Gone skiing

We all met at an airport hotel in Delhi for a farewell dinner. This is always a bit of a bittersweet exercise for Peter and me as we get our far flung family together very rarely. And we were very touched that they took the time out of their busy lives to join us on our incredible journey.
And just because you were asking, we had NO trouble with “Delhi Belly”. We are no fruit or vegetables, or anything from road carts, tried to keep water our of our mouths when showering, took probiotic pills obtained from the health food store ( thanks to great advice from our much traveled niece, Heather Hermant) and used copious amounts of hand disinfectant. We bought ours from the pharmacist in Bangkok so it was quite strong and we rubbed it on our hands after every outing (especially using handrails climbing up long stone stairways in palaces) and after handling paper money.
And, following advice from our booking agent in the UK, we ate no really hot spicy food. We loved the wonderful Indian meals, deliciously spiced but stayed away from the very hot stuff, as it can be a shock for the stomach. However, it is delectable and varied cuisine not to be confused with our take-out curry dinners! And we all ate far too much of the various kinds of Indian breads (nan being only one variation) The upshot is that a Peter and I are the only tourists that went to India and gained weight.!
We have friends who have visited India three four or five times. We were at dinner here in London the other night and met a young women who is heading out next week for her seventh trip. And now I totally get it.
Maggie said she would go back in a heart beat. Me too.
That’s all folks.

We left Jaipur for Udaipur on a very early flight. Leaving for somewhere very early in the morning is the recommended form of travel for foreign visitors in India. Apparently the morning is marginally less crowded and chaotic. We had a very nice trip on Jet AirWays (a new Indian airline),arrived in Udaipur and were eating breakfast on the Palace terrace by 8:30am! And a more breathtaking situation for breakfast does not exit!
Udaipur is a wonderful treat. Nothing really prepares you for the sheer beauty of the place. The palaces (there are many) and temples are situated around, and on, the islands in the Lake Pichola and the effect leaves you speechless Udaipur is named in the guide books as the most romantic city in India. The decorations and furnishings of the Palace of the Mewar family are superb. This family occupied this location for centuries, never formed alliances with other kings or the British, so you are able to visit centuries of various styles of furniture and decoration added to their palaces and museums over the years.
The family now operates hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions in the area and elsewhere, all marked with the logo “custodians since 739 AD” Gives one pause that does..
We paid a visit to the Jagdish Temple with all its carved elephants, to a lovely garden built in the Victorian era an laid out in the English manner, a little shopping and picture taking and then off spend our final days in India at the wonderful Devi Garh. Hotel.
This is a hotel built in an 18th century, hill top fort palace restored from ruins and is now a luxurious hotel. And in all this space there are only 47 suites. The views are sweet and staff immaculate and cannot do enough to serve you and the entire place dedicated to serenity. The interiors are decorated in a modern fashion (albeit Indian) and the affect stunning.
There are also camel rides ( I passed on that!) a great dvd library, magical bar overlooking the hills with charcoal fires light to keep off the chlll and room service at the drop of a hat And we tore ourselves away one afternoon to return to Udaipur (about a 45 minute drive) to visit the market there. It is very compact with lots of lovely little shops and alleys. This is THE place for souvenir shopping as the market is quite compact, and is just generally less crowded place to get around, than elsewhere we visited. . Udaipur’s population is around 500,000 and for India this is a small village.
We took a jeep ride around 4:30pm to visit the villages outside our fort. Each village seemed to be quite different from the other, some obviously very poor and some seemed more up market.. There are farms, lots of goats, cattle—the cows in the country villages seem to have owners unlike the city cows which just wander around—and many may styles of dress for both men and women. We are only 40 minutes outside the city of Udaipur, but there was a timelessness of these villages. Except: for the satellite dishes on a few houses, and scooters passing some with three and four people on the back, these communities have not changed for centuries. My fascination with the women’s dress continues. There is such a variety of colour, style, fabric and covered and not covered faces. Even the women doing the most menial of tasks do it with incredible grace, layers and layers of cloth wrapped around and fluttering in the breeze.
Maggie, Mary, Norman and Karen treated us to the dinner of our life. The Devi Garh has many areas tucked in the fort for private dinners. And to celebrate our family trip to India we were told to “wear layers” (it is little chilly in this part of India and this time of year) and to appear at 7:30pm in the bar. From this magic spot we were taken on a journey through the fort, up a lift, down a hall and up to a room in the very top open to the stars, decorated with silk and candles and lots of braziers to keep us warm. We started sitting on cushions and ended at a most beautiful decorated table for further courses! All this accompanied by lovely wine and our own musician playing lovely tuneful music on a series of bowls. After much food we were finally presented with our main course called Thali, described as a meal in itself consisting of appetizer, Indian bread, rice pilaf, vegetarian or nor-vegetarian dishes completed with Indian dessert. Only in our case we had had about ten different kinds of appetizers. We also consumed baskets of wonderful Indian breads, which come in various sizes shapes, filled with butter or not, crispy, non crispy,. After all that we could not do the Thali justice sadly. We did seem to have a little room for a taste of the delicious Indian rice pudding to finish our once in a life time dinner, in a once in a life time place.

