Today was a hot and humid day, even by Indian standards, 35 degrees. So the morning tour around the Red Fort (or Amber Fort) in Jaipur was sweaty and thirsty. Built by the moguls back in the 1100’s to house army troops and the reigning king, now it’s a major tourist attraction. Many of the old monuments in India are being restored to remember their rich historical value and because the tourist money is very attractive.
Along the way to the Red Fort, we stopped for a photo shoot of the Fort on the hill, overlooking the water. Playing typical Indian music, was a snake charmer. Peter was so excited to have the opportunity to sit with them, play the “been” (a type of flute), and pat the cobra. It’s teeth had been removed to prevent injury. Poor snake! But great photo shoot for Peter.
Next was a relatively quick tour of the Observatory in Jaipur. The scientific instruments here are still used today. And they are incredibly accurate.
We buy some fresh fruit for our long journey back to Delhi – 5hrs. The area we have travelled in is known as the Golden Triangle of India. Many tourists come on this same route.
The highway we travel on back to Delhi is a main one between Delhi and Mumbai. 1600 km of road travel takes drivers 4 days to go between these two cities. And the highway is quite treacherous with thousands of trucks on the road, each vying for position. It’s surprising there’s not more accidents, as there were a few near misses between us and the trucks. As we drove closer to Delhi, the traffic increased. Not even peak hour in the middle of Sydney comes close to the traffic chaos here.
Gurgaon, is about 25km out of Delhi, and the place where all the 500+ Call Centres that are used by companies from all over the world congregate. Millions work and live here. Prakash tells us that the companies provide the cars for the workers (the cars are always full, not one or two people like in Australia, unless they are rich people) and when people go to work, they look beautiful and refreshed. In the evening time going home, they look dead. He makes us laugh.
There is a stretch of the highway where there is 20 lanes of traffic all fighting for position to move forward. To go 25km at peak hour time, it takes 90mins. It took us 45mins to go 5km. Prakash told us that one day, during monsoon season, the road became blocked and people were jammed up for 16hrs. You could have walked the 25km in a quicker time. Talk about chaos! Thank goodness for air conditioning! They are the best drivers in the world because they have to deal with these treacherous conditions every day.
We book back into our hotel, sadly say goodbye to Prakash (didn’t get a photo with him) and have the best dinner so far. Tomorrow we fly to Goa. Our holiday home for the next two weeks.