13 September 2017

Important Lessons When Travelling

When travelling it seems timing is everything however regardless of your level of planning there are situations when you will be surprised but what is not open or available.  I thought I would provide a quick list of what’s open and when:

• There is a Seneca Museum in Western New York that is NEVER open in January.  (We found this out to our great disappointment some years ago.) I understand you may not be planning on visiting this museum.
• The Louvre is never open on Tuesday.  (We thought the queues were very short when we discovered it was Tuesday and the Louvre was in fact closed.)
• The shops in Salzburg are closed on Sundays. (Don’t go out shopping for what you might fancy for breakfast – the shops are closed.)

Mountains In Bavaria

They do a very good mountain in this part of Austria and Bavaria.  The mountain scenery is stunning and the villages look like something straight off a post card.

On top of these mountains one A. Hiltler had his conference centre where he and his mates made plans for Germany in the 1930’s through to 1945.

As you stand by the fireplace in Eagles Nest you wonder about the conversations there might have been between A. Hitler and say M. Bormann or B. Mussolini.  It’s hard to be glib in the context of who these people were and what they did, so I will resist some clever comment.

I guess Adolf liked the location where he wouldn’t be interrupted.  The road to the top is steep and narrow  and it takes a lot of German organisation to get so many tourists up and down the mountain and to the top via a lift that Adolf would only travel with 6 others.  I think there were 46 others when we took the lift.  Today nearly 400,000 people visit Eagles Nest each year.

Salt Mines

They have been digging salt out of these mountains at a rate of about 40 tonne of brine per day.  That’s a lot of salt.  They have been digging up the stuff for the last 500 years so I am guessing that mountain is pretty hollow with some serious caverns within the rock.

Awakening Memories from the Past

My grandmother had a tin box that maybe once contained chocolates or biscuits; in my time it contained pens and pencils.  The picture on this tin box was for me a magical place of a lake in high mountains with an insignificant boat in the distance, amplifying the sheer magnificence of this mountain scene.  I had no idea where this place could be, to me it was just magical.   It clearly wasn’t Australia but it could have been a Norwegian fjord or maybe a lake in Switzerland.

I believe I found the lake; Königssee in Bavaria.  Seeing this lake was for me one of those moments when something you experience suddenly brings forward memories from a distant past in just a split second.

Clean, Green and Ordered

Everything in Austria is neat, clean and well ordered.  It’s the end of summer and yet the fields are green and lush.  At this time our fields in Australia would be brown with little grass left after the summer.  In contrast the green here is intense.

The villages are obviously the inspiration for Lego models and model train landscapes.  Everything is so well ordered The cars don’t even have mud on them or the remains of thousands of insects glued t the windscreen and front grill.  Even the insects  know its not acepable to make a mess.

9 September 2017

This entry is being written on a train travelling at 230kph across the Austrian countryside.       Our journey through eastern Europe continues….

One thing you can’t ignore in Prague or Budapest is the size of the rivers. This reinforces our experience that they do a good river in the northern hemisphere. Some of our best rivers in Australia might be considered creeks by European standards.

The Danube is massive and the speed of the current impressive. In Australia at the end of summer most our rivers would almost be not flowing.

Blue the Danube is not.

The People of Budapest
Like London everyone seems young. The people dress with style. Their dress might be casual but it is elegant and stylish. Everyone seems to be slim, maybe that’s about all the walking people do in the city.

The Streets
The boulevards and avenues are wide and lined with trees. For shopping there is a wide range of the best labels and whilst I was tempted at the Rolex store I didn’t have a spare $22,500 for the watch of my choice.
There are trams, trolley buses, a metro rail system, segways, electric scooters, and all sorts of other new fangled electronic vehicles for personal mobility.
There is less use of cobble stones than we experienced in Prague so you can walk great distances with your wheelie suitcase to train stations etc.

Architecture
There are two forms of architecture in Budapest. The classic style you would see in Prague or London. Very European and whilst the buildings might be relatively new they look like they are from the 19th century.
Then there are the buildings from the communist times. Functional, geometric lines, glass and steel rather than stone. The buildings from the communist era are so very obvious throughout the city.
Soviet monuments are similarly monolithic and overwhelming.