We loved our tour of Jaipur City Built in 1727, it is a great mixture of Jain, Hindu and Mughal architecture built from terra cotta. Some Victorian British journalist named it the Pink City and the name has stuck. To be fair the “Pink” is a bit of stretch. However, we felt perhaps in some gin soaked light it might look that way. There are bazaars everywhere and the people, camels, horses all framed against the background of magnificent palaces.
We visited the Mahaja’s Palace and museum,all displaying an amazing mixture of influences,. and a very well run government approved handicraft and gift store, (I succumbed and bought a sari which will probably never again see the light of day), and the Observatory. What a fascinating place this is. First of all the various instruments are quite beautiful in their own right as sculptures. It is very sobering to realize just how much was known in this part of the world about the moon, sun and stars, and how to build massive instruments to observe them. This observatory measures both astronomy and astrology. Both subjects are viewed together as one and all precisely measured. It is a very special place, a stunning tribute to both science and art.
And just to finish our trip to Jaipur we went off to watch some polo at the Rajasthan Polo club. In the fifties the Maharja of Jaipur and his team won the world cup. Jaipur and polo have been synonymous ever since. . It was an interclub match (both teams were from various army regiments) and frankly our gang in Barbados could have held their own with this lot very well.
Still it was wonderful to see the lovely club house filled with wood and leather, and to have been to a polo match in Jaipur.
And if I had to keep only one image of Jaipur is would be of the elephants lumbering down the busy street on their way home for lunch, their day of hauling tourists up the Amber Fort over, taking over the road majestically as all the trucks,tuks buses, rickshaws and appreciative tourists paid heed.
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And after the wonderful Amber Fort and the elephant ride is was off to Jaipur City. We stayed in another Heritage Hotel, The Samode Haveli, which is owned and run by the Samode Royal Family, who still live here.
It has only 22 rooms, each with its own decoation. These hotels are simply wonderful destinations in their own right. Because these hotels have been carved out of very old Palaces, they have many twists and turns so you do get to see the wonderful frescos and painted walls along the way to find your room. (This can take awhile!) The swimming pool and the dining room are especially beautiful. After driving through the varied traffic (as in trucks, camels elephants!) one is absolutely hit with the calm and tranquility of these former palaces and very much appreciated by we tired Western travelers.
Our poor tour company which could not do enough for us, filled, for them, a strange request. So in the wonderful city of Jaipur with its temples palaces and art we headed out that night to the Raz Mandir Cinema to see a first run Bollywood movie, starring the very famous Madhuri Dixit, in her return to the screen following her retirement to have a family. We now know all this as the papers are full of news of these stars.
Raz Mandir is a real landmark in Jaipur, in fact all over India. If Indians are coming to visit Jaipur, along with Palace and temples, an evening spent at the movies and especially at this theatre is a must. The Raz Mandir is quite beautiful, decorated and comfortable, and huge lobby which is needed because there is not much time between movies. Large crowds congregate in the lobby waiting their turn to enter, as the screens are not dark for long between filme.
. And of course they are mad for movies in this part of the world. India has the largest film industry in the world. We were interested to note in the trailers that Disney is now in co production in India to do animated features. Cannot beat ‘em join ‘em I guess.
There were actually a few other tourists in the audience (we all seem to sit together in the upstairs) but mostly this was a local audience. . And you should know, in the movie,“The Aaja Nachle” the show went on, ,hundreds of the cast learned the dances and the boys got the girls (as in every Bollywood movie). Busby Berkley had nothing on these productions when it comes to choreography and size of very colourfully costumed cast. As Norman says, you cannot beat this style for sheer entertainment value. Footnote: the driver and guide had a bet that we all would be so bored watching for three hours, an non-subtitled movie in Hindi we would leave at intermission They certainly misjudged this movie mad family!
And so to bed to dream of elephant rides and dancing feet.

