"Until the floods come...



...and this is a lake."

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National Museum, Jantar Mantar, Connaught Place

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Last day in Delhi. Last day in India! Today I took an Uber to a place I’d meant to visit last time, but which was closed: the National Museum!  The first impression isn’t great, because it occupies a rather old and ugly building -uglier still inside, white walls with green white tiles that scream “government building where you need to take a number and wait for an hour to do paperwork”. Plus, like all stations and airports and the metro and most museums, they have this stupid security system where they make you put your bag in an X-ray scanner, then go through a metal detector, and regardless of whether the metal detector beeps or not, the security guard does a patdown of every single person. It’s so inefficient!! But: the collection is absolutely worth the visit. I spent nearly two hours inside, and several galleries were closed for renovations (including, alas, the Jewelry vault -longtime readers know I like exhibits of shiny things!). The greatest asset...
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Amber Fort, Hawa Mahal

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Today’s main attraction was to visit Amber Fort, which is not in Jaipur city but in the nearby town of Amber (it’s pronounced “amer”). For this I had hired a driver through my hotel, supposedly to take me on a tour of Amber Fort, Hawa Mahal and Jal Mahal -although when he picked me up at the hotel he went “Where to, sir?” so I don’t think he was very up-to-date on the program! I was disappointed to see that the visit to Hawa Mahal consisted of a literal drive-by of the facade I saw yesterday. I thought he’d drop me off so I could go inside. Still, I wanted to reserve my strength for the fort so I nodded along and next we stopped at the Jal Mahal. On the road we crossed camels and even an elephant, a real elephant just walking down the road. The Jal Mahal is an odd palace that is built right in the middle of a lake, and I don’t mean on an island in a lake, I mean the building itself juts out of the water. It’s closed to the public, so I have no idea what’s inside, but I th...
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Sarnath, more Varanasi

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If you remember, today I was booked on a tour to Sarnath, having more or less seen all of Varanasi yesterday. It’s learning time! Sarnath, which is a town just 10 km north of Varanasi, is one of the four first holy sites of Buddhism, based on the major events of Buddha’s life. The first is Lumbini, in modern-day Nepal, where prince Siddhartha Gautama was born. The second is Bodh Gaya, in Bihar, India, where he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha under the bodhi tree. The third is here, in Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, where Buddha gave his first sermon and thus started Buddhism. The fourth is Kushinagar, also in Uttar Pradesh, where Buddha is said to have died/achieved Nirvana at the age of 80. Nowadays, Sarnath has become a Buddhist pilgrimage destination and has given rise to many different denominations of Buddhist temples all around its main attraction, an ancient archaeological site and museum. It was a sunny morning, and the drive took probably half an hour, alth...
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