Day Eleven (and part of 12)

Today was our last day in India, and it couldn’t have begun any better. We woke up at 630 and went to get breakfast. After breakfast, we got our bags, put them on the bus, and were off to the destination that made our final morning the best it could be: Amber Fort. The reason it was so special is that you ride elephants to the fort, which is fairly high up. We got to the fort right as a huge line was forming for the elephants. Luckily, we ran and just barely got in front so there was no wait. There could only be two people per elephant, so I went with Will and my mom went with one of the students, Allison. It was amazing riding on that elephant. Will thought it was “so sick.” It is a little bit scary, because there is a ledge right by where the elephant is walking, but the rhythmic swaying of the elephant really is quite soothing. If you close your eyes, it is kind of like floating in the ocean, with waves going under you. Our elephant was a really slow elephant, so we got a nice, calm, and long ride. My mom’s elephant, on the other hand, passed almost all of the other elephants in our group. When we reached the top, we got off of the elephant and walked around the fort. The fort itself is gorgeous, and the views are even better. From the fort you can see all kinds of mountains and Jaipur itself. Solanki showed us around the fort and told us interesting facts about it. There is one part called the sheesh mahal, which is an area made up entirely of mirrors. It is SO cool. The ceiling and every wall is covered with tons of mirrors. After that, we went up higher in the fort to get a better view. As I was looking out and taking pictures at the top, I noticed a GIGANTIC bees nest right in front of me. I took pictures of it, but it’s still hard to show how huge this nest was. There were two, actually, although the other one was much smaller. It was probably one of the largest bees nests that I have ever seen, and it probably would’ve made my sister cry (she is really scared of bees). After that we walked back down to our bus. On the walk back, people trying to sell us things once again bombarded us. There was this man who had taken pictures of Will and me on the elephant. Will and I thought they were cool, so my mom asked how much they were. The man said 1000 rupees FOR ONE PHOTO. So, of course, my mom said absolutely not because that is a ridiculous amount to pay for a photo. I probably got the angriest I’ve gotten at an Indian person on this trip when he came back and tried to sell it to us again. He was getting all up in our faces and thrusting the pictures at us, so I told him that we didn’t want his pictures. Well, he came back, and he did the same thing once again. So, I told him once again, “WE DON’T WANT YOUR PICTURES” and thrust his hand out of the way. Well, once again (surprise surprise), he came back, this time saying that he would give us two pictures for 100 rupees. We obliged, because that is quite cheap, and got away from him. We walked part of the way and then took Jeeps down to our bus. Once we were all on the bus, we headed towards the palace where the Maharaja of Jaipur (kind of like the Queen of England but on a much smaller scale) lives. It was just fantastic. The buildings were wide and beautiful and were beautifully decorated. When I found out the age of the current Maharaja, I was shocked: he is TWELVE!!!! What. A. Life. Is all I can say. We walked around the palace for a while and then went into a museum that was there. In the museum, there were all kinds of weapons that were AWESOME. There was one weapon that was a small dagger and had a second function. If you pressed this thing down it would open up into scissors and you could open and close the scissors. Anyways, I thought that was pretty cool. There were cycle-rickshaws waiting for us when we got out of the palace, which I was really excited about. Cycle-rickshaws are bikes with a seating area in the back for two people. They ride on the street will all of the other cars, which makes the ride exhilarating (there are also no seatbelts for passengers). Will and I got into one, and my mom got into another with a student named Invo (I hope that is spelled correctly). The ride was so much fun. The person who was riding our bicycle stopped and let us take pictures along the way, which was really nice of him. It was so cool having tons of cars speed by us and having buses honk at us. After the cycle-rickshaw ride, it was time for lunch. The drive to lunch was VERY long because there was a Muslim procession throughout the city that was calling for world peace. It was an amazing sight. There were TONS of Muslim men (I