“Incredible India” is the slogan that the India’s tourism agency uses to promote India. Before going there, I thought they rhymed well together. However, after experiencing the country, I couldn’t think of a better adjective to describe our experience there, so I will resort to the word “incredible” a lot myself. The whole experience, from the first day when we landed in New Delhi on a warm dry afternoon till our last day at Delhi, has just been “incredible”.
After spending a most relaxing time in Thailand, our next stop was India. Before entering the country though, we had to obtain a visa, which we were told would take about a week to get in Hong Kong. Not having taken care of this beforehand, we decided to get it done in Korea instead and chill out there while we waited. Going from 90 F tropical weather of Thailand, to landing in sub freezing temperature in one day, we got our wish and we were instantly chilled. We would have been more like frozen over had it not been for my thoughtful sister, who sent her car & driver to meet us at the airport with winter coats and mufflers. When we woke up the next morning, Seoul greeted us with a fresh snowfall.
This is a fresh fish market in Inchon. Before we left for India, we wanted to stock up and fill our tummies with Kimchi and a lot of Korean food, enough reserves to last even two weeks of fasting in India, if we had to. After a week in Korea and with bulging tummies, we were ready to fly into India.
The first Indian food experience we had was at the Park Hotel in New Delhi. To our delight, the food was really good. Which meant that we didn’t need to fast in India! Masala Dosa, Idli, and Sambhar were to be the breakfast of our choice, while we stayed in India. Later, we learned from an airline magazine during one of our four domestic flights in India, that the head chef at the Park Hotel was a very famous one. The friendly deputy chef, who personally prepared our breakfast, took his time to explain what and how to eat the new Indian food. I guess good food is tasty no matter what it is.
Bhai’s Lotus Temple, in New Delhi, was our first stop in India. We had to take off our shoes before entering the temple. There were many more temples to come where we needed to enter bare footed (some allow sox and some don’t). Besides the history and teachings of each temple, the most important thing we learned was to bring some wet-wipes to clean our feet afterwards to wipe off all the junk and pigeon doo doos.
Qutub Minar is a victory tower built by Qutub ud din Aibek (muslims from Slave Dynasty) in the12th century. It towers over the city of Delhi and serves as a reminder of past Muslim presence over the predominantly Hindu India. It was fitting that we were there together with the little children from a local school, who paid a visit to learn the history just like we were.
I understand that the competition to get into IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) is very stiff. It is one of the most difficult schools to be admitted in the world. I snapped this photo as we passed by to show one of my colleagues his old alma mater. There may be many brilliant minds inside but the outside unfortunately didn’t show much sign of it. In fact, there were so many poor street people begging and sleeping on the curbs. The question that kept on nagging me all thru our visit to India was why? Why is India, which has advanced so much in many technological areas, still terribly lagging behind in social progress?
Ghandi’s last footsteps before he was assassinated are marked permanently with cement footprints. Indians collectively call him the “father of India”. Unfortunately, there were several more assassinations of prime ministers (Indira Ghandi and her son), in the last 60 years of Indian republic, that marred the politics of India to the present day. When we visited the city of New Delhi, it was preparing for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Republic Day.
This is not just any other fire. In Varanasi, this is a “permanent” fire that is kept lit all the time, and it is used to start all of the fires for cremations along the holy Ganges River. Although there also was an electric crematory on the river- bank, the guide told us that the majority of the cremations are done the old fashioned way. The ashes are then discarded into the river. There is a man standing guard 24/7 to keep the fire from dying. Also, notice some dogs and bodies (I could not tell if the bodies were dead waiting to be cremated or someone sleeping) warming themselves near the fire. It was an early foggy dawn, when we took a walk along the alleys of the Ganges River. What we saw could not be described in words. The best way that I could describe the scene is that I thought I was walking the streets of ancient times (I’m talking about BC, not just some hundreds of years ago). The conditions under which these people were living were “incredibly” unimaginable.
We were up close and personal on a boat to witness the sacred cleansing ritual in the Ganges River which occurs at sunrise. The night we arrived in Varanasi, where the Ganges River is considered to be the holiest, was ‘no moon silent’ night. This was a special occasion for many Hindus to come for special ceremonies and bathing in the morning after. Some young men even swam towards us on a boat. I instinctively ducked to avoid the water from splashing on me. How ironic, I thought, that I was trying to avoid something that is considered so holy. I kept to the tradition of silence and kept my mouth shut alas something might splash in that might do me harm.
Sarnath, near Varanasi, is also known as the place where Buddha gave his first sermon to five of his immediate followers. This place is a must visit for the Buddhists who make pilgrimages from all over the world. We saw many Korean and Chinese tourists here.
Ramnager Fort is located down stream and across the Ganges River from where all of the cremations are performed. It was a residence of the maharaja of Varanasi, one of many kings of the divided Indian kingdom of the past. The kings still hold the title and wealth but no power these days. The museum there had displays of many prized collections of the last Maharaja Singh.
This shot was taken while crossing the old bridge over Ganges River. It seems so silent and peaceful but the reality was far from it. It was “incredibly” chaotic; every square inch filled with people, carts, bicycles, tut-tuts, motorbikes, cars, cows, etc.
If you can imagine ten times the people you see in this picture mingling paths, that’s how it was the night we went to the riverbank to watch the Aarti at the Ghats ceremony (special evening ceremony by priests and musicians). We were busy keeping our eyes on the ground, holding our nose covered with a mask, and trying to maneuver around many sacred cow’s holy you-know-what, and not trying to bump into anyone. Joanne stepped on unavoidable you-know-what and I got swiped by a sacred cow’s tail. We told ourselves, we have now been blessed by the sacred cow.
The next stop after Varanasi was Khajuraho. Khajuraho is a pleasant small town with only about 15,000 people. It is famous for its temples with erotic carvings. The town had clean air and we saw many tourists leisurely biking around from one temple to another.
This is one the more famous figures dating about 1,000 years ago. I won’t go into details about who they are or what they signify, but, after seeing many erotic ‘kama sutra’ carvings on the temple walls, it still wasn’t clearly explained to us why these carvings were there. I decided not to ask so many ‘why’ questions after getting varied answers.
On the road from Khajuraho to Orcha, we passed field after field of mustard plant farms. We also saw many of these hand operated toll gates.
