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: