Mumbai and the final Goodbye!!!

Well for the the last 2 days in India we headed out with JOHN'S (dad's) shopping list requests. No doubt we also did some purchasing!!! but somewhere in here we did the last few sights to see. the main one to go to the Elephanta Caves which are about 10 km off the coast of Mumbai and are rock cut temples present in these caves, as old as 5th century.


It has been a great trip for Mom (Jan) who said that this would be the one and the only trip to India but now is already planning the return trip! Well in about 4 hours we start the 30 ish hour trip home (assuming there are no delays-- knock on wood!). Thanks for reading-- we really have had fun telling you our stories. Watch out, you may want to hide from us because have lots more to share!
See all you soon!
xoxo C & J

Goodbye Kerala (South India)

Well as I am sure you have gotten are views that south India is a gem and we would highly recommend it as a tropical holiday destination. We had our last 3 swims in the ocean before leaving- only to get to the airport to a 3+ hour delay in the flight to Mumbai. Cait taught me sudoko so that passed the time quite well.

Get of load of this-We checked out of the hotel/resort: here was our bill

• 7 spa and Ayurveda treatments
• 3 dinners lobster, squid, giant prawns
• lunches
• boat trip
• cab (1 hour each way into town)
• and misc expenses

Total bill $264.09 (note to self- when did I say my next vacation is???)

Sun, Surf and "OM"

As I said, we found a substitute resort. This one is really quite nice it is a huge property partly on the backwaters and on the ocean. The cabins are spread far apart so we really feel like we have wide open spaces. They have the spa and yoga, of course pool, and beach. We have been spending the first couple of hours in the morning at the ocean. I am proud of myself for enduring the heat and sun- absolutely no shade, beautiful sand BUT also some intrusion by local men so it is impossible for Cait to go alone. EVEN with me I felt like shouting I AM OLD ENOUGH TO BE YOUR GRANDMA FOR PITY SAKE LEAVE ME ALONE!!!! Besides this, the beach is wonderful (great soft sand and the very warm Indian ocean) the waves are huge for we have been doing alot of body surfing- aka being thrown from the ocean onto the beach. I tried the yoga class -given by and old gray haired yogi- whatever happened to the union of body and mind and working at one's own pace. With 5 of us in the class one was a lady slightly!!! stiffer than moi- the yogi would yell to her NO MADAM!! and run over to her and pull her legs in a variety of directions. So with one eye closed and the other focused on him-I watched to see if he was headed in my direction. I think for tomorrow (our last morning) the best union of my body,mind and spirit will be a walk on the beach!!!!. We have had a few more spa treatments- so if any of you do not see us return on Saturday- please do not send the search party!! We did venture away from the beach long enough to go to the tip of India- along with what felt like 1/2 a billion other locals; it is a spiritual journey for many. The three oceans merge Indian, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea; you can see the merging of the three colours of waters (yellow, green and blue). The best part was seeing the temple incorporating Hinduism, Muslim and Christian architecture. This structure housed the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi prior to the throwing ( I think some) of his ashes into the sea. We are headed off now for a local canoeing us through the backwaters off our resort property. We can’t believe this wonderful adventure is soon to finish. We are off tomorrow to Mumbai and we have 2 last days there. I imagine the shopping (passimas) urges will resurface there. We leave Mumbai on Friday night (actually Saturday morning at 3 am Indian time) for the long journey home.

J & C

Massaging, Boating and the MELTDOWN

Before we left Thekkaky we had our first Ayurvedic message. Cait will have to tell you this story in person but we were slathered with more oil than a Big Mac and super sized fries (I was waiting to be deep fried!). For a very modest culture this was a very immodest experience- I said Cait will have to tell you in person ask her about the loin cloth. We loved our backwater boating experience-we drove to the backwaters near the coast the in land lakes and canals that filter into the ocean. On our private rice boat we cruised for 5 hours had a wonder lunch and sunned and observed the local culture through the backwaters: just a great afternoon.
WELL THE MELTDOWN!- yes it was bound to happen sometime. After the boating, we drove another 4 hours to your ayervedic resort for our 3-day beach and spa retreat. We arrived late and were given the a grungy room about 4 meters square, dirty, with only bare light bulbs etc etc.. Not at all, what we expected for a luxury resort. To add to this our room was next door to the beauty salon, the yoga studio, massage centre and the staff workrooms: the noisiest possible location. The hotel has no interest in assisting us with our complaint so off we went looking for a new hotel with MANY phone calls to the agent in Delhi. Well I now know the hotel and the room I will book for the day after I win the lotto at 700 Euros a night. No we are not at this hotel but after1/2 day found another. The next edition will tell you all about it. Cliff hanger stay tuned!!!
J & C

