July 21--travel to Amritsar and touring the Golden Temple

     We needed to wake up at 6 am so we could catch our taxi to the Delhi station and our 7:20 train to Amritsar.  Lily had been sick all night, throwing up and hating life.  So there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm during our departure.  And she didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her buddy Bailey, which upset her too.  We got to the train station in plenty of time and were immediately accosted by aggressive porters.  We had three bags so I figured why not.  It ended up costing me a fortune—like nine bucks—to get five minutes’ assistance from two porters.  Grr.  When we got to the platform, Lily immediately laid down and went to sleep.  She’s been carrying her grubby blanket and pillow around for a long time, but let me tell you it has come in handy.

     Our seats in the train were assigned, but the overhead luggage space wasn’t, so it was good we were there early.  The luggage racks were jammed.  Shortly into the six-hour ride, Lily realized she didn’t have her phone.  I used a friendly seat-neighbor’s phone to call our tour guide to see if maybe she’d left it in her hotel room or in the cab we took to the train station.  No dice.  We think it got left on the train platform.  That was a big hit to the sick girl’s morale, but honestly she got over it more quickly than I thought she would.

     Our host was ready for us when he arrived.  In fact, we were a little slow getting off, and he came onto the train looking for us with a sign saying “BRAD AND LILLY.”  He’s a devout Sikh, and told us all sorts of interesting things about their religion.  It was about 2:30 in the afternoon when he dropped us off at the Amritsar Hyatt.  That place is nice!  Lily still wasn’t feeling great, so we just had rest time till about 6:00.  

     Then our tour guide took us on a tour of the Sikh golden temple.  I was really impressed with that whole structure and the Sikh setup in general.  My tour guide got me a legitimate turban, because you aren’t allowed to go into the temple without a covering for your head.  Since it was a real turban, he had to wrap it around my head, which took a few minutes.  And he was a diligent Sikh and really cool guy and so he brought me a turban in the sacred color of orange.  

     The tour guide said that Amritsar is sometimes called the “city of colored turbans,” which I figured was touristy exaggeration.  But it’s not.  The town is about 50% Sikh, and Sikhs wear turbans.  It was cool.  In fact, the security guard at our hotel was a big, tall Sikh with an awesome waxed mustache, so you know we got a picture o’ that.  Our guide explained that most Sikhs wear turbans made of cloth that is 5-7 meters in length; that a father teaches his son how to tie his turban during the teenage years; and that my turban was only two meters long.  I was a little worried because I didn’t want to be the dork in the turban designed for a six-year old.  But there were other adults who had turbans like mine.  The thing that DID make me feel dorky was the fact that my green striped t-shirt utterly and perfectly clashed with my turban.  But I got a few compliments from Sikhs in the temple about my turban.  They saw it as a token of respect for their holy shrine that I took the time to have a real turban and not just one of the ‘do-rags that are lent out to people who don’t have something to cover their heads.  And when in my life am I gonna have another chance to wear a real live turban?  In public?  And get complimented for it?

     Lily was still not feeling well during our tour, but she was a trooper.  Our tour entailed about a kilometer of walking.  The golden temple is surrounded by a large, square pool of water that is probably a couple hundred meters across.  A tall and ornate wall—maybe thirty feet tall—surrounds the whole complex, and the wall has various rooms and structures that face toward the temple.  The temple is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  The water is supposed to have miraculous healing qualities (“Amritsar” means “pool of nectar” or “pool of holy water”), and there were people bathing in it—with separate enclosed areas for women.  The guide encouraged me to wade in it, so I did.  One of the security guards (easy to spot because of their yellow jackets and real spears!) asked me to get out after I’d been in for a minute or so.

     At all times, there is a head priest reading/chanting/singing the scriptures over a huge speaker system.  A bunch of other sub-priests are elsewhere in the temple, reading (and sometimes, but not always, chanting) the scriptures.  We got to walk right up behind them and watch.  The Sikhs believe that there were a bunch of gurus (prophet-types) some years ago, but that there’s no guru on the earth now.  They worship the scriptures as incarnations of the gurus.  And they put the main, original set of scriptures to bed each night to rest.  We got to see the bed.

     Every night the Sikhs—and whoever else cares to volunteer—cook food for anyone who wants to show up at the temple and get a free meal.  Anyone can volunteer to cook, or clean up, or do any of the other things that are part of feeding all those people.  There were huge vats for cooking, long stations for dishwashing, hugs kettles of utensils, and so forth.  Anyone who wants can also sleep under the roof that surrounds the entire perimeter of the temple complex.  So when we touring in the evening, hundreds of people were eating or sprawled out, preparing to sleep on the ground.  

     As we walked around and saw all that, Lily was clearly not thrilled and told me she wasn’t feeling great.  She was a good sport until we walked up to finally see the temple itself as the climax of our tour.  The tour guide told us it was a 20-minute wait and I said okay, we’ll do it—and Lily put her head on my shoulder and started crying.  I figured I’d pushed her hard enough for the night.  We canceled the plan to see the inside of the golden temple, and went back to the hotel.

 Lily crashed out at the Delhi train station

 I don't make it a habit to photograph toilets, but this was just a hole that dropped onto the train tracks.

 The view out our hotel window in Amritsar

 Heading off to tour the Golden Temple

 The place where you deposit your shoes before entering the Golden Temple complex

 Gate to the Golden Temple

 Lily at the gate to the Golden Temple

 Helping some Sikhs take a photo

 By the Golden Temple

 Golden Temple at dusk

 Screen that displays the scriptural passages as they are chanted by the priest

 One of the priests reading scripture

 Another priest reading scripture

 Just me and some Sikh buddies

 Food preparation vats

 Dishwashing station

 Outside the Golden Temple

 Security guard

 Entrance to go see the inside of the Golden Temple

 Bed where the put the scriptures every night

This group of girls followed us around timidly for a while before finally working up the nerve to ask Lily to take a photo with them.

July 20--On the way to, and in, Delhi

     First of all, let me say that I just uploaded a bunch of text for the entries regarding July 17, 18 and 19.  So go read that if you haven't yet.
     Today was almost all spent in the bus from Jaipur to Delhi, and it was pretty uneventful.  The bus driver’s daughter, Jothi (“light”), rode along with us because she needed to get to Delhi.  She was married about a year ago.  On the drive, the girls started singing and dancing as the driver held their phones up to the tour guide microphone.  It wasn’t exactly high quality sound, but they had a good time.  Then they put some Indian music on and Jothi started dancing Indian style.  It was really cool!  She taught the girls some Indian moves and that was fun.  But it was mostly sitting in the bus, staring out the window, or chatting with others in the group.

     When we got to Delhi we stopped at a modern mall, just as nice as anything you’ve ever seen in the U.S.  We got some food, including some tasty ice cream from an Indian version of Cold Stone.   They even had Twix bars to mix in.  It wasn’t cheap but it was yummy.

     Once we got checked in, we took the kids to a local shopping area.  We walked there, and it was a really long, unpleasant walk on busy streets with few sidewalks.  Along the way we passed under an overpass, where a small community of extremely poor people live.  They tried to get our attention to ask for money as we walked by.  I don’t think anyone could be much less fortunate than that group—no shelter except the overpass, with some meager beds and a few other possessions and that was it.  At the market, Lily bought some shirts, I think, and I got a few small gifts.  Some of the girls in the group got their hands professionally done by henna painters.  I can’t believe how fast they work!  They created these elaborate patterns about halfway up to the girls’ elbow in maybe 10 minutes.

     In the evening, our guide took me and two other people to Old Delhi to get some kebabs from a place that he said is legendary.  We drove about 45 minutes in crazy traffic.  Then the driver dropped us off, and our guide said we have to walk for a while.  We walked through the most crowded streets I have ever seen.  It was still as hot as a sauna.  It was almost 10:00 pm when we arrived, but the road was completely jammed.  There’s no way to describe the pandemonium.  Every vehicle imaginable—cars, little motorized three-wheel taxis, motorcycles, bicyclist-powered taxis, and scooters, all honking and shouting.  And thousands and thousands of people on foot, pushing and dodging every direction—men of various ages in groups, street vendors, beggars, families of all sizes, including lots of little kids in fancy, spangled clothes, some of whom were walking by themselves to my amazement.  The congestion really was unbelievable.