History.
Budapest has it all. There is history from the long term, as in the Hungarians originating from the steppes of Asia many hundreds of years ago. There is the history of Hungary being part of the Ottoman Empire and then Hapsburg’s. Later the Nazis arrived and after them the Russians.
In all cases it seems the invaders came to help the Hungarians and in some way to save them. Now one of the golden rules of helping someone is knowing when to go home. When the helping bit is done and your services are no longer required it’s time to return to your own backyard to let your neighbours get on with it.
Seems most of these invading helpers forgot the go home part of the relationship. The Russians stayed for about 45 years and only left when the old USSR fell apart. They had originally turned up to help get the Nazis out back in 1945. The Hapsbergs turned up to help with the Ottomans and then decided Hungary was so nice they would stay for about 150 years.
A visit to the Budapest Terror Museum provides a very sobering insight into the techniques the Nazis, the Communists and their sympathisers helped the local population. So helpful in ways it’s is hard to conceive.

The Liberty or Freedom Park seems to say it all. The park includes a Russian memorial to the Russians who died saving Hungary from the Nazis. There is a sculpture memorialising Germany’s invasion of Hungary, which has been augmented with a people’s informal memorial reminding the citizens of Budapest that it was Hungarian Nazis who committed great terrors on their own people.
In another corner of the park there is Ronnie Reagan. Ron is walking away from the Hungarian parliament and toward the US embassy but with one eye to the Soviet memorial. Ron is there to memorialise his efforts to bring down the old USSR.
The Hungarians haven’t removed the Soviet memorial, that might be insulting. They have however planted a ring of trees around it.

The Food
Go with the traditional Hungarian fare, it’s excellent. I enjoyed the roasted duck (half a bird), best ever. Hungarian food tilts toward meat, potatoes and dumplings.
The coffee is very good and the desserts and cakes to die for.

 

 

 

5 September 2017

You can tell a lot about a country by the advertising you see at the airport.  The baggage hall at the Prague airport is filled with advertisements for beer.  Czechs love their beer and in a restaurant it’s cheaper than water.  The beer is very good and there are so many to choose from.

Our apartment is behind the windows in the roof of the building at the end of this street.

Prague is a little like stepping into a Jason Bourne film set.  The cobble stone streets are narrow and they twist and turn through the old and new city.  There are trams everywhere which means you have to be alert when stepping off the pavement.

Tourists are everywhere but they all seem to sleep in.  At 9.00am the streets are deserted and at 12.00 you can’t get through the crowds.

Our three hour bike ride on an electric bike was the way to see the city and to enjoy a beer at a monastery.

Like any city as old as Prague, it is filled with monuments to soldiers, religious figures, academics and politicians.  The challenge is all the tablets are written in Czech so it’s a little difficult to work out who they are and what they did.

We bumped into a couple who are staying in the apartment next to ours.  Yep, they’re from Australia, Queensland to be specific.

Prague has made wonderful use of its public gardens.  One in particular is filled with fruit trees and the fruit is available to all.  There is even an app to tell you when certain trees have ripe fruit.

A Czech meal – meat, dumplings, bread and potatoes, and of course beer.  Love it.

Published on board a train to Budapest.

1 September 2017

Our good friends spent about a year and many hundreds of hours researching this trip which was to cover the UK, Eastern Europe, the Adraitic coast and for us Germany and southern UK.

We were invited to join them back in January and what a great opportunity to ride on the coat tails of the efforts of others.   And so we said yes to the offer and here we are.  Just one glitch – they’re not here.  A small accident involving a bicycle  and torn ligaments means we are now on our own.  No more riding the coat tails of others.

This trip is like the Voyager project if Voyager 1 failed to leave.  Voyager 2 is out there on its own.  It keeps sending back messages like; when we get to Saturn what were we supposed to do? Sorry Voyager 2 you’re out there now on your own.

London

First experience;

The receptionist at the hotel is from Ecuador, the woman at the mobile phone shop is from Romania and the waiter at the restaurant is from Brazil.  Where are the Brits I hear you ask; they are in central Australia working at bars and national parks.

It amazes me that London has been around for about 2,000 years and yet the skyline is full of cranes and every street has a building covered in scaffolding.  After 2,000 years you would thought the place would be finished by now.

This pic raises so many questions about pelicans in London.

One of the joys of walking around London is checking all of those properties you have bought and sold over the years.  If only you had kept some of them, what would they be worth now. I’m talking Monoply of course.

