Tourism photos

As promised, a brief summary of my two weeks' semi-vacation. There are a lot of photos associated with this, and I've provided links to the main photosets and a few excerpts of note.

The whole thing is made possible by the fact that years ago, my father's company decided they wanted to do international joint ventures in steelmaking. One of the places they looked at (because it's got cheap labor and a big demand for materials) is India. They realized that there was exactly one Indian guy in their upper management, and thus began a process that would lead to my dad needing to take yearly trips to India for board meetings. The American Express corporation lent a kindly hand by setting a policy that, whenever a sufficiently high-value cardholder buys a business class international ticket, he gets a free companion ticket. Net result: my dad gets a free trip home every year and can take one person with him.

This year, that one person was Jennifer, my fiancee. So, our goal was to introduce her to the core of the family here in India and give her a taste of the major sights. We thus ended up with a whirlwind tour of India -- 3 days in Mumbai, 2 in Varanasi, 2.5 in Delhi, 2.5 in Jaipur, and another 2 in Mumbai before they headed home and I hopped the train up to Delhi (and a car from there to Bhorugram).

First off, Mumbai, the New York City of India. Big, crowded, insane traffic. Also home to my grandmother, chacha/chachi (grandfather's brother and his wife), and the highly Westernized family of my older aunt. Mostly, we ate, we hugged, we shopped, and we argued over where to eat and shop next. We did get in some tourism, mostly the British-era buildings that have unique architecture. Photos of those here, and here's a sample of us at the Gateway to India:



Next to Varanasi, one of the most important holy cities for Hindus, as it's situated on the banks of the Ganges river. Varanasi also happens to be a central pilgrimage site for Buddhists, particularly the outlying town of Sarnath. Sarnath is where the Buddha preached his first sermon setting out the precepts of what became Buddhism. It is also the site of some very impressive ruins:




The centre-piece of Varanasi, though, is the ghats. These are sets of steps leading down into the Ganges, and most Varanasi tourism involves them. We did tour some other major temples, but photography being not allowed, you mostly get shots of the ghats. Here's one of the nightly worship ceremony at the biggest ghat:





Overall, Varanasi was seriously dirty, but a lot better than my uncle (who can be somewhat fastidious) led us to believe it would be. The Ganges remains badly polluted, but isn't quite the sewer one might fear. Nevertheless, from the gullies, we next headed to Delhi, where my younger aunt lives. It turns out I haven't seen her in about 15 years, so we packed a lot of catching up into a few short days. Delhi is also only a few short hours from Agra, home to some of India's most famous monuments. So, we did Agra, including (of course) the Taj Mahal:





We also hit the Agra fort and Sikandra, burial place of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Those did produce a few nice photos too:






Nevertheless, for beauty, you just can't beat the Taj. Unfortunately, you also can't beat it for sheer hassle factor. The number of touts, pushy souvenir vendors, drink sellers, and people trying to use every conveyance available to take you the 0.5km between parking lot and main gate is beyond belief. It's also got one of the worst "jack up admission price for foreigners" systems I've ever seen. Glad we went, won't be doing it again until the kids are old enough to appreciate it.

The next day was meant to be more touring around Delhi, but got cut short by (A) souvenir shopping and (B) some general exhaustion due to packing too much in the day before. We did see the Red Fort, but that's about it. The rest will happen next visit.

From Delhi, it was on to Jaipur. Not truly my home base, but since my NGO is Rajasthan-based, we had the benefit of some local hospitality (including the use of one of the boss' cars with driver). Aside from the Taj, I'd have to call this the high point of the trip, if only for the forts. I love exploring them, and Rajasthan is full of incredible citadels built during the era of warring princely states. Of those, we only got to do Amber and Jaigarh, but even those were impressive. Amber in particular was a good place for tourists:





Other notable features of Jaipur included wandering around the old Pink City and Jennifer getting a chance to experience local means of transportation:




There's also an amazing astronomical observatory (mainly a collection of very large, very precise, and strangely targeted sundials) called the Jantar Mantar. Almost the Indian version of Stonehenge. Noteable mainly for being one of the few places where you can climb on the art:




And from there, it was a brief tea and snacks with Dr. Ashok Agarwal and his wife, back to Mumbai, packing of the bags, and semi-tearful goodbyes. An entirely enjoyable vacation, and it appears that the Bhorugram folks even got a fair amount of work done while I was gone.

And next up -- something resembling work of my own!