Apr 20 2009

Last Day In India

Today marks our last full day in India.

It's quite sad to think we're leaving tomorrow but it does feel like we've been here a long time and to be honest I fancy eating some vegetables that haven't been mullered to death. I've been surprised by the lack of fruit in the restaurants too so it'll be nice to eat an apple: how odd?

I've lined up for Namaste India Tours to pick us up at 11am (in twenty minutes) to take us around a few of the sights I want the girls to see, including the wonderful Humayun's Tomb that I remember fondly from my last visit.

Last night we tried to count the list of monuments, tombs and palaces we've visited, safaris we've done and animals we've seen but we failed: we've done and seen so much.

Thank you for following this blog, it's been really nice thinking that friends and family have enjoyed reading the articles and seeing the pictures. We'll hopefully see some of you in a few days.

We've truly had a wonderful holiday.

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Apr 19 2009

Karim's Restaurant Delhi - Too Good To Waste

One of the favourite non-veg eateries in Delhi is Karim's which has been around for over a century in the congested back streets of Old Delhi.

I'd heard Karim's was difficult to find and I was more than pleased when we arranged with IndiaMike's Kabaary to meet there for a meal - it's one of his (many I guess) favourite restaurants. Unfortunately Kabaary works a lot harder than me and was out of the country so we ventured to Karim's by ourselves, never really expecting to find it.

Directions to Karim's I'd read before were: get to Jama Masjid's south entrance, head down the road opposite, go down a tiny lane after 100 yards and find Karim's. It didn't seem likely that we'd find it but Karim's is such a busy place I just kept looking left whenever I saw people head off down an alleyway. (To be fair the brightly lit neon sign saying something like "Karim's is down that lane opposite this sign" did help somewhat.)

The restaurant was rammed with Indian families and there was only one other pair of westerners. We sat down and ordered so much food as it was all so cheap it was hard not to.

It's famed for kebabs (sheesh, shami) and barbecued-type food like mutton burra (yum). We ordered a couple of each of the kebabs on the menu so that the girls would find something without much spice: it didn't really happen, it was all pretty spiced up, especially the gorgeous shami kebabs which had a center full of chopped green chillies.

One thing I just had to try was the Brain Curry - yep, you read it right - and whilst it was okay I doubt I'll be ordering it again. Worth a try though.

I ate soooooo much but we must have left enough food for two people to have a proper meal. I wasn't pleased with my gluttonous behaviour but we had to try lots of stuff to fully appreciate the place. The whole thing, with soft drinks including LOTS of water, came to Rs1100, that's about £15.

@Kabaary: you said you might have to stop posting on IndiaMike if we didn't like Karim's. You needn't have worried.

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Apr 18 2009

Alwar Bagh near Sariska

We are staying at the Alwar Bagh between Alwar and Sariska (another national park).

For the majority of the time it's just been us four and one other room booked out so it's like having the whole resort to ourselves. The chef certainly knows his stuff so I guess this weight loss of mine won't be staying off for long.

When we arrived we were asked what we like to drink and an hour later we saw a car come back from the market and unload the bottles of Kingfisher and Old Monk rum. What a great service, you wouldn't get that in England, you'd just go without.

The kids have asked for ice cream but the waiter explains that there isn't a way to get it back from Alwar (15 km away) without it melting and even if they did the power supply around these parts wouldn't keep it solid for long. Of course, they're kids, they don't understand.

The owner of this hotel is very friendly and confirms my chat with the waiter who told me he is "very good boss sir". Sir, he called me Sir, brilliant, wonder if I can get the lads at work to continue that? (Lads: don't answer this, I think I know what your answer will be and I'd like to keep this blog clean of rude words.)

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Apr 10 2009

Udaipur Hotel - Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel - Lovely

We're staying in the first hotel booked by ourselves, since Namaste India Tours dropped us here a couple of days ago. 

Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel

 

The hotel is lovely, right on the bank of Lake Pichola (which doesn't have much water in it at the moment, not till after the monsoon) and has bay windows which overhang the lake.  

relaxing in the Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel

 We've got a room that is at the back of the hotel but has a view, through the windows of the restaurant, of the lake. It's really nice; our best hotel yet. 

Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel

 

When you're here you just can't help staring at the Lake Palace hotel...no Jane it's the other way.

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Apr 05 2009

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur - by Kev

I keep waking up at 5am but today I'm not bothered as I'm excited to see possibly the best fort in Rajasthan, if not India, Mehrangarh in Jodhpur.

A lazy breakfast later and at 10am Kamal is ready to take us to Mehrangarh, it's already very hot. Mehrangarh dominates the skyline here and the closer you get the more impressive it gets

 

We toured the fort for 3.5 hours, which is a record for me as I normally get bored after 1.5 or 2 hours. I've come to the conclusion that this will always be one of my favourite places to visit, surpassing perhaps even the Taj Mahal.

 

The sheer size of the thing is impressive from far or near, but the real beauty, just like that Taj Mahal, can only be seen close up.

 

I don't think I've read how long the fort took to build but it must have been years and years as the carving in virtually every sandstone wall is exquisite.

 

The coloured glass work was very beautiful within the dark rooms with the sunlight flooding through the glass.

 

We hadn't even realised that there wasn't a hawker or seller in sight, no hassle, whatsoever: are we still in India?

