I've always felt myself to be a lucky woman and our latest trip to India just confirmed it. If you are of a jealous disposition I recommend that you stop reading now.
We got to the airport to find that we had been upgraded to posh class which meant that, after the champagne and four course dinner, we could go to sleep in flat-bed comfort. When we arrived in Dehli we found the car we had ordered had been upgraded to a very spacious Toyota. On the way to the hotel I spent much of the time with my hands over my eyes - Northern Man had warned me about the traffic but it has to be seen to be believed; there is no such thing a lane discipline - a two lane road will have at least 3 lanes of traffic on it and a four lane road might have as many as seven lanes. There are cars, coaches, motor rickshaws, bycyle rickshaws, scooters (often with dad driving, mum sitting elegantly side-saddle behind sometimes holding a baby, and a small child or two packed in between the adults), pick up trucks converted to taxis (always overloaded) and pedestrians. The only rule seems to be that traffic stops for red lights, otherwise it's every man for himself.
On to the splendid Taj Mahal Hotel in New Dehli where Northern Man was asked for his business card when we checked in. We can only assume that when the hotel saw the name of the company on the card they targetted us as potential future business; the next two days there was a succession of treats and presents - delicious confectionary and wine arrived unbidden in our room, there were gifts from the restaurants and bars, a behind the scences tour of the hotel, etc, etc ....
Our room was on the top floor and we had a panormic view from the
Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace) all the way to India Gate over the surprising green of New Dehli which has trees planted all along its wide avenues.
My favourite place in Dehli was the Lodi Gardens which contains several garden tombs all in a rather dilapidated state. The flower beds are crammed with familiar flowers but the petunias grow to the size of small bushes, dahlias are as big as dinner plates and the buzy lizzies reach up to your knees!
Then to Agra, a trip of about 200km which took nearly 5 hours - that traffic again! Outside towns the traffic is spiced up a little by the addition of lorries (which park outside the towns and cities as, we believe, they are only allowed in at night) camel carts, wandering cows, and donkies laden with goods. Sometimes, just for light relief, a vehicle will come at you the wrong way down the carriageway and have to be avoided. Dinesh, our very talented driver weaved his way through the traffic without so much as a scratch on the car. Most vehicles carry the scars of driving wars and some, the coaches in particular, are held together more by filler than actual body work.
The lorries and trucks are painted brightly with birds, flowers, trees, scenes, patterns and beautiful lettering. The fronts are decorated like old Romany caravans and often they have garlands of flowers or tinsel decorations. All of them have 'Blow Horn' painted on the back, an instruction which drivers in India take very seriously!
I have to admit that having seen several garden tombs, I did not expect great things of the Taj Mahal. We've all seen numerous pictures of it after all so it's not going to come as a surprise is it? Well, silly me. The first glimpse of it is from the great gateway inside the complex so that you look through a dark space into the light beyond and there it is apparently floating ....
The decoration on the outside gives it a slightly textured look from a distance and it came into my head that this great building was actually made from stiffened lace. It is, quite simply, the most beautiful building I have ever seen.
Because the complex contains a mosque, most people leave their shoes with a minder before they go inside the Taj Mahal itself. There is a large notice which says that the service is free. But, like every where else, a tip goes a long way; when we returned to collect our shoes they were produced like magic, with the dust of Agra brushed off them, ready to wear again. Pretty impressive when there were thousands of visitors there!
The next day it was on to Jaipur, another hair-raising trip with the music of the horns in our ears all the way. Here we stayed in the Royal Heritage Haveli, a hide-away so understated that it doesn't even have a sign outside. We ate on the terrace with lovely live music and the largest, fattest basset hound I have ever seen looking hopefully at us, we breakfasted in the loggia, we swam in the pool and we were sorry to leave. We saw the Pink City, the City Palace Museum, the Hawa Mahal, The Amber Palace, Naharagarh Fort and elephants.
Then off to Gurgoan for our last night because it is conveniently located for the airport and Northern Man wanted to show me the Trident Hotel where he has stayed before. Here he chanced his arm and got us upgraded to a pool room with a view .....
This was a trick he repeated at the airport the next day when he managed to get us upgraded to posh class once again!
India is a splendid, exciting, colourful, vibrant, buzzing place but there is plenty of poverty and squalour. Tiny, half-naked children beg at the junctions for money, people live under plastic sheeting supported on poles in shanty towns and there is rubbish in piles everywhere. We saw it from a clean, safe, comfortable, five-star view point and that is how lucky I am - to be born in this country at this time in history.