Norman and Karen arrived and we had a wonderful night having dinner and catching up in the garder of the wonder Samode Palace, and the next morning we were off to the Amber Fort which is a wonderful preserved place and learned more of the days of the Hindus and the Moguls. It is a deserted complex but you can imagine what life must have been there centuries ago as you approach the ramparts up the steep hills on the back of elephants! You haven't lived till your elephants overtakes another while passing an elephant coming down the hill! Exhilarating to say the least. We had a particularly good guide while in Jaipur and he casually reported to me, while waiting for the other family members to arrive on their elephants, that they have changed the work days of the elephants recently. When questioned why he reported one elephant got so angry at his handler he stomped on a tourist. \
The Amber Fort is stunning and in on every to do list of India. I can see why!

We spent two days at the Samode Palace Hotel out side Jaipur. Many of the old Maharajis Palaces were turned into Hotels and this was one of them It is truly a magical place with unbelieveably large rooms great food and staff. We had lovely morning wandering the village of Samode and seeing first hand how they live. We were joined by a local artist who became our self appointed guide. We had seen all sorts of wild pigs rummaging in te streets. I had probems working this our as Hindus are vegetarian and Muslim don't eat pork! Turns out they are kept to clean the streets! All for now. we are currently in Jaipur and the hotel as only one very old ad much in demand computer!!

While in Agra we stayed at the Taj View Hotel--well there was a little view if you could make the Taz out of the haze--and headed off for what turned out to be a very long drive to Jaipur. The highway between Agra and Jaipur is under construction apparently. We could see very little evidence of actual work and quite a bit of evidence of cut up bits of road and diversions., The trip took , not the four to five hours as advertised, but rather 8 and a half. We actually thought the traffic in Dehli was chaotic.. boy were babes in the woods. Everything and everyone uses the highway and there are hundreds of little villages on both sides of the road. We saw every kind of bus, vehicle, and animal you could imagine Plus the driver always has to be on the look out for little children who merrily run from one side to the other. And camels are still used to transport goods along the same road. In fact in order of degrees of near misses it was the one with the camel that stands out.
And we saw all the variety of poverty that one associates with India.. eeeking out a living from the dumps of little plots of land.
I was struck however, about how there seemed to be some sort of order to it all. People were going about their business, dragging longs sticks to build their litte teepee like structure, lighting their fires to cook their meal, in the dust beside the road, going to the little stores and the barber shops, moving the cows, donkeys, camels whatever, little groups talking, and the women most colourfully dressed, in sarees and longs pants and blouses all through together with great elan.
The drive was indeed a scary one. It did not seem possible to squeeze our van into the space given somehow, but we will never forget it. None of us would haver missed one minute.

