February 20 & 21st Jaipur and travel to Agra
February 20th -
Amber fort and Observatory
We started our day at the Amber fort. It was a palace with a fort next door and was accessible by elephant ride. We were excited at first, however a little leery as these elephants are "working" and not just enjoying a relaxing life, which bothers me, even though I know the animals here have different lives than what we expect. Camels and donkeys and elephants are like horses at home...not sure why it doesn't bother me to see horses work, but it bothers me with the camels and the elephants. We waited in line for our elephant and crossed our fingers for a good experience. When it was our turn we quickly noticed our driver was in a hurry and he had hooks on his prodding stick. Eva and I also quickly noticed that no other drivers had hooks on their prodding sticks and that most of the elephants walked slowly where our driver was clearly in a hurry. We asked him several times to slow down and to wait in line as we were passing people and he was trying to push his way up the line. He tried to say it is harder for elephants to walk slowly - yeah right! So we were persistent that he slow down,and after the third time, he finally slowed dome and followed the line. Eva also asked him about why he uses a hook and he said to control the elephant, when we said why nobody else used a hook he just laughed. By this time we were caught up to the line ahead of us and many drivers were scolding him and yelling at him - animals are very sacred here and treated well, so this was very taboo and also very disturbing for us. After the ride we asked Tia to assist us in reporting the driver for abusing his elephant to the police that were at the fort. Tia wrote down the complaints and we will also be submitting complaints to the Incredible India travel site as well as he Indian government as we were devastated about the way this driver was treating this poor elephant - racing her up and down the mountainside road and she had a big scab where he was using the hook. Also, they had signs when we got off the elephants not to tip the drivers, however some drivers were very aggressive about receiving a tip. So this will go in our complaints log as well. The police In India are useless, figureheads at most, but not known for enforcing anything. They had signs saying no hawkers and no purchase of photos taken with the elephants yet we were chased down and harassed by both of these types of people the entire time we were on our tour of the fort palace. It was our worst experience yet as it didn't matter how much you said no or ignored or flat out told them to go away, they would continue to pester you.
The tour was okay, but our guide was not very good and seemed to be in a hurry and not explaining much to us. After the tour most of us walked down and the guide met us at the bottom with the tour bus and oh my god, I have been very tolerant of the paddlers and hawkers up until this point but these people were ruthless, I would have told them to fuck off if I thought they would have understood. It didn't matter how rude we were tot hem they continued to pester us. We finally go on the bus and drove to our next stops which was a small palace on the lake where the royal family would have lunch. Apparently the water quality is poor as sewage started to be dumped there and the royal family abandoned it. The government is wanting to make it a restaurant, but it will depend on the water quality improving. On our way to the next stop our tour guide allowed a child onto the bus to do some magic tricks for us, which I'm not going to lie, pissed me off. This guide committed us to tilt his child, which no doubt he needs the money and was not begging, but I really didn't like the guide making decisions on our behalf and at our cost.
Can you tell I am getting grumpy LOL, I am getting run down and tired and sick and am losing my patience with many things and people here. I am officially homesick and ready to go home. I miss my baby girl and my husband and my snugly beagle, and even the clean air and garbage free ground. I cannot express how appalling it is to see so much waste and garbage thrown on the streets, in the fields, on the roads, in the countryside, EVERYWHERE you look there is garbage. The air quality appears to be getting worse in these bigger cities as well which is making many of us congested and sore throats and feeling sick.
Alright, back to the tour. Our next stop was next to the city palace we visited the day before, it was a conservatory where they have built very large sun dials for telling time and predicting weather, etc. the largest sun dial in the world is located here, over 75 meters tall I think. The time one of the smaller ones is accurate to 20 seconds and the large one is within 2 seconds. After this we went on a rickshaw ride to the bazaar. The rickshaw is a bicycle in the front with two seats behind. Eva and I picked a younger guy as there were so,e really old guys and I didn't want to see him struggle with my "strong girl/eats good" physique LMFAO.
While on the rickshaw there were some super creepy guys blowing me kisses and making lewd gestures which was quite as appalling. We always take a male with us when waking in the markets and bazaars and such otherwise the men can be quite aggressive. Troy has been our token male quite a bit and Gustavo and Renata also travel with us quite often. I would never go to India without a male and without a person from India to help with the language barriers and to keep people honest. After the first few days we have learned quite well how to negotiate and barter and have been doing quite well I think, so at least we aren't all getting hosed like many other tourists are. You really must be educated on the tips and tricks for shopping, getting transportation, and meals here. Thank goodness for Tia and Greg, they have made this trip so much easier and more pleasurable for all of us!