     When we reached the kebab place, it was tiny hole in the wall, maybe eight feet wide and 15 feet deep, with a searing hot charcoal fire across the entire front of the store and a little open area on one side.  The temperature near that fire was unbelievable.  The open side of the store was surrounded by shouting men trying to get service.  There was no concept of a line.  People were tugging on the sleeve of the proprietor, yelling at him, holding out money, gesturing and trying to convince him to serve them next.  To me it seemed like he was mostly ignoring everyone’s pleas and doling out the food to whoever he felt like it.  But there was probably some sort of customer pecking order, because our guide told us that it’s always crowded like that, and he wished that he could have arranged to bring another taxi driver he knows who’s a friend of the owner and can always get served right away.

     Sweat dripping down his face, our guide pushed and wheedled and tugged on the guy’s sleeve nonstop for maybe 10 minutes before finally getting a heaping plate of kebabs for us to share.  The kebab was coarsely ground beef full of fat and gristle, laden with spices and dripping with butter.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had anything less healthy to eat in my whole life.  The meat was pretty good, but not as good as the experience, which was honestly like nothing else I’ve ever seen in my life.  

     It was a takeout place and customers were just walking off with their food, but there was one grimy little table (no chairs), just big enough for four, that a friend of the proprietor pointed us to—I suspect because we were obviously foreigners.  We stood next to the table, ate our meat and drank our water bottles, mostly free from being pushed and jostled as we ate.  Afterward we walked around the area for maybe half an hour to scope it out.  It was the last night of Eid, and we were across the street from one of the biggest mosques in Delhi, so I thought it was crazy because of the holiday.  But our guide told me that it’s like that every night.  After walking around and taking it all in for a while, we headed back to the hotel.  I was exhausted and hit the sack after a very satisfying shower.  Seriously, I have never had better-feeling showers than I have in India.

Leftover photo from Agra.  A guy took this photo and sold it to us for about 30 cents after we were done.

 Nomadic cattle guy using the access road on the highway to move his cows

Random Delhi selfie with kids

July 19--morning hike, Amber Fort, elephant rides

     Today was really eventful.  Those who were interested left at 5 am for a sunset hike to nearby ruins.  They were incredible.  It was maybe a 15-minute climb on a path and some pretty serious stone stairways.  As we climbed, a Hindu temple below blared out a constant super-Indian sounding chant.  Wild peacocks shrieked and flew back and forth in the trees (never letting me get close enough to get a decent picture, though).  Have I ever mentioned that wild peacocks sound just like the bird “Kevin” in the movie “Up”?

     When we got to the top the views were incredible and the sunrise, though a little hazy, was really neat.  From the top we could see the city below, a picturesque lake nearby, the Amber Fort (a huge structure begun in the ninth century), and the 10+ km defensive wall that encircles the area.  It was really, really neat.  We walked around the lake and looked through an old settlement on the other side.  All the families but one have abandoned it, and many of the dwellings are cracking and collapsing.  A boy herded about 10 cows through the narrow paths by the settlement.  

     On the way down, we happened across a bunch of monkeys on the side of the road.  We pulled over to take pictures and were surprised at how they weren’t scared of us—in fact, it seemed like they were bored if anything as I snuck close for a monkey selfie.

     We got back to the hotel about 7:30, had breakfast, and headed out for the Amber Fort.  That’s a major landmark of India, so it was kind of touristy.  But cool too!  We started by riding elephants from the bottom of the hill up to the fort.  Along the way photographers took shots and called out for us to find them at the top so we could buy prints of the pictures.  Hawkers tried to get our attention so we’d buy their turbans/carvings/sparkly umbrellas/postcards and everything else.  As we arrived in the large courtyard at the top, someone was playing a huge drum and some kind of exotic horn, so there was a really south-Asian feel.  Touristy maybe, but it was cool.  As we got to the top, I realized that the stairway to the drum area was open, so I ran up there and they let me play the drum for a while.  Then I played a smaller one, hitting as hard as I could to make it really loud, till my hand hurt really bad and I had to quit.  Lily and some others in the group got to play to.  And no one around the drums asked us for any money, which was a huge surprise.

