Update 2

January 13 (continued)... Rats! Gopi, Rama, and John return. They have been gone for more than three hours rather than the expected two. It can only mean tigers! We learn that not only have they seen tigers again but beautiful views from the old Bandhavgarh Fort. John returns with a "tikka" on his forehead, showing that he has received a special blessing from the priest at the shrine by the fort. We console ourselves with cocktails on an open patio with a roaring fire. We have a chance to see mutton (here that means goat) roasting on a spit over a charcoal fire and bread made village-style in a wok-like pan. Before dinner is served under the stars, a small band of local village men and women come to perform traditional dancing for us. Soon we are all up dancing!

January 14... And then there were eight. Susan and Tim arrive in Delhi but they will have to share their adventures for the 14th and 15th since I was not there. I hear it involved the national and train museums where school children on field trips were anxious to try out their English with them and couldn't take their eyes off Susan.

The remainder of the group (Gopi, Rama, Dorothy, Joanne, John and Anne) is off early from Mahua Kothi, our lodge at the Park, to make the 5-hour drive to Khajuraho. Another exciting ride! Anne sits in the front seat of the bus with the video camera, as no one at home will believe what it is like to negotiate the roads without documentary evidence. Our driver plays "chicken" with decorated trucks on one-lane roads. We have plenty of encounters with "brake testers" (cows alone or in herds), dodge bicycles, ox carts, women in vivid saris, children, and a holy man (sudru) walking with all his possessions in a satchel over his shoulder. His face is painted red and is bisected by a white stripe that runs from his forehead to the tip of his nose. We see gypsies camped by the side of the road where they are blacksmithing tools for the local villagers. What a ride!

We arrive in Khajuraho in time to visit the famous temples before sunset. Built in the 10th century, these temples are famous for their graphic erotic sculptures, which precede "The Joy of Sex" by centuries. Bas-relief carvings cover nearly every square inch of the temples. Scenes of hunting and battles fought atop elephants wind around the base. And then there are the famous erotic sculptures! When the English colonials stumbled upon these temples in 1838, they were shocked. After all, this was the era when women were told to "close your eyes and do your duty."

January 15... After a morning return visit to the temples (who can get enough!), we head back to Delhi by air to join Susan and Tim. For our big event of the day, Enchanted India treats us to dinner at the Spice Route, one of Delhi's top restaurants. The artwork and décor are so fabulous, we ask for a guided tour after dinner.

January 16... A second visit to Old Delhi for John and Anne and a first visit for everyone else. We visit Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in India), ride bicycle "risk" shaws (really rickshaws) through the narrow streets and get off to explore the wedding street. Every stall displays colorful wear and accessories needed for a traditional ceremony. What fun! The women get side tracked by a store that only sells colorful, decorated envelopes (for invitations or gifts?); the men wait patiently (at least at first) outside. Then off to the spice market where the pungent fragrances nearly provoke asthma attacks in Susan and Dorothy. Dorothy spies a cart wheeling by with something wrapped in cloth and covered in marigolds. "What was that?" she asks Rama later. A body headed for cremation -- darn it, she didn't get a photo. A visit to the red fort, lunch outside in a lovely garden at a restaurant (with good restrooms!). Another wonderful day...

January 17... Some of us are off to see Humayun's tomb in the morning. Gopi and Rama join us later to visit the Ghandi museum that is housed in the home where he lived the last 144 days before his assassination. Concrete footprints mark the path of his last walk to the prayer garden. We follow with lunch at Eatopia for a round of street food made in the more hygienic setting of a food court. Think Crossroads! Lunch for nine costs a whopping $9.

From the sacred to the profane and the old market to the new, we head out to visit the upscale City Walk mall in Delhi's suburbs. Unfortunately, everyone is Delhi has had the same idea. The traffic! The traffic! We find ourselves sitting in an unbelievable snarl of vehicles tantalizingly close to the mall, which we can see just across four lanes of honking cars. Down the middle is a daunting three-foot high median divider. It will take at least another 30 minutes to go around the block and make a "Uvee" that will bring us to the right side of the divided roadway. What to do! Should we abandon the bus, pick our way through the mass of honking cars, climb across the elevated center island, and cross another stream of cars to get to the mall? We go for it -- even Joanne, the oldest in our party.

It takes a village. Some hold up hands to implore the cars to let us pass, and the men give Joanne and Dorothy, who both sport bad knees, the extra boost needed to climb up one side of the center divider and down the other. We make it! Anything to shop -- do you detect a theme here? What a contrast to the markets of Old Delhi! Gleaming marble floors, chrome, glass -- there are a few shops we recognize but thankfully most stores feature products that cater to the local population. Designer sari's, colorful house wares, leather goods -- sensory overload of a different kind than yesterday. The women stay and shop and the men have a coffee and set out to try Delhi's new elevated metro system. They report that it is beautiful and spotless. And why not considering the rules -- no smoking, no spitting, no urinating and no riding on the roof of the trains. It costs them 20 cents to cross the city, making the journey in 15 minutes and beating their car by 20 minutes. When this Metro is finally finished, this will be the way to leave the traffic snarls behind.

January 18... Today we are on the road again, en route to Agra. We let Susan and Tim have their first experience in the front of the bus riding "shotgun." Susan captures the experience perfectly when she exclaims, "It's like being in a video game for real!"

By this time in the trip, we have all settled into our roles. Rama is, thank goodness, our pharmacist and translator, able to get Susan an inhaler to cope with the smog. But her more important role is as shopping guide. How else would we have found Fabindia and Shoppers Stop? Susan is our fashion consultant, advising on which of the fabulously colored kurta look best. At $6 to $10 apiece who can resist? Susan is also working with me on a restroom rating system. The lowest rating so far is a -1 for the "facilities" at the Park. Dorothy is providing medical advice and documenting the trip with photos of EVERYTHING. She promises a new guidebook entitled Massages of India. Me, I'm the blogger and official purveyor of mangled Hindi. Suru, our guide, has already had to tell me that my attempt at "good morning" ("supra bhaat" and straight from the phrase book) is archaic -- equivalent to "how are thou?" in English, I think. The men are our semi-pro photographers, our bookkeepers, accounts payable staff and also the not entirely effective shopping police! Last of all, there is Joanne who is 78 and has a bum back and knee. She is game to go anywhere and do anything -- including scale 3-foot high median dividers. She is our devi (Hindu godess) and our inspiration!

We arrive in Agra late in the day. Rama has arranged for us to stay at the Oberai Amervillas, a 5-star hotel that is considered one of the best in the world. Every room has a view of the Taj Mahal. Wow! The pool, pavilions, fountains are spectacular – a Disneyland-like re-creation of the splendor of India. A quick check-in and then we head for the Taj. I've been wondering if the Taj is over rated -- NOT. We catch it in the fading light of the day, dominating the beautiful gardens and pools. Because this is Sunday, the monument is crowded with Indian tourists as well as foreigners. We enjoy seeing the honeymoon couples that stand out because the brides are wearing fabulous saris, usually with jeweled and golden trim, and matching thin bangle bracelets that reach halfway up their arms.

Back to the Amervillas, where this time, the massages are for Susan and Anne. The men linger at the Taj longer and when they return, Tim tells us of the puppy who bonded with him during the 5-minute walk back to the hotel golf cart.

The hotel staff is incredibly attentive and the ratio of staff to guests must be five to one. (Is this normal or a result of Mumbia cancellations?) Dorothy and Joanne share a room and have a hard time readying for dinner as their personal butler keeps knocking on their door with offers of pillows, water, etc. Dorothy launders her money, an experience you will have to investigate directly with her. Dinner is fabulous. Several of the group share "thali" which literally means "plate" and consists of a sample of different Indian dishes. Musicians play sitar and drum and we all try to remember which Beatles album featured the sitar. Dorothy takes away leftovers in what will literally be a "doggy bag" as she will feed it to Tim's puppy the next morning. Susan is worried that the puppy will end up in the bus with us when we leave Agra.

January 19... Up early to try to catch the Taj at sunrise. Sadly, the air does not cooperate but the Taj's white marble shines even when the sun is hidden. Inside, the stone inlay and carving is stunning. Rama mutters disapprovingly when she sees various guides touching the inlay work. After we emerge, John, who has not heard her, reaches out for a quick stroke and gets his hand slapped. Don't mess with Rama! We wonder if she learned this technique during her days as a docent at the Bellevue Art Museum. As we leave the usual onslaught of vendors begins. Anne has her eye out for 9-year old Rajah who has charmed her on the way in and is waiting to sell her tacky postcards for an exorbitant price. Joanne, another soft heart, comes away with some as well. One vendor jogs behind the golf cart continuing his spiel all the way back to the hotel and literally makes a sale "on the run" to one of our party on the back of the cart.

At the hotel, we have another wonderful meal -- breakfast from a sumptuous buffet. Dorothy and Anne call over a staff member to inquire about the "fabulous" peanut butter. "It's Skippy," she says and laughs. We have to leave all too soon, but are glad to have made quick escape when we learn that Susan has absconded with extra beauty products. We are just relieved that she left the robe and fabulous bed coverings.

We are on the road again -- to Jaipur, the pink city. It's another driving experience but more Western in the tourist friendly region of Rajasthan. We travel on a divided four-lane highway where the only obstacles are slow moving traffic (tractors, bull carts, and the occasional cow). The only heart-stopping moments come when we encounter a truck driving in the wrong direction heading for the nearest break in the divider to get to a truck stop on the other side of the road. Yikes! Suru points out yet another type of vehicle to us. Turns out that when you look closely some of the tractors are not tractors at all. They are home built vehicles that use scavenged parts from cars, tractors and who knows what else. These amalgamations are completely illegal and can only hit a top speed of 30 mph or so but fill a critical niche for rural villagers who need to get products and people moved over short distances.

All this talk of traffic seems a good time to discuss the daily reports of accidents that we read in the papers. Sadly, they often involve fatalities and the negligent driver of the bus or truck is usually reported to have fled the scene. Suru tells us the highway fatalities are the leading cause of death in India and the government is working to try and dampen the chaos that causes these accidents.

We arrive in Jaipur later in the day and are charmed to find a city with blue skies and kites flying everywhere. Our hotel, Samode Havilis, is a heritage hotel. It was the city residence of local royalty and has been converted into a hotel by the family. Parts of the building are 150 years old and we climb narrow stairways that twist around interior courtyards with fountains to our rooms. We do a room tour and find that each of our rooms is entirely unique. We all have spacious accommodations with sitting areas and antique style beds but the similarities end there. Rama's and Gopi's room has a series of colonnades of Moghul style arches; Anne and John have a view. Susan and Tim have patio (and a long walk to the bathroom), Dorothy has a balcony, and Joanne has a bathroom to die for.

Rama takes most of us (Tim stays behind to explore) to Anokhi, her favorite shop for famous Jaipur block-printed fabric. The women go nuts; the men have coffee and visit a bookstore. One more stop to track down a jeweler Dorothy has heard about at his home. He is an American, married to an Indian woman, and invites us up to his flat, which is part showroom, part factory. It is after hours but as we enter we pass through the stone cutting room. The showroom consists of a white tablecloth over a folding table, fashion magazine pages featuring Arnold's work are taped to the wall, and the room next store is where six workers fashion the silver. Dorothy gets a great bracelet. Back for dinner at the hotel where a professional astrologer is waiting to review our horoscopes. We sent him our info in advance and he has a little booklet for each of us. We visit with him separately. It is clear we are going to need a tutorial in astrology to understand the booklet. No surprise -- he rates us all as people who are high in expenditures. Not a tough guess for a group traveling through India high-end. We have more fun with the physical descriptions provided. Some of us are destined to be "plumpy" and Joanne and Susan are said to have long "claws." Clearly there are some translation problems. Do we need to avoid Joanne on nights with a full moon or does she just need a manicure?Anne hands out Obama buttons for all to wear on inauguration day and luckily we have an extra for Suru, who would dearly love to have one. January 20... We start out the next day to see the Amber Fort outside of town, some of us sporting our Obama buttons, which are definitely noticed. We quickly realize that those of us with photo buttons are getting the biggest reaction since many people do not read our alphabet. "Obama!" they shout with smiles and waves. Of course, we also realize that our buttons just give the aggressive souvenir hawkers another thing to add to their sales chant.

We ride painted elephants up to the fort and then tour the 16th century palace at the top, making our way through rooms decorated with intricate mosaics and a room covered with tiny mirror tiles. At the top, we have a wonderful view of the city and the old city wall winding up the hill. The terrain reminds us of Southern California in the summer -- jagged hills with the brown vegetation of the summer dry season. From here we visit the City Palace, another royal residence that is now at least partly a museum. The royal family still retains part of it for a home today. Suru has explained that these families now support themselves by using their properties as museums or running them or leasing them as heritage hotels. In early times, their income came from taxes on the land they controlled. The British supplemented the income with annual gifts to secure their approval for the Raj Empire. For a while after independence the Indian government continued the supplements, but Indira Ghandi said "enough" when she took office. This precipitated a sell off of jewelry and furniture until more entrepreneurial types figured out a way to make their properties into businesses.