The Greenwich Meridian

A walk through Westmister Abbey is pretty amazing and more so when the choir are rehearsing.  The acoustics make the walk through the Abbey unforgettable.  Not to mention walking past the tombs of Kings and Queen from so long ago along with people like Geoffrey Chaucer and Issaac Newton.  However for all you tradies or contractors out there, there is a tombstone for a plumber who once worked at the Abbey.

Seems there are very few old people in London.  Everyone looks so young – or is it me.  No some research on the web and it’s confirmed London has the youngest average age of all UK cities.

Buckingham Palace is stunning.  The Queeen and Phil didn’t offer us a cup of tea but the tour was still memorable.  What was particularly memorable was that whilst there were a couple of well armed folks at the entrance to the Palace, inside there were no weapons of any kind visible to the public.  Even on the way out a line of very well dressed young ladies with umbrellas directed you to the Exit.  So very British.

You have to love the London Tube.  £3.10 for a 67 mile trip from Heathrow into the centre of London.  A one hour ride for about $5.

More cities to come.

28 July 2017

A week after we returned from our trip to Fiji it happened; the dreaded survey arrived in my inbox.  I thought I would be the good client and would respond to the survey.  This was not a smart  decision.

I started the survey and discovered it was huge with many screens to complete.  There were questions about every restaurant, every facility and very interaction you had with the staff; all with rating scales.  I had been drawn into a web based black hole; I had crossed the event horizon.  Enough, I shut down the survey and wrote a two line response, sent by email.  The email stated ‘The food was great, the staff were fantastic the facilities outstanding’. I was about to loose 45 minutes of my life for no return on the investment.

On reflection I realise my frustration was that these surveys don’t ask the questions you want them to ask, so here are some of the questions I want to answer.  I am sure you will have many you could add to this list.  I should add these are pretty much binary questions requiring a simple yes or no, so no rating scales.

• Did all four legs of the restaurant tables connect with the floor so the table did not rock and spill your drinks?
• Did all adults in the adult pool behave like adults.
• Should the resort offer a frequent flyer program at all bars; the more you order, the cheaper the drinks.
• How many times in a day did you say bula to the staff?
  • <250
  • 250 – 500
  • I lost count and don’t care.
• Should the resort better manage tide times so the tides match the guest’s needs for snorkelling and not according to the whims of nature?
• Were you convinced to comply with the resort sign that stated once you leave the resort boundaries life as you know it will end?

That’s it I just had to get the experience of the survey off my chest.

Sunday 23 July 2017

Bula Bula

Some last minute observations from our eight days in Fiji:

Tides and Happy Hour

When arriving at a resort you are provided with all sorts of information on how the resort operates and what is on offer over the coming week.  Some of this information is interesting but of little value and some is of great significance and must never be ignored.  Some examples

• Restaurant times are of minimal interest since the time allowed is quite generous.
• Pool hours are meaningless since they are opened pretty much all day.
• The timings for tours useless since we did not sign up for any local tours.
• Of greater interest is tide times so you know when you can snorkel to see the magnificent corals and all sorts of wonderful fish.
• Of critical value and not to be ignored is Happy Hour.  This is a quite constrained period and not to be missed when half price cocktails are on offer.  With much cheering and gusto the bar staff announce happy hour has started and so the waiting staff are run off their feet taking orders.  The value of the discount is soon negated by the number of cocktails you end up enjoying.

Drones

I was always intrigued by how people from remote tribes when first photographed would become anxious and angry in the belief that their soul was somehow diminished by the taking of a photograph.  I now understand how these people felt.

Early one morning we heard a high pitched whine which I assumed was from some piece of equipment being operated by the gardeners.  To my horror as I stepped out on our balcony I discovered a drone just few metres off our balcony with its lens facing directly at me.  I was appropriately dressed and not doing anything unsavoury however was not happy at the thought of suddenly being a social media sensation.  I think my soul was diminished in that moment.

My feelings about being filmed by a drone are unresolved.

Adult Pool

In my previous Fiji log I mentioned the serenity of the adult swimming pool.  This serenity was not always an enduring experience.  The definition of over 18 years as the defining limit for adulthood ensured there were days when bombing and leaping into the pool by excited and testosterone driven twenty-somethings was the order of the day.  Maybe the adult age limit could be redefined as over 35?  I know, I am becoming a grumpy old bugger.