Just to let you all know, as I write this it is Tuesday am on Jzan 8th, and Norm and Karen arrived safely Monday night from Goa.

Just a little housekeeping.. Ed(my brother from Nanaimo reports that you can no longer add comments on the blog site without signing up with something or other) Google bought blogspot recently so that probably explains that. but we are receiving your email comments and thanks. and Peter says he will add a few pictures when we get to a place where we can use our own computer.
We were on the 6:15 am train to Agra!(Not often you can say that!) but it the trains simply get too crowded after according to the guide. The roads in New Delhi were absolutely traffic free and we thought this was quite lovely--never speak of these things, because then we got to about 6 blocks from the train station and there was the traffic all right . Our guide arranges the porters and out we step into the traffic to cross the street into the station. You just have to tell yourself you will not be hit by the cars, trucks, tuk tuks, or busses and just head out.
The two hour train trip was of course interesting. We were in what is called a first class cabin, but quite well organized. There are apparently some wonderful new trains in India, and this was not one of them, but I was even brave enough to use the very clean western style bathroom. The breakfast was some sort of Indian thing in tinfoil and two pieces of white bread. But there was tea. Porters up and down the aisles with thermos of hot water and tea bags the whole time.
Our guide was there to meet us and off we went to the hotel and to breakfast. And then we off for the first of our two visits to the Taz Mahal. Our little bus dropped us at a parking area and we were surrounded by the following options to proceed, busses, tuk tuks, horse pulled carriages, camel pulled carts etc. And the hawkers descend selling everything you can image. there are beggers and animals(Mary nearly had a run in with an errant cow) The children all seem to be able to hawk in English and some inventive young business man will sell you batteries and memory cards for your camera which we all agreed was very inventive!
Ah! the TajMahal It does not in any way disappoint.. it is in fact more beautiful than can even be described. Our first visit took about two hours and we learned of all the history of the times, the region, the Moguls and the Mausoleum came to be built. The white Indian marble is very hard and no porous so after 400 years it is still white. And each hour of light brings a different colour to the walls. And when it was built, the architect came from Turkey, the caligraphers from Persia etc, the carver and all the very best talent was assembled from all the regions to produce such a marvel. One thing that I learned was just how much engineering went into it. The base on on a special Indian wood which hardens with moisture, and foundations are placed in such a way to with stand earthquakes. There were all kinds of systems involving water placed to cool in very hot summer and to heat in the winter. (It is really quite cool here at this time of year. We are all in sweaters and jackets) And there are little niches place in mirrors to hold candles so that just a few can light a room. The architect promised the building would last for 1000 years..no comment.
Everything is absolutely symetrical, one side mirrors the other and even the exquisite caligraphy of the Koran is described larger at the top to seem to be the same shape and height as those at the bottom. The inlay is so delicate and again, each flower is still intact after 400 years as there have been held in with some sort of secret glue.
We were taken the next morning to see the TajMahal again, this time at day break. There were very few people there, mostly a few hardly tourists. This time the guide left us and we just watched the sun come, and had a few hours to walk, sit, and think and absorf. I reflected that it would be a much better world if we spent less time on the horrors of the Taliban and more time thanking whatever God we thank, for this wonder of Islam.

We have been in India less that 48 hours as I write this, and I know already in order to keep this in any sort of readable length only a bit will get put down to paper as it were. But the four of us are already in love with the place.
The contrast was immediate as we left from a beautifully new air port in Bangkok and landed in the old Indira Ghandi airport in Delhi. However, it is under construction for a major 0verhaul, we were through customs and picked up luggage and met our tour company contact in under 30 minutes. Toronto and Barbados take note.
I think we had some sense of the traffic chaos that would await on the journey from the airport to hotel. The painted lines on the highway seem to mean nothing as we fought our way for space with the trucks and busses seeminly taking aim at each other.
But the whole scene unfolded the next morning. We stayed in the Hotel Claridges in New Delhi--shades of London in the name I thought-- It was a lovely place, with a slight evidence of past colonial lifeand sheltering the guests from the life on the roads. We had an especially good guide,Sanjeev, who loaded us into a small bus and off we went down the wide avenues of New Delhi with its ovely tree filled streets, and round abouts, bungalows, Edwardian buldings --as Maggie said"I wasn't expecting this". The British thought about building a new Delhi around 1911, and Sir Edward Luytan laid it all out. It was thought about in the early 1900s, really built between the two World Wars, and by 1947 the British were gone. They left India with the trains, postal service, a continuing large beauocracy(always a mixed blessing) and the majo rreason for their new found success in the 21st century.. the English language!
We drove for a short wall enjoying all the lovely avenues when the world abruptly changed and we hit the wall in Delhi. Delhi is a very old place filled with hundreds of little lanes(I could hardly call them streets) lined with stalls, people, dogs, tuk tuks, big and little busses, bicycle rickshaws, hawkers and all backed with the continuous sounds of horns. It is some sort of a slight of hand trick to get all those vechicles in that little bit of road.
We stopped to have a tour of a very large mosque (the second largest in Asia. And while we are on the topic, India is the second largest Muslim country in the world, the first being Indonesia)
right in the middles of the shopping district. Then Sanjeev informed us we were going to continue our journey through the streets in Rickshaws.. It was quite an exhiliarating (!)experience and the only way to see the little shops. However, you are always aware of how fragile life is and and wondering just where you put your fly out travel insurance policy. The streets are grouped according to catagory, one for fabric, one for saris, one for gold, one for sewing machines etc. Although proper census taking is difficult it is estimated Delhi has about 14 million people. and all of them were out shopping on Friday morning!
We had a change of rickshaw due to a flat tire, and after an exchange we headed ON THE MAIN ROAD to the Red Fort of Delhi. This now involved many buses, and trucks and us. Only the very best of action movies could actually give some idea of just how much fun and fearful this whole outing was.
The Red Fort is in a lovely park, lovely and calm and peaceful while outside absolutely chaos reigns. We made a respectful visit to the burial spot of Mahatma Ghandi, also in a lovely park and collapsed back in the hotel to try and digest it all. But for sure there are some days in your life when your really feel alive. This was one.

Bangkok continues to be quite cool and reasonable empty. Apparently many Thais leave the city to visit family in the country over the New Year. Norm reports this is not the case for Christmas week so if you are heading this way be advised and come for New Years.
We had a lovely young woman as a guide yesterday to take us on a look at some temples(wats) in the old city. Named Nu for short she spoke very good English due to her schooling with the nuns at a Catholic Girls School . She is however, a practicing Buddhist and one of the temples visited was her own temple where she had been the day before to pray and medidate to celebrate the New Year. It would appear the Buddhist monks are much revered, and she said one hopes their sons become monks even for a few years. Apparently young men are also supposed to spend time in the military so I am not sure still how the time is found for all this. The statues of Buddha come in all shapes sizes and coverings and each seems to hold a special place and meaning for their devotees.
Nu was quite disappointed that at one stop we could not go inside as there was a celebration for the temple Abbot's 80th birthday. But we were just as fascinated with the birthday lunch going on in the tents outside. The temple Monks were being fed, then temple members and throughout all this lots of people who just seemed to have turned up for lunch-no one will go hungry at the wats-
Karen and Norman's housekeeper(Montah) is up very early each morning and leaves a donation of food for the monks that come by every street and take the offerings back to their temples.