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Apr 04 2009

I'll Push This Car Out Of Pushkar If I Have To

Pushkar was included in my itinerary for only one reason: to split up the journey from Jaipur to Jodhpur. I was interested to see the tiny lake surrounded by 500 temples but really I should have known it wouldn't be my kind of place: there's something about deeply religious cities or towns that does me in, probably because it's not my religion, if indeed I actually have one (sorry Dad, you know what I mean I'm sure!).

We made our way to the ghats via the Jaipur Ghat - each Maharajah had his own bathing ghat into the lake - after buying four lovely cushion covers (for Jane obviously; men don't do soft furnishings right?) for Rs350 (about £5) for the conservatory. We were immediately accosted by Bramin priest, authentic or not I'm not sure.

"Take these petals and throw them into the lake" he said, followed by words like "everyone pays us a fortune for these petals and if you don't the market sellers will shun you". We walked on thinking that the last market seller seemed more than happy to take our money at 5pm; apparently we were his first customer of the day, yeah right!

At this point I thought, "I'll push this car out of Pushkar if I have to" (hey, no groaning, it wasn't meant to be a joke).

After buying another pair of Kameez trousers for Amy from another happy-to-see-the-non-worshipping-foreigners we returned to our hotel, the Green Park resort for dinner. On the way we got stopped by an old man selling hand made shoes. "Oh no" I thought, here we go again, what is he going to try and sell me, hasn't he heard about The Downfall Of Ali Baba?  It turned out that his granddaughter was a few hundred yards away, would love to meet the girls and could he phone her to come quickly. I agreed and a mobile phone call and a puffed out 10 year old Indian girl arrived at the stall, not being able to talk, but happy to see two western children. A couple of photos later and a nice chat, we bid them farewell.

This chance meeting, followed by seeing a peacock up really close made Pushkar slightly more bearable.

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Apr 04 2009

Heading To Pushkar - by Emilia

Kamal, who wanted to us to leave at 9am, was pleased to see us on time, for once. Five minutes later we got in the jeep; I was on my four-hour journey to Pushkar. Three or so hours later, nearing Pushkar, we counted 18 camels; they were extremely tall. Some of the camel were pulling carts however others were just staying still.

 

(NOTE: this isn't one of my photos, I grabbed it from the interwebbythingy) 

Eventually we got to our hotel, the Green Park Resort, which is great because it has a lovely swimming pool; our first one so far. Finally, we went for a long-awaited swim in the pool; it was really cold; it was lovely. After that I had my lunch, my sister and I both had a Margherita pizza - as Pushkar is a vegetarian town and no eggs either - it was very fresh and very hot (out of the oven). After lunch we had another swim, after waiting 30 minutes of course.

Last of all, my family and I went for a walk into Pushkar town, which is a town centered around a very religious lake which is surrounded by 500 hindu temples and bathing ghats leading into the lake. We were dodging cows and motorbikes all the time; it was quite scary. Overall, I had a great day.

Emilia.

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Apr 04 2009

Photos Uploaded

I know some of you have spotted them already but some of the photos have been uploaded to the gallery: http://www.winchcombe.org/gallery.aspx?gallery=India%202009

The gallery for each place is also linked into the Where In The World map.

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Apr 03 2009

The Downfall Of Ali Baba

"Ali Baba" took 19 photographs of the family on our elephant ride to the Amber Fort and told me to meet him in the car park after our visit.

I forgot. He didn't and he chased the car up the road once he spotted us. We stopped and he thrust the photos in my hand. "Only 100 rupees each sir". I laughed.

So that'd work out at about 30 quid. I don't think so.

He quickly dropped his price again and again, without me saying anything, with each price drop so did his enthusiasm for selling the photos.

He'd obviously failed to realise that if I didn't buy them no-one else would.

I said 200 rupees and he laughed, or was it cried?

He tried to get our driver Kamal into the argument and get him to say that 500 was a good price - it was - but it was a difficult position for Kamal to get into so he refused.

Minutes later I handed two crisp 100 rupee notes to Ali Baba and we drove away, Kamal laughing at how cheap we had bought them for, he'd have paid double!

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Apr 03 2009

Amy's Last 48 Hours: Jaipur

Wednesday 1st April
We travelled to Jaipur for 3.5 hours. Then we drove to McDonalds for lunch before going to a tailors where I got measured for my very own Salwar Kameez (it's leggings with a long knee-length top), which will be ready in 24 hours. After that we went to the City Palace where I had audio guide to tell me about the palace history and buildings. We knew the Maharajah was in the city because the flag was flying high. We saw two collosal silver urns made from 15000 silver coins melted down until they could be made into the urn. The urns carried water from the sacred River Ganges for the Maharajah when he visited the UK.

Thursday 2nd April
Today we went to the Amber Fort. When we drove the bend I saw the Amber Fort for the first time, it was very exciting and I said "Hey Emilia, look at the walls they are so big". As we arrived at the majestic Amber Fort we went up some steps to get on a elephant's back for the long slow ride up to the fort which was high up on a hill. It was very wobbly on the elephant's back and I felt slightly sick because of the smell of the elephant dung! When we got to the top of the hill we had 19 photos taken by Ali Baba which Daddy bought very cheaply. I can't wait to show my friends and family the photos of me on an elephant. 

Amy x

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