India Trip Report Oct-Nov 2007
Jan 30th, 2008, 06:51 PM
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India Trip Report Oct-Nov 2007
Its taken me a while to pull myself together to report to this group on my 3-week Indian tour – hopefully there will be some useful information for others in it. It took a terribly long time to decide on an itinerary – the country is so large, I was ambitious and my daughter was in country – her travel during the year and preferences ruled some areas I was eager to see (Varanasi, Kolkata, Ellora, Jaipur, the South) off the itinerary. I had planned this to be independent travel, without a tour or car and driver, but as it turned out, we found it very comfortable to use a car and driver for about half of our itinerary - the rest of our transport was arranged directly (air and train bookings through our hotels (local taxis) or on the street . I booked all of our accommodations directly, on-line. Email communications through websites were uncertain – I had the best results through the Alistair Sawdays website which featured many of the hotels I was interested in.
US to India – travel was via the direct Continental flight from Newark to Delhi. This is a great nonstop flight – about 13 hrs outbound, 15 back, and travels via the northern route over Greenland, Scandinavia, the former soviet union and central asia. I took sleeping meds both ways and got in a solid nights sleep in both directions. These were great new planes, with plenty of legroom.
New Delhi- my homeward bound seatmate on the flight out had commented on the “smell of India” she always experienced arriving in the airport – she meant the smell of phenol, a cleaner used in these public facilities (and she said everywhere). It was certainly strong in the airport and not too nice – but as I moved through the dingy corridors, there was a little temple and a different smell, of incense, and women sweeping up in saris, and things got better. The glowing, hazy night sky and the bumpy rutted road in the parking lot, the clusters of taxi drivers standing around and waiting certainly showed I was in a different place. I was staying at Delhi Bed and Breakfast, in Friends Colony East and had pre-arranged a taxi pickup which was a good idea. Traffic was awful going around the ring road since it was late at night and goods carriers were allowed to enter the city at this time. The fuel burned by all the vehicles was stinky and I could feel the soot in the air. Started to cough a little.
DBB was the soft landing they claim to be – a pleasant family home, with a kind welcome, comfortable rooms and adequate facilities – from an American point of view the comforts were solid middle class, my daughter felt they were very rich people to have a house like that! The meals cooked on request at DBB are very good home cooking – meat or vegetarian – if you want spicy do ask for it – some of the dishes are bland. A couple of the dishes we had were among the best we ate on our trip – DBB arranges a lot of tours, taxis etc. Their prices for some of their services are high but the convenience factor is great and they do a very good job of what they do. A stop here is highly recommended.
Day 1 was in Delhi buying some clothes for me at FabIndia (Khan Market) running errands, visiting the Craft Museum and seeing a free Orissan dance concert at the wonderful outdoor venue (Qtub Minar) where the biggest thrill was to see the wonderful, elegant regional saris worn by the concertgoers, (oh, we also had lunch at the Swagath restaurant in Defense Colony market, highly touted for non-veg southern seafood cuisine. I thought my daughter’s veg dish was the best thing we had – the prawn curry was made with boring frozen shrimp and the sauce was not distinct. Overall a bit of a letdown. – we also had a snack at an upstairs cafe in Khan Market – nice place to sit but the coffee was terrible. Travel was all via autorickshaws, with heavy negotiation for each journey (most of our journeys were 40 rupees – at night it could go up to 60)
Day 2 we flew to Indore on Jet Light – an uneventful, easy trip – we were picked up by the driver for our first destination, Ahilya Fort a two hour (approx) drive on into Madhya Pradesh from Indore. It was a fascinating drive, the latter part through green country side, I was getting used to the feel of India all the way, the traffic, with horns honking and the flower painted trucks, animals, chewed up dirty areas by the roadside, ugly concrete buildings, people hanging around in front on charpoys and above all, in MP the roadside temples, every where we looked, decked with flower and food offerings and smears of vermillion (sort of an orangy red) pigment . We went up into the Vindya mountains and then wound our way down to the Narmada River Valley. It was a long drive but very interesting to see the village life, bullock carts, markets, etc in this country district. Finally we arrived in Maheshwar, a pleasant town with a bustling market and drove up and through the gate of the Fort into a different world, full of flowers, kindly and proud Holkar family retainers who coddled us, and total peace. This is a venerable but well kept Maratha Fort – palace – basically a lowslung mellow old wooden house with deep eaves to keep out the sun – it has a magnificent site, on top of a high bluff overlooking the Narmada river, which is quiet and huge – one looks out over a huge expanse of river and sky and a vast expanse of quiet green countryside across the river – far below – the people down there are tiny – are the ghats with many small temples and people going about their daily washing, etc. This is a place to relax, take walks down to see the temples, the nice small town, the wonderful Rehwa weaving establishment which revitalized the Maheshwar handweaving industry and has given a livelihood to many local people – to just soak up the Indian atmosphere in a very beautiful way. The Fort’s builder, Queen Ahilya Bai Holkar was a profoundly religious woman who rebuilt many of the historic temples in India, and her own home reflects this with all the little shrines dotting the property where she conducted her personal daily prayers. One awakes and goes to sleep to the sound of bells, prayers, chanting of hymns on the ghats far below (or sometimes the singing and drumming of the group of Brahmans who congregate for prayer, unseen by us but only a few feet away on the hotel grounds). Its almost trite to say that this is a magic place but it is – the routine is constantly varying, and geared to please and surprise.. On a more prosaic level, the rooms and beds are comfortable and decorated elegantly with many interesting items, much care is taken over the food which features European style dishes at lunch and Indian style at dinner. Guests are served family style (or house party style) with everyone served together. This can be good or bad – a tour group came through while we were there and sort of took over the atmosphere, in a bad way. Re the food, many of the ingredients are grown on the property and they make their own mozzarella cheese. Everything was very good but we were disappointed – in the blandness of the Indian food served at dinner when I was expecting something special and in they way that (for me) the lunch menus didn’t quite work – I was aware that while the food tasted good, the people serving the food didn’t have any feel for the eating of it, in terms of the serving sizes, etc. The fact that the Forts owner is much absent these days may account for some of the loss of focus since he famously participating in the cooking of the European dishes. This place is not super-luxe and might not be everyone’s cup of tea with its lack of activities but Ive never been anywhere more special.
Ahilya Fort is convenient (to the extent any place is!) for visiting the great historic site Mandu built in a mountain stronghold in Afghan/Moghul style. The fort arranged a car and driver to take us over, as well as a guide for the day. The ruins at Mandu, encompassing palaces, mosques, tanks, and many other structures are extensive and very lightly visited. Of course there are romantic stories attached! It was well worth the visit.
After 3 nights/4 days at the Fort we drove back to Indore for an overnight. While there we visited the Old Palace of the Holkar family, a Victorian pile dating to when they were Maharajahs of Indore, as well as a “shish Mahal” Jain temple there – the entire inner surface is mirrored. We didn’t have time for much more of Indore, a rather large city without a lot of obvious touristic attractions, but with potential nevertheless. We stayed the night at an elegant homestay, Rashid Kothi, operated by a charming cultured family associated with the Ahilya Fort people. Rashid Kothi is open sporadically, has only one or two rooms and is bookable through the Ahilya Fort website or Alistair Sawyday’s Special Places website. I really felt honored to be hosted for this evening in the Rashid/Dubay family’s elegant home. Really very special. Next day to Ahmedabad.
US to India – travel was via the direct Continental flight from Newark to Delhi. This is a great nonstop flight – about 13 hrs outbound, 15 back, and travels via the northern route over Greenland, Scandinavia, the former soviet union and central asia. I took sleeping meds both ways and got in a solid nights sleep in both directions. These were great new planes, with plenty of legroom.
New Delhi- my homeward bound seatmate on the flight out had commented on the “smell of India” she always experienced arriving in the airport – she meant the smell of phenol, a cleaner used in these public facilities (and she said everywhere). It was certainly strong in the airport and not too nice – but as I moved through the dingy corridors, there was a little temple and a different smell, of incense, and women sweeping up in saris, and things got better. The glowing, hazy night sky and the bumpy rutted road in the parking lot, the clusters of taxi drivers standing around and waiting certainly showed I was in a different place. I was staying at Delhi Bed and Breakfast, in Friends Colony East and had pre-arranged a taxi pickup which was a good idea. Traffic was awful going around the ring road since it was late at night and goods carriers were allowed to enter the city at this time. The fuel burned by all the vehicles was stinky and I could feel the soot in the air. Started to cough a little.