Trekking, Safari "ing" and Spicing

Well we survived another 5 hour 135 km drive through the mountains to Thekkaky. I have to say we were less than impressed with the Periyar Tiger Reserve. We actually did not expect to see tigers as there are about 40 there but very rarely seen by the tourists. We did think there would be lots of deer, elephants, monkeys, etc. so with this in mind we signed up for an all day safari with some trekking and boating included. Off we went at 530 am-- we saw virtually no animals and from the reaction of the guides we gathered this is quite normal. What I mean by there reaction was-a deer was spotted high on a hill far way!! (putting this into context) about the distance from the Groat Road bridge to the Mackinnon ravine bridge. With this sighting, a mass of jeeps roared to a halt and all scrambled with binocs to take a look (funny photos to come). The same happened when we saw a water Buffalo Safari mayhem to observe this also. The hiking was OK and we did see some elephant habitat areas. The boating a bit of a yawn as we were rowed over to see a waterfall. BUT I have to say the best of this wilderness adventure is actually to know that there are still some nice remote wilderness areas in a country with over a billion people and really here's to the animals to be smart enough to stay deep in the forest.
We best part of our 2 days in this Thekkaky area was the spice plantation tour. Amazing we saw pepper, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, cocoa, coffee all within this one plantation which gives an appreciation for these spices. We bought a ton filling our suitcases about 20$ worth- likely would cost over 200$ at home.
More to come,
J & C

Trekking & Tea Tottling

Well we have just been soo busy these past couple days. We had a guide to take us on a tour of the tea fields and the tea production process. I don't think we will ever look at tea quite the same-- all black teas, green tea, oolong tea and white teas come from the same plant, it's just the production processes that vary depending on the tea. We know all the processes so if you want the inside scoop we'll be happy to enlighten you. Following this we had a tea tasting session (similar to a wine taste- swish and spit) of over 30 teas-- our taste buds were working overtime.

80% of tourism in India is domestic and we found all 100% of these tourists at our next location-- visiting the mattupetty damn and going on a speedboat ride around the lake that is supporting the damn. We were the only white people in this vicinity. The funniest part of this was the two of us white girls speed boating around this lake at 30+ km/hour and the driver of the boat steering the boat with his hip/bum facing us (as in not looking where he was going) and taking multiple photos of us! Mom thought this was hilarious.

Today was a very memorable day. We started off going to Eravikulam National Park, this is the best preserved national park in India. The only way you're allowed in the park is on one of their park buses that take you inside the park. From there you can hike a couple km into the mountains. This park is the home of the endangered Nilgiri Tahr, a cross between a goat and an antelope-- there are only 1500 in the world and 700 live in this park. We saw over a dozen on our hike and I got some great national geographic pictures of them. While we were there we were accosted by Indian men and boys for our photos-- it was quite hilarious because so many families wanted us to take pictures with each one of their wives, children, aunts, uncles, grandchildren.... Now to all of you at home, we know that this will cause you to want our pictures but we ask you to try to refrain from taking our pictures ALL the time as we re-acclimatize.

So we decided we hadn't done enough exercise this morning so we proceed to go on a 2 1/2 hour trek at the hottest time of the day, uphill both ways ;). We hiked from the highest point in Munnar down through the tea plantations, tea plantation village and a beautiful waterfall at the lowest point of the valley and then back up again! To my great fortune there ended up being sprinklers watering the tea plants and cooling us off as we trekked back up the mountain. The scenery is absolutely incredible.

