North Tour Part Three; Amritsar

From Jaisalmer we traveled to Jodhpur, the blue city where we only spent one day sightseeing before getting on a train for Amritsar. Amritsar in in the state of Punjab, home of the sikh religion, and is where the Golden Temple is located. The Golden Temple is the most important temple in the Sikh religion.

The main entrance to the temple compound and the pool around it.

The compound and the temple itself were extremely crowded and we had to stand in line for about an hour packed in closely hundreds of hot and sweaty temple goers. I don't think I've ever been so closely packed with so many strangers. It was a very interesting experience and sort of bonding because you knew all the people are were surrounded by had to deal with the heat and close quarters too. I shared the last of my water with an elderly lady who I had exchanged a few words with. The inside of the temple was packed with people so that in someways I couldn't see how people who come to worship in their religion's most holy place find the peace and space to worship. At the same time, the temple is a very special place and you could feel it. Amanda and I are the only ones who live with a Sikh family and for us the visit was even more special because we have a connection to the temple.

The temple is out in the pond with only the one pathway to it. The whole pathway was jammed with people. 

After visiting the temple we went to the India-Pakistan border where there is a big ceremony every evening as the close the border to crossings. Thousands of people gather on the border to cheer for India and to watch the soldiers go through a drill sequence. The chanting and cheering is also aimed at the people in Pakistan who are within hearing distance. It's as much an intimidation ritual as anything else. There were so many people when we got there that we couldn't see over the crowd no matter where we went. From what I could see the border wasn't as built up or blocked as you would expect one of such tension to be. There was only a few barbed wire fences and maybe electric fences.

On the left in the background is the Hindi name for India, Bharat.

Click here to see my North Tour Facebook album.

North Tour Part Two: Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is also known as the golden city because of the golden dunes surrounding the city and the sand colored buildings. We left Jaipur late in the 2nd and spent a long time in the bus on our way to the train station. During that time we all ended up sharing the silly hand clapping games and nonsensical songs that we sang as little kids. Those of us who had attended summer camps knew many of the same ones. The next day upon arriving in Jaisalmer we had a little bit of time in a hotel to freshen up before we headed in to the desert for a night. Our base camp was a low end commercial resort "village." From there we went out on a two hour camel ride into the dunes where we stayed for sunset. Out on the dunes we all got a chance to let energy out and spent a lot of time running and rolling around making sure we got sand in every pocket and piece of clothing possible. We also took a lot of group photos. Unfortunately I didn't dare bring my new camera out into the desert because we had been warned about the affects of wind and sand on them. All the pictures are on another camera that's going to be shared. Rode back to the base camp for some dinner and traditional dancing before we drove back out into the desert to sleep in tents around a campfire and look at the stars. It was another one of those absolutely amazing nights that I've had here when I can't believe where I am and what I'm doing. 

The next morning we were woken by a grizzly voiced man telling us to get up and see the sunrise. So we all crawled out of our tents into a biting cold morning and huffed and puffed out way up the dunes. We didn't last long. The desert in the morning has a cold like no other. It teases you because you know that in just a few hours the sun will be burning down and glaring off the sand into your eyes. After breakfast back at the base camp we took another camel ride the brought us a little ways down the road where our jeeps met us to bring us back into town. The rest of the day was spent sightseeing in the local fort and in the evening we went to see the sunset out in boats on a small lake. Unfortunately, because I'm just that lucky, my camera died right before sunset but I did take some really nice pictures on Hannah's camera....

Speaking of pictures, if you want to see more I've put about 200 pictures on Facebook from the tour. It's a lot. The pictures I put here a ones I really like where as the pictures on Facebook are more of friends on other people, silly moments and such. The Facebook pictures also don't have descriptions or anything. If you go to my North Tour album on Facebook the pictures for Jaisalmer are numbers 61 to 100.

North Tour Part One; Ujjain and Jaipur

Ujjain was not an official part of the tour but for the Indore students it was still the first leg of the journey. We spent two nights in Ujjain the first night we arrived too late to do anything but order room service and watch several movies such as Harry Potter and Hancock in the room Hannah and I were sharing. Ujjain is mainly a religious city filled with temples and holy waters but not much else. We spent all day the next day with a driver and guide hired by the hotel visiting various spots in the city. Our second day in Ujjain was spent lazing around mostly in the hotel and getting ready to meet the train full of other excited exchange students that evening. There was much yelling, hugs, and chatting when we boarded the train, the last ones to do so. We all squeezed together to exchange news and gossip, it seemed all too soon we were getting dirty looks from fellow passengers who were not as excited by our arrival and simply wanted to sleep before reaching their destination. These looks were nothing new as it seems no matter the time of day or how hard we try our large group of teenagers is never silent enough for other passengers. I didn't feel bad for them but I did feel bad for the one new student on the tour, Samantha from Virginia, she was greeted with a hug from Jordan and after quick introductions I think most of the group forgot her and the fact that she was a newcomer too quickly. No matter, in a few days it felt like she had been one of the group from the very start except when we started playing the "Remember when....." game but even then she was quick to call us out and our conversations would move to more common ground.

On my North Tour Facebook album this post corresponds with pictures 1-60.

Taken on the ghats along the holy river in Ujjain. 

Jaipur, the Pink City, was our first official stop on the tour. We arrived lazy and tired early in the morning and had a few hours to shower and nap (if we could) before we set out for a full day of sight seeing. This was a true indicator of how the tour would go, it was also a test to see how well would could handle the coming exhaustion and heat and how well we could deal with each other in varying states of tiredness.  Jaipur also happened to be where my friend Josephine was staying at the time. Despite our best efforts and several telephone calls we weren't ever able to make our schedules match. Jaipur has a long royal history so there are many palaces and forts in the area.

Pigeons circling a giant sundial in a large astronomy observatory built by and ancient king. The sundials all told the exact local time in Jaipur which meant they were off by a little bit on the all India watches. 

Amber Fort in Jaipur.

Inside the fort several different halls were lined with detailed carving and inlaid mirror work.

Screens like these are common in old forts and palaces. They allow people to look out but not in, they were commonly built for woman to observe comings and goings in private.

Inside Hawa Mahal (the Wind Palace)

Hawa Mahal

The outside of Hawa Mahal. The Wind Palace was built for royal women specifically so they could observe happenings in the main street below such as festivals and parades. Though it doesn't show in the photo the building actually leans towards the street a little allowing those in the top level to have a clear, unobstructed view of the street below. 

Home Again, Home Again

I arrived home yesterday morning to a much hotter but altogether the same Indore.
I was too tired to even open my computer yesterday but rather slept the whole day away. This morning I severely lacked the motivation to get online dreading the hundreds of email and other tasks I knew awaited me. Luckily that's all taken care of now and my inbox is more or less organized.
I would have been home a day earlier but protests in Delhi cause our train from Calcutta to Nagpur to be delayed by nine hours which meant that a large chunk of the 18 hour train ride was during the day rather than at night. The original plan was to arrive in Nagpur at 2 pm and have an afternoon to relax before catching a 6 o'clock overnight bus to Indore. Instead we ended up spending the night and the majority of the next day in Nagpur. This gave us time to get together and relax with the students who didn't come on the tour and also gave us a last chance to say good-bye to each other as there's a chance that many of us won't see each other for the rest of the year.
I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with talking about the tour because there's so much to say. I think I'll do it like the previous tour and post pictures along with descriptions and highlights of certain parts.
I'll try to put together the first of these posts tonight so I don't end up procrastinating on them. Unfortunately, I have more than a thousand pictures to go through and edit before I can put them up. I've already started. Dealing with the photos is something I dread after tour even more than dealing with my emails because I have thousands that need to be sorted and edited and then I have to go through and select some that will go on facebook or be posted here.
Before I finish up let me also point out that I added another blog link. This one is to my friend Amanda's blog. I haven't had the chance to read it yet but I hear it's amazing because of it she's already had some job offers and there are movie producers reading her blog. The producer of the Batman Dark Knight movie apparently really likes her writing....