The High Ground

Taking the moral high ground at a tropical resort is difficult but the process is something like this:

• Good breakfast with lots of tropical fruits.
• A session at the gym for the purpose of generating a sweat.
• A quick lap of the pool.
• All this accomplished in the late morning so you can allow the day to go down hill from about 12.00noon and finishing about 10.00pm.

This pattern has me considering an alcohol free month when we get home.

A New Skill Every day

They say you need to learn new skills to keep the brain active and to forestall ‘old timers’ disease.  It’s difficult to to do this at a resort but it was accomplished.

Our new skills are:

• Making cocktails using Fiji coconut vodka.
• Entertaining lots of kids in the pool hour after hour.
• Making sure granddaughters are appropriately covered up in the hot tropical sun.
• Ensuring you are at the right bar in time for happy hour.
• Not embarrassing yourself when encountering a sea snake.

Scary Encounters

I was returning from a forty minute snorkelling adventure and was getting close to the shoreline when I felt something brush across my shoulder.  It was a gentle touch; maybe a piece of floating seaweed had touch my shoulder.  I turned my head slightly to see a sea snake glide over my shoulder and down to the sandy bottom.  My heart raced, was it going to turn around and confront or attack me!  Maybe it was just an eel and not harmful.

The snake glided on and left me to deal with my inflated blood pressure.  I got out of the water and walked up to the dive attendant to describe my encounter.  Oh, that was a Banded Sea Snake he explained; they are very poisonous but attack only if provoked.  This is Fiji after all and everyone and everything is pretty relaxed – my words.

So it wasn’t some harmless creature of the reef but something that brought the threat of death.  Certainly made for a tale that will be told for many years to come.

The sea snake was about a half metre long and about 20mm in diameter with distinctive black and white stripes.

On reflection what I appreciated was the absence of signs all along the beach warning of sea snakes and scaring people from adventuring into the realm of a coral reef.  Sometimes we need fewer warnings and more opportunities to enjoy the risk.

That’s it for a few weeks.  We are now on the approach to Sydney and winter.

Vinaka

20 July 2017

Bula or welcome in Fijian.

Fiji, the perfect place to celebrate a significant birthday especially when you are escaping winter. Not my birthday, our daughter-in-law’s, and she had the forethought along with her sister to decide on an exotic location for their birthdays. So the choice was -5c mornings with frost or swimming, snorkelling and days of 30c in a tropical paradise. There was no choice.

Some observations.

• We don’t often fly on discount airlines and we have just discovered why. Our flight from Sydney was more like a day care centre with wings. I have never seen so many kids on a plane; from tiny babies through to excited teenagers. We were way down the back so it wasn’t too bad. We also had two granddaughters on board so who are we to complain.
• When you arrive in Nadi you have to change not your clocks but your attitude to Fiji time. Fiji time is worry free; it will happen just not in the timeframe you might expect. Just go with the flow, relax.
• In Fiji you greet everyone with Bula. Well around the resort you do. Don’t try it in the local towns, they are probably going to look at you funny. Bula means hello or welcome and you spend your day saying Bula to all resort staff. Funnily enough no one says it to fellow resort guests.
• Vernaka is thank you and is the other must use word. Bula and vernaka are pretty much to only two words you need. Everything else is in English and all the prices in Aussie dollars!
• When you arrive at the resort a rather tall and ripped Fijian calls out BULA several times with a deep baritone voice, greeting every new guest on their arrival. With his arms thrown high it’s an impressive greeting. You feel, yep now I’m on holidays.  We are not in Kansas anymore.
• There are two pools at the resort. One for families and kids, the other for adults. One is loud and full of activity with inflatable whales, balls and inflated rings. Lots of jumping, screaming and fun. The other is quiet, with few in the water. Many are sitting around the pool reading or just trying to break out of their winter paleness in just the few days they have in the tropical sun. You can guess which pool belongs to which group.
• The staff are all smiling and relaxed. They love the kids and seem to remember all their names and there are a lot of kids at this resort. The greeting of Bula is expressed with great passion by some and for some, maybe the gardeners it’s more of a chore but still uttered with a smile.
• The inflatable whales are pretty popular but it says a lot about our society when the warning advice on the whale covers almost one side of the toy. Maybe it should just say ‘this toy is not to be used as a toy’ or maybe ‘this toy will kill you’.
• We are on the coral coast so you just swim off the beach into coral reefs with fish and corals and all sorts of things to explore. The water is warm and there is plenty of room for all snorkellers.  There are also giant clams which are pretty spectacular.
• There are weddings happening here and lots of birthdays. The staff serenade people celebrating their birthdays with ‘Happy Birthday’ at breakfast and dinner. The staff have amazing voices. They also serenade people who are leaving to go home. This generally happens at breakfast. The words are all in Fijian but I think the translations is something like:
  • ‘So you are back to winter and you have to leave this tropical paradise,
    It sucks to be you…’    I’m pretty sure they are the words to their song.

So that’s about it for the moment. I have three big decision to make this afternoon: when to go snorkelling, what cocktail I will have tonight and which restaurant will we visit tonight.

Bula.

5 April 2016

The adventure is over and we are back home.  Its was quite a jolt to be in the chaos of Delhi traffic one minute and just a few hours later to be stepping out of Sydney airport into traffic that understands pedestrian crossings, stays within the white lines and there is not the constant tooting of horns.  The weather has gone from 41c (106f) to 20c (68f) and from very dry to the odd shower of rain.  Here everything is green, there are no villages and fields of wheat being manually harvested.  The differences between the two countries couldn’t be more extreme.

I thought I would finish the India reports with a series of awards for things that stood out over the 15 days of the tour.

Craziest Bike Ride

• Riding through the streets of old Udaipur during what was probably peak hour.  No rules, just keep moving with the traffic and when crossing a road show no fear.  Never wonder whether your travel insurance covers you for this little adventure, nor should you be wondering ‘what does the inside of an Indian hospital look like’.

Cutest Kid

• During a tour of a vegetable and fruit market we met a little boy with his dad.  The little boy didn’t speak too much but gave his dad the classic Indian head nod when dad asked a question.  The child was probably about 18 months old. We all had a little chuckle.

Scariest Moment

• On a night time jeep ride through some very remote villages on the pretext of seeing some wild life we were surrounded by a bunch of local lads on motor bikes.  The guide didn’t speak english so we had no real idea of what was being said or their intention.  We were glad when the cars started up and we drove away. We did see antelope, maybe a fox, maybe a hyena and other furry critters scurrying away into the night.  This was the total result of more than two hours on some very remote tracks in the open back of small 4WD vehicles in the dark.

Best Sunset

• Sunset at Sardargarh Fort on the top of a pavilion drinking local rum and orange juice.  The sunset was spectacular however after a couple of drinks we then had to negotiate some very steep stairs which were only slabs of rock protruding out of a wall.  No side rails.

Best Stone walls

• The stone walls of Rajasthan especially near marble mines.  The walls were straight and square and all made of white marble blocks.

Most Piercing Look.

• The stare given by locals when we visited a mosque in Delhi.  A bit unsettling.

Best Birthday party

• We gate crashed the birthday party for the 23rd prophet of the Jain religion at a major Jain temple.  The party goers were very happy to tell us about their celebrations.  Not sure how old the 23rd Prophet was but I am guessing the local shops would not have stocked sufficient birthday candles for his cake.

Most Gods in One Religion

• 33 million gods, semi gods and deities in Hinduism.  That’s got to be a record.

Least Number of Gods in a religion

• None in the Jain religion or Buddhism.

Most Indulgent Maharaja

• Probably Maharaja Madho Singh IIwho had two massive silver urns manufactured for his visit to London for Edward VII’s coronation.  The maharaja wanted to take Ganges water for his own consumption during the trip not trusting English water.  Each urn held 4,000 litres.  It’s a tough choice because all the maharajas were pretty good at surrounding themselves with lots of luxury.

Most Impressive Workforce Size

• India Railways employ 1.3 million people.  Can you imagine the weekly salary bill?  Everyone travels by train and it soooo cheap.

Most Impressive Fort

 

• This is tricky because we saw so many, some just ruins or museums and others active hotels.  My choice is Sardargarh Fort in Rajasthan.  This fort is being progressively restored by a husband and wife team who have made amazing progress over the past 10 years.  The fort is off the beaten track but well worth the visit.

Best Food

• Hard to pick but probably the food at the Sheraton Hotel in Jaipur.  The hamburger at Sydney airport on the night we returned was also pretty good.