Tomorrow morning we are preparing to go to Periyar Tiger Reserve, 110 km away which will take 4 hours on this one lane road (the width of my back alley). We are self medicating ourselves with gravol-- we're not sure if it's just for the 4 hour drive of windy mountain roads or the threat of listening to the one and only English John Denver CD for the entire four hours. We will keep you posted...

Cochin/ Munnar aka Tea Heaven

Cochin turned out to be a travelling haven for us-- we got to relax, swim (Dad- i swam in the pool 4 times yesterday), walk, ate some non-Indian food and took an Indian cooking class! One of the things that I (Caitlin) really wanted to do while I was in Indian was take a cooking class and since we had some free time in Cochin we thought we would see if there was something available. One of the guides, that took us on a thorough guide of Fort Cochin, set us up with a husband and wife who own a restaurant and want to start teaching cooking classes so Mom and I got to be their first students. Dipu and his wife were so warm and welcoming and taught us how to cook with a wide variety of the Indian spices; we cooked a vegetable curry, fish mollie, Kerala fish curry, and curried prawns. The seafood is in abundance in this town with all the fishermen and Chinese fishing nets (our guide told us these catch more tourists than fish!).
Mom has made an interesting observation over the past couple days.. .hummm.... Our shopping expenditures have significantly declined since the departure of Father John. And it's interesting how he would say that we are the shoppers.. hummm... I think it needs a bit more significant research on this interesting phenomena.

Today (Jan 18th) we started our 135 km drive from Fort Cochin to Munnar which took us a grand total of 4 freakin' hours! (FYI- I can't wait to drive in Alberta where you can go more than 35 km/hour) This adventure started off with our driver, Shiju, wanting us to feel at home with his one English CD. You will never guess what it is... John Denver and the first tune was "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" (all we need to feel more at home was a Ford F150 pickup truck and a pair of tight wranglers). The CD scratch, frequently skipped and was at least 18 songs long. Both Mom and I were relieved when the CD finished for 1st time to which was sure that we would enjoy listening to it AGAIN! So John Denver kept was going for at least 3 1/2 of the 4 hour drive (which was straight up hill for 2000 m, twisty roads, mom holding a barf bag and us switching between front and backseats depending on who felt sicker).
So we finally arrived in Munnar. We're staying on a farm stay which is actually a working spice plantation (they grow pepper and cardamon) that has 8 cabins. While we're here on this plantation they will give us a tour of how the spices are grown. This area is absolutely breath taking (my favorite place in India so far)-- there are mountains covered with rows of tea bushes that look like beautiful manicured hedges. And the rows just keep going and going and going. It's about 10 degrees cooler from the coast so my tan may fade a bit in these next 3 days... heheee. Tomorrow we are going on a tea plantation tour where we will see how tea is grown, prepared and sold. I am really looking forward to seeing how this is all done!

Well we're going to go and drink our fine Indian Shiraz wine (Dad it's a 2006!)
That's all for now,
C & J

Jan and Caitlin Taking Over

John/Dad has left the country and left us to fend for ourselves in Kerala (southern India). We flew from Mumbai to Cochin this morning and were greeted by very tropical weather and a tamer Indian city than we expected. We have not seen many goats or cows wondering the main streets, people actually stop at red lights and stay in their own lanes! It took us 90 minutes to drive 40 km-- we thought they were over exaggerating when they told us it would take that long. We were a little worried because the closer we got to our hotel the seeder the neighbourhood got. I (Caitlin) was thinking maybe they are taking us far away to kill us and take all our pashminas. We ended up arriving to the historical beach community called Fort Cochin. We're staying in a historical Tea Bungalow that has 10 unique rooms in this 100 year old house. It has a beautiful garden (dad- the swimming pool is fabulous! wish you were here) and we have a room that has a balcony that over looks the gardens. We're within a 10 minute walk of the beach which has a large collection of Chinese fishing nets and catching and selling a huge variety of crab, shark, prawns, kingfish, and barracuda. We just watched the sunset over the ocean and now we're heading back to our hotel to relax and go for dinner.
Life is rough here in India but I think we'll manage with the beach, 30 degree weather and all the shopping yet to be done!
C & J

