Some miscellaneous photos

So after leaving Mumbai, we headed back home to Canada. I've now added more/better photos to all of the blog posts, but there are some decent photos that I didn't blog about, so here they are in no particular order.

 

Can you spot the camel?

Hawa Mahal - Jaipur

Myself, Jenn, Emily, and Chris.  I didn't get the memo about the sunglasses.  :P

My personal technique for getting rid of cockroaches in the bathroom.

Indian Ring Necked Parakeet.  I regret not getting any pictures of wild peacocks while I was in India, but I'm happy to have gotten such a good picture of this pretty fellow.

The next three pictures were the only good thing that came from our insane taxi ride from Agra to Dehli:

My rule was usually to not shove my camera in anyone's face (but I used my zoom lense frequently to take some sneakier/candid pictures), but if anyone took a picture of me without asking, I would often take a picture of them in return.  Most of the time these weren't worth keeping because they were more rushed and taken to prove a point, but I like the way this one turned out.

The constant parade of people wearing orange (for the Shiva Festival) on the streets of Rishikesh.

I caught these two monkeys in a happy embrace.

I used to play this game in Thailand as well.  The point of the game is to capture a picture with as many people as possible on a single motorbike.  No one was playing against me, but I totally won.

Monkeys hanging around in trees always manage to catch me off-guard.

The side of a building near our Mumbai hotel after the rain.  The colourfulness of India seems even more enhanced when everything is still wet.

I was initially taking a picture of the city of Dehli from uptop a staircase when this man walked into the frame.  I thought that he had done it by accident, so I put the camera down to wait for him to pass, but then he wanted to see the picture that I had taken of him.  I then realized that he wanted me to take a picture of him, so I gestured for him to go back where he had been and readjusted my focus and reshot the picture.  He seemed very pleased when he got to see this shot, and so was I.

Mumbai

I think Jenn and I were mostly burnt-out by the time we got to Mumbai.  We didn’t do much sight-seeing, we didn’t take many photos, we didn’t really do too much of anything.  We did, however, manage to make it to a very local market to get some delicious tea.

I bought a lot oat this store, so I asked if I could take their picture before leaving.

We also got stuck in the monsoon many times and conveniently had to duck into a restaurant and eat more food every time this would happen.

Mumbai has the equivalent of donut shops, except instead of getting coffee and a donut, you can get a samosa, chai tea combo! 

More chai.  On the left is the assortment of "condiments" that would come with almost every meal here.  At the end of the meal, having not been touched by us, they would be moved to another table of dining patrons.

Mumbai was interesting.  It was a lot more progressive than the northern areas that we had visited.  There were a lot more people wearing jeans and a t-shirt here (amongst the guys and the girls), there were also a lot more couples out and about being lovey-dovey in coffee shops etc – and much more of a female presence in general.

Here is a random assortment of Mumbai photos.

The Gateway of India

I'd been warned along this trip by many locals that "once I got to Mumbai, I should keep a close eye on my belongings".  For this reason, I took most of my pictures from the taxi (including all of the pictures below):

A very typical Mumbai view (from our taxi). 

Street scene and fancy train station

Aurangabad - Ellora Cave tour

Pretty much the only reason that we came to Aurangabad was to see the Ellora caves.  For the first time on this trip, we decided to do a tour.  Our bus came to pick us up at our hotel, and took us to Daulatabad Fort on the way to the Ellora Caves.

One really cool part of this fort was when the tour guide led us through some dark tunnels. 

He explained that these tunnels were designed to be narrow, winding and dark in order to slow down potential enemies that had entered the fort before the draw bridge had been raised.  If you let yourself trail behind the group (with the flashlight), which I intentionally did, it really was pitch black in there and all you could hear everywhere around you was the screeching of thousands of bats.  Pretty darn cool.

After making our way through the fort, it was time to head to Ellora.  Unlike many temples and monuments that I have seen in my life, these caves are carved out solid rock. 

 Mount Kailasa (one of the many caves) is twice the size of the Parthenon.  In its creation, over 200,000 tonnes of rock was removed from this single temple.  It took over 7000 workers 150 years to complete.

For an above view of Mt.Kailash click on this link

Rishikesh to Aurangabad

We splurged and bought a flight for a change... It should have been a fairly straightforward day.

We got up at 6AM because we were super nervous about missing our 11:05AM flight (in other words, we "pulled a John Samm" (only some of you will get this, sorry)).  We walked to the top of the hill here to take a tuk tuk to the bus station, and took our bus to the airport.  Now, when we had talked to the front desk at our hotel yesterday about how to get to the airport, we understood that if we told the bus driver (who essentially drives a shuttle between Rishikesh and Dehradun) that we wanted to be dropped off at the airport on the way, the driver would pull into the airport drop off for us.  This was not the case.  This driver instead dropped us off at the sign that read "airport 1.4 km's turn right".  At least we knew which direction to walk in, right?  The arrow pointed towards a street on the right, so - with our heavy packs, we headed down this winding road.

Like most things in India, the road seemed a little unofficial/uninviting.  However, we didn't question the overgrown road, the rusty signs, or even the family of monkeys that had taken up residence in the middle of the road leading to the airport.  It was only once we reached the actual terminal that we started to realize that this airport may not be the RIGHT airport...

In the distance, we could now see the new terminal, but we had to go back where we started from to get there.

