, to figure out how to exactly spend our last month in India.

One of the days we spend in the National Museum. I really liked the exhibition of traditional Indian miniature paintings. Furthermore lots of historical 'art' like coins, weapons, traditional clothing and pieces of ancient temples and other importan buildings. 

Coincidence or not, we always seem to share a museum with huge groups of schoolkids that literally ALL want to shake our hand! I must say the Indian schoolchildren are having the best manners I have seen in India and maybe in the whole world. I love it when I see a big smile appear after answering 'your country?' or 'your name?' or simply waving 'hi' and 'goodbye'. Parents teach their children from very young age to do that in the streets too.

We shortly visited the War Memorial Arch and India Gate, as we both didn't feel so well. We started coughing more and more and felt very tired. We both got a real cold due to enormous temperature difference and Jaakko spend most of the time on the toilet so we didn' t mind staying in bed for a day or two.

After planning our Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan-trip, we decided the first place we would go is Agra; city of the worldfamous Taj Mahal.  

Delhi

After a short 2½ hour flight we arrived back home to Europe, or that is atleast how it felt when we were walking out of the aeroplane; for us the temperature had dropped from +35 to mere +25 degrees. Shivering cold in our t-shirts!

We took a taxi to the infamous Pahar Ganj neighbourhood in search of hostel. We settled to Hotel New Hindustan, as they had promised warm water, free wifi & TV. Unfortunately the wifi does not work and TV does not have any english channels. But we decided to stay anyway as we needed room only for two days.

Delhi itself is huge and chaotic; for the first 24 hours it felt awesome and lively but the next 24 hours started to be enough of big city "atmosphere". Pahar Ganj has a nice labyrinth of narrow dirty but nostalgic streets and one big crowded tourist shoppingstreet. 

We decided to leave most of the sightseeing for later as we anyway need to return here for our next flight. Tonight we are taking a nighttrain to Varanasi.