Norman is off to join Karen(who has finally been relieved from her news covering duties in Pakistan) for a few days of R and R on a beach in Goa and hopefully, all being well,will join the rest of us for a few days at the end of our India trip.
We heard today that His Majesty's much beloved old sister has passed away after a long illness. There will be a long mourning period and it is not certain if this development will delay the formation of the newly elected government. Mr. Taksin,the prime minister ousted in the military coup a few years ago, and whose party appears to have won the recently conducted election, has left his home in UK where he now owns the Manchester City Football team (Thais are quite soccer mad and this was a very good way of letting the Thais know he was still very much around!) and just happens to be hanging out in HongKong dropping little musings to the local press each day. It will be most interesting to watch this play out and just when and if, the army will pass on the government.
We ended our Bangkok stay with a beautiful dinner cruise on the River. Norm suggested we by-passed the large touristy dinner tours , and book on a diinner evening on the smaller restored barge, sponsored by the Marriot resort and we are indeed grateful for the suggestion.
If you come to Bangkok this is a stupendous night, really a great Thai dinner and beautiful service , passing the hotels palaces and temples are graciously and majestically lit. If I only had one night in Bangkok this is how I would spend it.
And so we say good bye to Bangkok just for now.

New Years in Bangkok.
What a fine time we had in Bangkok for NewYears. Norman had booked a very fine air conditioned van to ferry us about on New Year's Eve and off we went first of all to a most wonderful restaurant called The Deck based in a boutique hotel called The Arun. It is right across the river from a most picturesque(and pictured) Wat of Arun.--the river was full of all kinds of cruise boats decorated with tributes to the King , barges jugging up and down, little boats and big ones, and a most lovely dinner. The one thing we remembered from last year's trip was the smiling service of the Thai people. Nothing is too much trouble in their wish to make your every wish fulfilled. We have the feeling no job is too menial. Norman says the Buddhists believe that if their lot is not great in this life, their next one will be better, so you might as well enjoy this one!
After dinner we were back in our van and were very glad to have it. The streets were jammed with people out to enjoy the advent of the New Year--thousand and thousand of them, and our journey was a slow one throught the traffic. However, it was a breathtaking journey through the old part of the city as the avenues are filled with thousand and thousand of lights, in the most magical effect I have ever seen.. The King celebrated 60 years on the throne last year, and this year he celebrated his 80th birthday, plus the Thai's embracing the Christmas/New Years celebrations layers of lights and sigens have been placed on the avenues and it the trees and we were able to benefit from all the magic. Norman had next booked us into the Living Room in the Sheraton Hotel --very cool room--with two jazz bands and a great old time jazz singer named Anita Day to bring in the New Year fully twelve hours ahead of the family in Toronto! It was a perfect New Years eve with all arrangements taken care of and it all worked, thanks to Norman's advance planning.
New Years Day saw Peter and I lounging by the pool, and Norman taking his sister's on more boat rides Norman took us to visit Karen's office so we could see just how close it is to her home(walking distance) and then on the sky train to head to the restaurant. We went back to a restaurant (La Bourchon) that we had enjoyed last year-a little French bistro-situatied in the middle of a distinctly "lively" district--lots of busy streets, bars with everything(!!!) on offer. I imagine the owner of the restaurant is left over from French Indochina..
Norm then negogiated a Tuk Tuk for Mary and Maggie, a cab for us and off we head to the Star Tower for after dinner drinks. The bar is on the 64th floor-jazz band playing and beautiful people abound -and we westerners with our mouths open staggered with the views and lights over Bangkok. I am sure their would be some law forbidding such a thing in Toronto--drinks outside on the 64th floor.. just a little glass wall between you and air.. NO WAY
Night not being done, we are back in more taxis and off to the Bamboo jazz bar at the Oriental Hotel--another very cool jazz spot. The King is quite a jazz fan (he actually plays the saxophone picked up during his American education ) and clubs abound..and good ones at that.
More reports from Karen in Pakistan so we at least know she is all right--she is supposed to head to New Delhi tomorrow to meet Norm--fingers crossed. It is a wonderful place this Bangkok.