jan14

January 13-

We started off the day by doing what we seem to do best-- shopping. We spent several hours in a textile factory where Caitlin had a raw silk sewn on to a patch work quilt to make it into a duvet cover and Jan and I ended up buying an antique patchwork quilt that we had made into a wall hanging. We then went driving through the country side and the highlight was visiting the best preserved temple we have seen so far in India. This Jain Temple was in some very hilly countryside that was very reminiscent of Ranthambhore's terrain (Tiger Park). We arrived in Udaipur and after settling into another beautiful hotel, we strolled through a local market. I am starting to worry about leaving my daughter and wife for two more weeks in India unattended in the shopping mecca of India but I am looking forward to getting back to work. This trip has been far better than I ever thought could be possible.

January 14th-

Went to see the City Palace of Udaipur which is surrounded by 3 man made lakes that are over 500 years old. The water level is very low right now because they have not had a significant monsoon season since 2006. We went and saw the City Palace museum and the Princess Gardens. What was really interesting today is the end of the 1 month that the gods in the Hindu religion are on holidays/ 'sleeping' so no one gets married between Dec14-Jan14. Today marks that period and so everyone is buying tons of good grass to feed the cows and all the very poor villagers come to the Hindu temple to receive food, candies and money. All these acts are done to please the gods who are now awake and to help your Karma.

This afternoon we are going to Monsoon palace, where the king and his family go during the rainy season. It's on top of a large hill and supposedly has a spectacular view of the whole city.

This will be my last post until I get home. My daughter and wife will continue to tell us the details are of the southern part of India, this may be a slightly more colourful version than what I have written.

The Soni Family Dinner

Pashmina Shopping

jan 12 again-- updating

January 11th-
In the morning we went off and visited an artificial lake that was over 500 years old. Due to the lack of rain in the last six years the lake level was VERY low. The cat fish in the lake were HUGE and are running out of water and food. The most interesting part of the lake was the fact that a concubine built a gate overnight ( by pre building the gate in sections so that all they had to do was put it together) to enter the lake and park area. Because she was a lower cast person, the king ordered it to be torn down the next day but she was smart enough to build in a small Hindu temple as part of the gate. Therefore, the men who were ordered by the king to tear it down would not do it because it was a temple. Her legacy lives on.
Next we visited the yellow coloured fort in Jaisalmer-- it was very beautiful with several nice Hindi and Jainism temples. The fort was built on top of a plateau is occupied by over 5000 people. There were many hotels, restaurants and gift shops. The problem is that the sewage and water disposal is damaging the very foundation of this very fort. The government is torn between evicting everyone and letting the 500 year old fort live on or providing jobs for 5000 people in the fort. We went to the nearby market and looked at lots of textiles and silks. We coined Jaisalmer as THE smelliest city in India. There are open ditches on each sidewalk carrying sewage, laundry water and dirty wash water. You would know what your neighbour had eaten last night. What this all worse was all the pigs and cattle and dogs that drink for these ditches!
After relaxing by the pool and having lunch, we went on our late afternoon camel ride. We each got on a camel (not a singled hump dromedary) and went for a 4 km trot through the desert to some huge sand dunes where we watched gypsy girls and boys sing and dance as the sun set.

January 12th-
This morning we all cried when we had to leave our palace but were amazed to see that there was a light rain over night. Our driver, Ganesh, thought that this rain would be good for the farmers in the area. We drove quickly (pedal to the medal!) to Jodphur. As we approached the city there were huge sandstone quarries that took yellow, red, beige and pink sandstone. After we settled into another great palace (old Victorian style) we visited the best fort in Rajashatan. This fort was magnificent and remains undefeated. The best part of the fort was looking down onto the light blue houses below-- Jodphur is known as the blue city for this very reason.
Afterwards we went to a lively market where everything from tea, spices, toys, shoes, textiles, jewellery, underwear, sock, you name it they sold it. A lot of local kids stopped us to get their photographs taken, digital cameras are still quite a novelty in India.

That is it for now. Tomorrow we are heading to Udaiphur. So long for now.

Jan 12

January 9th-
This morning after another great breakfast we had a long drive to Bikaner. The drive took seven hours to go 300km! In Bikaner we were pleasantly surprised to be booked into staying at Maharajah's palace :) We visited the fort which seemed fairly standard but what made it unique were the incredible painted walls and ceilings that were done using crushed minerals for colour. We then went to a scientific camel research station where the two distinct breads of camel in Bikaner were the black camel (bikaner- which are heavier and stronger) and a light c0loured racing camel. We then went to Richard Gere's cooperative which gives women jobs and pays a fair wage. In this cooperative they sell many scarves, wall hangings, bedspreads-- my wife and daughter looked at them all! We were there for over 2 hours and they walked away with 27 scarves-- lots of pashmina!

Jan. 10-
We headed off to Jaisalmer this morning where we were booked into another extremely decadent hotel (palace). After laying by the pool (we are roughing it in India) for a while we visited two sites where they cremate Maharajahs. Jaisalmer is surrounded by wind farms. We were able to watch a beautiful sunset in the desert and then went to another wholesaler of patchwork wall hangings. Here Cait and Jan purchased more scarves and more wall hangings. Mr. Soni, the owner of the store, invited us to his home for dinner. We were honored to join his wife, two daughters, his parents and brother for dinner. They cooked us a delicious traditional Indian meal of mutton curry (lamb curry), rice, and chapati. His three daughter (who were 3mos, 4 and 6) were very excited to have foreigners in their home. We spent the time showing the girls pictures of animals that we have seen and they tried to identify them in their English-Hindi picture books. Mr. Soni and his family were so hospitable and we were very grateful to be taken into their home.

Jan 11 very early

Jan 8 This morning we woke up and again had a great breakfast ,usually omelets toast tons of pineapple, mango juice, guava and mandarin oranges. We headed off through the dense fog towards the Amber palace.Along the way we stopped to see the wind palace, looks very big but is only 4 M thick windows that allow the breeze to go through is why its famous. At the Amber Palace we climbed some big steps and hopped on to an elephant. which we rode up a long road to the top of the palace.The elephants were well decorated and it was a lot of fun. The palace was spectacular but we are starting to find that they are all looking the same.We visited a cottage industry store saw how gems were cut, and resisted any purchases because last night we were able to visit a wholesaler that made our eyes pop out, and deals with D&G or Louis Vitton. The most spectacular highlight of the day (other than shopping) was visiting Jantar Mantar which consisted of 5 or 6 different sun dials and time keeping devices. One huge sun dial was accurate to within 2 seconds and this was built over 400 years ago. After lunch we visited a carpet making factory and how they make block prints for textiles-- it was quite interesting.
After a short break we went down to jewellery heaven and bought turquoise, star of India rubies, ruby necklaces and garnets. We also visited a fruit and vegetable market, tea shops, spices and nut shops-- it was a visionary delight! Once we were good and tired are driver took us off to a carpet wholesaler where after much food and alcohol, I succumb to purchase a carpet for a potential gift. The carpet was easily 60 years old and had been sitting in the carpet wholesaler for easily that long too. We went back to our hotel, exhausted, slightly frustrated and a lot poorer. Jaipur is a clean and extremely interesting city with lots of shopping to be done.

Indian wildlife!

Jan 7

January 4th-

This morning we got up at 6am for a sensory overload! Our driver picked us up and we proceeded to the old west shore of the Ganges River. This area is considered holy by the Hindu Religion because if your body or ashes are placed in the river your soul will go to Nirvana (i.e. heaven). As we got closer to the river it became increasingly busy and it was only 6:30am. Several blocks from the river it was packed-- stores were all opened selling flowers and all sorts of religious artifacts (ie. incense pots, flowers, little statues and tributes to the gods). When we got to the first major Ghat (steps to the river) it was crowded with people shaving their heads, holy people praying with and for other people, as well as, people doing their laundry and bathing in the very polluted Ganges river. We observed people doing their early morning religious ceremonies including chanting and yoga. Our guide took us on to a boat who then proceeded to row down a portion of the river. Along the way Jan (my wife) and I also offered burning candles and flowers to the river. As we went down the river we saw many of the temples. At one end of the holy section of the river we observed several cremations and a crematorium that burned 100 bodies/day. When we got to the other end of the river we saw the larger crematorium that burned 300 bodies/day. They used about 750 kg of wood to burn one body! The wood piles were stacked 3 stories high! A number of bodies were being cremated but we did not take any pictures to respect the families and the customs.