DBB was the soft landing they claim to be – a pleasant family home, with a kind welcome, comfortable rooms and adequate facilities – from an American point of view the comforts were solid middle class, my daughter felt they were very rich people to have a house like that! The meals cooked on request at DBB are very good home cooking – meat or vegetarian – if you want spicy do ask for it – some of the dishes are bland. A couple of the dishes we had were among the best we ate on our trip – DBB arranges a lot of tours, taxis etc. Their prices for some of their services are high but the convenience factor is great and they do a very good job of what they do. A stop here is highly recommended.
Day 1 was in Delhi buying some clothes for me at FabIndia (Khan Market) running errands, visiting the Craft Museum and seeing a free Orissan dance concert at the wonderful outdoor venue (Qtub Minar) where the biggest thrill was to see the wonderful, elegant regional saris worn by the concertgoers, (oh, we also had lunch at the Swagath restaurant in Defense Colony market, highly touted for non-veg southern seafood cuisine. I thought my daughter’s veg dish was the best thing we had – the prawn curry was made with boring frozen shrimp and the sauce was not distinct. Overall a bit of a letdown. – we also had a snack at an upstairs cafe in Khan Market – nice place to sit but the coffee was terrible. Travel was all via autorickshaws, with heavy negotiation for each journey (most of our journeys were 40 rupees – at night it could go up to 60)
Day 2 we flew to Indore on Jet Light – an uneventful, easy trip – we were picked up by the driver for our first destination, Ahilya Fort a two hour (approx) drive on into Madhya Pradesh from Indore. It was a fascinating drive, the latter part through green country side, I was getting used to the feel of India all the way, the traffic, with horns honking and the flower painted trucks, animals, chewed up dirty areas by the roadside, ugly concrete buildings, people hanging around in front on charpoys and above all, in MP the roadside temples, every where we looked, decked with flower and food offerings and smears of vermillion (sort of an orangy red) pigment . We went up into the Vindya mountains and then wound our way down to the Narmada River Valley. It was a long drive but very interesting to see the village life, bullock carts, markets, etc in this country district. Finally we arrived in Maheshwar, a pleasant town with a bustling market and drove up and through the gate of the Fort into a different world, full of flowers, kindly and proud Holkar family retainers who coddled us, and total peace. This is a venerable but well kept Maratha Fort – palace – basically a lowslung mellow old wooden house with deep eaves to keep out the sun – it has a magnificent site, on top of a high bluff overlooking the Narmada river, which is quiet and huge – one looks out over a huge expanse of river and sky and a vast expanse of quiet green countryside across the river – far below – the people down there are tiny – are the ghats with many small temples and people going about their daily washing, etc. This is a place to relax, take walks down to see the temples, the nice small town, the wonderful Rehwa weaving establishment which revitalized the Maheshwar handweaving industry and has given a livelihood to many local people – to just soak up the Indian atmosphere in a very beautiful way. The Fort’s builder, Queen Ahilya Bai Holkar was a profoundly religious woman who rebuilt many of the historic temples in India, and her own home reflects this with all the little shrines dotting the property where she conducted her personal daily prayers. One awakes and goes to sleep to the sound of bells, prayers, chanting of hymns on the ghats far below (or sometimes the singing and drumming of the group of Brahmans who congregate for prayer, unseen by us but only a few feet away on the hotel grounds). Its almost trite to say that this is a magic place but it is – the routine is constantly varying, and geared to please and surprise.. On a more prosaic level, the rooms and beds are comfortable and decorated elegantly with many interesting items, much care is taken over the food which features European style dishes at lunch and Indian style at dinner. Guests are served family style (or house party style) with everyone served together. This can be good or bad – a tour group came through while we were there and sort of took over the atmosphere, in a bad way. Re the food, many of the ingredients are grown on the property and they make their own mozzarella cheese. Everything was very good but we were disappointed – in the blandness of the Indian food served at dinner when I was expecting something special and in they way that (for me) the lunch menus didn’t quite work – I was aware that while the food tasted good, the people serving the food didn’t have any feel for the eating of it, in terms of the serving sizes, etc. The fact that the Forts owner is much absent these days may account for some of the loss of focus since he famously participating in the cooking of the European dishes. This place is not super-luxe and might not be everyone’s cup of tea with its lack of activities but Ive never been anywhere more special.
