Well, how to sum up nearly two weeks of hitting the road every day. Waking up early and going to sleep late in strange beds, stranger hotels, Sleeping on trains where few people speak my language and I know so little of theirs. Yes, Where to start?
I know already that writing about these places without posting the pictures is going to be silly. There's a huge story in India. There's so much color everywhere, there's so much action and life that it's so overwhelming I'll do my best to find a way to upload at least a few teaser shots before I'm done here today. I have a terrible head cold from the last few days of game drive style safaris in search of that holy Bengal Tiger of India.. My fifth drive was the charm though. After four trips of looking at deer and monkeys I finally saw a tiger.. wooo, not one tiger, Two tigers. Two tigers in an apparent territorial dispute.. Sparks flew, horrific roars sounded, Striped arched backs launched ferocious blows at each other.. It was amazing!! Fucking Unreal!
I'll Start from the beginning though and see where this goes. The first part of my journey led me west towards the ancient castles of Hindu kings and also perhaps more importantly to trace the steps of some of India's greatest leaders and conquerors. The Moghuls.. You might just want to call them the mongols.. Same diff. Hmmm history lesson here or not.. Summarized the last great dynastic rule of India before the Brits showed up and changed everything was by a great and powerful family lasting 7 generations.
Babbu-- a born fighter and leader of the 14th century was the heart and the beginning of the strongest mongol presence in India
His Son Himayu-- Wasn't a bad leader but smoked a ton of Opium people say he was indecisive. Himayu has an awesome tomb that I visited
Son of Himayu Akbar had 3 official wives (one christian, one hindu and one muslim) Nice! Unofficially he had over 3000 wives regardless he brought back dignity to the empire through close relations with competing nations.. He did represent all of them in his herem after all.
Son of Akbar Jehangi I know little about but his son
Sher Jahan built the Taj mahal for his favorite wife as a tribute to the love he shared with her. ++The Taj is a simple design which probably represents some of the most amazing beauty in architecture on the planet. you'll see in the pictures. It's solid, Built to last, Made mostly of marble that absorbs the light and changes tones with the sun. I believe that it's a must see.. Though the mosque adjacent to the Taj actoually had a profound effect on me as a visitor.. When Inside, I could not help but to feel this overwhelming sensation that I was inside of a beautiful flower. Priceless.. Too bad this is the short version.. I could really go on and on and on
After Shar JAhan two more moghuls ruled until the British basically took it all away. Rats!
Here's the deal about the brits here. There are people who only want to talk about the negative parts of their rule and you don't have to look far to find a story about a beating or hanging.. perhaps mass hanging of dissidents.. But they did bring in a better system of rul, improved on education and modernized India in many ways. At the time the British arrived the Moghuls were doing what they have always done.. War over land and build empires.. The british were pretty good at that too .. In fact better.. So it's tit for tat in that case and I would wager that India would be no where near the nation it is now if the Brits hadn't come over to rule.. They're gone now too so remember that. All the executive buildings were built by the British and given over to the Indians as theirs to rule themselves in.. Cheer On!
Bla bla bla political bull isn't my thing.. You want to know what it's like in INDIA the nation of mystery. We hear so many good things about this place but know so little about it. Here's my impression so far.
Get me the fuck out of here!!!
Allow me to elaborate. The food is indeed very good and the culture is time tested and richer than you could possible imagine. Buddha preached here Hinduism started here hundreds of empires have risen and fallen here. The people now are a mix of all that. India is indeed on the path of development. No, India is a place of sharp contrast! So much so that you may find construction everywhere you look and on the surface, It would look like there's a multitude of jobs for anyone who wants one... Hell, We gave them a ton of our own from the united states didn't we? But There is a huge difference between the haves and have nots for example the CAST system is still very much alive here. There are five levels.. The people born into the highest level can do anything practically where as the people born in the lowest lever "the untouchables" can do very little but beg and live in their own squalor.. and that they do! Who by the way do you think has more children? Anyway, There are some places in India like the Taj Mahal where I think Ohh my god, this is a testament to the greatness of love and the profound nature of humanity itself.. and the next day I walk through Varanasi where the temples predate christ and probably haven't been cleaned since then and think.. Holy shit..Literally.. No, people cannot sleep in shit, children shouldn't have to push cattle out of their way to school in an alleyway and step over mountains of trash, food waste and urine.. Does anybody know what a trash can is? Fuck! Untouchable mothers know that their sick babies get more money when they use them as props so they make them sick with pills.. Is that fucked up.. but who cares, These are the "Untouchables" were talking about. They were bad in a previous life and this is their karmic punishment. To mess with this system is to challenge the entire way of living here. I'm not sure that I like the direction this post is going. so I'm going to end it here. I am in Varanasi now near the Ganges river and want to go back down to the river to see the nightly ceremony of appreciation to mother Ganges it's pretty cool and I can take a bunch of pics of random people there. Strange fact.. the water treatment plant is right nowt to where people are cremated and dumped into the river.. and also bathe...in something like a toxic soup after near bye manufacturers also dump their chemical waste.. But hey, It's mother Ganges, she can take care of herself!
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