probably saw about three women), with their white shirts and hats walking on the streets. There were ten times more people than cars, which, as you can imagine, created a LOT of havoc. Most of the Muslim people were marching on one side of the street, so that side of the street ended up being closed off, which meant that all the cars from that side of the street come onto this side of the street. It was a complete traffic jam, and our bus was right in the middle of it. Johnson, our tour guide, told us not to make eye contact with people in the Muslim procession because the tiniest thing could set them off. Here is the thing: basically all of the Muslims in the procession were very peaceful and polite, but all it takes is one or two to create absolute havoc. Johnson had been in this kind of situation before, and I could tell that he was a little bit frightened (which is saying something people Johnson is one chill dude). As you know, some Muslims are not too fond of Americans, and I was told that Pakistan and Al-Qaeda often send a few people to things like this to create havoc. There were one hundred thousand Muslim people in the procession, and I am sure that 99,995 of them were great people. The fact that we were stuck in traffic meant that if one of them wanted to do something to us, they easily could have. Anyways, even though it was a little tense, it was amazing to see that many people from one religion marching for peace. Eventually, we got out of the atrocious traffic jam and had lunch at a place called Moorti Mahal (not Moti Mahal). It was a fantastic last lunch. I bet (if you have been reading the previous blogs) you can guess what I had… Butter chicken, reshmikabob (another kind of chicken), vegetable and cheese pakoras, and (of course) naan! I once again had a huge lunch, which is good because I will probably be eating airplane food soon. We were going to have a walk in the middle of Jaipur after lunch, but with the Muslim peace procession going on it was not a good idea. Therefore, we decided to go to a nearby store where all kinds of fabrics and rugs and bedcovers are sold. It was a really nice shop, and a man showed us how they make all of the designs that they put on the rubs and bedcovers. Will and I bought Maharaja hats, which (as the name implies) are hats that the Maharajas wear. At the store, I talked to one of our tour guides, Mahesh, and learned how cool a person he is. Mahesh is the one who arranged the village trips, which were my favorite part. It also turns out that he is an actor! He designs sets for plays and acts in them, which is SO cool in my opinion. All three of our tour guides, Solanki, Johnson, and Mahesh, were so great. Solanki is the extremely knowledgeable one, Johnson is the yoga-loving cool and calm one, and Mahesh was the quiet one who made our trip truly memorable. After the store, we headed for the airport (nooo L). We dropped Solanki off, thanked him, and then said goodbye to Johnson and Mahesh once we arrived at the airport. It was tough to say goodbye to them, because of how connected I became to them over the five days we were together. We all said that we would see each other again, which is something I definitely want to do. Our flight was normal and not particularly interesting. We landed in Hyderabad at 930 at night. Our flight was at 655 the next morning, which meant that we would have to get up at three in the morning. We said our goodbyes to all of the students, which was also sad because travelling with them was so much fun. After that, we met Prasad (hooray!) once again, which I was happy about. We stopped in at KFC and got some “hot and crispy” chicken for dinner. Prasad is a vegetarian, so we made sure to put the chicken in the trunk. We then drove back to our apartment, ate our KFC, packed, took showers, and got about three and a half hours of sleep. We woke up at 3 AM the next morning and got all of our stuff together. We went down to Prasad, who was waiting for us. Once again, even though it was three in the morning, Prasad was happy to take our bags and plop them into his trunk. He drove us to the airport and Will and I said goodbye to him. I told him he was a great driver and he smiled like he always does. Prasad was amazing. He knew the streets of Hyderabad like the back of his hand. All you had to do was tell him some random destination and he would go there. The last person Will and I said goodbye to was my mom, which was the saddest one. After saying goodbye to her, we walked into the airport. We did security and bags and all that and I had one last masala dosa for breakfast. We then boarded the plane to London, which marked the end of my trip to India.

Overall, it was one of, if not the best trip to India (and to anywhere) I have ever had. The only thing that would have made it better is if my dad and sister were there. I saw family, met new friends both my age, older, and younger, learned a ton, went to a couple of classic Indian villages, visited five major cities in India, travelled halfway around the world with just Will, and saw one of the seven wonders of the world. All I can say is that I’m looking forward to the next trip to India J.

 Amber Fort:

Some of the elephants with their riders:

The view from the elephant:

Inside the fort itself:

The HUGE bees nest:

A small part of the Maharaja's Palace:

My mom and one of the students, Invo, with their cycle-rickshaw rider:

Probably the most famous building in Jaipur, Hawa Mahal:

A very small part of the Muslim procession:

Our two totally awesome tour guides: Johnson (left) and Mahesh (right):

THE END-Thank you everyone for reading my blog!!!!!! J J J

Day Ten

We went to a new city today, Jaipur. The day started back in Agra, though. We woke up at about 7 and went to breakfast. There were these really good Indian tater tots, so that was the main part of my breakfast. We then checked out and went to the bus. We would be seeing a few things on the way to Jaipur, and wouldn’t arrive in our hotel until quite late. Our first destination of the day was a place called Fathepur Sikri, which is an old town built by Akbar. It took 15 years to build, but Akbar only lived there for nine years, which doesn’t make much sense in my opinion. The one problem with Fathepur Sikri is that it is the absolute worst place in India when it comes to people trying to sell you things. There is one section where there are constant people running up to you and thrusting their product in your face. Luckily, we were able to avoid that part and go straight to where Akbar lived. There were still vendors trying to sell all of us things on the way to Akbar’s palace, but it was not nearly as bad as it could have been. When some of the vendors discovered we were from America, they started constantly saying, “Obamaland! Obamaland!” One vendor came up to me and asked where I was from. I said America, and then he started listing off all of these random places in America. It was a little bit strange…. After that, he (of course) tried to get me to buy stuff, which I did not do. The palace itself was fantastic, it was quite serene and the structures looked like they were in perfect condition. As I was walking around and looking at all of the carvings and drawing on the different structures, I noticed many animals with no heads. Solanki told us that this is because of Muslims. When they came to this place, they cut off all of the heads of the animals because in Islam you are not supposed to show heads in drawings. What’s amazing is that Akbar had tis entire town and palace built and did not even know how to read or write. He was completely illiterate, yet he could do things that many literate people couldn’t do. After the palace, we went back to the bus and continued our drive to Jaipur. The scenery on the drive from Agra to Jaipur was a lot like the scenery on the drive from New Delhi to Agra. There were lots of brick-making villages and lots of green. One thing I was noticing a lot of that I didn’t notice on the other drive was the amount of camels on the road. The villagers use camels to transport bricks to big cities and other locations. Every few miles there was a camel with a man on its back walking leisurely, which I thought was pretty funny because it’s just not something I’m used to seeing. We stopped for lunch at a roadside “motel” a couple hours into the drive. The reason I put quotation marks around motel is because this was nothing like any American motel. It was a gigantic building, with shops, bathrooms, and a nice restaurant. I would call it a mini-mall. Lunch was good, not the best but not bad. I supplied my naan addiction by having about two naans, and we were back on the road. We started to see lots and lots of mountains as we entered Jaipur. I saw a little bit of the city but then fell asleep. When I woke up, we had almost reached our next destination, an elephant camp. This is a sort of sanctuary for elephants, where all kinds of wildlife thrive and are kept safe from hunters. Let me just say that I absolutely love elephants. They are my second favorite animals (dogs are my favorite) because they truly are gentle giants. When we arrived at the elephant camp, we were immediately greeted with one. We walked off our bus and all ran over to pet it. The students LOVED the elephant and took tons of pictures with it. I could see that the elephant had a big smile on its face and I think he enjoyed the whole thing. After seeing the elephant, we went on a Jeep safari tour to another Indian village. After the tour, we would come back to the elephant camp to see the elephants and have dinner. We were shown around this village by one of its residents (I don’t remember his name) who seemed so kind. Every time I looked at him, he had a big smile on his face with teeth showing and everything.     We began by going to the school, just like in the other village. It was Sunday, so there weren’t any school kids there. While driving through this preserve (the village is part of the elephant camp preserve) I was shocked at the resemblance between it and where I was born, Arizona. The mountains looked the exact same as it, there were no clouds just like in Arizona, and there were even cacti!! The one thing that was different was the wildlife. I saw multiple peacocks and a few gigantic monkeys which other monkeys are scared of. When we were driving by the village, a crowd of children began to run behind our Jeep and try and keep up with it. It was hilarious; especially when one little guy kept on grabbing into the Jeep to make sure it wouldn’t get away. Eventually, the man from the village brought us to the center of his village. We went to this man’s house and he said that he owned 100 cattle, which I found pretty awesome. He had a huge family and two adorable little kids. We walked into his farmland and saw all of the crops his family was growing. Along the way I met a boy who’s name has also slipped my mind. He was probably a couple years older than me, and he was speaking English for the first time. He seemed eager to talk to me, even though he didn’t really know what I was saying. He spoke great English for his first time, though. The crowd of kids in this village may have been bigger than the crowd of kids in the last, and they really, really wanted a picture. For the second time there was one boy who needed to be in every single picture we took. After petting some goats and seeing the inside of the man’s house, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the elephant camp. These villages are truly some of the best places I have visited. It’s such a different kind of India from the parts of India that I had previously visited. There’s no commotion and EVERYONE is happy. When we got back to the elephant camp we saw two more elephants and went up to pet both of them. Their names were Lakshmi and Darrell. Darrell was supposedly the nicest one in the camp, and Lakshmi was one of the really nice ones too. Darrell really is a great name for an elephant. They were both so sweet. Looking at them close up, I noticed how beautiful their eyes were. To begin with, they were gigantic. There also seemed to be so much detail in the area surrounding their pupils and so much depth in the pupils themselves. They didn’t have white around their pupils like humans, which I thought was really cool. Dinner was FANTASTIC. I had more chicken and four naans (hehe) and lots of rice. For dessert I had gulabjaman, which is a kind of fried bread coated in sweet syrup. After dinner, we all (the students, Will, my mom, me, the guides) went and bought some crafts native to Jaipur. The men who were selling them were possibly the best salesmen I have seen in India. They had a set price, the set price was much cheaper than I would’ve paid for the things I bought, they were not in the least bit pushy, and (most importantly) they were kind. After that, we finally checked into the hotel and got some rest. The past couple of days have been some of the best days of my life. I have seen the Taj Mahal, petted elephants, and gone to small villages. Tomorrow will be our last day in India, and I hope it’s the longest day of my life.

A part of Fathepur Sikri:

One of the shops along the road on the drive from Agra to Jaipur:

A cute kid near the elephant camp:

The landscape in Jaipur by the elephant camp:

One of the elephants with one of the students, Lucia, in the background:

Some kids from the village running after our Jeep:

My mom with our village guide and a woman from the village (she's NINETY!):

Part of one of the farms of the village with the sunset in the background:

The elephant camp itself:

Day Nine Part Two

After lunch, we went to a classic Indian village called Barara. This village is about 30-45 minutes outside of downtown Agra and is entirely self-sufficient. I fell asleep on the drive there, because of the gigantic lunch I had just eaten. When we arrived, I was a little discombobulated, but I came to my senses soon. As I got off the bus and looked around the town, I saw a few things.  There were LOTS of cows, a few children shyly looking at our group, and a hut. We walked down a road to another building where we met a man named Rajiv. Rajiv seemed like quite a nice man, and seemed pleased to meet us. He started out by telling us a little bit about Barara. Rajiv grew up in this village, and still lives in it (more on that later). After the short talk, he took us to the village school. The kids in the village are quite poor, but you would never be able to tell by their playful and happy attitude. On the way to the school a small procession of them started to walk behind us. Whenever I made eye contact with one of them, I gave them a big smile and they shyly smiled back (most of the time). When we got to the school, class was in session. There were a bunch of schoolgirls sitting outside (on the ground) watching us. Rajiv picked up a schoolbook and showed it to us. It had all kinds of very basic things in it, but it was amazing because it had the entire English alphabet. Rajiv told us that these schoolchildren start learning English in third grade, which I found very cool because that is earlier than when we start learning French at the Ray School. I took some pictures of the schoolgirls and other children around the village and we headed back to where we first met Rajiv. There, I met a couple boys, Mohit and Aditya. They seemed like they were in their twenties, and they were REALLY nice. I was amazed at how good their English was and how happy they were to speak with me. You could tell how proud they were of their village, as they should have been. It was an amazing village. They used all kinds of things to their advantage such as water buffalo and cattle and Mohit told me that he had Wi-Fi in his entire house. While I was speaking to Mohit and Aditya, Rajiv had us talk to three village women. I noticed that two had a veil over their head, which hid their faces. My mom asked Rajiv to ask the women why (the women didn’t speak English and Rajiv could translate) this was the case, and they said that it was because there was a family member in their midst. They still stick with the old traditions of covering your face when a family member is present, which I found to be quite interesting because I had never seen anything like that before. After speaking to the women, we started to hear music playing and suddenly saw a snake being taken out of a straw basket. There were snake charmers from the village showing all of us this cobra. The snake charmer that was holding the snake brought it right up to Will and had him touch it. He then moved the snake around the circle everyone had formed and each of us got the opportunity to touch it. After that, the snake charmer took out a gigantic python that had just been caught the previous day. The python didn’t seem particularly happy to be in the situation he was it, and still seemed to be quite wild (which isn’t surprising because he WAS caught yesterday). At one point, the python starting wrapping himself around the arm of the snake charmer and the snake charmer had to pry the snake off of him. At another point, the snake charmer accidentally let go of the snake and the snake started to slither away. Luckily, the guy caught it       before it did any harm. After the snake charming, Rajiv had us speak to an elder of the village who told us how the village is governed. While the group was talking to him, Will and I caught the eye of about ten kids who were all looking at us tentatively. I took my camera out and took a picture of them, and they got really excited and wanted more. They wanted ones of just them and ones of them with a friend etc. etc. After taking about twenty pictures of them, we went to see some water buffalo that the villagers kept for food and milk.

