Jaipur

A full day touring Jaipur and Amber with Himanshu, the most excellent guide and friend to royalty. We had a terrific day out.

First we went to the Observatory, which was built in the 1730s so the Maharajah could do very accurate horoscopes. The sundial (the biggest in the World at 27 metres) is accurate to 20 seconds. Lots of really cool structures help keep track of the Sun, stars, planets and all things astrological.

Then on to the City Palace, home of the present Maharajah of Jaipur, and some interesting collections of weapons (for the boys) and sparkly robes (for the girls). We had our pictures taken with the biggest silver objects in the World - 2 enormous water carriers.

Then on to the highlight of the day: the elephant ride and tour of Amber Fort. Our elephant was called Emily, and she was the fastest elephant in Jaipur, if not Rajasthan. The fort is enormous and very impressive.

After a good lunch (dal, tandoori potato, rice & roti, with beer) we went on to a textile & carpet shop. Sue tried on a sari, which looked lovely but was the wrong size.

Then back to the hotel for more beer and a very odd dinner: we sat down on our own in the dining room @ the hotel. 20 minutes later we were surrounded by 200 Chinese tourists. Quite unexpected!

Agra - Taj Mahal has been spotted

A lot of news, and no time, so it'll all have to wait, but we've been on fantastic tours in Jaipur and Agra, and done 2 trips round an incredible bird sanctuary called Keolodeo. The hotel in Bharatpur (called the Bhaj) was one of the best I've ever stayed in, made even more interesting by Sue and I being the only guests that night.

And today we saw the Taj Mahal for the first time. Absolutely amazing. Half day tour to see it properly in the morning, then off on a train to Bandahvgar, for some serious tiger spotting over Christmas.

More news and photos soon.

M

Update from Jaipur, Tuesday morning

Sunday
The flight from Bahrain made an extra stop in Muscat, which was most educational, but did stop us sleeping at all as we had to keep an eye on the luggage... Anyway, Muscat looks very interesting!

When we got to Delhi the first thing we noticed was how foggy it was. Later we discovered this is part winter fog, part smog. Lots of cars, factories and open fires here.

The second thing we noticed was that the escalator at the airport had a long list of rules posted at the top of it; 10 in all. No time to read them so we hope we didn't do anything wrong. Customs only had 5 rules, which made me wonder if using an escalator was harder or easier than going through Customs.

We met up with our rep, the very friendly Yogesh and our driver Ratan, and started off from the airport to the hotel. On the way we saw our first elephant being used to transport some hay. Very exciting. The hotel was very impressive, and we checked in and decided to have a sleep till lunchtime. Our first tour in Delhi took in the Red Fort and the biggest mosque in India, and a ride on a cycle rickshaw. Photography at the mosque cost 150 rupees and after seeing the results I want a refund! The chaos of Delhi's roads and pavements, especially in Old Delhi, is really quite hard to convey. Bustling, but not scary like some places can be. We saw a lot of motorbikes with multiple children on them. They'd probably send you straight to jail for doing that in the UK, but here it seems quite normal.

After the tour, it was back to the hotel, out for dinner (over-ordered various chicken curried, all lovely) and then slipping into a 10 hour coma.

Monday
After a sleep in that we'd really earned on the way over, we went down for an excellent breakfast in the hotel. Slightly odd was the banana and orange jam, but I'm sure we'll see stranger things.

We then went out on an all day tour with Ratan and Dolly, our guide to Delhi. I'm going to be rubbish at the names for places we visited, but we saw a burial mounument very like the Taj Mahal (l think you mean humayans tomb mark), which was beautiful, and a Hindu temple that had been turned into a mosque in the 17th Century, with an enornous minaret, and we visited the park which contains Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site. Dolly also took us to 2 retailers she knew whose products she highly recommended. We had a very good day, and got back to the hotel pretty tired. At the hotel we met the famous and handsome Mr Sharad Vats, owner of Nature Safaris, and mastermind of our itinerary. Dinner in the hotel, then the worst night's sleep because someone outside was giving a speech till 3 in the morning over a PA system.

