judycoutinho – Page 14 – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Jaipur street scenes

Arrived in vibrant Jaipur and went out for a wander

Fatehpur Sikri

Fatehpur Sikri is an ancient fortified city 40km west of Agra built in the 16th century. For a short time it was the capital of the Mughal empire but was abandoned because of lack of water.

It it contains three ‘palaces’, one for each of the three wives of the Emperor Akbar.

We travelled to Agra on a super fast train from Delhi- the Gatimaan Express. It turned out we had tickets in the extremely comfortable executive class which included a complimentary breakfast. This was just as well as we had been picked up from our homestay at 7am.

In this part of our trip organised by a company called ‘India Connections’, we have a driver and car for the next three weeks, and here in Agra we had s guide for the day. First stop was the Taj.

I’ve seen so many pictures of it, but when you’re there it is just exquisitely beautiful.

Our guide, Ricky, told us a lot about the importance of the number four to the Greeks and the Romans and then the Moguls in relation to architecture, symmetry and what is pleasing to the eye. He explained that the Taj complex is made up of combinations of blocks of four.

Namaste

Thrive Seed

Thrive Seed are a not for profit initiative in Delhi, and Sonu, who runs it is an extraordinary woman. We called in to see her when we visited Delhi.

Sonu came to Delhi from Nepal with her husband and started teaching slum children in a back yard. Most of these children receive no other education as they have to work during the day to help provide for their families. Parents of other children heard about the school and so it grew. She now runs three slum schools which teach Hindi, Maths and English. She also runs women’s empowerment classes where women develop different skills which can assist them in make a living e.g. sewing, candle making.

The project runs purely off donations from individuals, although it is in the process of acquiring FCRA status.

Volunteers are encouraged to go and teach in the school and this helps both with the English teaching and with networking. Valerie’s niece Hana spent three weeks there in November.

To find out more or donate go to the ThriveSeed web site
http://www.thriveseed.org
And the Thrive Seed Facebook page

If you can think of any ways in which people over here can help, e.g. in fundraising, volunteering, providing general charity/business expertise – please let me know

Wayanad wildlife national park

We went on a half-day jeep safari in one of the Wayanad national parks. The safari itself was a bit disappointing as we only saw monkeys, deer and bones, but the forest/jungle was beautiful.

Local mosquito repellent

Various people we’ve met (both Indian and tourists) have recommended a local mosquito repellent called Odomos – doesn’t contain any deadly chemicals, is an Ayurvedic preparation and smells ok

If you look it up it has an interesting story behind it

Indian train Bio toilets

Indian train toilets are green! We saw this notice on the platform at Kannur station

Once Jeremy has nationalised the railways perhaps we can have the same!!

Sending a parcel

After our first week in India we concluded that we’d brought too many clothes and our bags were too heavy, so we decided to parcel some up and send them home.

In England you would wrap the parcel in brown paper, address it and take it to the post office, so off to the post office we went. But in India, parcels have to be sown up in calico by a tailor. We were sent across the road to find a tailor and got our parcel sown into a big package. Then the To and From addresses had to be written on with a special red pen provided by the PO staff. Sending a parcel to the UK wasn’t cheap- Rs2,600 (£30) for a parcel weighing 3.3kg, but at least that’s lessened our load.

Here’s the tailor sewing up our parcel

Fascinating!

Hana

Hana (Valerie’s niece) has been travelling in India since the beginning of November and we managed to meet up with her in Kannur. She was in Goa and managed to get the last ticket on the overnight train and we met up after breakfast and got the bus together to Mananthavady.