Ahilya Fort is convenient (to the extent any place is!) for visiting the great historic site Mandu built in a mountain stronghold in Afghan/Moghul style. The fort arranged a car and driver to take us over, as well as a guide for the day. The ruins at Mandu, encompassing palaces, mosques, tanks, and many other structures are extensive and very lightly visited. Of course there are romantic stories attached! It was well worth the visit.
After 3 nights/4 days at the Fort we drove back to Indore for an overnight. While there we visited the Old Palace of the Holkar family, a Victorian pile dating to when they were Maharajahs of Indore, as well as a “shish Mahal” Jain temple there – the entire inner surface is mirrored. We didn’t have time for much more of Indore, a rather large city without a lot of obvious touristic attractions, but with potential nevertheless. We stayed the night at an elegant homestay, Rashid Kothi, operated by a charming cultured family associated with the Ahilya Fort people. Rashid Kothi is open sporadically, has only one or two rooms and is bookable through the Ahilya Fort website or Alistair Sawyday’s Special Places website. I really felt honored to be hosted for this evening in the Rashid/Dubay family’s elegant home. Really very special. Next day to Ahmedabad.
Jan 31st, 2008, 03:10 AM
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Very interesting report. Was this your first trip to India? I'm curious as to why you chose to visit Indore and the fort as its not exactly on the beaten path... I would love to visit that area of the country sometime. Sounds like an amazing trip.
Jan 31st, 2008, 07:49 PM
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Thanks for the supportive replies - Ill try to respond to them together - this WAS my first trip to India - to Asia actually. I found Ahilya Fort surfing the web - actually looking for a place to stay near Mandu, which I had seen in another web search and thought was an interesting destination. I tend to think in clusters when planning a trip - when I saw Ahilya Fort and it linked in my mind with Mandu I was absolutely hooked. Even though I was having a hard time figuring out how to tie it into an itinerary
(via train down from Orccha or up from Aurangabad or down from Chittaurgarh or via air from Kolkata were several possibilities - it was part of my India map from the first.
Indore entered the mix incidentally - once my overall itinerary crystalized (as I havent explained yet) into a Rajasthan loop with Ahilya fort and Gujarat add-ons, I realized that I could get to the area via a cheap flight to Indore from Delhi and out with a cheap morning flight to Ahmedabad (next stop) - an overnight in Indore at Rashid Kothi was a bonus. I'd seen it in the Sawdays book and on the Ahilya Fort Website, they had a (deserved) reputation for serving delicious veg meals, and eating good indian regional food was one of my high priorites for this trip.
The city of Indore itself is a booming regional center with industry, a university, people coming in from all over. Maybe more egalitarian in tradition than some places - as I recall Holkars as maharajahs abolished some manifestations of caste distinctions there. For us it was a transit spot, but we very much enjoyed our night there (it was during Navatri and the folks of the town were definitely taking their hymn singing, at the adjoining house and dandiya at a gathering down the road seriously!)
There are so many surprises and disconnects in India and the Rashid Kothi was one - to get to it you go down a big avenue with commercial buildings like auto dealerships, offices etc - all of a sudden there is a dark spot on the side and you drive down a driveway through a jungle to a house set back from the street - its just so incongruous and feels totally remote from its totally ordinary and somewhat ugly present daysurroundings.
As to cost of accomodations - I believe Delhi Bed and Breakfast was around $80 per night - Ahilya Fort in an unairconditioned room (actually like a very spacious - and cool - suite - was 48000 rupees for 2 people for 3 nights, including meals (I figured air con would have been almost twice as much - we were very happy with our very large, suitelike room with its shady veranda overlooking a quiet courtyart); Rashid Kothi was 5600 Rupees for one night, including meals.
(via train down from Orccha or up from Aurangabad or down from Chittaurgarh or via air from Kolkata were several possibilities - it was part of my India map from the first.
Indore entered the mix incidentally - once my overall itinerary crystalized (as I havent explained yet) into a Rajasthan loop with Ahilya fort and Gujarat add-ons, I realized that I could get to the area via a cheap flight to Indore from Delhi and out with a cheap morning flight to Ahmedabad (next stop) - an overnight in Indore at Rashid Kothi was a bonus. I'd seen it in the Sawdays book and on the Ahilya Fort Website, they had a (deserved) reputation for serving delicious veg meals, and eating good indian regional food was one of my high priorites for this trip.
