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Two Beach Birthdays
Our autumn series of followtheboat posts take us to the Himalayas. It’s an exhausting trek into the moody, cloud-covered mountains, but before we head north we’re going to take two weekend breaks on the beach in Kerala. Stupidly we booked our driver through the same company who arranged our fateful Western Ghats adventure. And guess who our driver was? Yep, the very same chap who claimed never to have had an accident in 21 years of driving, forgetting the accident Liz and I were involved in within 20 minutes of jumping into his car on our first trip (I think the definition of an accident in India has to include at least one fatality)
Unique Udaipur
This is our final entry of our Rajathan trip, written by Octopussy…I mean Liz. Why Octopussy? Because we’re in Romantic Udaipur, where the rather kitch 1983 Bond movie was filmed. However, as Liz writes: “shunning the ‘antiques’, carpets, and tailoring being thrust at us we ended up by the water, watching the sun go down over Udaipur from the best viewpoint in town, in the company of professional photographers and the homeless.”
Sambhali Trust: Charity begins in a Rajput Home
“We teach them about their appearance, good dress sense. Most don’t know where Jodhpur is, or even that they live in Rajasthan. Their lives are simply this: get up, brew tea for Dad, do the dishes, clean the house, cook lunch, sleep, clean the household, make dinner, go to bed. Every single day of their lives. They have no weekends, no holidays. They are married at 15, and then have the exact same life with a husband who probably rapes and certainly beats them.” This is the account of one man’s mission to ‘empower’ disadvantaged women from Rajasthan, in a superb write-up by Liz that is packed with first-hand accounts, facts, sad stories and, ultimately, the positive action of the Sambhali Trust.
Jodhpur Crowded And Dirty?
Our copy of the Lonely Planet describes Jodhpur as “crowded and dirty”. What utter tosh. Being in India ‘crowded’ is a given but The Blue City is by far the cleanest place we have visited so far (and certainly cleaner than London right now). Its smart clock tower in the centre gives it a friendly market-town ambiance and the streets between our niwas (home-stay) and the centre were wide, airy and populated by some rather grand houses. The wonderful tight back-streets are in stark contrast, but all daubed in a bright blue paint and bustling with locals at work and play. We have three (yes, three!) slide shows to illustrate the grandeur of The Blue City to take your mind off the horror of the London riots.
Class Five’s Letters – Part One
We take a break from our travelling and return to Newport Primary School, more specifically Class 5 who we visited last week. We showed video clips of our time in the Himalayas and we talked about life on the sea. We were there to start a cultural exchange programme between the students of Newport and the students at Magno Vale Academy, a school set up by the MondoChallenge Foundation. The project is being coordinated by Class 5′s teacher Jude Savill, MondoChallenge representative Amy Pettipher, and ourselves. More on MondoChallenge later, in the meantime we just had to print and reply to these wonderful letters. Here are the first three:
Agra’s Not Just The Taj Mahal, You Know
The Taj Mahal is the main reason for visiting Agra, but it’s not the only one. Indeed anyone in the area who doesn’t take in the ‘Baby Taj’ (Itimad-ud-Daulah) is missing a treat as its beauty is almost on a par with her big sister. Sadly this is in stark contrast to the acid-burned arm of the beggar boy we saw at the trainstation. That’s India for you. This week’s post is packed full of photographs, for those who just want to skim through the last of our Agra blog entries.
Fatehpur Sikri: City of Victory
Cliché or no cliché, Akbar’s ‘City of Victory’ really does “rise majestically” from a barren rocky plateau. Referring back to my note book, before writing up this visit, I found a string of exclamations: “The scale! Location and position! Extraordinary! Fabulously well-maintained! Power! More palace than fort!” An extraordinary place…
The Taj Mahal In Agra: Beauty And The Beast
Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, is a huge contradiction. Boasting possibly the most beautiful building in the world the town itself is a filthy disgrace. Still, we enjoyed it from both cultural and photographic perspectives, and so in this little post we take you to Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal, grabbing some stunning shots of a legendary landmark.
Jantar Mantar and the Pink City Beggars
We’d only been in Jaipur a day and a night and already we’d witnessed some police brutality, so we thought we’d balance it with a bit of civilised culture. Cue one UNESCO World Heritage site and a huge palace-cum-fort. After visiting these incredible places, however, we thought we’d get back to reality with some interaction with beggars, street-dwellers and kids rummaging through piles of rubbish. Just to remind ourselves of this diverse city we’re in before leaving for the Taj.
Giggling And Haggling Amongst The Monkeys And Elephants
When we last left you we’d taken advantage of some holy Jaipurian urinals. Now we cross the street and go check out the rather ornate Jaipur City Palace, the Hawa Mahal (where women could see but not be seen) and mingle with monkeys and elephants. In amongst more wee spots we sample a refreshing beetroot drink and then round the day off with some good old fashioned police brutality.
Dusty Backstreets of Jaipur
We begin our Golden Triangle trip of Rajasthan in Jaipur, a city rich with energy, commerce and culture. It quickly goes down as one of our favourite places visited to date. Known as the Pink City, it is a place where monkeys thrive on the props of the human dwellers in the back streets. In this post we invite you for an early morning walk through the back streets, ending with a little photo slide show of this rather interesting place.
A Rajput Gentleman – Introduction To The Golden Triangle
With Liz being short-listed for another writing competition this week we thought we’d start off our Rajasthan series with one of her latest entries, which we’ve also made available for the iPad and Kindle. Beautifully written, this pulls together a number of themes set in Jaipur, Jodpur and Agra (Taj Mahal), the classic traveller trail called The Golden Triangle. The central story, however, concentrates on a remarkable man we met whilst in Jaipur whose quest to empower women from the lowest castes affected us deeply. Setting the scene for the next few blog posts this is moving, brutal yet ultimately uplifting. It is, in my opinion, Liz’s best non-fiction writing to date.
Munnar Munnar – Do Doo Da Doo Doo
Munnar is a corner of Kerala that’s tucked away in the mountain peaks of tea plantations and lush green valleys. Miles and miles of strange looking tea trees, interspersed with cardamom bushes and coffee trees, provide great walks and views not seen anywhere else in this mainly tropical state. In this post Liz provides some insight into these wonderful valleys, and throws in a visit to a tea factory.
Eerily Familiar Kodaikanal
We’ve now left Madurai and we take you up into the mountains. Kodaikanal is an old hill station in the Western Ghats and at over 2,000m it is cool, quiet and peaceful, the perfect juxtaposition to Madurai, that mad and crazy city in the plains. This mountain village offers some of the best views of the Ghats and this little post provides photographic and video evidence of exactly how English some of the countryside looks. Think Lake District in the autumn…