Accidents

• Our guide for the bike ride through Udaipur was knocked down by a motor cycle.  After a few brief words, both got up continued on their way.  No road rage or exchanging of details for an insurance claim.
• One of our fellow travels was butted in the midriff by a cow who did not want to get out of his way.  No harm down and the cow maintained her position in the herd.
• Dehli Belly Score
• Probably only a couple of fellow travellers had a true case of Delhi belly, the rest of us had digestive systems that were challenged by the rich and spicy food.  Western toilets can be such a luxury in these moments of stress.

Best Road

• The freeway into Dehli.  The toll is so high the farm vehicles are discouraged along with every other dodgy vehicle, animal drawn cart and pedestrian.  The road was well maintained with virtually no trash on the side and the road surface in very good condition.

Emptiest Road

• We travelled along a section of newly built divided highway that had almost no traffic.  We drove several miles in the luxury of no traffic only to discover this new road wasn’t connected to anything; the road wasn’t complete.  At the end of the sealed road was a dirt track that connected us with another highway and surprisingly lots of traffic; we were back on a real road.

Best Deal We Didn’t take

• Hand knotted carpets at $40 a sq metre for merino wool, $43 for camel hair and $130 for silk.  Next time must have measurements and a room in mind for such a carpet.

Most Odorous Market

• The Delhi spice market had us all gagging for breath.  We rejected an offer to walk deeper into the spice market as none of us brought oxygen equipment with us!  Even the locals wore face masks.  There was so much spice there was a consistent fog of spice.

That’s it until the next adventure.  We have two more planned for the rest of the year so you never know when I will be adding to this blog site.

 

 

5 April 2016

Our travels in India are coming to an end and the closer we get to coming home the hotter it gets.   Yesterday it was 41c. and it looks like it will continue to be hot until our departure.

This sounds rather clichéd however it must be said; the contrasts in this country are confronting.  This is a country with nuclear power and nuclear weapons and yet wheat is harvested by hand.  India has a space program which it is difficult to reconcile when you see the poverty in the rural villages.  There are massive mogul palaces that were once decorated in gold and the Taj Mahal a wonder in marble.  No photograph depicts the Taj in its true glory.  However, when you step out of the green spaces of the gardens surrounding the Taj Mahal you are again confronted by the noise, the smells, congestion and grime of the city of Agra.

Recent Observations

Road workers

Women working on the roads wearing saris with hi-vis vests over their saris – something you wouldn’t see in Australia.

Government Signs

If your household is below the poverty line the government will provide subsidised rations to ensure people don’t starve.  A sign will be painted on the front of your house declaring you are receiving these benefits.  Imagine a sign on the front of your house for all to see declaring the people inside receive the old age pension or maybe are on unemployment benefits., it would never happen

If you are on a government sponsored employment program your name will be listed on a sign in a prominent part of the village telling all you are employed on that program.

These are seen to be a quite reasonable practice in India, something which we would find to be a complete breach of our privacy.

The Evil Eye

Most trucks and car are decorated with tassels under the vehicle and sometimes around the Windows.  The tassels are for decoration but more importantly to keep the evil eye away.  Bald tyres and overloaded trucks are quite acceptable so clearly the evil eye is far more potent than unroadworthy vehicles.

The roles of men and women

All hotel staff that are visible have been men. They collect the baggage, wait on tables, clean the rooms and generally manage the place.  There is occasionally a young woman on reception and often omen in the gardens.

All the historic photos in the old heritage hotels are of the conquests of men.  Polo, tiger hunting, and the photos of the ruling maharaja, all men.

Everything looks old

 

Regardless how new things might be, buildings, roads, trains, cars and trucks, everything looks old before its time.  Shiny new trucks or cars are never seen.  Maybe because everything is so dry and dusty and now is the end of the dry season. Maybe everything in India has a hard life.

Religion

There are 33 million gods in Hinduism.  That’s more than a God for every man, woman and child in Australia.

So here’s a thought.  Everyone in Australia could adopt their own Hindu god, have their own religion and then declare tax free status. There are plenty of gods to go around.

Probably in response to Hinduism, the Buddhist and Jain faiths have no gods.  This is India; one extreme to the other.