We were only able to see them a few people at a time because we didn’t want to water buffalo to get nervous or scared. They were VERY cute, and seemed happy to see us. That’s something that I began to notice about Barara: it’s a big bubble of happiness. Everyone is smiling and enjoying life.  The kids that we had taken pictures of earlier started to follow us around laughing and wanting more pictures. Of course, we obliged, because it seemed to make them so happy. After the water buffalo, we were taken to a shop on the other side of town where all kinds of medicine for all kinds of things were sold. As I walked into the shop, one of the first medicines I saw was liquid opium. I had to read it twice because that 1. Seems like some very strong medicine and 2. Seems like it would do more harm than good. The person running the shop wanted to give us things to heal all of our little problems and Rajiv guaranteed us they would work. One of the students got a bunch of different herbs to heal tendonitis, and another almost bought eye drops that were meant to heal glaucoma instead of allergies. It was awesome to see all kinds of conventional spices and things being used and medicine. It was more fun to look at than drugs in America, which have weird names with x’s and z’s and 20 letters and all that. By this point, there was a big crowd of people following us around. As we walked out the same kinds wanted even more pictures. There was this one boy (I didn’t catch his name) who was in almost every picture we took. He seemed to love it when we took multiple pictures of him doing the same thing, which I found very cute. After the medicine shop, we headed over to Rajiv’s house because we were supposed to have dinner. Sadly, though, a couple students were really not feeling well (my mom wasn’t feeling well either) so we had to cut the visit short. We still went to his house, though, and spoke with his family for about 20 minutes. They were all smiles and seemed happy to tell us everything we wanted to know. We talked to Rajiv’s wife, who was a schoolteacher in Agra, about the school life and other things. It turns out that Mohit, who is the nice guy I was talking about earlier, is Rajiv’s nephew. In this village, it seemed that even if you weren’t related, you were still a family. There didn’t really seem to be individual families, but rather one big, curious family who couldn’t be prouder of the village they were living in. I think that’s what made this village so self-sufficient and happy. Everybody is looking out for everybody else, whether you like it or not (I don’t see why you wouldn’t like that). After Rajiv’s house, we headed for the bus that would take us back to the hotel. I got a picture of Rajiv himself, who said some very kind things to me. I also spoke to Mohit and Aditya on the way out and we all agreed that we should be friends on Facebook. Aditya friended me and I friended Mohit. They were so nice, and I wished that I could stay longer. Mohit and Aditya both said that they wanted to end up in the U.S. someday and maybe go to Pennsylvania and Virginia. I have no doubt that they will, because it was evident how smart they were and how hard they worked. The crowd of kids followed us the to the bus and then waved to us until we were out of sight. It was one of the best sendoffs that I’ve ever gotten, because everybody was waving, smiling, and saying that they would pray for us to feel better. Looking back on it, it was one of the best things I have ever done. 70 percent of India is villages (I think that’s right) and I had always wanted to see true India. All of my relatives live in big cities, so I had never been to a place like this. Someday I want to go back and see all of these kids grown up. The amount of pride and happiness in that village was probably the most I’ve ever seen in any town, which is one of the things that made our visit so special. Every single person was also EXTREMELY welcoming and said that we could come back and visit anytime and that we would be welcomed into their homes like family. I kind of wish Hanover was like this village. If every town had everybody working together and working hard to make it the best town it could possibly be, we would live in a great world. I lived in a truly great world that afternoon, and I can’t wait to do it again.
The snake-charmer with the snake:

A few of the girls who wanted a picture:

Some of the crowd that was following us:

Rajiv:

part of the village: