Day Three the Taj Mahal

Originally Written October 31, 2015

So why was the Taj Mahal built? Well it is a great and sad love story. When Shah Jahan the fifth of Mughal Emperors was a young man he fell in love with a young girl hawking silk and glass beads in the market place. He was really smitten! 

He purchased enough of her silk and glass to determine her age, 15, her name, Arjumand Begum and that she was a Persian Princess. He was 14 at the time. He petitioned his father to make arrangements for marriage and after a five year wait they were married in 1631. 

After Jahan become the Shah he entrusted many decisions to his wife and went so far as to let her use the Royal Seal in his absences. During this time he renamed her Mumtaz Mahal, "The Chosen One of the Palace". Theirs was a marriage of love that resulted in 14 children, seven of which survived to adulthood. 

Mumtaz became ill and died giving birth to her 14th child and on her deathbed made Jahan promise to never remarry and to build for her a mausoleum of the richest proportion.  After two years of mourning he set about designing and building the Taj Mahal. The Taj is designed in complete symmetry, no matter where you stand all four sides are the same.  At a cost of around 32 million rupees, the equivalent to 827 million US today, the Taj is built completely out of white Indian Marble and took 22 years and 20,000 workers to complete. 

The Shah had intended to build an identical mausoleum out of black marble directly across the river from The Taj Mahal so that they could view each other through eternity, however his third son was very ambitious and determined that building another structure would be a waste of money and so over threw his father and oldest brothers reign. He confined the Shah to house arrest and Jahan spent the last 8 years of his life being tended to by his eldest daughter and sitting on the balcony that over looked the Taj Mahal. 

Where the Shah was imprisoned

The Taj itself is one of the most beautiful structures I have had the privilege of visiting and the architecture and craftsmanship is outstanding. I wonder how our concrete and steel structures will be surviving after 400 years.

This intricate work is throughout the Taj Mahal

Agra Fort was originally started in the 11th century and changed hands as succeeding conquerors took it over.  The present Fort was completed by Shah Jahan in the 1600s and occupies 94 acres. It is a massive structure built out of Red Sandstone and at one time may have been home to 500 separate buildings. Many of the interior buildings were destroyed by Shah Jahan  and were replaced by white marble.

It is in one of these white marble structures were he lived out is final years of confinement. It is almost two miles in length and contains palaces, mosques and audience halls. It also houses some of India's military forces and only about one third is open to the public.

Part of the Fort

We visited a marble shop where they sell inlaid marble table tops and other pieces of work on behalf of a marble cooperation. These marble craftsman all belong to family structures where the boys are trained from a very young age to work with marble. Designs are drawn on the marble and then etched out by hand using small chisels and grinding tools. These designs are then filled in with semi-precious gem stones that are ground to shape on a hand driven emery wheel. It is very delicate work, a flower the size of a quarter may have six or seven fine pieces to it. Photography was not allowed, but purchasing was, way over our budget.

Part of the Taj Mahal at sunrise

India Day Two

Originally written on 2015-10-30

This morning we went to the Delhi Akshardham, depending on who you talk to it is either the largest or second largest Hindu temple in India. It is a huge compound with many features, but we confined ourselves to visiting the central court and the temple itself. It is built entirely out of pink Indian Sandstone and Italian Marble, even though India has some of the finest and hardest marble in the world they imported Italian marble. The temple is 141 feet tall, 316 feet wide and 356 feet long. It has no steel or concrete and is totally built from sandstone and marble. It is covered with carvings of Hindu deities and animals and took from 2000 until 2005 to complete and employed 7000 artisan carvers to do the religious carvings. 

Built by an offshoot of the Hindu religion, it cost millions and our guide thinks that it is hardly ever used for worship but mainly as a tourist showplace.

Travelling between Delhi and Agra, our next point of interest, was a four hour drive through farm land and farm villages. Shades of 1960, when I was growing up and Dad and the neighbours cut grain with a binder and we then field stooked and threshed with a threshing machine. Well here, and we drove past miles and miles of small family wheat fields, they cut the grain with a hand sickle, tie it into sheaves with wheat straw, stook it and then take to a central place for threshing. The threshing is done by beating the grain over a log and then use a hand sieve to separate the grain from the chaff. Wow! 

There are dozens and dozens of small brick factories along the road where everything is done by hand. They are allowed to take up to three feet of top soil and under pan to make bricks with. Once that soil has been removed, the farmers move in and till the bottom of the pits, flood them and start a farm crop of some kind. I guess the soil quality is all the same.

Villages are manic, full of people, motorized transport, animal transport and livestock.

If you stop, you are treated nicely, although you  are a novelty and get stared at by lots. Staring is not a bad thing in their culture, just shows curiosity, although teenage boys and young men can be rude.  The men dress pretty plain, but the women dress in very colourful and beautiful saris and dresses. 

We went out and watched a Bollywood type theatre show in the evening. The show was the story of Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is the story behind the building of the Taj Mahal, which has got to be the most impressive place I have seen.

Delhi India

Originally written on 2015-10-29

It is 7:30 in the morning and the sky here is a blue smog across the city, but there is blue sky above it through some holes. 

We started the day with a tour of Old Delhi, visiting the Jama Mosque built by the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, in 1656.  The Mughal's were conquerors from Persia, that ruled India for about 300 years, although the Mughal's followed Islam, they did not force Islam on conquered people but resolved to find a balance between religions through a just administration.  The best known of the Mughal's is Shah Jahan, the third Mughal Emperor of India, who during his reign constructed many of the heritage sites that remain in India today. 

The Jama Mosque is one of the largest in India and can accommodate 25,000 in the inner courtyard and welcomes visitors of all religions.  Religion in India is a mix of a multitude of faiths that all coexist with little ill feeling towards each other. All seem to celebrate the other religious holidays, customs and food choices. It seems like only the media and the politicians have problems with religions.  

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Then we were off for an exciting bicycle rickshaw ride through the narrow lanes of the old Delhi streets and markets. We went to the rickshaw stand and the rickshaw operators are all pre-selected for their ability and honesty by the tour company. So we jump in the rickshaw and off we go, weaving down a two lane street, past pedestrians, hawkers, donkey carts, ox carts, other rickshaws, camel carts, horse carts, delivery trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, all the while meeting the same coming the other way plus the 30 or so sacred cows on every street!

Did I mention that Delhi has 16 million people, it seemed to me that about 10 percent were on the 5 or 6 blocks we navigated! It was mind boggling, exhilarating and fun. With absolute cooperation, road rage is not a factor, if there is a traffic jam, every one gets involved, the car in front, the car behind, the pedestrians, the drivers, and after a few minutes of every one expressing the best way to resolve it, resolution happens and away we go for another block or so, then we go through it all again.

Close quarters

The side walks are lined with shops selling everything imaginable, one block of textiles and wedding shops, a whole a block of electronics, then half a block of shoes, then men's shirts, well you get the idea.

Then we visited Shah Humayun's tomb, the second Mughal Emperor of India. The tomb was built by Humayun's widow between 14 and 20 years after his death. It is quite a large site and contains the tombs of about 150 of the Mughal Dynasty family. It is believed that the tomb cost about 1.5 million rupees to build which in 1569 was a lot of money and is an impressive reminder of the Mughal dynasty. 

Our planned visit to the house of Mahatma Gandhi  was cancelled due to a religious holiday of some type, our guide was not really sure what it was, but said that India can have a religious holiday of some 365 days a year! 

We just took a bus tour of Old and New Delhi, past all the embassies, Indian Gate and presidential palace.

India Gate

Delhi actually has a lot of trees and green and park space. Along the rivers there are small plots of land that people farm and it looks like the people are maybe squatters and farming the land. We seen lots of monkeys, the usual mangy dogs, 4 police horses and only a few cows and one water buffalo pulling a load in Old Delhi.  We have a nice tour bus to travel in and a gorgeous hotel to stay in but it would be a different story if we were relying on finding accommodation and public transportation - people appear to be on top of one another or falling out of buses and trains. 

We did see a couple snake charmers playing to their cobras. The Cobras are defanged, so harmless, but they are aggressive. Both times I watched the Cobra strike the handlers arms, but they wear large voluminous sleeves and probably left no marks at all. One charmer cuffed his cobra while the other one just put the basket lid back on for a second or two. Anything to make a rupee!

Loreen's blond hair does get lots of stares and some of the younger girls like to get their pictures taken with her, all good fun. 

Lillafured, Eger and Budapest

We took the train from Tokaj, again the lady in the ticket booth, was very understanding and managed to get us on to the right platform, off to Miskolc to find car transport to Lillafured. Taxis in Hungary are very corrupt, so we have read and been told, so the recommendation is to phone one of a limited number of accredited companies. I thought oh boy this is not going to be easy. I called the number, got a nice Hungarian answer, not a clue of what the lady said, asked if she spoke English, she said a little bit, moments later had a taxi on the way, with the number on the side and away we went. Her English was very good.

Miskolc is a medium sized city and we drove through a lot of it on the way to Lillafured, as with most countries, this is where one sees the not so pretty stuff.

We mostly drove through the outskirts of Miskolc and what a sad place. Blocks and blocks of Soviet built housing, just oblong grey concrete structures two apartments wide and anywhere from six to twelve long. Each apartment consists of a kitchen/dining area, a small sitting room, two small bedrooms and a bath. Some of these have been taken over by private companies and these are at least getting a stucco cover up and outside painting. 

Hungary is a country that is still struggling to get out from Soviet times and have a government that does not always put people and infrastructure needs as a priority. All education must be paid for including primary school and average wage is about $1000cad per month, take home after taxes about $750.

Lillafured is small mountain village and resort area in the Bukk Mountains, which although the Bukk Mountains are the highest in Hungary, they only reach a height of 1000 meters. The village and the hotels are all older.

It has waterfalls, thermal springs, a small village and only about four hotels, so touristy, but not overdone. The rock is extremely porous and they have discovered many caves here with cave bear bones, hand axes and other cave man tools. Perhaps the setting for Clan of the Cave Bear!

The hotel we stayed at is built like a castle. In fact it looks from the outside similar to Banff Springs Hotel and even the drive way up is similar. When the hotel was built in 1930 as a state property it became the favourite residence for high society guests. In WWII it was converted to a military hospital for healing wounded Russian soldiers. It didn't suffer much damage during the war but the hospital status and thefts led to irreparable damage to the furnishings. Then it was taken over by the National Council of Trade Unions and was a recreation house for 40 years where people with a special holiday voucher could spend their holidays. This further contributed to its decline and alterations just served the purpose of accommodating as many people as possible cheaply. After communism in 1992 the hotel was given back to the Hungarian govt and now managed by a private company.

In all the small villages we were surprised by the number of root cellars or storage areas in the back yards of the homes.

It is an eye opener to travel in a country that has had 50 plus years of oppression, first by the Nazis and then the Soviets. We really do not have much right to complain about things back home in retrospect.

On to Eger, the Hungarian red wine area famous for its Bikaver, Bulls Blood, wines. This is where some 200 Hungarians held a much larger Turkish army from entering Hungary in the first Turkish attack. The Hungarian commander used the local wine to fortify his troops and the Turks said he was feeding them Bulls Blood, hence the Bulls Blood name associated with Eger Bikaver wine.

We hired a taxi to take us back to the train station in Miskolc where we would catch the train to Eger. But I seen a road sign that said Eger so hired him to take the mountain pass road over. He was so excited to have a much bigger fare that he left Lillafured with an empty tank of fuel. It was a bit nerve racking as well as humorous as I watched him put on his reading glasses quite often to look at the fuel gauge and shift into neutral on every down slope. I never said anything as I did not want to alarm Loreen or put pressure on the driver. When we were within 10 kilometres of Eger he patted the car on the dash and said good car now we make it. Loreen, like I, was also watching him and the gauge but did not say anything. One can always find some excitement and be entertained around the world if you just go with the flow.

There is a whole area of wine cellars very close to the town and all close together so you just walk around and decide which cellars you want to go into and taste. We strolled the area and there were 48 cellars in one small half moon street.

We did not try them all just a few that were recommended. These cellars are all carved into the porous rock of the area and were originally built to provide safe hiding areas for the locals when under attack from outside armies. The cellar area is called the Valley of the Beautiful Women and was named this after the war with the Turks and the wives of the Hungarian soldiers helped fight off the Turkish army dumping  boiling pitch and oil on them. 

The Hotel in Eger was built as a family town house in 1717 and is much the same now as it was then. It was nationalized also but was given to the city of Eger after independence. The city upgraded the rooms, modernized the bath rooms and added a courtyard restaurant. It is managed and run by a family that just can not do enough for their guests. They have filled the place with antiques of all ages, have a vast array of different types of art and serve sumptuous meals. The place felt more like a bed and breakfast to us than a hotel. 

We were in Eger on St Martins Day, which is the day that the celebration of getting the harvest in takes place. It is also the day when goose is the flavour of the day, goose soup, goose liver soup, goose of all kinds. So I had the goose special at our little restaurant.

Back to Budapest for a day prior to flying home. While we were out touring in the countryside the Budapest Christmas market opened so we spent the morning wandering around the market taking in the sites. The market consists of a lot of venders selling their own pottery, baked goods, clothing as well the manufactured goods you find at large markets and trade shows. Smack dab in the middle of the markets was a great food area where the venders had set up large outdoor kitchens and were serving up lots of food, cabbage rolls, sausages and numerous pork dishes.

Then back up the Danube to the Parliament Buildings were there is a memorial to the Jewish Victims that were killed by the Hungarian Nazi supporters during WWII. The victims were lined up on the bank of the Danube and then shot. To save ammunition they were fastened together and then only the number needed to pull the other into the river were shot, the rest drowned. The memorial is made of shoes depicting the ages, sex and walk of life of the victims.

Budapest and Tarcal, Hungary

Hungary, or in my mind the country of pain! Originally settled by seven related tribes from the Ural Mountains and from the depiction of the leaders in statues and painting may have been from the Kazakhstan region. Known to themselves as Magyars, thought to be in connection to the ancient tribes, the country has been over run by the Mongols, the Germanic tribes, was conquered and ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for a century, conquered by the Habsburg empire of Austria, and since 1900, lost with Austria during WWI, was occupied by the Nazis and then under Soviet rule until 1990. The Hungarian people, who are proud and resilient, are trying to become a nation that is productive and can take its place in the modern world as it did in the past. Switching from Soviet domination to free enterprise has not been easy and, especially in the larger centres one sees a lot of areas where no reconstruction or upgrading has started. Beyond that the country side is beautiful, the people mostly friendly and accommodating, and is a really nice place to travel.

Budapest straddles the Danube and was once two separate cities of Buda and Pest. Now joined ,about 70% of the population and the main shopping and industrial area is on the Pest side while Buda has more higher end residential and a hilltop castle where several Hungarian Monarchs were crowned.

We toured the castle and had a good view of the Hungarian Parliament Buildings across the river.

  

Same buildings at night.

In the center of the Pest side we visited a large square that is dedicated to the founding of the Hungarian country and peoples. The dominate feature here is a statue depicting the leaders of the seven tribes from the Urals that established themselves here.

On the Buda side stands Hungary's Statue of Liberty.

Our big thrill was to visit the market place, the largest indoor market in Hungary, and is packed with vegetables, fruit, meat, souvenirs, baking and many other types of shops. The place is huge.

Outside of the larger cities, English is not widely spoken. We managed to get train tickets bought for our train ride from Budapest to Tokaj, then wondered around looking for the train track that our train would come in on, which was really difficult as the Hungarian language is not based on any language format that either of us can kind of work our way through. Finally two workers decided to help us, and even over Loreen's objections, I followed them around, trustful me. Yep found the right train, checked with the conductor, yep right train, reserved seats on car 21, so these guys grabbed our bags, threw them up on the racks above our seats and held out their hands. I had a couple of Euros in my pocket so I gave them that, but no, they did not want euros, they wanted Hungarian florets or dollars and wanted more. So after a few seconds of them shaking their heads and me saying I wasn't giving more, off they went. This seems to happen to me quite regular in foreign countries. Loreen gets pretty wound up about things like this, she gets just about as excited as I do when she wanders off to examine the cemeteries in foreign countries. 

It had been raining but we walked into the little town of Tarcal, where the town emblem is this lovely wine bottle!

We went to the Coop store and bought some paprika flavoured chips and some Hungarian chocolate.  Chips not bad, chocolate good.

We then wondered around through some back streets trying to find the path up the hill behind town where there is a huge statue of Jesus. We finally scrambled up through the cemetery, which Loreen was exploring, then through a vineyard and out onto the paved road at the bottom of the summit.

There was an elderly gentleman coming down and he started talking to us in Hungarian, but when he found out we only spoke English, he switched and we had a good chat. He was a retired pastor, and had vowed to walk up to the statue to give thanks if Trump won the election. He had watched all the debates and had followed the election process for the past several months. His belief is that the establishment in all governments needs to be removed or sent a message. We discussed the removal of the Jewish community in Tarcal by the Nazi, all were sent to Auschwitz, and religion under the Soviets. Religion was initially suppressed but later allowed under a strict doctrine of what could be presented. We have run into a lot of people from around the world that have great concerns, one way or the other, about the US election.

We stayed at the Grof Degenfeld castle hotel that was originally built in 1857 by a Duke and Duchess as a palace or castle home. At that time they also made their own wines. As elsewhere in  parts of Central Europe during the soviet rule, all lands were confiscated by the state. After Hungary got independence it started to work through the process of returning land to the past owners. The family that owned this previously, regained the castle, the wine cellars and ten hectares of vineyard. They bought up a number of adjacent vineyards, refurbished the castle into a hotel and started up the winery again. There are 21 guest rooms, which at one time were for family and guests, and the one we were in 600 to 700 square feet. These old aristocrats liked their space. They also built a small chapel on the highest part of their land and hold small weddings as well as all the other things that fancy resort hotels do. Funny thing, the place is not expensive.

Tarcal is in The Tocaj region known for its white wines. The area makes some dry whites but is most famous for its sweet whites which are cherished in Hungary. We took a wine tour and tasting at a neighbouring winery, that is still quite young as their first vintages were in 2012. The vineyards and wineries were nationalized under the soviets and all the grapes sent to a central location where the wine was made mostly for Russia. According to our sommelier these wines were not very good and had added ingredients all the way from colouring to vodka. 

The wines here are exceptionally sweet, similar to the ice wines from home, but unlike Canadian ice wine they do not use the frost to increase the sugars. The types of grapes used are attacked late season by a fungus which shrinks the grapes and concentrates the sugars. When we walked the vineyards these grapes are almost shrivelled to the size of a raisin. All the harvest here is done by hand picking, and while some grapes are picked by the bunch, for the very highest class of the sweet wine, the grapes are selected and picked individually.

Czech Republic

Prague

We landed in Prague late afternoon, October 29 and checked into our hotel room. We lucked out at the hotel, it was over booked, so we were upgraded to a business suite. 

We had our orientation and met the cruise director. We will have a full boat of 158 passengers. People from 12 countries - mostly Canadians, Americans, and Brits, a few from Singapore, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Thailand, Phillipines and one Aussie. After the orientation we went to a Czech restaurant/beer hall close to the hotel. It was good - I had Beef Svickova, it is a beef sirloin in cream sauce thickened with veggies and bread dumplings and Loreen had a Bohemian potato mushroom soup - it was better than the Svickova, and a pint each of Pilsner Urquell lager which about was $2.00.  Pilsner beer was first brewed in the Plzen region of the Czech Republic, up until then most of the beer in the Eastern Europe area was a heavy unfiltered lager. 

