January 8, 2004 - 11:50 am - Jaipur, India - 15 C and Clear

(Krista) There are people everywhere in this country. You would be hard pressed to look anywhere without having at least one person in somewhere in your vision. The craziest thing is the amount of people who live on the street, or are squatting in temples, tourist sites (ie, forts), tents of tattered cloth and sticks, or dilapitated brick/mud/corrugated metal shelters on roadsides, or even in train stations (it was very hard to walk in a straight line through the Varanasi train, having to make your way through the maze of people sleeping on the floor). People squat everywhere and anywhere; whole families and singles. Across from our hotel in Varanasi, an entire family was living (no shelter) beside the very polluted ditch lining the road. This family (or families, we saw at least three grown women and five or six children) lived on two raised cots, and were always burning something for heat. Like most street children around, these children were very dirty but were ever so excited to yell out "Hello" to us passing tourists. The family had a huge collection of plastic water bottles going on in the ditch - I wonder what they were for?

Actually, speaking of plastic, piles of rubbish are everywhere, and as I mentioned before, does not seem to be collected in the city centres. Instead it is dumped into piles for the pigs, cows and dogs to eat. As you could imagine, this makes for some very unpleasant panoramas when travelling or walking around. Since the animals can digest only biodegradable items, some guidebooks plead with tourists to minimize their use of plastic items - bags, bottles and packaging. This is easy when it comes to shopping, as you can easily turn down the offer of a plastic bag, but minimizing the bottled water is a different issue. Since water is likely the biggest hazard in India, we cannot drink tap water, nor can we drink water served in restaurants. Instead, we must settle with bottled water, and try to buy only 2L bottles, versus the more common 1L bottles. Another warning to tourists about the use of plastic bottles, is to crush them before tossing, as bottles can sometimes be snagged, filled with less-than-sanitary water and resold as bottled mineral water. Thus, if you come to make sure you check that the seal is intact, and the bottom of the bottle hasn't been altered, as you may indeed be purchasing dirty (and potentially lethal) water. Dirty water that tourists cannot handle. It seems locals have the ability to drink the water here, as they seem to be okay drinking tap water, or even worse, drinking or brushing their teeth using water from the proven-to-be-septic Ganges River (see Tony's description above).

Most Indians are vegetarians, but not vegans, as they do eat eggs, milk and cheese to the nth degree. Street food, and most restaurants are devoid of meat dishes (in non-veg restaurants, meat is often two to three times the price). To be honest with you, I am relatively relieved of this matter, as sanitation and cooling mediums are a luxury, and thus most potential "butchers" would be a fatal bacteria farm. In my entire time here, I have seen only one vendor selling cooked chicken, and only three streetside vendors selling raw "meat". I say "meat" because we aren't sure what type of carcuses they had hanging - they definitely weren't chickens or pigs, too small to be goats, and thus cows. The only animal left is dog; Tony confirmed this hypothesis. So who knows what you are getting when you order "mutton curry", and thus I have stayed far away from non-vegetarian meals. period.

The selection of food here is incredible and extremely varied. Food served in restaurants can be either from North Indian, South Indian and/or Punjabi dishes. Chinese food is readily available too. South Indian food is my favourite, as it is based more on lentil and rice flours then the wheat-heavy dishes of the North. Further, vegetarian here is much different than vegetarian from the west. Back home, vegetarian meals are usually loaded with legumes, nuts, soy or tofu. Here, beans are less available, and meals are mainly cereal-based and heavy on the vegetables and potatoes. Peas, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes and chili peppers are the most frequent. They serve really cool red carrots here, and some excellent radish-like veggie that is shaped like a carrot. Some dishes I have fallen in love with are their egg or veggie Pulaus (a fried then boiled rice dish), egg or veggie Biryanis (oven-baked rice dish), Dosas (a huge paper thin lentil pancake containing a pile of potato masala), Idlis (a thick and moist rice cake, and served with spicy soup and coconut chutney), potato curry, and Pokaras (veggies rolled in lentil flour batter and deep fried). All soo good.

