Magic Carpets

Magic carpets.

 

Whenever one goes on a trip to the middle east or far east, there is the obligatory stop in the carpet shop.  Usually these are the tour guides choice, with nice commissions, and  nice stuff, but often grossly overpriced.

 

For something special, we always look for a small place run by someone who takes pride in their product, and has a stake other than a paycheck in it.

 

On this trip,  in Jaipur, we came across a small carpet shop in the basement of our hotel, the "Country Inn & Suites", an odd name for something in the heart of a manic city.

 

The Le oriental Arts is run by Munueer, a young man from Kashmir who actually comes from a family of carpet makers. He explained carpet making to us, including the finer economic points, and how the business is changing in his native state.

 

We also got a good lesson on Kashmir itself, which is now on our to go list, hopefully next year.

 

As owners of hand made/knotted carpets from a half dozen places around the world, we can say that the Kashmir carpets are definitely in a class of their own.

 

We couldn't resist, and of course got another carpet. Hand knotted (not just hand made) silk, a real work of art and a thing of beauty. Great price too.  You definitely should stop by and talk to Munueer if you're in the neighborhood.

17 Feb 08 To Ranthambhore

17 Feb 08 - Today we say goodbye to beautiful Jaipur and hit the road for another four hour drive, this time to Ranthambhore, where we hope to see some tigers.

 

Once again, there were so many sites to behold along the way, we couldn't get our cameras to capture all of it.  This country is severely lacking in rest stop facilities, so that is our only complaint so far.  Oh, and the bad roads.

 

We arrived at our hotel, the Ranthambhore Regency, just in time for lunch and an afternoon game drive.  We didn't see the tigers, but we saw plenty of monkeys and deer.  And we all were covered in dust and badly needed chiropractors by the time we returned.

 

After a tasty buffet dinner, we all retired early because we have a 5:45 wake up call in the morning for another game drive.  We're keeping our fingers crossed for tiger sightings!

Pictures

16 Feb 08 Jaipur

16 Feb 08 - Jaipur is known as the Pink City because at one time the entire city was painted pink.  Some say because it is the Lord Shiva's favorite color, others say to welcome the visit of the Prince of Whales.

 

Today we  journeyed by elephant to the Amber Fortress.  Rhonda thought the fortress was impressive, and she especially liked getting sprayed by the elephants.  The hills surrounding the fortress are covered with a series of walls, similar to the Great Wall of China.  Very impressive.

 

Later, we were taken to a local jewelry factory, where we were given a lesson on jewel polishing.  Lunch was at the Spice Court restaurant.

 

Afternoon tour was to the  Palace of Winds and the City Pallace Museum. Cora thought the most exciting part was seeing the maharaja himself. 

 

Our next stop was the stone observatory, where we saw the biggest sundial in the world.

 

The last stop in this busy day was our inspection of the Golden Tulip Hotel, only three months old.  After viewing some of their spacious rooms, we were treated to another fabulous buffet dinner. 

Friday, Feb 15 To Jaipur

Friday, Feb 15:  Early morning check out for the long, dusty, bumpy drive to Jaipur.  We were all too intrigued to sleep though, with all the sights, sounds, and smells to take in.

 

We shared the roadway with an endless stream of trucks inviting us to honk, tuk tuk cabs designed for two persons plus a driver, but packed with 10 people, carts pulled by camels with turbaned drivers, motorcyles, and autos -- all bumper to bumper and ignoring the rules of the road and the laws of sanity.

 

We passed business districts, farms, open air vegetable and spice markets, butcher shops that made you think seriously about vegetarianism, cows, sheep and elephants mingling with people, and counted the people along the road squatting to relieve themselves (31).

 

Around 2:00 we finally arrived at the Shiv Vilas resort outside of Jaipur for our site inspection and lunch.  What an incredible hotel!  It is a replica of a Maharaja's palace and is the most opulant place most of us had ever seen.   Inlaid marble, cut crystal chandeliers, gold leaf work, Italian silk upholstery, and beautiful hand carved furniture adorned every inch of its many ballrooms, lobbies, restaurants, and luxurious suites.

 

Our multi course lunch was the best meal we have experienced yet, served on the finest china.

 

We finally said our goodbyes to our hosts and drove the last 10 ks to our Jaipur hotel, Country Inn and Suites.  Not quite the same, but we did enjoy a nice buffet dinner at the end of the day.

 

 

Delhi

Pictures from Delhi

Arrival in Delhi

Day 1 -- After a  12 hour flight from JFK to Dubai, a one hour layover, followed by another 3 hours to Dehli, we finally made it to our hotel at 4:00 am.

 

We enjoyed a light breakfast and met all the agents at 1:00 pm for a tour of the Le Meridien Hotel, in the center of New Dehli.  We were treated to a lovely buffet lunch and then toured the city.  We visited the India Gate, the Placace, the Parliament building, and the federal buildings.

 

After a short break back at our hotel, we toured the Claridges, a beautifully restored boutique hotel.  They have beautifully appointed rooms, restaurants, and lounges.  We enjoyed a buffet dinner before returning to our hotel for our first full night's sleep in India.

Days in Delhi

Eye watering, throat searing, skin flaying. Smog you can' t believe. Southern Cal is pure mid Pacific air by comparison. When we hit the street at the airport, the air hit us.

 

Burning, acrid garbage, wood, and things one can't describe. And that's the good smells.

 

Don't be alarmed though.  Everyone assures us that Delhi is relatively smog free -- you should see Bombay, now they have smog!.  The good news, such as it is, is that it sort of thins later in the day. Sort of.

 

Contrasts.  Scrupulously clean, then a landfill appears in the middle of the street. Fine custom suits and clothes that haven't been washed in weeks, side by side on the sidewalk.

 

Beautiful houses behind concertina wire topped fences, with people sleeping on the street outside.

 

Goats, sheep and "holy cows" wandering the streets. Urchins, the Dickens, not spiny, kind, begging in the streets. A crushing poverty mixed with charging progress. People in numbers that boggle the senses.

 

Yesterday we did a couple of walking tours on each end of the Raj Road.  On end has an arch (of Triumph size), the other end the presidential palace and Parliament.  Separated by more than a mile, its quite impressive, mostly Imperial English style.  Strangely, there weren't many people, but things were quite active.

 

Today's exercise was a walking tour of Old Delhi, mixing with the madhouse of people and vehicles.  We picked up our entourage of urchins, begging or trying to sell us postcards.  The were fairly unobstructive as such kids go, and were actually making sure we didn't get run over by cars before they got their handout.

 

A visit to a mosque reminds one of the difference in religions. Simplicity.   None of the fancy trimmings of the usual European Christian church, but then none of the trimmings of the Casablanca  mosque or Sophia either.

 

Lunch at a 5 star hotel and a tour of its restaurants.

 

A visit to the park where Ghandi was cremated.  A simple monument, befitting the man.  It was never made clear whether his ashes went into the Gandhi, running water, or were buried under a tree.

 

Then as a wrap, a visit to an area of religious monuments ranging from Hindu,  Buddhist, to Muslim.  The layout of the main are was similar to that of Ankor Wat, but much of the fancy carving was destroyed because the Muslim conquerors de-faced the faces.

The triumph tower was, well triumphant, with script carvings and a style of its own.

 

Time for bed.  We hit the road at 7am for parts unknown on a bus with no shocks.

 

 

 

Arrival in India

We've safely arrived and are recouperating from 36 hours of travelling. It's a looooong  way.  Time difference is 11 and 1/2 hours.

 

We've been here all day, but slept most of the morning because we arrived at 6am local time.  Did a brief tour this afternoon, and will do a detailed post tomorrow, after a city tour.

 

 

Pre Trip Runabout

It's Sunday, the day before the departure to India. This is a familiarization tour with our host agency, TerraMar Travel, sponsored by Goway Tours. Dealing with all the usual packing and last minute stuff that jumps out at you that you can't figure out why you didn't catch yesterday.

We'll be leaving the house at 5 am Monday, Feb 11, to avoid the traffic. Then departing the Pensacola airport at 7 am on our old favorite, Delta, fresh out of bankruptcy, and always providing our little airport with the finest of aircraft and service. The usual stop in Atlanta to get on a real plane, and on to JFK for the international connection to Dehli via Dubai.

Since the last blog try from remotest electricity free Africa, we're off to a new start with the latest of miniature equipment. A pocket PC that can read the camera's chip will hopefully let us resize and post pictures. It tests ok, but the real world is the test. In Africa the computers and links were too slow to be of much use, and we didn't have the proper software to compress the pictures enough to upload from the cameras.

Mo has a wireless keyboard that will allow journaling on Word so she can blog at leisure, and save the file. When we get to an Internet hookup, we should be able to cut and paste text and copy pictures from the PC's removable SD and post directly.

Trying to type several day's notes on a coughing and sputtering generator powered computer just wasn't working well.

Since India has half the world's computer tech support we're crossing our fingers that Internet access (and electricity) won't be a problem. The developing countries seem to have the best public internet. Real poor ones can't afford it, in rich ones everyone has their own computer. Wish us luck and maybe this blogging thing will work this time.

The Itinerary -- India 2008

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