Window Shopping

I thought the roads in Scotland and England can be narrow.  India leaves them for dead.  Our bus took on some narrow village tracks that allowed us to window shop from the comfort of the coach.  With all the people, cows, motor bikes and merchandise he was still able to negotiate roads one car wide with buildings right to the edge of the gutter. 

The Role of the British – I’m going out on a limb here but…..

One thing you must give it to the British, they united this place.  They probably became the common enemy back in 1947 which ensured India could develop a sense of nationhood and to become united to be rid of the British.

You must wonder however if the British had not unified India where would it be today?  Maybe a sub-continent of many small counties none of which were economically sustainable.  Before the British India was made up of so many princely states all of which were busy building bigger and bigger palaces and going to war with each other.

It was the British investment in the archeology of India that ensures we get to enjoy the Taji Mahal and so many other wonders.

History

It’s fascinating that the history of India includes links to Genghis Khan. The palaces and forts are decorated with precious gems from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.  The mirror works comes from Aleppo in Syria and so it goes on.

Sadly, we in the west generally only know of these countries through reports of war, destruction and displaced refugees.

Driving in India

Road rules – based on Darwinism and survival of the fittest

White lines – for aesthetics only

Indicators – superfluous; never used

Rear vision mirrors – what?

Cows on freeways – of course, why not

This piece was tapped out on a coach ride between Agra and New Delhi

 

28 March 2017

Our travels through Rajasthan continue.

The Patina of India

Some might call it grime rather than patina but India does have a look and Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore.  This is a very dry region but you can’t help but feel you could do so much with a high pressure steam cleaner.

The countryside has a dry bleached look which I am sure changes in the wet season when the monsoon arrives.  However, in this haze of dust there are flashes of brilliant colour.  Reds, blues, yellow, gold and silver. These are the saris worn by the women walking through the villages, in the fields and along the roads.  A complete contrast to the general background; coloured gems in a swathe of gravel.

Rubbish

It’s everywhere and it’s probably one of the things that is the most confronting. It’s in the villages, on the roadside, hanging from trees, in dry river beds, in the fields, everywhere.

Everything has a use.  Even off cuts and waste from the marble processing works are recycled as dry stone walls.  In the marble mining areas, you find miles and miles of pure white dry stone walls that are perfectly straight and square.

Slabs of sandstone that might have become paving are recycled as fences around fields.  Waste from the granite and sand stone mines also becomes dry stone walls.

Maharajas and Maharanee

It seems the ruling class was occupied by four main activities they were:

Shooting tigers – there are pictures everywhere in the hotels of safaris and hunting parties with dead tigers and panthers.

Fighting your neighbouring Maharaja – seems conquering more land from your neighbour was the prime business of the day.

Looking after your many wives and 100s of concubines – fortunately owning a massive fort ensured you had plenty of rooms to keep the various parties well separated and each in their own luxurious setting.

Building massive forts or palaces – the forts are stunning.  They are huge and have been occupied for hundreds of years.  Many are now hotels.

The owner of one particularly magnificent fort had the architect buried alive in the foundations so no one could discover the secrets of the fort.   Probably seemed reasonable at the time.  We would have put the floor plans in a vault.

Men and women

Women are in the fields cutting wheat by hand and doing manual labour, even loading sand trucks using baskets.  Jobs like waiting tables for tourists or managing the reception desk at the hotel are all done by men.

Women do the gardening at the hotel and often cover their face when we pass.  The fear is someone in their village will gossip about them being uncovered in front of westerners.

Toilets and Bathrooms

It’s Asia I’ll say no more.

Cows

They seem to wander aimlessly without anyone caring for them, yet they are owned by individuals.  Each morning they will leave their owner’s house and wander the neighbourhood getting a small amount of feed at each house they visit.  Being sacred those that feed the cows receive a blessing.  At the end of the day the cow finds its way back to its owner’s house.

It’s the job of the untouchables to remove any carcasses, and to remove the hide before burying the cow.

 Newspaper Journalism

The writing style is in a unique conversational style of English.  The police are always the ‘cops’.  Politicians are reported as VVIP which I assume means very very important people.

An Udaipur newspaper reported the death of an individual and how their organs had been donated for transplant.  The report then went on to list the names of the patients and what organs they received.  Along with their name, their age and their city were included in the report.  Never would happen in Australia.

That’s it for now.  More reports to come as we visit Jaipur, Agra and New Delhi.