Tuesday - Delhi to Jaipur
We got up really early and packed up for our long drive to Jaipur. The drive was 6.5 hours, the first 2 just to get out of Delhi, and confirmed that India has the maddest road system I've ever seen. The number of times you have to swerve round camels coming straight at you on the wrong side of the road, and the discovery that lorry drivers stop every now and again for a refreshing glass of whisky, it really was very exciting. Ratan did a great job, particularly with the choice of lunch venue. Very nice samosas, in a great place.

Rajasthan does seem very different from Delhi, and so far we like it a lot. The hotel is not as modern as the one in Delhi, but has more character, and the rooftop bar is excellent. Tomorrow brings an all day tour of Jaipur, which is going to be brilliant, and includes an elephant ride.

Assorted photos from Bahrain, Delhi and Jaipur

Bahrain status report

We've just taken off from Bahrain for the final flight to Delhi, via Muscat. We've downgraded from an A340 to a 767 but we'll be asleep soon so it's fine.

Bahrain would seem to be a crossroads for the region. From traditionally dressed Arabs to furtive clumps of Americans with tattoos and shaved heads, and a fair number of us tourists heading East.

The funniest thing was the Christmas retail experience, but you'll have to wait for the photos of that.

Next report will be from Delhi.

M&S

Update from Bahrain

After about 3 hours sleep we were up at 4am this morning to get a taxi to Heathrow, after a tearful parting from Charlie & Oscar. We went to the right airport this time and managed breakfast (Starbuck's paninis) and even some shopping.

The flight to Bahrain has been good so far (we're 37000 feet above Turkey just now) and lunch was very nice, chicken, rice & red wine. The flight, or this leg at least, is much shorter than expected, 5.5 hours, and we expect more shopping at Bahrain, followed by a confusingly short overnight flight to Delhi.

Sue's having a nap now, while I'm hoping someone's noticed we're on course to fly over Baghdad!

We just turned right, so I think we'll be OK.

One interesting thing on this flight is the information on speed, maps etc includes a page telling you the direction & distance for Mecca. This must be to help with prayer, and it's only a small thing but it must be quite hard to work out for yourself when you're in flight.

Only an hour to Bahrain now, so we'll sign off for now, but will try to get some photos when we get there.

M&S

Tiger picture

Some great photos at http://michaelnicknichols.com/gallery/tiger/7/

And this guy was where we're going, earlier this year.

Tigers

We're really hoping to see lots of tigers. We'll be in a national park with some on Christmas Day, so we may get lucky, but they're very rare.

Wikepedia has some info on them if you're interested.

I looked for some articles about photographing them, and it doesn't sound like the odds are good. This article says "The tourists I saw having the best time were the ones just as happy seeing birds, deer, and the web of life — their day wasn’t a failure if they didn’t see a tiger. If you take that attitude, you can have a great time." It sounds as if you site on top of an elephant and hope for the best. Still, that's not exactly the worse way of spending a day.

Flight schedule

Our flights:

17/12/05 GF002 Heathrow (0930) to Bahrain (1910) with Gulf Air
17/12/05 GF130 Bahrain (2330) to Delhi (0715 on 18/12) with Gulf Air
31/12/05 S2117 Delhi (1200) to Goa (1425) with Air Sahara
6/1/06 S2118 Goa (1455) to Delhi (1720) with Air Sahara
7/1/06 GF131 Delhi (0830) to Muscat (1035) with Gulf Air
7/1/06 GF461 Muscat (1135) to Abu Dhabi (1235) with Gulf Air
7/1/06 GF005 Abu Dhabi (1325) to Heathrow (1725) with Gulf Air

Gulf Air
Air Sahara

Some useful background links

Some information about Rajasthan

Some information about Delhi

The CIA file on India!

News about India

Indian Weather

Our itinerary

17th December: Fly to India
18th Dec till 20th December : New Delhi
20th Dec till 22nd December : Jaipur
22nd till 23rd December: Bharatpur
23rd till 24th December : Agra
24th December : Overnight train to Bandhavgarh
25th Dec till 29th Dec : Bandhavgarh National Park
29th December : Overnight train from Umaria to New Delhi
30th December : New Delhi
31st December till 6 January: Goa (View hotel)
6th January : New Delhi
7th January : Fly to London

Introduction

We're going to use this Blog to keep all the details of our trip to India in December 2005 / January 2006. Starting with our itinerary, we'll add notes and photos as we go along, technology permitting!