When we left the river and our boat we walked through many narrow alleyways, many of which were very clean. There were holy men as well as many cows in these alleys. We did visit the Golden Temple where the security was incredibly tight due to conflicts with the Muslim mosque right next door.

After a quick breakfast we went to Sarnath, the location of Buddha's first sermon and the start up of a Buddhist monastery. Although only 2.5% of India is Buddhist it was quite crowded with many Chinese visitors. It was a solemn and interesting place to visit.

Our flight was very delayed but were glad to get back to Delhi to meet up with our daughter. We went for a nice dinner and went to bed early.

January 5th-

Today we got up at 6:45am to go to the train station where we were going to catch a train to Ranthambhore National Park. The entrance to the train station was almost as chaotic as it was at Varansai-- lots of beggars, porters and other activities go on there 24 hours/day.

When we arrived at Ranthambhore we went on a safari through the National Park. We saw lots of different types of deer (include: spotted, sambar), antelope, crocodiles, many exotic birds (ie. peacocks, parrots, black headed ibis and storks) and we were very lucky to see the very rare (only 2-3% of people see it) sloth bear!

January 6th-

Today we got up at 6:15pm and got on an early morning game drive (safari). Today we went on a different route than yesterday. We saw all the usual animals but we were ecstatic to see the endangered tiger laying in the forest! Although it was far away we still are fortunate to have seen one because only 20% do when they go there. After we left the park at 10:30 we stopped at a women's craft store where Jan and Cait spent a few hours shopping for scarves, textiles and bedding.

That afternoon we went on another game drive and saw many more animals but not the illusive tiger.

The Taj hotel served a great meal but more importantly made the BEST ICE CREAM I HAVE EVER HAD!

January 7th-

Another early morning game drive with a couple from Denmark and Russia. Beautiful scenery, beautiful animals but no tiger.

After a quick breakfast and shower we packed up to drive to Jaipur. It took us 4 hours to drive 180 km! Cattle, construction, bicycles, oxen, rickshaws, camels, motorbikes all managed to slow us down. Driving is a totally different experience here. After dropping our stuff off at our hotel we went to jewellery section of the bazaar in Jaipur where there are over 700 wholesalers, many gem cutting factories, and 100s of jewellery stores. We spent several hours with one wholesaler trying to find Stacy Fysh the perfect gem stone earrings. We are looking forward to a great city tour tomorrow and an elephant ride.

Jan 3

I have spent the last 3 hours trying with the help of Virendra Maurya(system executive) to download pictures.The fastest speed forthe Ramada Inn and much of India is 1 mb/sec

Jan 3

Jan 3 We got bad news last night that the fog that ruined the Taj Mahal also delayed our daughters arrival by 9 hours hence she will not be able to join us in Varanasi. We again had another great breakfast the went to the airport and arrived ind and airport that is actually 28 kms away. Lunch ,dump our stuff and we toured the oldest living city in the world, Varanasi.There are over 3000 Hindu temples in this 2.5 million person town. It is the place to cleanse all your sins and go directly to heaven,Our guide said it was a place to learn and a place to burn. Cremations and ashes being spread in the Ganges is 24 hour business. People send bodies from all over to this very sacred placed 84 temples line 4 kms of the western shore line for yoga bathing , purifying yourself and having your body placed there upon death. It could be ashes or a full body .Our guide already warned us not to bath or touch the water because it is so polluted.We learned the basics of the Hindu religion then went to 2 temples. We went to the Durga temple were we were blessed.After visiting another temple that was a tribute to India we went to a Silk brocade co-operative factory were we looked at silk till we couldn't make up our mind any more ,we will go again tomorrow. It should be an interesting morning on the river we get up at 6.We are also looking forward to seeing our daughter and having her travel with us for the next 4 weeks.

