Hello everyone,
I am writing this from the palatial Al Bustaan Palace Intercontinental Hotel in the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman - one of our two subsitutes for Egypt. I believe that one reason for the hotel's name is that it s certain to "bustaan" one's bank balance - but it is luxurious beyond belief.
But this is about our journey from Delhi to Agra - the latter a chaotic, rather dirty town, redeemed only by the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. Anything I could say about the Taj Mahal would be cliched, but it is a wondrous thing, spoiled for us only slightly by the fact that we saw it on Sunday, when it was more than usually crowded. It is decorated by carvings into the marble which are filled with semi-precious stones - carnelian, malachite, amethyst and mother of pearl etc.
In the afternoon we were taken over the Red Fort. It is on an immense scale, and like all things called "forts" here do double-duty as both fortifications and luxurious palaces. In their latter manifestations they are at their most magnificent, with large rooms open to the air, able to be closed off with either silk curtains or silk carpets. The term ''red'' comes from the fact that they are built of red sandstone, with the palace areas in marble. Also in the palace areas there are huge amounts of filigree carved out of gold, silver and marble, and for anyone who has seen the Alhambra in Granada it is clear where the ''Moors" got their inspiration. The Moghuls were origininally Mongols who came to India via Persia, so the designs seem more Arabic than ''Indian".
After a night in Agra we went next mornng to Fatehpur Sikri - the huge palace built by a Moghul Emperor, who had to abandon it and return to the Red Fort afer 10 years because of lack of water. So it is a ghost palace, but maintained as much as possible by the government of India. Again, it is overwhelmingly magnificent in the usual way - sandstone, marble, gold, silver, filigree everywhere. Afte Fatehpur Sikri we were so exhausted that we abandoned the rest of the day's programme, dropped the local guide and pressed our way on to Jaipur. The latter is famous for being ''the Pink City" and home of the palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur. It is called the ''pink city'' for no other reason that the Maharaja in 1876, in anticipation of a visit by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), thought it would be nice if the latter were to be greeted by a city painted pink - and so it remains, though now a rather shabby, faded pink. But that same Maharaja - a builder - came up with the idea of introducing footpaths and verandahs for the convenience of shoppers. Most villages and towns to this day lack either footpaths or verandahs, except (rarely) where the British had enough interest to get involved in local town planning. Ordinarily one finds dusty streets and the local shops facing directly onto them. Most shops are windowless, thus dark and rather uninviting - often extremely so.
The Maharajahs of Jaipur have always thought themseves rather magnificent figures, and did well out of the settlements conferred on the Princely States in 1947. So the current titleholder lives in private apartments doubtless as ornate and handsome as the ones open to the public. Like many other Indian princes he is immensely respected and, while having no actual power, wields a lot of influence behind the scenes - so we are informed.
Our next stop was Jodhpur - an uncomfortable 330 km by bad road across the arid plains of Rajasthan - but I shall stop here, with more to come as we go from Jodhpur to Udaipur and ultimately overwhelming Mumbai. For readers in NZ, is there yet any talk of changing the name of the Bombay Hills?
Till the next post.
I am writing this from the palatial Al Bustaan Palace Intercontinental Hotel in the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman - one of our two subsitutes for Egypt. I believe that one reason for the hotel's name is that it s certain to "bustaan" one's bank balance - but it is luxurious beyond belief.
But this is about our journey from Delhi to Agra - the latter a chaotic, rather dirty town, redeemed only by the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. Anything I could say about the Taj Mahal would be cliched, but it is a wondrous thing, spoiled for us only slightly by the fact that we saw it on Sunday, when it was more than usually crowded. It is decorated by carvings into the marble which are filled with semi-precious stones - carnelian, malachite, amethyst and mother of pearl etc.
In the afternoon we were taken over the Red Fort. It is on an immense scale, and like all things called "forts" here do double-duty as both fortifications and luxurious palaces. In their latter manifestations they are at their most magnificent, with large rooms open to the air, able to be closed off with either silk curtains or silk carpets. The term ''red'' comes from the fact that they are built of red sandstone, with the palace areas in marble. Also in the palace areas there are huge amounts of filigree carved out of gold, silver and marble, and for anyone who has seen the Alhambra in Granada it is clear where the ''Moors" got their inspiration. The Moghuls were origininally Mongols who came to India via Persia, so the designs seem more Arabic than ''Indian".
After a night in Agra we went next mornng to Fatehpur Sikri - the huge palace built by a Moghul Emperor, who had to abandon it and return to the Red Fort afer 10 years because of lack of water. So it is a ghost palace, but maintained as much as possible by the government of India. Again, it is overwhelmingly magnificent in the usual way - sandstone, marble, gold, silver, filigree everywhere. Afte Fatehpur Sikri we were so exhausted that we abandoned the rest of the day's programme, dropped the local guide and pressed our way on to Jaipur. The latter is famous for being ''the Pink City" and home of the palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur. It is called the ''pink city'' for no other reason that the Maharaja in 1876, in anticipation of a visit by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), thought it would be nice if the latter were to be greeted by a city painted pink - and so it remains, though now a rather shabby, faded pink. But that same Maharaja - a builder - came up with the idea of introducing footpaths and verandahs for the convenience of shoppers. Most villages and towns to this day lack either footpaths or verandahs, except (rarely) where the British had enough interest to get involved in local town planning. Ordinarily one finds dusty streets and the local shops facing directly onto them. Most shops are windowless, thus dark and rather uninviting - often extremely so.
The Maharajahs of Jaipur have always thought themseves rather magnificent figures, and did well out of the settlements conferred on the Princely States in 1947. So the current titleholder lives in private apartments doubtless as ornate and handsome as the ones open to the public. Like many other Indian princes he is immensely respected and, while having no actual power, wields a lot of influence behind the scenes - so we are informed.
Our next stop was Jodhpur - an uncomfortable 330 km by bad road across the arid plains of Rajasthan - but I shall stop here, with more to come as we go from Jodhpur to Udaipur and ultimately overwhelming Mumbai. For readers in NZ, is there yet any talk of changing the name of the Bombay Hills?
Till the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment