Alex in Motion

My friend Am had previously warned I could not adequately prepare for India. He was right and I’ll explain in a moment. To keep me grounded, my good friend and previous neighbour, Selma, joined me for two weeks. The plan was to spend a week travelling 4 major cities, and then a week at a yoga and mediation ashram in Rishikesh.

I landed in Delhi and was immediately plunged into streets of chaos. Here’s my best to explain the roads here, as it was a unique experience. Visualize the following:

• Roads have painted lanes, so you’d expect there to be two lanes. Of course, you’d be wrong; there are actually as many lanes as needed, depending on the traffic. That means anywhere between 1 and 8 lanes, with cars, buses, scooters (with up to 4 people), motorcycles, tuk-tuks and rickshaws grinding along down the street, sometimes with just inches between them
• Occasionally some travel in the wrong direction, to accelerate their journey, I presume
• Although the police are absent, there are police road blocks placed randomly, as if to simply slow down and annoy drivers
• Potholes are common, accompanied with poorly marked construction signs
• There’s an incessant noise of honking. Unlike North America, honking isn’t only for warning someone, it’s for virtually everything. Honk to say hello, honk to tell someone you’re approaching, honk when you are 50 meters away, honk when you’ve passed someone, honk when you’re happy, honk, honk, honk. It’s a honking orchestra without a conductor
• The roads are lined with small and adjoined street shops, with beautiful colours of fruit and vegetables. There are cafes, street food vendors, peanut vendors, scooter repair shops, clothing and textile shops, mobile phone carriers, etc.

Imagine all the above, and now add street dogs, cows eating piles of garbage, people pushing carts in all directions and pedestrians shouting at each other, and you’ll have a fairly accurate picture. (Note: I didn’t even mention the persistent smog and the putrid smells).

Despite all this, it’s a harmonious chaos. I was quite content to have a private driver and guide to avoid the stress 🙂 Before arriving to India, I contemplated renting a motorcycle, just for the experience. After seeing the road and traffic conditions, I decided that would be a BAD IDEA.

Over 18 million people live in Delhi (that’s half the population in Canada all in one city!) with dozens of amazing tourist attractions. As part of our guided tour, Selma and I had the pleasure of:

• visiting the largest mosque in India, known as Jama Masjid
• being passengers on a rickshaw through the narrow lanes of Old Delhi
• seeing the Red Fort, built in the 17th century and a world heritage site
• seeing Gandhi’s monument
• admiring the Lotus Temple
• visiting Akshardham, a spiritual-cultural campus

The people in Delhi are friendly, and unlike South Africa, I never felt threatened by them. Perhaps it’s because I’m 6 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than most, but I believe they are actually kind and helpful.

Along the way to the next city in our golden triangle tour, we stopped at the waterwells of Chand Baori. This step well was designed to keep the natural water cool and was also used as a gathering place. Although symetrically beautiful, looking at it for too long inspired vertigo.

Once in Jaipur, Selma and I visited to the Amber Fort, with an awkward elephant ride up the gentle slope to the entrance. From there, views were breathtaking on the warm, sunny day. Inside the fort, we had a detailed explanation of life for one king living there. Apparently he had 12 wives, each living with a house and a courtyard that connected to the next wife. Pictures didn’t do the place justice, so you’ll just have to visit it for yourself 😛

The second attraction was Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory built in 1738. It has one of the largest sundials in the world, which measures daytime with an accuracy of 2 seconds. There were other sun instruments that measure astrological signs, an important aspect of arranged marriages in India.

I was told that 95% of marriages in India are arranged, and nearly all of them don’t divorce. The process is as follows:

1. When the son or daughter is of age, the parents spread the news of their eligible bachelour.
2. Parents research candidates based on their family, their caste and their education.
3. The parents meet potentials’ parents and discuss details.
4. A detailed study is performed, to ensure their astrological signs match. Couples need to have at least 18 out of 36 points in order to be married. If the points are less, they cannot get married.
5. If everything is aligned, the bachelour finally meets the candidate for less than an hour before confirming their parent’s choice.

If you’re curious, out of the remaining 5% that don’t have arranged marriages, whom marry for love instead, 50% get divorced.

In other news, I caught a light Delhi belly, which force me to be consistently aware of the nearest toilet. Luckily the condition was manageable, and didn’t ruin any activities. Poop.

Agra is a smaller city compared to Delhi (and let’s admit it, most cities are smaller), and didn’t have nearly as many tourist attractions. However, it does have the most impressive structure I have ever seen, the Taj Mahal.

Listed as one of the new seven wonders of the world, erected by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as his wife’s tomb, the majestic main structure and 4 towers were breathtaking. Built using the hardest marble in the world, masons sculpted exquisite details into every slab. 35 types of precious and semi-precious gems were embedded alongside streams of black marble and limestone. 60,000 to 130,000 daily visitors come to the Taj Mahal, making it a very hectic place. We had VIP tickets, which skipped the line that wrapped around the building.

Locals kept asking to take pictures with Selma and myself, which is apparently a sign of good luck. Selma had to politely refuse multiple times while I wanted to charge them 🙂

The emperor that built the Taj Mahal wanted to construct a second one in black marble, on the other side of the river. His son thought this was madness and placed his father under house arrest in the Agra Fort, a majestic fort of red sandstone on the banks of the Yamuna river. From the emperor’s balcony, he could see and admire his first creation.

In order to preserve the Taj Mahal for as long as possible by reducing pollution, no industrial machines of any kind are allowed for many kilometers. This means everything produced in Agra is manual and handcrafted. We visited a shop where they engraved gemstones into marble and another where they made handmade carpets. Impressive workmanship!