Our first excursion in Prague was a visit to Prague Castle and then a walk around part of the old city of Prague, by old I mean areas where the buildings are from the 1100 to 1300s. The buildings have been modernized, but the structures themselves are the original stone and brick from that period. Old Prague is a gothic city, that is the Cathedrals, etc, all use gothic architecture style of towering spires, animal statues and intricate carvings, not my style, but interesting to see. The castle was the home of the rulers of the republic for centuries and now, as well as a tourist attraction, houses some of the cities administration and a large military base.  

The old city consists of narrow cobble streets, three and four story buildings with common walls and a multitude of large open squares where all the markets and celebrations were held. Today these squares still function the same way, only the shops sell souvenirs, jewelry and other touristy items rather than meat and bread shops. There are still a number of eating and drinking establishments around the squares and down both sides of the connecting streets.

We went to the Nazi concentration camp and prison at Terezin. This is not a place that I had heard of before. I had heard a lot about Auschwitz and Dachau, but not Terezin. Terezin was a community of about 5,000 civilians and had a massive military fort built in the  eighteenth century to protect against the Prussian army. During WWII as the Nazi army was eradicating the European Jewish population the community was turned into a Jewish ghetto, concentration camp and prison.

Approximately 150,000 mostly Jewish men, women and children where processed through Terezin on their way to the death camps. They had been told that they were being sent to a "country community" where they could have better protection and be relieved of the stress of living in war torn cities. Little did they know! There were others, mostly dissidents or other minorities also processed through. These people came to Terezin from all countries that had been invaded by the Nazi armies. Some 35,000 died while confined at Terezin and of the 150,000 or so that were processed through, only about 4,000 survived, the rest were exterminated in places like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau. Terezin was later used by the Soviet Government as an internment camp for the expulsion of the Sudetenland Germans from Czechoslovakia. It is a sad place where now some descendants of the people imprisioned there are trying to rebuild it and their families. The Czechs we visited with, mostly people employed in the tourist industry, see Terezin, both Nazi and Soviet occupation and the expulsion of the Sudetens as black spots in their history.

Then we were off to an evening of culture, music, food and drink, at a family owned restaurant/hall. The band consisted of two fiddles, a cello and a xylophone. The matriarch played the xylophone and sang and made sure everything ran smoothly, she apparently is the owner and was very animated. One of the fiddle players and the cello player are both professional concert musicians and very talented. They played mostly Czech folk songs as well as some classical solos by the two professionals. They were accompanied by two dancers and a singer, very entertaining and covered from the classic to the funny. The meal, which we had thought would be authentic Czech, was unfortunately altered to cater to the tourist crowd, and as such was a Czech/western meal of a pork and chicken shish-kabob and scalloped potato. I would have preferred schnitzel or roasted pork knuckle with spätzle. The beer was, at least, Czech pilsner and very tasty. All in all it was a good evening, we enjoyed the traditional music and dance, which is very similar in style to the Ukrainian dancing we see at home.

The next day we toured through the Bohemian countryside to visit a castle and take a wine tour. The countryside is quite attractive with lots of farm fields and country villages. The farms here do not have farm homes as in Canada, but everyone seems to live in the villages. This is partly as a result of the Soviet era where all private land was taken from the owners and given to the state, farms then became run as a collective and the people moved into the villages so that everyone was the same. The Czech government is still attempting to get the original land owning families back on the land. This has been somewhat successful, but some families no longer know how or want to farm and have sold their holdings to corporate type farms where the farming is all completed by workers. Main crops are cereal grains, with malt barley the most prominent.

The castle was originally the home of the Bohemian Royalty and is now owned by some of the heirs of that family. The Castle is pre 1500 construction and has had the interior renovated over the years as architecture and amenities have changed. Now it is partly a home to the family and mostly a tourist attraction to help the family maintain it and their lifestyle. 

The family is one of the larger wine producers in the region and have the wine tasting room and wine cellar area in what used to be the dungeons. The cellar was interesting, the wine not so much. Part of the cellar was built in the 1200's and another part in 1400. 

This ends our time in the Czech Republic, glad we came, Prague is a beautiful city, the country side is awesome and the pilsner very good. Now off to the German state of Bavaria where we will board our river cruise.