The Last Post...

So today is my 6th month anniversary of being out of Australia. Woo. I've blogged the hell out of the last two days, and with the exception of all the family stuff that happened in Gujarat, and some non-specific topics, I've got you up to the point I left India and arrived in Nepal. Since I've been a lazy bugger in Kathmandu, I don't have much to say about that yet.

Just a few little tidbits to tidy things up:

I've updated this post to include video.

In Rajasthan and Gujarat I've seen ads for this clothing company:

...as well as 'Bumchums'.

Here's a vid of some FILTH (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) showing how to get the glycerine out of a light Indian beer:

And here's some recipes I've picked up but haven't tested:

Mango Lassi: 1/2 kg Alphonso mango pulp, 6 cups boiled and cooled water, 1 litre fresh curd made into plain lassi (I don't know how to do this yet), 1/2 cup sugar syrup, 1/2 cup red strawberry syrup. Blend. Serve chilled with rind of lemon

Parsi Chai: Tea, sugar, milk, mint leaves, lemongrass, boil together in some manner.

Seafood Masala Fry - Pepper, lime, lemon salt, red chilli powder, pinch of tumeric, one tbs. oil. Marinate for 2 hours. Fry, season with coriander.

Chicken Masala - Add a teaspoon butter, (mustard) oil, and pinch of cinnamon on low heat to pressure cooker. Add paste made of onions, garlic, tomatoes, black pepper, licoricy cardamons & green cardamons (there is a difference!), ginger, coconut powder, chilli powder, tumeric, sage powder, salt, and lemon and curd to taste. Cook with lid loose for 1/2 an hour slowly. Add chicken, close lid, and wait for 4 bells (this was how it was explained. I guess wait until it's cooked?). Season with coriander leaves a minute before finished cooking.

And finally, an affectionate picture from the last hotel I stayed at in India:

Mumbai

Cleaning up all my India stuff, here's some stuff from waaaaay back in Mumbai.

From the Jogeshwari caves on the outskirts of the city, although the actual people living next to them were far more interesting.


Banganga, a 1,000 year old tank fed by a natural spring in the corner. It's right in the middle of ultra-modern and rich Malabar hill, and feels very ancient and strange. According to legend, Rama's brother Laxmi fired an arrow into the ground and water sprung out.

Here's the queue for the Siddhivanayak temple on the day you're meant to go there - I can't remember which it is now. Although some people walk from their homes barefoot to go there, it felt like more of a social outing, like church on sunday.

Mumbai is an exciting city and has a lot going on. It has some of the most expensive property in the world, and also has the largest slum in Asia. It's like New York and L.A. rolled into one - loud, brassy and exciting. It exerts a pull on the rest of the population, who flock to the city to follow the Indian dream, most of whom end up in the slums. Even the dogs in Mumbai are more wired than in the rest of the country. Like the rest of India, you get back what you put in. If you come looking to find a job, you'll find it. If you come looking to be disgusted at the poverty, you'll find that too. I came to be vaguely entertained, and that's exactly what I got.

Here's two Mumbai friends I randomly drove past in a taxi. In a city of 20 million people.

Agra: In which our hero makes it.

Arriving by train into Agra, with the Red Fort on one side and a huge mosque on the other, is a strange experience. I was kind of in a daze the whole time I was there, so didn't take that many pics. I had to be on my game, too, after small-town Bundi - touts and commissions and tourist traps abound. I got shown round various sites:

The Baby Taj, as it's known:



The Itmad-ud-Duala tomb on the Yamuna River. That's my thumb in the corner:


To be honest, I wasn't that keen on seeing the Taj. I'd seen it when I was seven and remembered feeling a bit ho-hum about it. Everyone was talking about going to see the Taj... what for, to check it's there?

The whole day after Fatehpur Sikri I was working myself into a negative feeling about it: it was a big monument to waste, so much money and effort for a grandiose building, etc. Stumping along the path on the river bank opposite the Taj, I saw villagers and subsistence farmers living just as they would have when it was being built. This just got me even grumpier.

And then I came round the river bend and saw the Taj. And it is beautiful. And the idea behind it is beautiful - Shah Jahan built it as a tomb for his dead wife. It's a grand romantic grieving gesture, and it would be my number two location to bring a girl, after Udaipur.

So here it is...

Notice how it's on a raised platform? That's so it's background is always the sky. Shah Jahan was going to build another Taj as a tomb for himself on the other side of the river bank in black marble. Perhaps that's why his son Aurangzeb imprisoned him in his own Red Fort (at least he got a view of the Taj from the Fort). He's buried next to his wife in the mausoleum under the Taj.

While I was on the river bank a kid came up with a camel and asked if I'd like a picture on the camel. I misheard and thought he'd asked if I wanted to buy a camel. He said he would sell me the camel, but then he would have no other camel to earn money with. I asked the going rate on camels these days. He thought for a minute, and said "oh, about a million rupees". Smart kid. He also took this pic of me:

As it turned out it was a free day to go see the Taj, so I had no excuse to miss it (normally it's 700 rupees!). This meant the place was packed with Indians, which was great. You go in through this gate, and I have to admit when I glimpsed the white marble through the dorway I got a bit excited. Some American tourists behind me said "we made it," and I had to agree. If nothing else, I've seen the Taj.

Looking forward...

looking back:

To the side:

Down low... Muslim drainage.

The amazing thing about the white marble is that the building changes colour according to the light. When I went it was kind of an overcast day, but at one point the sun came out and the Taj glowed yellow, and everyone burst into applause. It's that kind of building.

Of minor interest, here's an interesting factoid from the Red Fort (if you can read it). My question is, how does one aggrieved person shake an 80 foot gold chain?

Fatehpur Sikri: Almost there...

From Bundi I regretfully left to meet my date with levitation in Bodhgaya. It was a 24 hour journey by train, so I decided to break it up with a two day stop in Agra. Normally I travel 3rd class non-ac, which is a fun but exhausting way to travel - everyone wants to chat with you, and it's noisy and hard to sleep. So this time I decided to spend a little more and go air conditioned class - what a difference! It was like travelling in a plane - blankets, pillows, suspension on the carriage, quiet, minimal chatting.

I got to Agra and was picked up by Chintu's friend and fellow hotelier. Chintu had rung ahead and organised the whole thing for me ("he is my brother, look after him"). This was a good thing, because the whole time I was there was a tired blur for me.

First sight to see, because I'm a snob, was Fatehpur Sikri.

This was a city constructed by Admiral Emperor Akbar to be the capital of his Moghul Empire in the 16th century. It lasted about 10 years before it was abandoned due to water supply problems and the capital moved back to Agra. Salman Rushdie writes about it in his o.k. book The Enchantress of Florence.

The palace:

The Panch Mahal, because it has five stories, get it?

This is an interesting one. This is where Akbar would invite scholars and religious figures to debate eachother and himself. He was that kind of guy. He had a Hindu, Muslim and Christian wife. He invented a new religion which was a synthesis of all the bits of other religions he liked. I like to think of them up there with big poles, a la Gladiators:

Though perhaps without the bikinis.

By now I was feeling a little dissapointed. I mean the palace was nice and all, but not that amazing. Then I came through to the other side and saw the Jama Masjid. Moghul Emperors rarely disappoint.


A huge mosque complex, surrounded on all sides by gates:


The tomb of Salim Chisti, Akbar's patron saint.


Beautiful lattice-work inside the tomb, carved out of one piece of marble:

The main gate is about twice this size, by comparison.


The main gate. It's set on the top of a huge set of steps, which makes it even more impressive. I'm surprised this isn't more famous, it's so big you get vertigo just looking up at it. Of course, I couldn't get it all in my lens.


Part two in my 'happy animals near monuments' series. At the base of the gate, this was just absurd.


And here's another wacky pic - a nearby tower decorated with stone elephant tusks:

Bundi pt. 2 - A day out with Kukki

You may be wondering what the hell I'd been doing up 'till this point - five months in India and only a few places checked off the list. Well, when you relax into a place after seeing the tourist sights things just seem to happen, and Bundi is a case in point. After being there for about 10 days I met Om Prakash - 'Kukki' to his friends - by chance.


No not that Cookie.

Kukki's a shop owner who has spent most of his time in the last 20 years scouring the hills and rivers around Bundi. Without funding or support he has discovered coins, stone tools, rock paintings and evidence of a previously unknown civilisation. I'm going to do a story about him. Here he is in front of some of his discoveries:

Prehistoric dice (die):


Moghul era coin:


One day he took me out to see his rock paintings. They are always near river areas:


The country around Bundi is a lot like the outback - desert and scrub with watering holes and canyons. Even the odd gum tree! The next day we started out early by ourselves to get to a canyon about four hours walk away. Later I realised we could have driven there, but that costs money and this way was more fun. It ended up too hot for my normal clothes so I draped a lunghi around my body and head and we went on our way. We walked out of the desert and came to the canyon, where, of course, there was a guy selling chai, snacks and cigarettes. You're never really alone in India. Two Irish guys had turned up on motorbikes. They looked at me like I was Lawrence of Arabia (I was also speaking bullshit Hindi to Kukki).

"Hi."
"G'day."
"Where did you come from?"
"Out in the desert."
"How long you been there?"
"Few days."
"What happened to your shirt?"
"Monkey stole it."

They were impressed - I love being Australian at people. The journey was worth it:

Half way down there is a cave hidden which Kukki had 'discovered'. Well, discovered for the wider world. Native people or 'adivasis' had been coming here for centuries (perhaps continuously) to make offererings and perform rites.

Paintings on the wall:


You may not be able to see in the last picture but that's a two headed giraffe. Giraffes, in India? While we were there some random guys rocked up for a smoke:


Continuing the smoking theme, when we climbed up to the top of the canyon this photogenic fellow rocked up out of the desert, got some bhang from the chaiwallah, put it in his pipe and smoked it.

After a long day it was down to the canyon for a swim. As ever in India, anywhere there's natural water there's a temple, complete with photogenic and well groomed priests. Not a bad life.

After my little walking-in-the-desert experiment I decided I needed some proper gear, so I got some pyjamas (loose white trousers) and this made up. Just call me Florence of Arabia.