Namaste!
Greetings from India. Cindy and I arrived Monday night about 11 pm after a fun filled weekend in London.
I met up with Paula, from grad school, and we spent the weekend walking the streets and visiting various cafes throughout the city. We went to an exhibit on women travellers from the 1600-1900's. Their stories were really quite humbling...made my trip to India seem like no big deal.
But we are here and it's probably what I imagined it to be. It's hotter than I thought. We enjoyed a few days in Delhi. We stayed with Helzi and Sunyana, friends of Paula's. It was quite a cushy apartment in new Delhi. We visited some sites, did some christmas shopping, and tried to get over our jet lag.
Yesterday we came to Agra and visited the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. It really does look just like the pictures, only it' a bit smaller. But very impressive. Today I went to the Fatephur Sikri, the abandoned city...about 40K from here. Along the way I passed by these dancing bears. I had read about it from my animal rights sources before I left, but it was pretty horrific. They tie a rope through their nose and 'train' them to dance. Apparently it's very painful. There is some movement in the animal rights world to stop these abuses, but they obviously haven't been successful yet. It put quite a damper on my visit to the lost city.
Although cows are sacred here, you still see starving animals, abused animals, and animals working under dreadful conditions. It's quite depressing. It's equally depressing to see the desperation of these rickshaw drivers to get your business...this is the high season and there aren't a lot of tourists. It's a very poor city and work is not very easy to come by. It reminds me a lot of Arusha and Tanger (Morocco) with everyone hassling you every moment on the street.
I'm looking forward to losing myself a little more in Jaipur this weekend. We are planning on going to a bird sanctuary tomorrow and then taking the train to Jaipur. Jaipur is the first of three cities where we will be spending a week. We will be interviewing NGOs and people to figure out who we want to work with in India. Cindy will be staying on until next August.
The food is as good as everyone said it would be. Everything is amazingly cheap. The things you can buy here are just amazing...I wish I had four suitcases to bring home all these great things you can buy.
Well, that's about it from here for now. I'll have more news as our journey gets more underway in the coming weeks. Just wanted to let you know I survived London and my arrival to India.
Hope all is well!
A
I met up with Paula, from grad school, and we spent the weekend walking the streets and visiting various cafes throughout the city. We went to an exhibit on women travellers from the 1600-1900's. Their stories were really quite humbling...made my trip to India seem like no big deal.
But we are here and it's probably what I imagined it to be. It's hotter than I thought. We enjoyed a few days in Delhi. We stayed with Helzi and Sunyana, friends of Paula's. It was quite a cushy apartment in new Delhi. We visited some sites, did some christmas shopping, and tried to get over our jet lag.
Yesterday we came to Agra and visited the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. It really does look just like the pictures, only it' a bit smaller. But very impressive. Today I went to the Fatephur Sikri, the abandoned city...about 40K from here. Along the way I passed by these dancing bears. I had read about it from my animal rights sources before I left, but it was pretty horrific. They tie a rope through their nose and 'train' them to dance. Apparently it's very painful. There is some movement in the animal rights world to stop these abuses, but they obviously haven't been successful yet. It put quite a damper on my visit to the lost city.
Although cows are sacred here, you still see starving animals, abused animals, and animals working under dreadful conditions. It's quite depressing. It's equally depressing to see the desperation of these rickshaw drivers to get your business...this is the high season and there aren't a lot of tourists. It's a very poor city and work is not very easy to come by. It reminds me a lot of Arusha and Tanger (Morocco) with everyone hassling you every moment on the street.
I'm looking forward to losing myself a little more in Jaipur this weekend. We are planning on going to a bird sanctuary tomorrow and then taking the train to Jaipur. Jaipur is the first of three cities where we will be spending a week. We will be interviewing NGOs and people to figure out who we want to work with in India. Cindy will be staying on until next August.
The food is as good as everyone said it would be. Everything is amazingly cheap. The things you can buy here are just amazing...I wish I had four suitcases to bring home all these great things you can buy.
Well, that's about it from here for now. I'll have more news as our journey gets more underway in the coming weeks. Just wanted to let you know I survived London and my arrival to India.
Hope all is well!
A
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