Travel Tales: India, A Tourist in my Own Land

I am Indian. Whatever my passport says, when someone asks "Where do you come from? " I hesitate just a second before saying "India". A lifetime spent in four continents of the world has made me a bit of everything else as well. So I am excited but also a little nervous about planning a touristic trip en famille to India .

The kids want to 'discover their roots'. As a first trip in their age of awareness, it has to be the Golden Triangle of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur, extended to as much of Rajasthan as we can manage. I do an in-depth study of travel guides, take suggestions from friends and do comparative shopping of travel agents. It feels odd, being a tourist to my own land. Finally the Plan is ready, deposits paid, we wait impatiently for the day, and we fly.

It is a surreal trip for me. I see India both from within and without. I am both part and apart from this land. I see it all also through the eyes of my children, whose links are more tenuous. As the days go by, my veneer of 'apartness' is shed, and I become more and more a woman of this land. My daughter sums it up. "It feels good Mum", she says "to be the same as everyone else".

Come, follow the tales of my voyage with me..

Day 1 - Delhi

Day 2 - Agra

Day 3 - Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur

Day 4 - Jaipur

Day 5 - Ajmer and Pushkar

Days 6 and 7 - Udaipur

Days 8 and 9 - To Jodhpur via Ranakpur

Days 10, 11 & 12 - Jaisalmer

Day 13 - Delhi

Day 14 - Delhi and return

Travel Tales: India, Day 1 in Delhi

We arrive in Delhi and get a pre-paid taxi to our hotel. It’s the middle of the night. There is a fog and visibility is low. The driver seems oblivious to this or the traffic rules as he speeds past red lights in happy abandon. Maitu lets out a little squeak at a near miss with a cyclist. I counsel her to close her eyes as I determinedly look at familiar roads made unfamiliar by time.

We are booked at the Hans Plaza, close to Connaught Place. We check in quickly. I am not much impressed with our two rooms. There is a rather a sad look about it all; the carpets are worn, the bed spread looks well-used, the bathrooms could have done with a good scrub. But the next morning the breakfast spread is good, and we are replete.

We meet the travel agency's representative in the lobby. There is a slight confusion...was our agreed sum in Indian rupees or was it in US Dollars? The rates have changed, they want to charge us more now. But I have my confirmation emails with me. We negotiate a mutually agreeable sum but I am muttering to myself "Typical!!!". We are given vouchers for every hotel and for every guided tour included. Good thing my good man is so thorough by nature; he checks every bit of paper to ensure that it’s all there. It all takes a good amount of time.

We want to set out to explore Connaught Place, very close to our hotel. "Do you want to walk?" the receptionist asks "Where do you want to go? Take a cab" she advises. But we are walkers. The receptionist looks mildly askance...why? I wonder. We set off with directions which we forget the moment we step outside. I should know all of this, I think, this was my playfield in my growing days. I remember hanging out with my friends at Palika Bazaar, seeing films in Regal, buying cheap clothing in Janpath, eating Dosas at Nirula’s....I want to show my children all this but sadly I am as lost as a newbie.

From the moment we reach the inner circle, my antennae go up. This is a Sunday. There are too many loitering young men, standing in groups and hardly any women, not even women-hawkers. As we walk towards Regal, groups start following us. My pretty 19 year old is attracting too much attention. I feel hemmed in, distinctly uncomfortable. They seem to be getting closer and closer. I have a flashback to my university days, when a street-gang, armed with hockey-sticks, had got into the bus, and had surrounded and molested a young student. I remember sinking into my seat, wanting to get off the bus and being too frightened of being noticed. I remember that no-one, not a single man or woman protested. Only this girl's voice saying "Let me go, please let me go" and the boys' laughs. My fear of young men in groups affects me today...but it is not just me. Maitu whispers "Mum, I want to go home". My man's antennae seem unaffected. But he agrees to a strategic retreat. Afterwards, when we talk about it to local friends, they are surprised.

We walk swiftly towards Jantar Mantar, an observatory built in 1710. I hadn't planned to go in, we shall be seeing a better version in Jaipur. But I am glad for the quiet inside. It feels like a haven. We are hustled by the gate keeper into taking him as a guide, and he mumbles in incomprehensible English. The kids listen with mute fascination to his strange utterings. He forces us to pay an astronomical sum for his 5 minute spiel. We are all feeling resentful, put-upon and sorry for ourselves. We sit amongst the salmon coloured structures, looking at each other, wondering if we had made a big mistake. My man asks "So, what do we do?". This was to have been an easy day, just shopping and getting over jet lag.

I have a brainwave. I suggest going to Ajmal Khan Market. Not a tourist area but a middle-class shopping area. We emerge from Jantar Mantar, watchful, and quickly get a taxi. We agree to the 100 rupees he asks for. I breathe a sigh of relief when we reach our destination. It is exactly as I remembered. It is madly crowded, but not in the least threatening. Shops spill out into the pavements. There are families weaving their way through the crowds, arms full of babies and their weekly shopping. Well dressed women of all ages emerge from sari shops in their multicoloured glory. Hawkers call out to passer-byes extolling their goods. Street-side shops sell all kinds of tantalising food which our sanitized stomachs will not withstand. Fruit-sellers have neat pyramids on their trolleys. Kids try to sell handkerchiefs. Nobody pays us the slightest heed. I am happy. I feel we have finally arrived.

I excitedly point out the shops where I bought my wedding saris. We are now quite ready for lunch. A shop keeper points us to Roshan di Kulfi. It looks familiar, I think I might have lunched here while shopping with my mother. It's crowded. We wait hesitantly at the door and then walk in. No one pays us the slightest attention. We wait in the aisles, looking for someone to leave. Just as someone does, people who have come after us and are lurking close by dart forward and grab the table!! After this happens the second time, Maitu is miffed. Her eyes analyse the situation. She takes control.

She whispers "Mum, you beside that fat family, they are on their desserts. Dad you stay there, lots of empty dishes. Nushk, in that corner. The moment someone pays the bill, shout out to us".

We follow the strategy. The table behind which I am waiting to pounce is emptying. I give a cooee and a glare at these people behind me who want to shove forward. My family zooms in from all sides and we slide in, even before the previous diners have left. We beam at each other, quite satisfied with ourselves :)

Three of us order Chole Bhature and one a Thali. The food is so good I could kiss the surly waiter!! The Kulfi that follows is one of the best I have eaten. My man indulges his sweet tooth. All for a total of 250 rupees for 4 people. We spend the afternoon shopping and get back to the hotel with arms full of goodies. Maitu is very happy with her shoes and tries them all on again.

That night we take a taxi to a Taste of China in N Block, Connaught Place. The food is excellent and so is the service. In spite of a bad start, we have had a good day.

Next: Day 2 in Agra

Travel Tales: India, Day 2 in Agra

We are ready to meet the car and driver at 7am. He is there before us. Green eyed and hook-nosed, he has the typical Rajasthani look. And a big smile. The kids immediately name him 'Prabhu' as they are in the middle of reading Shantaram. Over the next few days we find that he is all of 23 years old, married to a now 17 year old for nearly 2 years!! Female emancipation doesn't seem to have arrived yet in his village, a scant 1 hr from Delhi. The young woman is not allowed to speak in front of his father or elder brother. She has to keep her face covered as well. But they do allow her to go to school. We hear his stories with interest, a peep into a world much different to ours.

The travel agency has upgraded us to a better car for free. I take back my mutterings of yesterday. We leave behind a suitcase with yesterday's shopping at the hotel. The car is roomy, a Toyota Innova, and proves to be very comfortable. The road to Agra is quite decent but crowded. We make good time to our hotel, Clarks Chiraz, reaching by 11:30 am. Check in takes much too long. The hotel is decent enough in a sanitized, soulless kind of way. As we are checking in, the travel agency's local contact comes and greets us. How did he know we are we, I wonder. He tells us that the guide will meet us in the afternoon.

The driver takes us to a nearby "Only Restaurant" for lunch. We are not impressed.

The guide meets us after lunch. We leave soon for the Taj. He tells a good story, this man, and his English is excellent. The kids are wide eyed as we step forward to our first sight of the Taj. It is unbelievably beautiful, almost unreal. As we walk forward Nushk tells me that he never realised how big it was. I have been here innumerable times but it still takes my breath away. Is it, I wonder, the marble which attracts me? The beauty of the lines of the minarets? The undulating and sinuous Persian script? The delicacy of the jali work? The perfection of the inlaid artwork? It is beautiful, undeniably so. Neither photographs nor words can describe the feeling of awe one experiences. I am a seasoned traveller, and this my nth visit, but I am still awestruck.