The weather in India has been something we never would have expected. I always envisioned India as being warm, 365 days of the year (except in the Himilayan regions of course). Not so, especially in Uttar Pradesh (the state containing Agra and Varanasi) and Delhi. Who would have thought that our long underwear would have been necessary in India? The moisture-heavy atmosphere only exacerbates the cold, penetrating ever bone and blood vessel. Lucky for us, Jaipur has been very pleasant, allowing us to strip off the filthy long underwear, toques and shell over-coats (it is impossible to keep anything clean here - the minute you put something on, and walk outside with it, it is filthy).

I should point out that Northern India, like Nepal, has been undergoing a prolonged cold spell. Back home, a drop in temperatures of 4C or 5C really wouldn't be too much of an issue, but considering the millions of under-dressed street dwellers, it is disastrous and fatal. Actually, at the Varanasi train station, Tony and I walked by a man who had obviously died recently from exposure. It was absolutely devastating to think that this man died all alone while curled up in the fetal position trying to keep warm. After giving him our blessings, we left to get on our train. I guess someone else found him, as 1/2 hour later, he was no longer there.

To be honest with you, seeing this dead body doesn't surprise me given the amount of death we have seen here, given the lack of disposal facilities they have. We have seen dead pigs, dogs, goats, monkeys, birds and cows. At many places along the roadside between Agra and Jaipur there were dead cow carcusses and skeletons, and even a dead human carcus. At one point, I guess people decided to clean up their part of the roadside, and piled up the collection of bones into a 5ft high pile.

Enough about death and decay, and I don't want to get into all of the poverty, begging and mangled limbs we have seen.

All in all, we have spent 8 days here in India, and have seen quite a few popular tourists sites, such as the Ganges River in Varanasi, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and a number of forts in Agra and Jaipur. The Taj Mahal, like Tony mentioned, was beautiful. Until I had been there, I had only thought it to be a large white, very symmetrical, structure. I had never really noticed the intricate detail of the semi-precious stone inlays, nor the inlaid Arabic Quranic quotes surrounding the building. The entire building is built of translucent marble, and is awesome up close. It is possible to walk (without shoes, or in booties) right up to the Taj, and inside. Since the entire structure was built as a tomb for Emperor Shah Jamal's second wife who died while giving birth to his 14th child in 1631, her crypt rests in the centre (the false crypt on the main floor, and her real crypt downstairs where visits are not possible). Next to her lies Shah Jamal's crypt, and effectively musters up the awesome symmetry of the entire Taj complex. The entire Mughal mausoleum, a beautiful monument to love, took 22 years to complete (completed in 1653). Shah Jamal apparently would have built an identical one in black marble for himself, had his son not imprisoned him before his death at the Agra Fort across the Yamuna River (where he lived his last eight years staring across the river at the his wife's Taj). I must say, the pollution filled view of the Taj from the Agra Fort is amazing, seeing it rise up for the river like a beautiful white angel.

Surrounding the Taj are 4 identical plots of 16 gardens, along with pools running the length of the path up to the monument. Facing the Taj is a beautiful red sandstone gate, which has an identically designed portal as the Taj, and is topped by 22 small onion domes, symbolizing the 22 years required to complete the monument. From this gate the most famous photos of the Taj Mahal are taken, and thus is rarely seen in photos. Flanking the east and west sides of the white Taj are two large identical red sandstone buildings; one is a mosque (the west one, as it faces Mecca), and the other is a jahab, or a dummy building built only to keep the symmetry. The latter is in a terrible state of disrepair, and in its glory would have been beautiful.

Similar to the Taj's jahab, most heritage buildings, palaces and forts are in a serious need of restoration, clean-up and repair. Over-use, mold, neglect, litter and squatting make some parts of the monuments less than appealing to visit. Absolutely the worst part is the ubiquitous red paan or "betel nut" spit stains found all over India, in the heritage buildings as well as the streets, buses, hotels, everywhere. Luckily it is banned from the Taj, and thus remains likely the only place in India unaffected by the disguisting mess. What is paan? It is a naturally occurring nut that is chewed with a mix of spices, tobacco and a white liquid substance. It can be bought pre-made in packages (found littered everywhere) from street stalls, or naturally made in front of your eyes and wrapped in some leaf ready for chewing. Like chewing tobacco from back home, you have to spit often when chewing it. However, the spit is bright red, and leaves a red stain wherever it lands. Further, it stains the chewer's teeth bright red. I will never get over the shock of seeing a rickshaw driver turn around and smiling showing his bright red teeth to us. I can only imagine what my grimaced face must look like.

