Delhi of Dreams ...

Friday morning was avery early start for the flight to Delhi. I arrived at about 8am and was met by Vikas, the local agent,who introduced me to my driver Raj, who will look after me for the rest of the trip. We arrived at the hotel, The Florence Inn, a very nice traditional style building which is quite central. In the afternoon Raj and my guide, Rather came for the city sightseeing tour.

We started off on the Rajpath. This is the big wide boulevard which runs from the Rashtrapai Bravan, the Presidential Palace at the west end of the path to India Gate on the east side. The Presidential palace is magnificent. It was built by the British between 1921 and 1929. The architect was Edwin Lutyens, who also designed India Gate. The Rajpath is the scene of great festivity and colour for the annual Independence Day parade on 26^th January.

The path starts from the Palace with 2 huge symmetrical arms of the original palace which are now Government ministry buildings. The palace and surrounds are heavily guarded and we could not stop or park in the area.

We continued down the Rajpath to India Gate. Similar in purpose and appearance to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, it commemorates the 90,000 Indian soldiers killed in world War I. It too has an eternal flame burning inside.

A second smaller construction close by once held a statue of Lutyens the architect. After Indian independence from Britain in 1947, the new Government removed the statue of Lutyens and planned to erect a statue for Gandhi instead. Anxious not to upset the British, however, they decided against the Gandhi statue and the plinth remains empty today. I had to smile at the very civilized approach, a little different to the way the Irish treated the statue of Admiral Nelson, which dominated the Dublin skyline, from Nelson’s Pillar until 1966. (Nelson’s Pillar was blown up in March 1966, and neither he nor the pillar survived.)

Our next call was at the Lotus temple. This is a very beautiful modern building in the shape of a Lotus flower. It’s a recent construction and is House of Worship of the Baha’i religion. They claim total independence from any religion and the temple has no statues or images at all. It’s just a big quite empty arena for meditation. The temperature today must have been 40 +. It was absolutely baking, which was Ok till you had to take off your

shoes to go into the temple. This involved walking quite a bit on ridiculously hot pavements where there was no shade. I felt like I was walking in a frying pan, so needless to say, we didn’t hang about !!

After the Lotus Temple, we took some respite from the sun and made an indoor call on the specialist Kashmir carpet makers. The complex patterns are jealously guarded and handed down through families from generation to generation. One of the seniors in this particular family showed me how to read the pattern and tie the individual knots in the silk thread. The carpets are very beautiful and virtually indestructible.

Then it was on to the last stop of the day, the Qutub Minar (the tower that’s nearly as tall as me

above !).It was built by the first mogul king of India. It sits within a large compound which houses the first mosque in India and reminded me of the ancient Roman Forum. There are many covered walkways with columns and balustrades, with large courtyards in the centre. The first 3 floors of the tower were built by the original king and the next one, which is white marble was built by the next king. A third king decided to build anew, and determined to build a much broader, higher tower, despite advice that such a structure would not survive. He started the new building and a bit like a modern builder, he ran out of money and the tower remains unfinished today.

The compound was very busy, mostly with local people and we met many groups of school children in the grounds.

Thankfully it had cooled down somewhat when we left the Qutab Minar, and we returned to the hotel ready for an early start to an exciting day in Agra tomorrow.

Happy in Hyderabad ...

Hi again,

Today was a great day. I spent it with my old friend and all time Number One Techie expert Srini, and his family and team in Hyderabad. I was delighted to visit BIZ Xpert IT and meet the team of developers. I was very touched by the lovely welcome and the wonderful flowers which they had for me. Srini introduced me to the team and they demo'ed some of the great software products which they have developed. I was very impressed with the rich functionality and ease of use .. I could recognise Srini's fingerprints in the detail !

I was very lucky today to be in the best possible place to sort out my own little technical problem. My laptop developed a nasty virus (must be the weather or the mosquitoes !). Srini and the team sorted it out for me very competently (Thank you Raj !). So I'm back on the air again today.


After the office it was time to head home to see Padmaja and 2 year old Dasaradh, who's called Bunny. Bunny was a bundle of energy, playing with his neighbourhood friends. Padmaja and I went off to see a very interesting local attraction .. a park where the traditional skills of the tribes are celebrated, and we left the boys at home.

The Park was facinating. There are many scenes depicting trades and crafts practised by the tribes in the area over 100 years ago. The figures were so life like, I wanted to talk to many of them. Here's my attempts to talk to the lady painting the elephant .. she didn't answer ! And Padmaja is lending a hand here with the hammer ..


There is also a big amphitheatre where traditional music and dance are performed during the festivals.

After the Park, we went back home and picked up Srini and Bunny and we all went back to my hotel for dinner .. which was lovely. I was so happy to see Srini and the family and I felt very sad waving goodbye. However, I'm sure I'll be back.

I've added some photos below from the Guthula family album !

Off the Delhi in the morning and then to Agra for the Taj Mahal .. really looking forward to that,

Bye for now,

Kate

Cosy Cochin

Hi again,

We arrived in Cochin early and booked into our hotel. It's a wonderful place, The Fort Heritage Hotel, a 17th century building with immense character and charm. There's a huge wooden swing seat in the large hallway outside our room. I couldn't resist trying it out. It was wonderful. We settled in and have a lovely fish lunch in the beautiful restaurant in the garden.