We spend more time that we expected exploring the Taj. Nushk sits down to sketch it for his art book. I am pleased to feel so pleased. We head then to the Agra fort. It is an interesting monument, but we are running close to closing time, so it is a hurried visit. Unfortunately there is too much smog to see the Taj at a distance but I remember it from my childhood. You Indian readers out there will appreciate my remembering the film Mughal-e-Azam and Madhubala's dance in the Hall of Mirrors. My memories and reality merge, as always, and I am unable to distinguish one from the other.

We are tired and glad to get back to the hotel. My man decides to go for a sauna and an Ayurvedic massage, both of which he enjoys very much. I lie in bed half reading my travel book, lost in thoughts of the stories of the Taj...the romantic story of a much loved wife and a king who went grey overnight with grief on the day he lost her. I remember Rabindranath Tagore's description of the tomb as "one solitary tear hanging on the cheek of time". Why, I wonder, were the Mughals, who were capable of constructing such a masterpiece, were also capable of the mutilation and the death of the architects who created it? Can such artistry and cruelty co-exist?

We drive out later in the evening looking for a nice place to eat dinner. I realise that Agra is the pits. Dirty, polluted and very unattractive. We find a place to eat, but it is quite terrible. We should have just eaten at our hotel (we don't normally like to do that...its usually fun to discover local haunts). When we come back, a noisy wedding celebration at the hotel keeps us awake for a long time.

Next: Day 3, in Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur

Travel Tales: Tulip Fields and a Quest for Vermeer

I blame it squarely on the film Silsila, this long time desire to see the Tulip fields in the Netherlands. There was this scene picturised with a nubile maiden singing along the fields...25 years passed but I remembered that scene very well indeed. To the uninitiated, Silsila was a Bollywood blockbuster made in 1981, with a superb music score which, once heard, was remembered forever with pleasure. Since we moved to Europe, I had been looking for an opportunity to make a trip. Easter holidays 2006 were coming up, and I charted out a plan which included tulips and art museums. I stealthily plotted to drag my poor man, who would prefer pub crawls to flowers or museums, into dozens of them (museums not pubs :) thanks to my Quest.

Aah, I haven't quite mentioned my Quest as yet, have I? A simple quest really, I just want to see all of Vermeer's paintings, that's all :) I had always admired his works, but it was after seeing The Love Letter in a visiting exhibition in Melbourne in 2005 that I became enraptured. The Light!! Oh the light!!! How it gleams from inside his paintings!! What a magician!!! And hence my new Quest, to see the Light captured by the master. As there are only 35 surviving works of his, I think I might achieve it too :)

I kept looking at this Tulip Blooming Status website as our holiday drew near; unseasonably cold, the tulips were still stubbornly closing their charms to the world. But our holiday was booked, and we left for Amsterdam, stopping in Frankfurt on the way to visit friends. They told us that they had just been to Amsterdam, and no, the tulips didn't look quite look like they did in Silsila. I sent a quick prayer up to the Sun God to warm up the tulip's hearts as we drove towards Amsterdam.

The hotel I had booked on the net was as central as it can get, but what a dump!! The water dripped non-stop from the faucets, a huge dead cockroach behind the toilet stayed right there for all the four days we were there in spite of my complaints, the sheets got changed only on the third day after my demands rose in pitch and intensity...bad experience. Travellers beware, Amsterdam overprices its hotels rooms and you don't get anything like what you deserve for your money.

The first day, we set off along the canals towards the Van Gogh museum after a hearty breakfast. This museum has the largest collection of his works and at the time of our visit it also had a special exhibition on Rembrandt and Caravaggio. We spent virtually the whole day in the museum, eating a light lunch at the cafe to keep us going. My transports of delight are a whole new tale perhaps of interest only to those who are 'into' art as well...if you are one of them, check out my Artistic Tales: On some Dutch and not so Dutch Artists.

The museum took a toll on our feet, with all of us limping on our way out. At least I felt good inside, I am not so sure about the other two :) One hint for future travellers : a lot of queuing time can be saved by purchasing tickets over the Internet. We walked slowly back, along routes mentioned in our guide book as being particularly interesting. But we were all interested in just taking the weight off our feet and eating something. We walked to Dam square which was pretty and well lit up, and then rested in a restaurant for some time.

Nushk wanted to see the red light district which his sister(!!!!) had told him about. I was not keen, being morally opposed to the trade in women, whether displayed on a window or not. But the better half decided that it was an educational experience for the boy, and so we wandered through some parts of the area. I was shocked to see that the girls were so very young and pretty. I wondered sadly about their stories, the tales they would tell...what bought them from the bosom of their family, to displaying their bosoms in public? Was it desperation or was it choice? Was it need for money, drugs, or an escape from, I shudder to think, a worse situation? Would any young woman choose this life voluntarily? I could not look at those windows. My guilt that I was comfortable and safe, when these young children stood so exposed in all senses, my guilt that I would do nothing about this, that by my inaction I would acknowledge this as an 'acceptable' part of the world shamed me to silent tears.

I had wanted to go on a canal cruise but was so very tired by then. But the boys were keen, so we stood in the icily cold pier waiting for the next boat. The boat finally came, and a recorded commentary followed. The pretty passing lights, the warmth of the boat, the droning commentary was all too much to be resisted, and I fell asleep much as the boys tried to prod me awake!!

The next day started with another museum trip, this time to the Rijksmuseum. As it was undergoing renovation, only a special exhibition called the 'Masterpieces' was open. Even that took a full three hours to see. And I made my first headway into my Quest :) After that we stopped for some lunch, and using our guide book, did a walking tour seeing canal houses of note. One interesting fact was that many of them leaned forward, thus allowing big pieces of furniture to be pulleyed up through windows as the stairwells of these houses were narrow. We ended up finally at the Heineken factory tour where Nushk and I struggled to stop the better half from consuming more than half a dozen of the free beers on offer!! That was stressful!!!

Third day, and we drove out to Marken first, a small fishing village not far from Amsterdam. A perfect little town, it still didn't appeal to me...it was just too perfect, as if it were a Disney 'village' made to please tourists. Our next stop was Volendam, another perfect little town. I have decided that the Dutch women have an obsession with cleaning!! I saw women busily dusting imaginary dust inside their homes, women hanging precariously out of windows to clean the outsides, sweeping the sidewalk in front of their homes, tidying their already tidy gardens....Women, get a life, for God's sake if you have free time just Blog!!! I was a little envious of the consistently beautiful windows though, perfect little lace curtains, pretty vases and ceramics, so very pristine. Next stop was Zaans Schaans to see the windmills. Again, too unreal to appeal...though it was indeed real. We stopped at the tourist shop and bought some very nice cheese.

Then with hope in my heart, we headed off to Keukenhof and the tulip fields. YES!!! Though everything hadn't bloomed as yet, the one warm day had been enough to encourage the little darlings to open their pretty hearts. Keukenhof didn't have just tulips of course, but flowers of all kinds set in a most magnificent garden. It was a treat, and even the boys who aren't into flowers agreed with that. I resisted my impulse to run through the tulip fields, singing, with my sari flying in the air....both the nubility and the flapping sari were missing :) We drove back through village roads, besides fields of different bulbs...if you haven't been already, and you like colour, DO!!

Last day..we packed our bags, and left towards Leiden, the birthplace of Rembrandt van Rijn. Now this was so much more of a 'real' town, with a beautiful old town centre and a very lively atmosphere. We enjoyed a nice lunch and stroll through the town and then headed towards Den Haag to see the Mauritshuis, in search of more Vermeers. Nushk fell desperately in love with this girl wearing a pearl earring...but that's another story :) From there we headed to our last quick stop, Delft, to see the birthplace of Vermeer. Again a 'real' and beautiful town, it had a beautiful church, lovely canals, pretty houses, and many shops selling the wonderful pottery that Delft is famous for. I would have liked more time in all the three towns we visited this day, but we couldn't linger, and we left for our drive back home, again with a nice stop in Frankfurt with friends (and for me, a visit to the museum to see Vermeer's The Geographer :).

My impressions? Amsterdam was a lively city, but if it were not for the art museums, I would not want to visit again. The tulips were wonderful, and well worth a visit. The touristy towns of Marken, Volendam and Zaans Schaans didn't attract me, but I would be happy to return to Leiden to explore it's museums, as well as to Delft. The Netherlands doesn't call to my blood as France does, but it's art certainly does, so yes, I will go back one day.