Despite all of this extra unnecessary walking, we still made it to our boarding gate by 8:30AM - over 2 hours ahead of our departure time.  Our flight was then delayed again and again until we finally took off for Dehli at 2:30pm but had missed our connecting flight to Aurangabad.  We'll now be catching a flight out tomorrow.

At least the airline put us up in a decent hotel for the night.  Air India owns the hotel that we're staying at (the Centaur Hotel), and according to the waiter who served us tonight (meal vouchers were included in the deal!), at the hotel restaurant, over 70% of the people who stay at this hotel were on missed/canceled Air India flights.

We originally avoided booking a flight with Kingfisher Airlines because I'd read that the company was going bankrupt and that many flights were canceled recently.  It seems as though air travel in India may be just as unreliable as any other form of travel

Photo of Jenn waiting for our taxi.  We got a prepaid taxi to take us to our hotel in Dehli, and they gave us #37.  Numbers 1-36 and 38-45 were in the station and ready to go, but we had to wait for #37 to get back before we could go to the hotel.  This particular situation struck me as typically Indian.  :)

Rishikesh - Day 2

Jenn and I got up early to try out some yoga this morning (very much the opposite of Bungee jumping).  This beginner's class was an hour long, and I think their definition of "beginner" might differ a little from mine as I found the poses pretty difficult.

After breakfast I asked around a bit to see if we would be able to take a cooking class while we were in town.  I got directions on how to get to a place that offers a class, and started off on my journey to find this location.  The streets here were just beautiful!

After a little walk through this beautiful town.  I found what everyone had been directing me to.

I spoke with a young girl whose father runs a course and we chose 4 items to learn for that evening (we had to chose them in advance to allow the family time to pick up all of the materials from the market).  We agreed to come back at 4:00 to cook dinner.

In the meanwhile, Jenn and I parted ways for a good part of the afternoon as she wanted to get a massage and I wasn't very interested.  I instead found an internet café nearby (with exactly 2 working computers in it), and found us a flight and some accommodation options for our upcoming stay in Aurangabad.  Jenn met up with me at the café awhile later and her stories about the massage made me feel like I'd made the right decision not to get one.  Let's just say that it was a bit more of an "up close and personal" experience than she was expecting.

Our cooking class was delightful.  We were the first students that the family had taught this summer.  They teach out of their small home, which is a short distance away from the Gange River.

Even their dog has a bindi!

 Subol demonstrated how to make the 4 dishes that we had chosen:  Palak paneer, chana masala, vegetable biryani, and samosas.

I was actually pretty pleased with myself to see that a lot of his techniques/recipes were very similar to what I have already been making back home.  Even the chana masala that he made used the same mix that I buy in Superstore back in Canada.  The main difference that I noted was that he used a much higher amount of ghee or soy oil in the cooking process.  Maybe that's why the food is so delicious here.  :P  I've also never attempted to make samosas at home, so I'll have to try those out once I get back (think it'll be possible to make them as delicious by baking them instead of deep frying?  I doubt it, but it's worth a shot).  :)

After dinner, we chatted for a bit with Subol, and his youngest daughter.  Subol's two daughters do henna art out of their home alongside the cooking classes, so we asked if we could have some done on our hands before leaving.  They both did such beautiful designs!

I think I'll have to track down some henna mix and teach my students how to do this!

Rishikesh - Day 1

The overnight train ride went smoothly and we were able to sleep a bit on the way to Haridwar.  Once we arrived in Haridwar, we bought another ticket to Dehradun (which is closer to Rishikesh).  We didn't realize quite how crazy the regular class tickets would be at this time of year due to the Shiva Festival. We were luckily able to sneak into a sleeper car and just pay the difference in ticket price once we were caught (well worth the 4$ different to not be hanging outside the window/riding on top of a train).

I wasn't exactly in a "whip out the camera and capture the moment" kind of mood when our train came to pick us up at the terminal in Haridwar, but luckily the packed trains made it into the paper the next day.. This is what our train looked like - hopefully this will convey our appreciation for having been permitted to stay in the sleeper car instead of one of these cars.

Despite the hundreds of thousands of extra visitors due to the festival, Rishikesh has still turned out to be a very peaceful place compared to what we've been experiencing so far in India.

We're staying at a hotel called the Divine Gange Cottage.  We couldn't have asked for a better location view-wise.

The place is decently priced and the location is quite convenient as well.  Lonely Planet for the win!  We ran into a couple of travelers on our way to our hotel who suggested that we follow the flow of traffic (all pedestrians, the roads are closed to cars during the festival) at 5:30 in order to see some of the celebrations that take place by the Gange River.  When 5:30 came around we did this and ended up teaming up with travelers from England, Italy, and Switzerland on our way.  The 5 of us made our way through the crowds to the groups bathing in the river

 and eventually to a large group sitting around a statue (of Shiva?).

A small group of musicians played for well over an hour, and a young girl in front of us danced for a good part of the evening as well.  I wish my camera had a video function - this young girl sure had some awesome moves!

The girl and her family seemed to encourage me to take more pictures, so I ended up getting a couple of nice close-up shots of her and her mom.  Both very photogenic!

Then the group of boys behind me got jealous of all the attention this family was getting and asked that I take some pictures of them too.

The 5 of us tourists went to dinner together where we discussed our plans for the next day.  They were trying to convince me to go bungee jumping with them and I was way closer to agreeing to go than I thought I would have been.  I think this may have had something to do with the overall desensitization that I feel these days.  Bungee jumping just didn't seem as scary as it normally would.  Regardless, Jenn and I already had plans for the next day.  Bungee jumping will have to wait for another time.