The city of Indore itself is a booming regional center with industry, a university, people coming in from all over. Maybe more egalitarian in tradition than some places - as I recall Holkars as maharajahs abolished some manifestations of caste distinctions there. For us it was a transit spot, but we very much enjoyed our night there (it was during Navatri and the folks of the town were definitely taking their hymn singing, at the adjoining house and dandiya at a gathering down the road seriously!)
There are so many surprises and disconnects in India and the Rashid Kothi was one - to get to it you go down a big avenue with commercial buildings like auto dealerships, offices etc - all of a sudden there is a dark spot on the side and you drive down a driveway through a jungle to a house set back from the street - its just so incongruous and feels totally remote from its totally ordinary and somewhat ugly present daysurroundings.
As to cost of accomodations - I believe Delhi Bed and Breakfast was around $80 per night - Ahilya Fort in an unairconditioned room (actually like a very spacious - and cool - suite - was 48000 rupees for 2 people for 3 nights, including meals (I figured air con would have been almost twice as much - we were very happy with our very large, suitelike room with its shady veranda overlooking a quiet courtyart); Rashid Kothi was 5600 Rupees for one night, including meals.
Mar 17th, 2008, 06:18 PM
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Next stop Gujarat, just a taste.
From Indore, it was a quick, cheap flight via Kingfisher to Ahmedabad, where we had a a day and a half. In November the post-monsoon countryside around the city was green. There was no noticeable dust in the air and the pollution levels were about average for an Indian city, i.e. bad but no worse than Delhi, say. (Ahmedabad has switched its buses and autorickshaws over to the clean CNG fuel, too.)
Our hotel, the House of MG, was right in the center town, next to the main old city districts and directly across a busy street from the Sidi Sayad mosque. This is a great old dynastic mansion from the Victorian period – the rooms are huge and cool with tiled floors and spare but comfortable modern furniture, many with swings, huge bathrooms and lots of pictures of the family decorating the walls - the building is oriented inward and doesn’t really have windows onto the city (for good reason), though I have a wonderful picture of men at prayere at the mosque from a second story window. The front desk and other staff are terrific and helpful planning excursions around the city – they made arrangements for us with a “famous” local autorickshaw driver, Mohammed, who has decent English and a massive enthusiasm for the local modern architectural monuments, by Le Corbusier, Doshi and others.
We used Mohammed's services throughout our stay and spent the first afternoon with him on the newer west bank of the Sabarmati River, shopping and visiting the architectural sites. It was interesting to see how building is done in a tropical climate - for example, no windows in Doshi's building for the school of architecture (no computers either!) (more on shopping below)
In the evening, probably too late we drive out of the city to Sarkhej Roza, a massive early islamic architectural complex south of the city,surrounded by a rather squalid village. (the muslims are rather poor in gujarat, and sadly their monuments are not always well kept up) This site was impressive and beautiful, with tombs, a mosque,a large tank (artifical lake) and other remains, including exquisite carved marble jali screens. The prayer complex is still heavily used – we were there at sunset and it was crowded with picnicking families with many friendly children.
We then drove back toward the city and stopped for dinner at Vishala, a complex which replicates a traditional gujarati village setting, complete with oil lamps rather than electrical lighting. think I would have preferred a daytime visit, since it was too dark to see much of the village and there was a lot of waiting before dinner was served. We enjoyed a visit to their extensive utensils museum, watched a very amateurish dance performance (the garba) by some local boys while sitting on charpoys, and had a wonderful vegetarian thali dinner. This was one occasion where we had to eat with our hands (actually right hand only, a challenge for me as a left-hander) – we were served with a continuous flow of delicious breads made with different grains to use for eating along with a large variety of vegetable dishes and dals, ending with kadhi (a yogurt curry flavored with chickpea flour, sweetened) and khichri. (a rice-moong dal dish with melted ghee poured over, quite bland and a little rich for me). The food was very, very good and varied – many dishes with the characteristic sweetness of the region.