     The fort includes a temple.  No photography was allowed in there, but it was pretty amazing.  No shoes, socks, leather or cameras were allowed.  The ornate double doorway into the temple was covered with raised, carved metal scenes of different gods.   People were reverently touching each of the gods in turn, and they would kiss their hands before and after doing so.  Inside the temple there were large pictures of multi-armed gods.  Worshippers brought in food that looked like some kind of a mush, and they would each smear a little bit on the mouth of the god in the picture.  So there was a big gob of food on the picture and a pile of food below that had fallen off the picture.  The temple chamber itself was maybe 30 feet wide and 40 feet long, with inlaid marble floors and carved marble on some of the walls.  The ceiling was mostly open, with chicken wire over the opening to make sure that birds couldn’t come into the temple.  The room was crammed with people who were kneeling, chanting, praying, milling around.  Incense was heavy in the air.  A group of women and little children were playing tambourines and singing, with two dancing girls maybe five years old with thick mascara.  An idol at the front of the temple was the central attraction.  People’s prayers were focused there, and the priest there was putting a little red dot on the forehead of everyone who approached.  Someone (not in our group, thankfully) had snuck in a camera, and when the priest saw him he yelled at him and aggressively shooed him out of the temple.  Being there was an overpowering experience for all five senses.

     After visiting the temple, we continued touring the fort.  There was an area that was completely covered in tiny, ornate, convex mirrors.  The idea, I guess, was that in that room you could put a candle or two so the queen could see what looked like stars all night long.  I took photos but we weren't’ allowed into the main room, and anyway it was the sort of place that photos can’t do justice to.  We walked around and saw several other parts of the fort as well.  The view at the top was incredible, and we could see the structure we had hiked to that morning.

     Our bus then took us to a place where they showed us how the rugs are made by hand.  Of course that was a lead-in to an extended sales spiel about rugs.  They also had a textiles/clothing store upstairs where we could buy scarves, shirts, jammies, rugs and whatever.  Lily picked up a few things.  The best part about that place was the downstairs, which was filled with all sorts of crazy antique stuff and antique replica stuff.  It was like and Indian Z Gallery.  I skipped the rug sales spiel and spent more than an hour browsing through that place.  There were a couple things I might have liked to have, but they weren’t cheap and for the most part wouldn’t have been easy to ship at all.  So I refrained.

     We drove by Jaipur’s “wind palace,” which is really a facade that was created for women in the Muslim royal family to look out on the street without being observed.

     After that we visited a place where the elephants are kept.  The kids really liked touching them and interacting with them.  I felt bad because they were chained up and cooped in a small barn. But it was cool to touch them.  The elephant keeper’s family was more interesting to me, to be honest.  It was a scrawny, scruffy looking guy and his beautiful wife and two pretty daughters, maybe two and four years old.  Lily wanted to play with the two-year old but she wasn’t having any of it.  The four-year old was more willing.  I took a few pictures of the little family.  The mom was obviously a very modest Muslim.  She held her scarf over her face much of the time, and she was unwilling to come closer to us than the open doorway that separated the family’s living quarters from the elephant pens.  She was pretty excited to have her baby’s picture taken, though.  I got a picture I really like (the last one below), with mom looking on as I took a photo of Lily, dad and baby.  Mom is smiling in a way that I’m sure she never would have if she’d known she was part of the picture frame.  I found myself wondering about their lifestyle.  There were swarms of flies in the barn-apartment, and they surely landed alternately on elephant poo and the family’s food.  Yikes.  I wondered how the woman ended up with the elephant keeper.  It seemed like such a mismatch.  Who knows.

