Apr 19 2009

From Calm Alwar To Crazy Delhi

Today we left Alwar and headed by train to Delhi.

This time we travelled in two-tier air con class, which was a cross between the two other classes we'd tried so far. I'd be happy to use this for an overnight trip, as opposed to three tier AC (3AC) but I think I'd go 3AC for day trips in the future.

The train was an hour late, which was expected at Alwar as it's already done 1000km before it reaches there. So all in all, over four trains, only one was late and only by an hour. Not bad.

Arrival at (Old) Delhi station was surprising as it's Sunday today, a day of rest for most Indians, yet the station was rammed and I literally had to barge my way throw the passengers to get anywhere. It's not something I like doing but once I got in the swing of it I turned out to be rather good at it. Things I never knew.

Out of the station and we're accosted by 4 autorickshaw owners - why didn't I notice the pre-paid autorickshaw counter?. I guess a local could get the fare for Rs50 or maybe Rs100 but I've already decided that I just want to get to my hotel so I'll settle for Rs200 - they're hardly rich those rickshaw drivers so I don't mind over paying a little. He starts off a Rs350 (only a fiver) and I utter the phrase "do I look like I've just arrived in India". The dust and dirt on my three-quarter-lengths tells him I've been here a while and he drops the price to Rs300. "You are just joking right?". Rs250. I pick up the cases already loaded into the van and leave. "One last chance" I say adn he drops to Rs200. That'll do, I know I've been fleeced, but I just don't care, get me out of here.

We arrive at the oasis that is the Ginger Hotel, a no thrills hotel where rooms cost Rs1000 per night. It's so clean, laminate floors and marble everywhere, LCD TVs and air-con. The kids check out Star Movies and the settle down to watch their first film of the trip - Runaway Bride. Dad buys a 24hr internet access card (Rs338) and starts blogging.

Tonight we're hopefully going to find Karim's restaurant, an institution in Delhi service great shami/sheesh kebabs and the like. But it's apparently a nightmare to find in the old heavily populated streets of Old Delhi. Let's hope we don't see a McDonalds on the way and bottle it.

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Feb 11 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part III) - TV

Luckily, England has a fascination of India and this extends into our television programmes, including documentaries about cities/wildlife/travel/religion/gardens and children's educational programmes.

So armed with a Windows Media Center that will record any programme containing (in it's title or description) the words 'India', 'Rajasthan', 'Tiger' and 'Maha'*, we've ended up with loads to watch over the last nine months or so. Some of this is very good stuff for the kids, others not.

  • Firstly, there's a wealth of regular programmes that have 10 minutes on India. Usually not very informative, they're still worth watching. This include holiday programmes like Holiday Showdown and other holiday shows, one-off wildlife documentaries.
  • Primary Geography is a series of 10-15 minute children's educational programmes all about kids in India. There's an overview programme, one about Kerala, one about Rajasthan and many more. The Rajasthan one included footage of a boy who lived in the area near Sam/Khuri desert and another part featuring the niece of the current Maharaja of Jodphur.
  • Paul Merton In India was quite a good series where Paul saw some of the more unusual/eccentric elements of the country. I thought it was done quite well as at he always promoted the activities with an open eye, daunted at first, respectful at the end.
  • Tiger, Spy In The Jungle was a series following tigers within Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharastra. As with all BBC and Sir David Attenborough the quality and content are superb.
  • India with Sanjeev Bhaskar. For me the jury is out on this one and it's interesting that the first site I found (linked in on the left) felt the same way. I like Sanjeev as a comedian but as a documentary lead I just found him a bit too up himself. Unlike, Merton, he didn't seem to want to get too close to the locals, apart from when he was retracing his ancestry to Pakistan. Still, there's great footage includingn interesting time spotting tigers, in Pench, where it took him two weeks to find a tiger. Funnily enough this series was shown on TV at the same time as Tiger Spy In The Jungle, so perhaps Sanjeev should have followed Sir David around, he may have had better luck.
  • Michael Wood The Story Of India. A bit too old for the kids but we showed them the more interesting parts.

The BBC has a list of India & Pakistan related shows, most of which are finished but are bound to be repeated.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of the TV shows listed above too, but I was on a roll with the title 'Preparing The Kids' so I couldn't rename it halfyway through!!!


* keyword of Maha was included just in case Mahabharata ever turned up again on telly. Having read the book in 1996 it's never been back on TV.

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Feb 08 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part II) - Films

It seemed important that the kids could see glimpses of India before they went as with only Europe as a reference, they'd be in for a quite a shock.

Over the years I've bought a couple of videos - videos eh? remember them? - about India so we decided to go through them.

One's to mention are

  • City Of Joy. I didn't care for this film very much but I rate the book as my favourite read, so much so that I bought it last week from Amazon after lending my original and never getting it back. The film does show some stuff that the kids might be horrified by (violence, scams, muggings, leprosy) but they got through it. A few questions, mainly about leprosy, later they were fine. It was a good introduction for two trusting kids on the art of scamming.
  • Gandhi. I felt it important that they know about Gandhi and this was the best (infact only) introduction to him I could give. I'd forgotten how long this film was - over three hours - so we did it over four days as it is hardly fascinating viewing for an 8 year old. It took four days as we only managed to watch 45 minutes a day, but each 45 minutes actually took 75 minutes, what with numerous pauses/questions.
  • The Darjeeling Limited. A slightly boring film for the kids but it's got lots of train footage in it and the train travel footage is mainly shot around Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
  • Slumdog Millionnaire.. What! It's not yet out of DVD so how did they get into the cinema? Of course, they didn't and there's no other way they could have watched it... is there (Wink) ? All I can say is that if they had have watched it they would have thought that: lovely film; slightly gruesome but not worrying; really makes them want to go to India more; Mumbai looks huge; looking forward to train travel; be careful buying water, check no glue round cap;wish they were Milyunaires.

Tonight, we're going to watch The Fall as it is partially shot in Jodhpur.

UPDATE: 9th Feb...wow, the locations and cinematography are fantastic but....the film?...I'm not so sure. Check out this site about all the locations in the The Fall.

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