After lunch I went on a half day sightseeing trip and tried my hand at some fishing in the Chinese Nets (main pic above). This is a fishing method brought to India by the Chinese, whereby a net is cast into the sea, quite near the shore from a platform, and is retrieved using ropes to pull, balanced by huge stones. It's a unique and interesting method which can be seen all along the sea shore in Cochin. The local fishermen explained that the fishing wasn't too good these days and they depend more on tourism. The fish they caught today seemed very tiny, although some bigger ones had come in early, they showed me. we then continued along the sea front to see many stalls selling fish and we also saw a fish auction. There are stalls on the other side of the street where people will cook your fish to your liking after you've bought it. I have to say I was tempted .. but no - we'd had lunch and I still had some culture to attend to this aternoon !

Next stop was Saint Francis Church, built by the Portugese. It's main feature is that it was once the resting place of Vasco da Gama, who died in Cochin in 1524. His remains were later return to Lisbon. Note the fans which hang above the pews in the church. These were operated manually by men pulling ropes. They stood outside the church and pulled the ropes through the windows. The church ws originally Catholic when built by the Portugese. It ws then changed to Luthern by the Dutch and finally to Anglican by the British. It remains a practising Anglican church today.

My guide today was Alex who is from Cochin. Because I was the only one on the sightseeing trip, I had the guide to myself, so it was a wonderful private tour of Cochin.

Next stop was the Dutch Palace where we saw many beautifully decorated walls depicting the various Indian Gods and Godesses. These date back from the 1500's and are frescos on the wall, preserved by egg white painted over them. It's amazing to think that they are so old, yet still appear so vividly. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed - so no photos.

We then went to see the nearby Jewish Synagogue. This was built when there was a population of 70 to 80 thousand Jews in Cochin. There is now one community of 10 people. Nevertheless the Synagogue is thriving and the whole surrounding area, known as Jew-town is a historic hive of activity. This is the are where the original spice and tea markets were located. I visited a sari shop where a lady was weaving the gold threads into a length of fabric for a new sari .. and I went to the Spice Market .. a fascinating afternoon's activity.


After this it was back to the hotel to go to the Kathakali Dance show. This is a famous dance tradition of Kerala, where the story of the performance of told through the music and the facial expressions of the dancers, as there are no words. The performers are on stage for an hour before the show to have make up applied. This is done very publicly, in full view of the audience. The speaker later explained that the paint is very natural, no chemicals at all. It comes from a coloured stone being rubbed in coconut oil. He demonstrated for us on stage. He also explained the basis of the dancing and what the preformance was about today, which was really good, as otherwise it would have been difficult to make out what was going on ! A very interesting and enjoyable show.


Then it was back for an early night. Cathy left very early next morning for Goa .. Have a great time. I had just enough time for a last stroll around the little streets by the hotel and the sea front .. to say goodbye to a wonderful city, before flying to Hyderabad.

Bye Bye Cochin .. one day wasn't enough. I'll definitely be back.

Backwater Ripples & Floating Heaven !!

We set off from Alleppey to the Backwater Ripples resort at Kumarakom, where we were given a very warm traditional welcome by our new hosts.

The resort, (http://www.backwaterripples.com) , looked very appealing on the drive in. It is a lovely green complex with lots of palm trees and although it is quite big (10 acres) , it is very secluded and the trees give such shelter that you feel you could be alone. We have a lovely room near the swimming pool overlooking the Vembanad lake, the second largest in India, and the centre of the famed Backwaters, described as a 'tangle of lush tropical waterways and low-lying paddy fields'.

We set about exploring the resort and found a lovely restaurant serving local fish, an Ayurvedic centre and lots of wonderful walks through the grounds. There was a sunset cruise on the lake which we tried out, ahead of our overnight trip on the house boat.

After another very good Keralan fish dinner, we retired, to be ready for our house boat trip next morning.

We boarded our House boat about 12.30 next day and were greeted with traditional jasmine garlands and fresh coconuts, by the crew.

The boat is very well equipped. As well as the dining area with a good sized table and 4 chairs, there are 2 easy chairs on deck, to sit and watch the world float by. There's quite a big twin bedroom and bathroom with a shower. So it was extremely comfortable and we were well served by 3 crew members, who piloted, cooked and generally maintained the craft very well throughout.

The first port of call was the lake side for lunch. We dropped anchor (well, tied up to a tree actually !) and the crew prepared a wonderful freshly cooked lunch, featuring the local lake blackfish, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

After lunch we continued along our way on the waterways. It's extremely peaceful and although we occasionally met up with some neighbour house boats, it was very quite and peaceful and hardly a sound was heard all day .. wonderful.

In the afternoon, we stopped off at the fish market to get some prawns for dinner. We meet some people and some children along the banks of the lake. The children are always keen to talk to the foreigners and practise their excellent English. This bunch were very chatty ..

Dinner was another wonderful meal cooked by our host crew and served as the sun set, on the water. It was eerily quite in the dark. Occasionally a boat would pass by with absolutely no lights. You'd just hear the ripples in the water. the crew told us that the House Boats had to dock at 5.30 because after that it's time for fishing and the House Boats cannot run in case the interfere with the fishing.

After dinner and some fresh air walking along the bank, we retired to be rocked to sleep in our nice air conditioned cabin.

Next morning we awoke to the sound of the engine starting and preparing for moving off. Breakfast was served and we moved off about 8am. This is obviously rush hour on ther waterways and there was a lot of traffic on the route. We saw lots of other House Boats as well as some smaller boats, delivering various products. One we passed was carrying drinking water. The people who live along the banks were busy too. We saw many walking along to work or to school and a lot washing themselves or their clothes in the lake .. some cleaning the front of their houses .. a very busy stretch of water.

It was serious rush hour at the docking area in Alleppey. When we got there to dock, the craft were 2 or 3 deep and we could not get anywhere the bank. In fact we had to walk throuhg 2 other boats to get to the shore ! Here we were picke dup to drive to Cochin for the last leg of our Kerala adventure.

News from Cochin soon .....