After shopping we went to Elefantastic which is an elephant sanctuary and rescue. There are apparently many people trying to impersonate this place as it is very well known and there are many cheaters here. The experience at elefantastic is more what we were looking forward to as the animals are very well cared for, happy, and live a good and simple life. When we arrived we fed the elephants sugarcane so they could get our scents and know that we weren't going to steal their food. Elephants are very sensitive to scents and like good smelling things. Tia told us a story about the last time she went on an elephant and was wearing perfume and the elephant stuck it's trunk down the front of her shirt LOL, so we were all forewarned not to wear perfume anywhere you wouldn't want an elephant to stick its trunk LOL. They introduced our elephants and told us their stories and their ages, etc. and we selected our elephant. We fed the elephants and pet them and made eye contact with them (no sunglasses were allowed). Then they put a pad secured with some ropes on her and we climbed on from a raised staircase platform. Riding an elephant even with a cushion (I was on her highest part of her back, her hump) and after a few minutes it felt like I was riding a bicycle with a very slim seat, so the bones in my butt were so sore! It was nice as they took us for a nice slow walk through the compound and when we returned they had the elephants kneel down and let us off. The. We had some snacks and asked some questions about the elephants. They make a low vibration sound which is apparently their way of communicating with one another and when they trumpet it is a warning about something they have seen - some don't like motorbikes, or dogs, or fireworks, etc. so they will trumpet. One of ours heard a dog whining and crying and trumpeted and then they all got upset and the owner of elefantastic ran over to see what the matter was and to get it to stop. It is quite unnerving and intimidating as they all appear to get quite riled up and start trumpeting and doing the low vibration sound. I certainly wouldn't want to upset a pack of elephants! After our snacks we got to paint on our elephants with natural colours from crushed rocks and water using bamboo sticks. After the painting we gave our elephant some water which was cool as they fill both sides of their trunk (both nostrils) and then shoot it into their mouth. We also seen their teeth which are massive and they only have 4 at any time and get 6 sets in their lifetime which is about 75 years. There is one handler for each elephant and each elephant lives with their handler and their family. The elephant has it's own stall and the family lives in the building next to the stall with a bedroom, living room, washroom and kitchen. The handlers have been with their elephant since birth and they were boys, and they will pass their elephant on to their sons, since the elephant will outlive the handler usually. The owner's family were the elephant handlers for the royal family in Jaipur and you can see that they genuinely love and care for these animals. They have 23 females and 1 male on their compound and a few of the ladies are pregnant. The government only allows for one male to remain onsite and all males that are born are taken to a government run sanctuary/preservation area when they are of a certain age, so that there is no interbreeding. They swap out the males every seven years so that the bloodlines continue to mix, and all elephants are microchipped and tracked by law. We were so happy with this experience and would recommend it to anyone, they have whole day packages where you bath the elephants and spend the entire day caring for an elephant and learning to ride it and give commands, but we only did a 2.5 hour package which was just the right amount of time.
February 21
Today we are on our way to Agra. We stopped along the way at a historical site where people would go to collect their water, but because water was difficult to find in the area, they needed to control how much water people took so they didn't take too much and run out, so they built an extensive water well system which required people climb 14 sets of stairs that zig zag and are 9 steps each seta nod very narrow, so they could only take one pot on their head at one times and would have to take multiple trips if they needed more water.
We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri and it RAINED! It is pouring rain here which is not common and a complete fluke...of course it rains, it wouldn't be my vacation if there wasn't freak weather changes, it was super hot yesterday! Many of us have our rain coats and umbrellas safely stowed in our luggage under the bus where it can stay nice and dry! LOL
We decided to skip the fort today since it is pouring rain and we could all use some rest. We have a very early day tomorrow again as we need to be at the Taj Mahal first thing in the morning to hopefully avoid the rain and possibly catch a sunrise. Following that we will got to the Agra fort and then make our way to Dehli for our final night and tour the following day. We are all pretty exhausted so we won't all do the Dehli tour completely so that we can rest a bit before catching our flights home.
It is our final night together as four people are leaving tomorrow to catch flights, so we are having our last meal together at the hotel - Jaypee palace. This is another beautiful grande hotel, just too bad it is pouring rain so we can't take great pictures, but their website has some great photos! This is another pay for use of wifi hotel which surprises me since all the super high end places charge for internet and the smaller places do not...you would think that you are paying more, that it would be included. Oh well, we can pay in two hour chunks for 300 rupees which is about $6 CAD
Miranda
February 20th -
Amber fort and Observatory
We started our day at the Amber fort. It was a palace with a fort next door and was accessible by elephant ride. We were excited at first, however a little leery as these elephants are "working" and not just enjoying a relaxing life, which bothers me, even though I know the animals here have different lives than what we expect. Camels and donkeys and elephants are like horses at home...not sure why it doesn't bother me to see horses work, but it bothers me with the camels and the elephants. We waited in line for our elephant and crossed our fingers for a good experience. When it was our turn we quickly noticed our driver was in a hurry and he had hooks on his prodding stick. Eva and I also quickly noticed that no other drivers had hooks on their prodding sticks and that most of the elephants walked slowly where our driver was clearly in a hurry. We asked him several times to slow down and to wait in line as we were passing people and he was trying to push his way up the line. He tried to say it is harder for elephants to walk slowly - yeah right! So we were persistent that he slow down,and after the third time, he finally slowed dome and followed the line. Eva also asked him about why he uses a hook and he said to control the elephant, when we said why nobody else used a hook he just laughed. By this time we were caught up to the line ahead of us and many drivers were scolding him and yelling at him - animals are very sacred here and treated well, so this was very taboo and also very disturbing for us. After the ride we asked Tia to assist us in reporting the driver for abusing his elephant to the police that were at the fort. Tia wrote down the complaints and we will also be submitting complaints to the Incredible India travel site as well as he Indian government as we were devastated about the way this driver was treating this poor elephant - racing her up and down the mountainside road and she had a big scab where he was using the hook. Also, they had signs when we got off the elephants not to tip the drivers, however some drivers were very aggressive about receiving a tip. So this will go in our complaints log as well. The police In India are useless, figureheads at most, but not known for enforcing anything. They had signs saying no hawkers and no purchase of photos taken with the elephants yet we were chased down and harassed by both of these types of people the entire time we were on our tour of the fort palace. It was our worst experience yet as it didn't matter how much you said no or ignored or flat out told them to go away, they would continue to pester you.
The tour was okay, but our guide was not very good and seemed to be in a hurry and not explaining much to us. After the tour most of us walked down and the guide met us at the bottom with the tour bus and oh my god, I have been very tolerant of the paddlers and hawkers up until this point but these people were ruthless, I would have told them to fuck off if I thought they would have understood. It didn't matter how rude we were tot hem they continued to pester us. We finally go on the bus and drove to our next stops which was a small palace on the lake where the royal family would have lunch. Apparently the water quality is poor as sewage started to be dumped there and the royal family abandoned it. The government is wanting to make it a restaurant, but it will depend on the water quality improving. On our way to the next stop our tour guide allowed a child onto the bus to do some magic tricks for us, which I'm not going to lie, pissed me off. This guide committed us to tilt his child, which no doubt he needs the money and was not begging, but I really didn't like the guide making decisions on our behalf and at our cost.
Can you tell I am getting grumpy LOL, I am getting run down and tired and sick and am losing my patience with many things and people here. I am officially homesick and ready to go home. I miss my baby girl and my husband and my snugly beagle, and even the clean air and garbage free ground. I cannot express how appalling it is to see so much waste and garbage thrown on the streets, in the fields, on the roads, in the countryside, EVERYWHERE you look there is garbage. The air quality appears to be getting worse in these bigger cities as well which is making many of us congested and sore throats and feeling sick.
Alright, back to the tour. Our next stop was next to the city palace we visited the day before, it was a conservatory where they have built very large sun dials for telling time and predicting weather, etc. the largest sun dial in the world is located here, over 75 meters tall I think. The time one of the smaller ones is accurate to 20 seconds and the large one is within 2 seconds. After this we went on a rickshaw ride to the bazaar. The rickshaw is a bicycle in the front with two seats behind. Eva and I picked a younger guy as there were so,e really old guys and I didn't want to see him struggle with my "strong girl/eats good" physique LMFAO.
While on the rickshaw there were some super creepy guys blowing me kisses and making lewd gestures which was quite as appalling. We always take a male with us when waking in the markets and bazaars and such otherwise the men can be quite aggressive. Troy has been our token male quite a bit and Gustavo and Renata also travel with us quite often. I would never go to India without a male and without a person from India to help with the language barriers and to keep people honest. After the first few days we have learned quite well how to negotiate and barter and have been doing quite well I think, so at least we aren't all getting hosed like many other tourists are. You really must be educated on the tips and tricks for shopping, getting transportation, and meals here. Thank goodness for Tia and Greg, they have made this trip so much easier and more pleasurable for all of us!
After shopping we went to Elefantastic which is an elephant sanctuary and rescue. There are apparently many people trying to impersonate this place as it is very well known and there are many cheaters here. The experience at elefantastic is more what we were looking forward to as the animals are very well cared for, happy, and live a good and simple life. When we arrived we fed the elephants sugarcane so they could get our scents and know that we weren't going to steal their food. Elephants are very sensitive to scents and like good smelling things. Tia told us a story about the last time she went on an elephant and was wearing perfume and the elephant stuck it's trunk down the front of her shirt LOL, so we were all forewarned not to wear perfume anywhere you wouldn't want an elephant to stick its trunk LOL. They introduced our elephants and told us their stories and their ages, etc. and we selected our elephant. We fed the elephants and pet them and made eye contact with them (no sunglasses were allowed). Then they put a pad secured with some ropes on her and we climbed on from a raised staircase platform. Riding an elephant even with a cushion (I was on her highest part of her back, her hump) and after a few minutes it felt like I was riding a bicycle with a very slim seat, so the bones in my butt were so sore! It was nice as they took us for a nice slow walk through the compound and when we returned they had the elephants kneel down and let us off. The. We had some snacks and asked some questions about the elephants. They make a low vibration sound which is apparently their way of communicating with one another and when they trumpet it is a warning about something they have seen - some don't like motorbikes, or dogs, or fireworks, etc. so they will trumpet. One of ours heard a dog whining and crying and trumpeted and then they all got upset and the owner of elefantastic ran over to see what the matter was and to get it to stop. It is quite unnerving and intimidating as they all appear to get quite riled up and start trumpeting and doing the low vibration sound. I certainly wouldn't want to upset a pack of elephants! After our snacks we got to paint on our elephants with natural colours from crushed rocks and water using bamboo sticks. After the painting we gave our elephant some water which was cool as they fill both sides of their trunk (both nostrils) and then shoot it into their mouth. We also seen their teeth which are massive and they only have 4 at any time and get 6 sets in their lifetime which is about 75 years. There is one handler for each elephant and each elephant lives with their handler and their family. The elephant has it's own stall and the family lives in the building next to the stall with a bedroom, living room, washroom and kitchen. The handlers have been with their elephant since birth and they were boys, and they will pass their elephant on to their sons, since the elephant will outlive the handler usually. The owner's family were the elephant handlers for the royal family in Jaipur and you can see that they genuinely love and care for these animals. They have 23 females and 1 male on their compound and a few of the ladies are pregnant. The government only allows for one male to remain onsite and all males that are born are taken to a government run sanctuary/preservation area when they are of a certain age, so that there is no interbreeding. They swap out the males every seven years so that the bloodlines continue to mix, and all elephants are microchipped and tracked by law. We were so happy with this experience and would recommend it to anyone, they have whole day packages where you bath the elephants and spend the entire day caring for an elephant and learning to ride it and give commands, but we only did a 2.5 hour package which was just the right amount of time.
February 21
Today we are on our way to Agra. We stopped along the way at a historical site where people would go to collect their water, but because water was difficult to find in the area, they needed to control how much water people took so they didn't take too much and run out, so they built an extensive water well system which required people climb 14 sets of stairs that zig zag and are 9 steps each seta nod very narrow, so they could only take one pot on their head at one times and would have to take multiple trips if they needed more water.
We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri and it RAINED! It is pouring rain here which is not common and a complete fluke...of course it rains, it wouldn't be my vacation if there wasn't freak weather changes, it was super hot yesterday! Many of us have our rain coats and umbrellas safely stowed in our luggage under the bus where it can stay nice and dry! LOL
We decided to skip the fort today since it is pouring rain and we could all use some rest. We have a very early day tomorrow again as we need to be at the Taj Mahal first thing in the morning to hopefully avoid the rain and possibly catch a sunrise. Following that we will got to the Agra fort and then make our way to Dehli for our final night and tour the following day. We are all pretty exhausted so we won't all do the Dehli tour completely so that we can rest a bit before catching our flights home.
It is our final night together as four people are leaving tomorrow to catch flights, so we are having our last meal together at the hotel - Jaypee palace. This is another beautiful grande hotel, just too bad it is pouring rain so we can't take great pictures, but their website has some great photos! This is another pay for use of wifi hotel which surprises me since all the super high end places charge for internet and the smaller places do not...you would think that you are paying more, that it would be included. Oh well, we can pay in two hour chunks for 300 rupees which is about $6 CAD
Miranda
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