INDIA
Trip Start
Apr 30, 1970
1
12
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
NEW DELHI, India
Tuesday, March 3, 1987
I visited this giant country in 1987 together my former wife, just the classic state of Rajastan, the capital New Delhi, Varanasi the holy city, Bombay and Goa, traveling by air in three weeks.
We arrived in New Delhi and in a couple of days visited:
the Jama Masjid Mosque, the Red Fort, the Qutaba column, the Gandhi Mausoleum.
Then we started our tour in Rajastan visiting:
-Jaipur, the red city with its red bricks palaces, the most famous of which is the Palace of the Winds with just the facade behind which the harem's women used to watch the celebrations on the below street without being observed by the people
- Udaipur with its amazing Maharajah palace and the lake with a marble boat in the middle
- Jodhpur the blue city due to the colour of most of its houses and some giant walls that surrond a citadel and a big Maharajah palace, now become a luxury hotel
- Chittorgar, the city of the jai pride as thousand of inhabitants preferred to die in a collective suicide instead of being captured by the Mughal invaders
- Jaisalmer, the desert town with sand pressed walls and amazing yellow palaces, preciously decorated by the rich builders in an artistic competition when the city was rich being the obliged passage for long caravan travels
We also visited:
- Agra the artistic indian city with its amazing Taj Mahal, a giant elegant white marble palace, mausoleum of the beloved Queen of Shah Jahan (about 1650 AD) but also other nice buildings
- Fatepur Sikri, the red brick town, abandoned by its citizens, one century ago due to the lack of water
- Amber Fort, a mughal fort reachable also by elephants
- Kajuraho with its love temples among red bouganvilles, with stone carved statues of gods on their Kamasutra love positions, meaning that sex and soul are connected to approach God
- Varanasi, the holy city on the sacre Ganga river, full of pilgrims coming from all over the country and people taking the bodies of their dead relatives to be burnt on the banks of the river, along which other bodies of children, cows, widows float and other wash themselves on same water and even drink it! but it is holy so nothing unhealthy happens!
We then went to Bombay, the movie Bollywood metropolis, financial, industrial and business Indian city.
At the end we spent a week holiday in Goa, the former Portuguese colony, rich of catholic churches and with a beautiful palm trees sandy beach, full of hippies who have been living there for decades in their friendly communities as time had never passed, while long rows of Indian tourists are walking on the beach to watch some naked western bathers while others are eating seafood at the little restaurants, drinking Porto wine
India is this and much more, to be discovered in next trips as it is as big as a continent
