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Expedition Diary India While waiting for our Vietnam visas, we decided to take a trip from Delhi to Jaipur for a couple of days. Jaipur is known as the pink city because of the coulour of most of its buildings which glow amber in the sun. It has a fascinating observatory featuring beautiful works of art which map the time date and astrological signs. Most notable is the largest sun dial in the world which notes the time accurate to 2 seconds. Luckily, we had a knowledgeable guide to explain the variety of contraptions. Then we went shopping! On the way back to Delhi, we paused at the top of a hill with magnificent views to take photos, with our Agfa digital cameras, for all our sponsors. We pitched our Kyam tents, we displayed our Tiso outdoor equipment and modelled our Thomas Cook safari clothing. We pretended to cook with our Harts of Stur cooking utensils and worked tirelessly on our psion5s while protecting ourselves with our Chefaro jungle repellent. Need I say more? Eventually, we left Delhi armed with our visas and headed for Agra to see the Taj Mahal, an awe inspiring building built by the Emperor Shah Jahan for his wife when she tragically died in childbirth. This perfectly symmetrical building is indescribably beautiful, so much white marble inlaid with semiprecious tones in pretty flower based patterns, presented an immense contrast with the chaos of the country surrounding it. Agra also has a large fort over 2 km long and 20 metres high. The Emperor Shah Jahan was in fact imprisoned there by his own son effectively to stop him building another black marble complement to the Taj Mahal. Our next stop was Varanasi where it is believed that if you die, you go straight to Heaven. All bodies are burned on the banks of the Ganges before being laid to rest in the Ganges, except babies, who are considered to have faces like the gods, pregnant mothers and bizarrely those who die of small pox. All these groups are considered holy enough to be weighted down and put straight in the Ganges. You can see the burnings at any time of day and we cruised at dawn along the Ganges while hoards of Indians performed their daily ablutions and Puja ceremonies. We returned in the evening when we were lucky enough to witnessed the Festival of Birth where the banks are lined with thousands of candles and the atmosphere was magical. Unfortunately, there we ran out of the time we had allotted to India and decided to push on fairly quickly towards Nepal. We were not disappointed. The difference was instant and dramatic. The hectic atmosphere was replaced by calm and the people suddenly became far more beautiful, the Tibetan and Chinese influences showing through. As we ascended into the Himalayas the scenery left us awe-struck and the clear fresh air felt wonderful. We stayed a night at Damam purely to witness dawn over a 400 km panorama of the Himalayas where we could see 8 of the 10 highest mountains on earth. Our visit to Nepal was justified already! We have now arrived in Kathmandu with a world of jobs to sort out. More visas of course and then the shipping of our shopping home! We may even have time to have our replacement gearbox, donated by Land Rover, fitted. Then it is off to the wilds for some trekking, white water rafting and elephant rides before we make for China. |