Jan 2 2010

Well last night we had a great meal of lamb in black bean sauce and lamb on a sizzling hot plate surrounded by lots of veggies. To finish the meal we had something new anise seeds (licorice) and large crystals of sugar , very mouth cleansing and different. We got up after a nice sleep at 6:30 had a great breakfast.Our driver and guide were ready to roll at 7:30 but.....it was brutally foggy!When we got close to the Taj Mahal we were transfered into a large golf buggy and driven 200 meters from a gate.there were lots street vendors trying to sell us everything we would never us , books, postcards, snow globes bracelets ,elephant carvings etc. Once we got in through the gates we still couldn't see anything the same could be said for the second gates also,in fact we were about half way along the infinity pool before we could see the outline (thank goodness we saw it from a distance yesterday).it was spectacular as we got closer ,the aura created by the white marble was impressive,this was a real love the king had for his bride.Inside was great too but there were supposed to be no photography allowed and everyone was taking pictures so of course the photo police and park staff are blowing whistles to make everyone stop and so most foreign nationals kept doing whatever they wanted. The adjoining residences and mosque done in red sandstone were equally impressive. My biggest concern is that the current repairs are not being done to the standards of 400 years ago, probably too expensive but this building deserves it. One would hope it would be thee for a long time. The day remained cool 7-8 degrees Celsius and very foggy until we arrived in Delhi at 3:30 .We plan to go to a bazaar and pick up our carpet have a healthy meal and go to bed early, as our Daughter Caitlin will arrive after midnight and tomorrow we fly to Varanasi tomorrow..

Jan 1 2010

Dec 30
Today after a complete breakfast, we headed to the air port for what were supposed to be short routine flights. Yes they weren't first flight was delayed 2 hours to arrive in Chennae fortunately our flight was also delayed so bottom line we arrived in Delhi after midnight instead of 8:00 pm. the good news is we had crossed paths with some Italians Michael and Christina from Florence, so we got to know them much better they had similar interests and careers,as we do.we also found they are doing somewhat the same things as us for the next few days
Dec 31 the Park hotel where we are staying has a great breakfast and we took full advantage of it . We set off on foot to discover Delhi, we made it 25 meters outside our hotel when we were mobbed by tuktuk drivers and taxi drivers. We relented and went with Raju a tuktuk driver( the best decision of the day).He first started towards the red fort. but as we proceeded he kept stopping and showing us things outside barbershops, huge produce market,the largest mosque in India then the huge Red Fort.It was quite spectacular.Jan is also becoming a bit of a star because may Indians have never seen a fair skin women before so everyone wants to talk with her and take her photograph. we then did a bit of shopping and ended up buying a yak wool carpet when we had no intention of buying anything like that, very persuasive sales people. We then proceeded to a Sikh temple, a animal hospital in the city centre,the Indian Gates ( an Indian tribute to soldiers of the WW, much like the Arche d'Triumphe), Humanynis tomb and a few other craft shops. By 7:00 pm it was getting cool and we were exhausted. we gave Raju a huge tip cause he was better that any tour guide and cleaned up.We did go out for dinner to an overpriced european restaurant. The the action all started to happen because our hotel street was blocked off by the military because they were worried about rowdiness or wild western type disorderliness. We ultimately had to prove were at the hotel and walk there ,our taxi was not allowed. Overall the day was great, what strikes me as tough today was the stark contrasts,elephants, horse carts, donkeys carrying stuff right beside a Mercedes Benz or people paying $500.00 not rupees for a New Years Eve dance when there are millions of homeless in Delhi (17 million people) many very ill or disease ridden. Or if you are a Victoria School person , how what seems like utter chaos and lack of order, still works .
Jan 1 2010.
Today after another great breakfast we jumped in a vehicle and were driven to Agra. The 214 km took 4.5 hours and our driver said the roads were great , it might take us 6-7 hrs to return. We saw a beautiful Mausoleum and another beautiful Red Fort made of red sandstone.It had 3 moats, 4 huge walls and intricate carvings and architecture, our guide was excellent. Guess where we go to tomorrow? yes , the most famous building in the world the Taj Mahal