Disrepair and maintenance of the sites aside, the palatial and fort architecture is so awesome to see, and forms a refreshing contrast to the highly Christian and colonial architecture we have been seeing over the past five months in the western hemisphere (Egypt aside). Here in India, there is a highly unique blend of Hinduism and Muslem elements on the forts and palaces of Rajasthan (the state of which Jaipur is the capital). Since these forts and palaces, and mosques within, were constructed during Muslim rule (the Mughal period), there aren't many religious images, as Muslims do not have images like Christianity or Hinduism. This makes for some very elegantly simplistic architecture, of which the white marble compliments beautifully. Hindu architecture is equally beautiful, and is filled with images of selected gods (of the apparently 330 million gods), such as Vishnu, Krishna and Ganesh. Usually buildings are built of red sandstone, while marble, or a plaster material painted either pink or white. Windows are not glass, they are screens made of the same material as the structure (for example, the Taj has marble screens on all openings), and adds to the elegance.

Inter-city travelling in India is a great way to experience the lives of millions of locals. Like Tony mentioned above, we had some difficulties in securing a 2-tier A/C berth (the highest possible class on this trip, with four bunks per curtained-off section) during our Varanasi to Agra trip (the train with our original reservation was cancelled), and thus ended up on the much much cheaper Sleeper car, where curtains are unheard of, and there are three beds high, and two beds flanking the sides, thus having 8 beds per section, and about 15 sections per car. The windows are unsealed in the Sleeper class, so vendors are yelling in at every stop, or peering in to stare at the tourists, and do not at all insulate from the cold. Apparently this is the class that most Indians travel in, and thus we had a great, but uncomfortable travelling exposure (we were the object of many glances and stares throughout our journey). Sleeping on the bunks weren't that bad though, as we had fortunately each picked up a thicker fleecy blankets for 200Rs a piece before the trip. Neither of us had pillows, and thus Tony rested his head on his small backpack, I on a 2L bottle of water. Bedding is apparently provided in the upper class of our original reservation, and the windows are sealed from the noise and cold outside - a much more attractive option, but we had no choice.

Travelling in trains over long-distances is a must for anyone who comes to India, but be forewarned: have patience and don't wear your best clothes. Delays are common, and travel is slow-going. Buses are a great option for "short" distances during the daytime. As soon as we arrived in Agra, we decided to book our train ticket onward to Jaipur, however were persuaded to take the bus by the man selling the reservations. His convincing argument was that all seats/berths were full, on both trains that travel there, and the 310 km journey take 7.5 hour, whereas the hourly buses take only 5.5 hours and are cheaper. So we set out to find these buses.

Showing up at the bus staion, we found that there are two types of buses that travelled the distance. The locally popular bus costs 104 Rs, and is basically a school bus with three seats per side and luggage comes on with you. We saw these buses and cringed at having to sit in the overfull bus for umpteen hours stopping to load/unload passengers everywhere. We hoped this wasn't the bus that the train-man was telling us about. Sure enough, after much inquiry through major language barriers, we found that the government also runs a deluxe and direct service from a hotel down the street. From here you can get a reserved seat on a 2x2 "deluxe coach" with luggage compartments for only (get this) 134 Rs. Well, for 30 more rupees ($0.67USD more), we were definitely in. And boy, the train man was right on the mark, this was a very comfortable service (in direct contrast to the train), our luggage was secure, and it departed and arrived right on time. I cannot believe the leg room on these buses! There isn't one bus we have travelled on during this entire trip with that much leg room! The only complaint I have is the cold draught coming in from the front driver's compartment! Tony, on theother hand may have to complain about a bar in the seat that was sticking into one of his butt cheeks.

Phew, I'll write more in Delhi when we get there. We leave Jaipur later this afternoon for Delhi. Only three more nights left here.