     That evening three of us guys walked along the lake right across the street from our hotel.  It’s Eid now—the festival after Ramadan—so there were a jillion people out.  The park was more crowded than any park I’ve ever been to in the US.  It appeared that all or most of the people were Muslims, and it was a really interesting experience to be out walking among the crowd.  We were clearly the center of attention.  People stared unabashedly.  When I would try out my few words of Hindi on them, they acted impressed, although of course their English would always be far better than my Hindi.  One of the guys with me was particularly conspicuous, because he’s tall, good-looking and has longish curly hair.  Guys were asking us questions, hooting at us, asking for selfies with us, introducing themselves, etc.  No women tried to talk to us or looked at us at all other than the occasional furtive glance.  One economics student was particularly garrulous.  He told us about Islam, asked me if I knew any Muslims in America, asked if I knew Spanish (“poquito”), asked if I knew French (“un petit peu seulement”—ha!), and generally chatted us up.  The park was so crowded and so dirty; no one seems to use trash cans here ever, and cows roam freely.  People weren’t really doing anything, just sitting around or walking back and forth and chatting with friends or people-watching.

     Crossing the street to and from the park was an adventure.  There was a crosswalk but no signal, and no one in India heeds paint on the road.  It was like real-life Frogger and I’m not kidding.  The saving grace for not getting killed in traffic is that people can’t drive fast here because there’s so much traffic.  So you kind of walk out and they honk and slow down and swerve and sometimes stop, sort of, and you dodge up and back and across, and after a while you get across the street.  Most of the traffic was motorcycles and scooters.  I’d say the average number of riders was three, and I saw as many as five on a motorcycle. 

     That night we had dinner at a place called Pink City.  It included a show with two traditional dancers and three native musicians.  One of the dancers did a number where she spun around with a stack of five metal pots on her head, and it was pretty impressive.  I ordered mild food, because my innards have been traumatized lately and I wasn’t feeling so hot.

This panorama shows the city, the Amber Fort (center), the wall, and the lake.

 Amber Fort and surrounding wall

 A small white temple between the double walls, with a banner and the Amber Fort in the background.

This is the tower we climbed up to.

 Awesome panorama

 Lake

 Hello!  There were wild monkeys hanging out on the side of the road as we drove home!

 Monkey!

Brad and Lily at Amber Fort, about to ride elephants

 Lily and her friend Bailey riding an elephant

 Lily riding an elephant

Me riding an elephant

 The view from Amber Fort of the tower we climbed in the morning

One structure in the Amber Fort

Garden in the Amber Fort

 Textiles place we went to this afternoon

Facade from which Muslim royal women (whom no one else was allowed to see) used to look out upon the activities in Jaipur. 

 Lily and one of the elephants we visited

 Those elephants sometimes suddenly use their ears to flap away flies.

For some reason the kids all decided it would be cool to kiss an elephant.

The family that operates the place where we went to pet elephants.  It's amazing that I got this picture of the mom.  She was a conservative Muslim, and would not come out of her kitchen doorway or take the scarf off her face if she thought anyone was looking at her.  I'm sure she didn't know she was part of the picture.  She wasn't posing--just really happy that we were admiring her cute baby.  One of my favorite pictures this trip!

July 18--Taj Mahal and Chand Baori

     Today was the Taj Mahal.  I have to say that it amazed me.  I expected it to be pretty cool, but it was beyond my expectations, both in size and in the intricacy of its workmanship.  There’s not too much to say about it that you can’t read on the internet, I suppose.  But it was incredible.  Also, today was the first day after Ramadan, so there were thousands of Muslims there to pray at the neighboring mosque.  It was great to watch and photograph.  Lots of dads were there with their little boys, and it really reminded me of priesthood session of general conference.  At the end, as the crowd filed out, I imagined the imam was announcing, “Please be courteous and mindful of traffic laws as you travel home.”  It did appear that there was a lot of goodwill in the crowd.  They were smiling and kind, and seemed to be relaxed and enjoying each other.

     There were plenty of people in Agra eager to sell us stuff.  The hawkers are pretty aggressive.  The girls were all excited to buy anklets, which run less than 50 cents a pair.  They had some amazing tabletops of marble with inlaid stones—truly incredible handiwork.  I’d love to have one just because they’re beautiful but what the heck would I do with it?  And they cost a fortune. 

     Then we began our drive to Jaipur.  It’s fascinating just to look out the window as we drive around.  There’s always lots to see, especially when we’re stopped at toll booths.  The cars are close together and the Indians typically aren’t shy about gaping at us.  Sometimes it’s fun to gape back or wave or gesture.  Today we were right next to a big passenger bus for maybe five minutes as we both waited in line.  In the bus there were several families, two with little children.  One of the little girls, maybe 18 months old, was gorgeous.  We were waving at her and her mother was grinning and trying to get her to look at us, but she didn’t want to. Finally the mom took the little girl’s face and kind of forced it toward us.  The girl was crying. The mom and I kind of shared a laugh and it was really cute, but I felt bad for the girl!  At another stop a couple adolescent boys were walking around holding hands, which is common for young men here who are friends.  One of them looked at the girl in the bus in front of me and made a kissing gesture, and it was pretty funny.  And there were plenty of guys jumping out of their vehicles to take a quick pee by the side of the road while waiting in line to pay toll.

     On our way we stopped for lunch and had some tasty Indian food.  I really like lassi (a runny yogurt drink) and nan (flat bread kind of like a tortilla, but more airy and tasty).  The tour guide told me to try my Hindi on the owner, so I tried.  He also mentioned that I’m going to Pakistan, and the restaurant owner said, “Oh, at my house when I’m going to the toilet I always say “I’m going to Pakistan.”  He was joking, but of course there is some significant friction between the two countries, and it hasn’t been that long since they were fighting a war.  In fact, I understand that for the past week or so things have been heating up in Kashmir.  Thankfully that ain’t where we’re crossing the border.  Indeed, I don’t think you even can cross the border there.

     After that, then drove to a step well in Chand Baori.  It’s a well and royal dwelling place from the ninth century.  It was pretty incredible.  Basically it’s this huge rectangular hole, maybe 60 feet deep.  Three of the sides descend diagonally down into the hole and are covered with patterns of steps.  The fourth side is a palace where the royal family used to live.  At the bottom of the hole water gathers—hence the “well” aspect. 
     There is a temple right next to the step well.  During the reign of the Moguls (Muslims), they smashed up the Hindu carvings on the temple, because such idols are considered blasphemous to Muslims.  So most of the faces of the gods on those carvings are missing.  But they’ve collected those carvings for display around the step well.   

     The kids around Chand Baori were somewhat used to foreign tour buses—enough to beg and say “hi” and “how are you?”  it was fun to talk a little Hindi to them, because they’re so surprised when I do.  I got some cute pictures. 

     We also visited a traditional potter.  The members of our group got to try to throw a little pot on his wheel.  It was pretty amazing to see his rickety little wheel, which he would start up by whirling it with a stick pushed into a hole on the wheel.  The women’s dress in Chand Baori—and everywhere else in India, especially the north—was particularly colorful.  In fact, as we were driving around we often would se women working in the fields or tending water buffalo or riding on motorcycles in flowing, brightly-colored saris.  They don’t seem to ever wear work clothes.

     In the evening we got to Jaipur and checked into the hotel.  We had some great Indian food, and as we were driving a kid standing on some temple steps flexed his muscles at me.  He was shocked when I flexed them back, and hooted and pointed at me. 

 The south gate leading to the Taj Mahal

 Ditto with me and Lily

 View of the Taj Mahal through the south gate

 Taj Mahal

 Ditto with me and Lily

The other side of the south gate

 Taj Mahal

Muslims praying at the mosque adjacent to the Taj Mahal (it was the first day after the end of Ramadan--big prayer day)

 Ditto

 Muslims heading for home

 View through the workers' quarters on grounds of Taj Mahal

Lily and friend on the bus

 Family on a bus next to us on the highway

 Another family headed somewhere in their truck

 Chand Baori, a ninth-century stepwell and dwelling for the royal family

Kids near Chand Baori

 Kids near Chand Baori

 Guy teaching Lily to throw a pot

 It kinda worked!

 More kids trying to see what was going on with the pottery demonstration

Indian kids are almost always willing to smile and wave.