Indian Rail

Agra – Day 1

Getting there is definitely half the fun, punctuated by heart-pounding anxiety.  First off, we’re on the same train to our first stop (Jhansi) with Richard and Sally (from Varanasi)!  Hooray – we spend a lovely 5 hours sharing a rather posh first class compartment, complete with reading lights, a wardrobe and joy of joys – a Western toilet (not in the compartment but in our train car).  I’d been having bouts of terror that on this 9-hour  trip (total for two trains) I would have to ‘go’ and be faced with the Indian train toilet.  I saw a photo of one and was truly gobsmacked!  It’s a hole in the train floor with a place on either side to put your feet – I’m not making this up, this is true!  In fact, our compartment even had an icon of a toilet – a real toilet – and a little red light/green light to indicate its availability.   Oh the things we take for granted!

We said goodbye to Sally and Richard in Jhansi with the promise to visit them in Melbourne on our next trip to Australia and invited them to come visit us in the States.  Now all we need to do is find the train to Agra . . . we have 33 minutes.  This is a big station – 7 tracks, crowded platforms and not a tote board in sight.  And it’s been raining so everything is wet, dirty, and slippery.  PA announcements are incomprehensible even though I detect a word of English now and then. 

We locate someone who looks official – a RR person, soldier?? – and ask how we find the track for a train.  ‘Go to track 1, Enquiry.’  We came in on track 7 and it looks like a 1000 yards from where we’re standing to the overpass to cross over all the way to track 1.  Just about now I am so grateful, once again, that we have backpacks – they’re heavy but we can manage a couple flights of stairs.  

Make it to track 1 and there’s no one at the ‘Enquiry Counter’ – arghhh!  18 minutes. 

We find what looks like two politicians (bureaucrats?) sitting on a bench, and I ask them if they know what track the Punjab Mail train will come in on.  Without hesitation, they reply ‘Track 4.”  15 minutes.  Back up the stairs, across the tracks again and somehow we find track 4.  10 minutes.  (Tim has finally stopped saying the ‘f’ word every 5 seconds!) Down the stairs and, miracle of miracles, here comes a train and a tiny illuminated sign blinks the number we’ve been searching for!  Hooray Punjab Mail train!!  5 minutes.  Now we just have to find our car – 2AC.  (Did I mention that trains spend just a few minutes in the station and then they leave!) 

We find it, even find our seat numbers on the outside of the carriage and we’re in, we’re on – we did it!!  We have ‘Lower Berth/Upper Berth’ which means a place to sleep (with a curtain no less).  And no sooner do we stuff our packs in the upper berth and cozy up in the lower berth than we hear chai wallah man come up the aisle.  Life is good.

Agra 6:00 pm – dark, raining, big station (one of the two in Agra).  And our driver is there, right outside, holding a rather droopy sodden piece of paper with our name on it!   Whew!  Off to Aman Homestay, enthusiastically recommended by TA.  Super place!  Dinner is at 7:30 – just time to wash up, unpack a few things and register that we’re in another city.

What a darling place we’re in!  It’s a true homestay – the family lives right here and their home includes a lovely, intimate garden complete with birds, bunnies and loads of beautiful plants.  It’s welcoming and so homey – love it!  The dinner table is filled with people from all over the world, most of whom are, like us, here for only a couple of nights.  Food is delicious – vegan, of course, and plenty of it.  We arrange for our train pick-up driver, Ashok, to pick us up in the morning.  We have two days to ‘do’ Agra and the prediction is more rain!! Not sure how much of the Taj we could see in the rain but . . .

The Most Excellent Surprise!!

Last stop, Deepu’s home in the Old Village.  A bit about the OV – it’s a series of labyrinthine streets, lined with wee stone houses, all joined to one another.  But what makes it unusual is that the castes live in specific neighborhoods and use caste-specific wells.  It probably looks the same as it did 300 years ago.

Deepu’s house seems to be the focus of a lot of activity . . . we’re the honored guests!  ‘Please come in, sit down, would you like some chai?’  The house is about 10 feet square, dirt floor, cooking surface (propane tank fueled) a diagonal in one corner, the ‘sit down’ place a small frame with strapping and a blanket placed over the strapping.  The ceiling is about 5 and a half feet tall, with a big cloth tacked into the four corners - not sure why (to prevent stuff from falling on folks?). 

Counting Tim and me there must be 10 maybe 12 people inside.  We are honored guests so we sit on the frame; everyone else is on the floor.   Deepu introduces everyone – mom, grandma, aunt, brothers, sisters, cousins and – drum roll – surprise, his wife and BABY!  One month old, a little girl, Ritzcika (Riczi for short).  Well, guess who had that baby in her arms faster than you can say ‘Grandma’!!  Photos say it all . . .

Deepu's wife and a few cousins.

The beautiful family.

 Deepu and his Mom.

It took a while to get all these kids to smile but we did it!  The little fellow really got into it.

An auntie with the kitchen as backdrop.

Deepu's grandma (who is 3 years younger than us!).  Love that smile!!

Couldn't resist another photo of these sweet kids.

And darling baby slept through it all!  This red sweater seems to be a special baby gift - noticed it on other babies I saw after this magical afternoon.  Interesting tidbit, Riczi's diaper was a large leaf, artfully cut and folded over her tiny legs and held in place by what looked and felt like the spine of the leaf - amazing!

I am so humbled that we are welcomed so graciously and generously. . . I can’t imagine any other experience in this whole trip - this whole country - even coming close to the sweetness of this time.   Thank you, Deepu and family, for this most excellent experience!!  English lessons to follow!!

Temples, Temples, and More Temples

Kajuraho – Day 2

The temples are magnificent!  We spend about 3 hours wandering around the complex with an audio guide (a bit rickety but it works).  The touts in this town are very aggressive and annoying – we have to get really loud and aggressive to get them to go away!  Not fun.  Anyway, back to the temples – the carvings are every bit as sensual and graphic as advertised.  Remarkably, they have remained pretty much intact for centuries (discovered - surprise surprise - by a Brit!) and are held in place by nothing more than gravity.  Lots of photos . . .

The original complex had more than 85 temples; there are 25 left.  All are made of sandstone.  The gardens are beautiful and perfectly kept.

Several temples have the world-famous sculptural insets.  A few of the more gymnastic ones.

And what may be our favorite - the laughing elephant!

Lunch at the Café recommended in LP (terrific pizza from a wood fired oven – big Italian influence in this town, go figure) and then head back to the Palace to meet Deepu and Nandu.  

Bone jarring tuk tuk ride to the more remote Eastern temples and get to tour one being ‘restored’ – imagine being able to traipse all over a site like that anywhere else in the world!  

The local restoration guy.

 Pieces of the original temple waiting . . .

Finally the Jain temple complex – much like the Western temples in architecture, minus the erotic sculptures, and we learn that the Jains are quite unusual.  For one thing, they don’t wear clothes or shoes – nothing.  There’s a slew of photos of naked Jain (men only) and they pluck the hair from their head and bodies (pluck not cut as that would be harming a living organism).  No Jain women (too smart?) and I can’t understand how one gets more Jains . . . altogether unusual to say the least.  

Postscript - I just learned today that there are two Jain sects.  One of them admits women and actually wears clothes - white robes!

This remarkable day had a great surprise which I'm putting up as another post.  

The Temples of Joy

Kajuraho – Day 1

Flight to Kajuraho uneventful, lovely local airline, Spice Jet, takes all of 55”.  While getting through security (men and women must go in separate queues), a woman comments on my Australian scarf (thinks I bought it in Varansi) and it turns she’s one of a group of 8 – from NY (Great Neck)!!  One of them is astonished that we’re doing this on our own.  I tell her it took us weeks to plan and she says it took them weeks to get ready for their trip – all arrangements made for them! 

We’re met at the airport by a car and two drivers who take us to the Hotel Narayana Palace.  What a hoot!  I doubt they’ve seen a non-Indian tourist in years.  It advertised ‘cable tv, balcony, bathroom toiletries, room service’ – all true but seen through our eyes, not theirs!  The balcony overlooked the local construction site (there’s a building frenzy in Kajuraho), the bathroom toiletries were a roll of toilet paper and wee bar of soap, and tv was three channels in English.  And room service was the desk clerk doubling as chef in a tiny ‘kitchen’ about two doors up from us!  All in all, tired but full of surprises!

The desk clerk, Deepu, offers to take us on a quick walking tour to orient us to Kajuraho.  And off we go.  We’ve managed to arrive two days before a huge dance festival which is attracting folks from all over this part of India, and points beyond.  We hit one of the ‘free’ temples and do a quick walkabout, all the while getting to know Deepu.  

Free temple - dedicated to the lingam.

Tim likes this one - a lot.

Deepu's 19, quite articulate and desperately wanting to improve his English.  He wants to take us on a tuk tuk tour tomorrow, after we see the Western temples, and we’ll go to the Eastern and Southern temples and then go to his home in the Old Village for chai with his family and, he says, a surprise!  His pal, Nandu, will bring the tuk tuk and we agree to meet both of them at 12:30.  When I ask ‘What is this going to cost me?’ he replies ‘Nothing.  I just want you to help me with my English.’  Hard to believe but okay . . . we’re in.

It was waaaay cooler in Kajuraho than we anticipated - hence the ultra cool, oh so sexy outfit that was my lounge wear!  Sure hope these sexy temple carvings warm both of us!!