Our second day was tightly focused on fitting in both the CRUTA heritage walking tour of the Old City and a visit to the Calico museum (both available only in the morning). Mohammed was excellent in getting us from one to the other with no glitch. The Old City tour starts at the colorful Swaminarayan temple and ends at the Jama Masjid, winding through many pols (old courtyard neighborhoods) of the Old City. By starting at 8 am, the tour misses the day's traffic and business crowds, while the city is still waking up. Delightful. We walked through secret entrances made for defense (individual pols could cut themselves off completely), saw exquisite old carved wooden havelis, including a jain joint house. several of the characteristic bird feeders, and visited a beautiful old jain temple during morning worship. Most highly recommended.
Collected by Mohammed at the mosque, we then moved on to the Calico museum of Textiles. This is located in an lovely old haveli set in an attractive garden outside the city walls. The morning tour, which we joined, is of an astounding textile collection, which I felt we rushed through. The patrician guide is charming and passionate about her topic, the textile art of her state. Judging by what we saw in most markets, it’s a dying tradition – she urged us to go out to the villages and buy direct from the artisans since the extremely detailed hand work simply doesn’t pay enough to keep the artisans (and the middlemen) going.
That afternoon, we visited some of the local museums on the west bank and a half dozen recommended shops for textile work – of these, I can only heartily recommend Bandhej, an upscale store with items including very fine local needlework and Banascraft, which carries some items from the famous SEWA cooperative (the SEWA store itself was rather disappointing). Most of the places sold standard commercial stuff of the sort one finds all over India. Sadly, we did not go to the Law Garden night market or the Old City markets – the hotel strongly discouraged us feeling it would be too intense since Navatri was at its peak, and indeed on our night excursions the city felt powerfully stirred up with the excitement of the holiday..
Apart from Vishala, we did all our eating in Ahmedabad right at the estimable restaurants in the House of MG – we had an excellent and elegant thali dinner at their Agashiye rooftop restaurant, as well as breakfasts and lunches at their Green House restaurant at street level. The restaurant specializes in “street food” dishes in a clean and pleasant environment, and we really loved it, from fruit juices and sharbats to the farsaans (gujarati snack dishes). I particularly enjoyed a bright green sharbat which was a very refreshing mix of mint, coriander lemon and sugar. http://www.houseofmg.com/greenhouse_...d=Mg==#regular
Next day – on to the Modhera Sun Temple and Rani ki Vav (Patan)
From Indore, it was a quick, cheap flight via Kingfisher to Ahmedabad, where we had a a day and a half. In November the post-monsoon countryside around the city was green. There was no noticeable dust in the air and the pollution levels were about average for an Indian city, i.e. bad but no worse than Delhi, say. (Ahmedabad has switched its buses and autorickshaws over to the clean CNG fuel, too.)
Our hotel, the House of MG, was right in the center town, next to the main old city districts and directly across a busy street from the Sidi Sayad mosque. This is a great old dynastic mansion from the Victorian period – the rooms are huge and cool with tiled floors and spare but comfortable modern furniture, many with swings, huge bathrooms and lots of pictures of the family decorating the walls - the building is oriented inward and doesn’t really have windows onto the city (for good reason), though I have a wonderful picture of men at prayere at the mosque from a second story window. The front desk and other staff are terrific and helpful planning excursions around the city – they made arrangements for us with a “famous” local autorickshaw driver, Mohammed, who has decent English and a massive enthusiasm for the local modern architectural monuments, by Le Corbusier, Doshi and others.
We used Mohammed's services throughout our stay and spent the first afternoon with him on the newer west bank of the Sabarmati River, shopping and visiting the architectural sites. It was interesting to see how building is done in a tropical climate - for example, no windows in Doshi's building for the school of architecture (no computers either!) (more on shopping below)
In the evening, probably too late we drive out of the city to Sarkhej Roza, a massive early islamic architectural complex south of the city,surrounded by a rather squalid village. (the muslims are rather poor in gujarat, and sadly their monuments are not always well kept up) This site was impressive and beautiful, with tombs, a mosque,a large tank (artifical lake) and other remains, including exquisite carved marble jali screens. The prayer complex is still heavily used – we were there at sunset and it was crowded with picnicking families with many friendly children.
We then drove back toward the city and stopped for dinner at Vishala, a complex which replicates a traditional gujarati village setting, complete with oil lamps rather than electrical lighting. think I would have preferred a daytime visit, since it was too dark to see much of the village and there was a lot of waiting before dinner was served. We enjoyed a visit to their extensive utensils museum, watched a very amateurish dance performance (the garba) by some local boys while sitting on charpoys, and had a wonderful vegetarian thali dinner. This was one occasion where we had to eat with our hands (actually right hand only, a challenge for me as a left-hander) – we were served with a continuous flow of delicious breads made with different grains to use for eating along with a large variety of vegetable dishes and dals, ending with kadhi (a yogurt curry flavored with chickpea flour, sweetened) and khichri. (a rice-moong dal dish with melted ghee poured over, quite bland and a little rich for me). The food was very, very good and varied – many dishes with the characteristic sweetness of the region.
Our second day was tightly focused on fitting in both the CRUTA heritage walking tour of the Old City and a visit to the Calico museum (both available only in the morning). Mohammed was excellent in getting us from one to the other with no glitch. The Old City tour starts at the colorful Swaminarayan temple and ends at the Jama Masjid, winding through many pols (old courtyard neighborhoods) of the Old City. By starting at 8 am, the tour misses the day's traffic and business crowds, while the city is still waking up. Delightful. We walked through secret entrances made for defense (individual pols could cut themselves off completely), saw exquisite old carved wooden havelis, including a jain joint house. several of the characteristic bird feeders, and visited a beautiful old jain temple during morning worship. Most highly recommended.
Collected by Mohammed at the mosque, we then moved on to the Calico museum of Textiles. This is located in an lovely old haveli set in an attractive garden outside the city walls. The morning tour, which we joined, is of an astounding textile collection, which I felt we rushed through. The patrician guide is charming and passionate about her topic, the textile art of her state. Judging by what we saw in most markets, it’s a dying tradition – she urged us to go out to the villages and buy direct from the artisans since the extremely detailed hand work simply doesn’t pay enough to keep the artisans (and the middlemen) going.
That afternoon, we visited some of the local museums on the west bank and a half dozen recommended shops for textile work – of these, I can only heartily recommend Bandhej, an upscale store with items including very fine local needlework and Banascraft, which carries some items from the famous SEWA cooperative (the SEWA store itself was rather disappointing). Most of the places sold standard commercial stuff of the sort one finds all over India. Sadly, we did not go to the Law Garden night market or the Old City markets – the hotel strongly discouraged us feeling it would be too intense since Navatri was at its peak, and indeed on our night excursions the city felt powerfully stirred up with the excitement of the holiday..
Apart from Vishala, we did all our eating in Ahmedabad right at the estimable restaurants in the House of MG – we had an excellent and elegant thali dinner at their Agashiye rooftop restaurant, as well as breakfasts and lunches at their Green House restaurant at street level. The restaurant specializes in “street food” dishes in a clean and pleasant environment, and we really loved it, from fruit juices and sharbats to the farsaans (gujarati snack dishes). I particularly enjoyed a bright green sharbat which was a very refreshing mix of mint, coriander lemon and sugar. http://www.houseofmg.com/greenhouse_...d=Mg==#regular
Next day – on to the Modhera Sun Temple and Rani ki Vav (Patan)
Mar 19th, 2008, 07:35 PM
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I am enjoying this very much, and one reason is that your Ahmedabad visit is something I wanted to do -- I wanted to stay in that hotel and I wanted to go to that museum, and still hope to do both sooner rather than later.
Happy to hear you enjoyed it, also that it all seems as I have imagined. And you support my own inclination which is to give a lot of time to this museum, when I get there I want to make sure I've arranged to go on more than one day.
In Khan Market, the upstairs cafe is the Turtle Cafe (or Cafe Turtle), which I loved and went to as many times as possible in a 48 hour stay (I stayed at Ahuja Residency ver near Khan Market).
And - not much good coffee in North India! though next time you go to Khan Market, you can get "real" coffee in Barista (a nice Starbucks-like coffee chain in Indian cities).
Happy to hear you enjoyed it, also that it all seems as I have imagined. And you support my own inclination which is to give a lot of time to this museum, when I get there I want to make sure I've arranged to go on more than one day.
In Khan Market, the upstairs cafe is the Turtle Cafe (or Cafe Turtle), which I loved and went to as many times as possible in a 48 hour stay (I stayed at Ahuja Residency ver near Khan Market).
And - not much good coffee in North India! though next time you go to Khan Market, you can get "real" coffee in Barista (a nice Starbucks-like coffee chain in Indian cities).
