HORN PLEASE!!!!!

Wow! What a different experience India was! Our trip was much more “sterilized” than what daughter Amy experienced last year while studying in Delhi and Shimla, but also totally different from the other places we’ve visited before – which is, of course, why we wanted to come. By sterilized we mean that Amy lived there and came and went as she pleased. We had a private driver who took us everywhere and guides who showed us the incredible monuments and the “jewels” of India. It’s impossible, however, to miss how hard so many of these people work and what hard lives they live.

MAHATMA GHANDI MEMORIAL IN NEW DEHLI

The trip from South Africa via Paris (necessitated by our having to use Air France) was very long. We had a pleasant surprise in the lounge in Paris when we ran into an old friend, Jay Garner, who was returning from a business trip to Northern Iraq (Kurdistan). Jay had worked a great deal with that part of Iraq after the first Gulf War, and had “run” the whole country after the second Gulf War until the disastrous Jay Bremer came in. In any case, he is much admired in the north (his traveling companion said he could be elected president there tomorrow), so his views on what’s happening there were interesting. Mainly our chance meeting was a great opportunity to catch up on the family news and marvel at what a small world it is.

VIEW FROM HOTEL TO ARABIAN SEA

By the time we finally got to Mumbai at 1030 at night (the 2d night since we left the game preserve) we were pretty tired, so we stayed 2 nights at the Marriott there just to chill out – once again, great view, very upscale – and grossly incongruous to the surrounding environment. On the way to the hotel we were told that India was celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesh – the one with the head of an elephant who brings luck and prosperity - so there were celebrants everywhere taking his statue to be immersed in the ocean. Very colorful floats, trucks filled with gaily dressed people, a true Mardi Gras atmosphere and the resultant grid lock. The next day, instead of diving into that chaos for a city tour we took a walk down the street toward a public market. The sidewalk along the way was made up of 2’ x2’ squares, but every few squares there was just simply one missing so unless one wanted to end up in the UNDERGROUND sewer system, one watched very closely where one was walking and side stepped those common dangers. The market itself was filled with familiar and exotic products – fruits, spices, etc. - the only danger that of being hit by a velo or auto rickshaw as it sped perilously close by. More about the traffic later.

That was the first day in this whole trip that it rained, but it didn’t affect us because we had truly planned it as downtime. After our abbreviated trip to the market, we stayed in the lounge at the Marriott, looked out at the Arabian Sea, wrote our notes about South Africa and enjoyed quiet time, which we really needed given our upcoming tour to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. We did also spend some alone time in Mumbai. Rance worked out in the hotel gym and I walked along the sea. Hesitant at first, I realized I could walk fast along the hard sand (not TOO dirty), scooting around left over Lord Ganesh revelers and dogs buried partly in the sand for coolness. No need to worry – YET – about thousands of people begging. Besides that, I had nothing but my hotel room card with me.

Early the next morning (but at least not “Peru early”) we took a domestic flight to Delhi where we were met by our tour guide and began our real experience in India. We had one guide each in Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur but essentially one driver for the whole trip. And what an experience the trip itself was! Rance will do his usual explanation of the wonderful monuments we saw. I’m here for the traffic and the people!

WHO NEEDS SIGNALS WHEN YOU HAVE A HORN?

Traffic! This is in every sense of the meaning an “equal opportunity to traffic” society. Trucks, busses, cars, auto rickshaws, bikes, pedestrians, holy cows, camels and goats all share the roadways – EQUALLY!! You can see that warning among all the other stuff on our truck photo (note that whereas US truck drivers decorate their bodies with tattoos, Indian decorate their trucks) . “Horn please” is a sincere request to honk as you pass or want to, because many of the vehicles have no rear view mirrors – particularly the homemade vehicles carrying 500% passengers more than they should or the camels carrying any number of different loads. You have to honk to let them know you’re passing, since they can’t see anything – or to edge them back over when they turn without using their non-existent signals. So the air is filled with the noise of everyone honking, changing lanes, passing perilously, pedestrians dodging away at the last minute. And oncoming cars passing at the same time we would, like an unending game of chicken. At the end of each ride our knuckles were white and our legs ached from sympathetic braking!

MOSQUE IN DEHLI

We had a wonderful introduction in Delhi to the “golden Triangle” – Delhi, Agra, Jaipur. New Delhi is very modern; very affluent looking, at least where the government buildings are – long open arcades, impressive buildings, some new and some a legacy of the British period. We also saw the memorials for Mahatma and Indira Gandhi . All Hindus are cremated, and ideally their ashes thrown into the Ganges, so the only tombs we would see were for the Mogul rulers. There were six major ones of those, who invaded from the west and stayed to rule the country (earlier invaders had simply come, pillaged and left), and these Mogul rulers left the most impressive forts, palaces, mosques and burial sites that we saw. The greatest of these 6 Muslim rulers were the 3d, Akbar (the Great) and the 5th, his grandson Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal in the 16th century. Typically one would begin a building, like the Red Fort in Delhi, and latter ones would refine and finish it, with for example Shah Jahan adding his beloved white marble to the red sandstone.

MARBLE PORTION OF RED FORT

The Red Fort and the Mosque in Delhi were beautiful to see and showed the best of the combination of Arab and Hindu art and architecture. Most of the history we heard was about these Muslim rulers who united the more than 500 small kingdoms ruled by warring, jealous rajahs. These petty rajahs could never cooperate enough to fight off the numerous invaders who came to plunder the incredibly rich temples and palaces, so they were almost always defeated and pillaged. One guide described his country then as “a rich land filled with stupid people”! But the Moguls stayed and left their mark on the land until they were gradually made irrelevant by the British (the last was captured after the failed Sepoy mutiny cowering in a corner of his palace by a LT and his platoon, and shipped off to obscurity). India is now the second most populous country in the world (one out of 6 people on this earth is Indian), the economy is doing well, they have universal health care, schools, and running water, and seem to be moving in the right direction – albeit slowly!