Monday
Oct 17, 2005 - day 18 - Gwalior - Kathy: 192 photos, Bob: 202 photos
Today we explored the city of
The first thing we did was
drive to
Walking up to the fort, I
noticed a mountain goat just standing on a scooter. I thought it was unusual, so I took a photo.
There were also some interesting people gathered near the
entrance.
Unlike most of the other forts and palaces we’ve seen,
this one had Hindu-style architecture, not the same Islamic architecture of the
Moghul emperors.
For example, there was a
round room in the basement where Mansignh’s wives would swing. One flight down, there was another round room
that looked much the same. There were
lots of hidden passages in the palace.
Outside the main structure were several other buildings, like a much
smaller palace that Mansingh’s father used.
This was definitely not a
tourist trap, this is the kind of place that Kathy and I both love to explore;
there were buildings that were in shambles, dark and dirty and sometimes we had
to navigate with a flashlight. Like many
of the palaces we visited, this place was built on a hill, and looking down, we
could see another small palace and a mosque nearby.
We walked around taking photos of this wonderful place,
then we left.
From there, we went to an ancient Hindu temple from the
year 1093 called “Sas Bahu” or “Mother and
It was beautiful and there
were very few people there, which made it even more special.
Like many of the sites we
visited today, it was dark inside and we had trouble capturing the beauty of
it.
There were intricately
carvings everywhere throughout the whole building. We just stood there in awe.
Even the ceiling was
incredible. To capture the ceiling, I
used two-second time-exposures with the camera sitting on the floor pointing
up.
Kathy’s camera is much better
at low-light conditions.
The temple was also on top a
hill, and the surroundings were also beautiful.
We walked back to the car, drove a very short distance,
got out and saw another small temple in the area. I didn’t even catch the name of this temple,
but it was also intricately carved and very beautiful.
After we left the area, we got out of the car and started
walking down the big hill that leads up to the area. There, carved into the side of the sandstone
cliffs were dozens of monolithic Jain statues.
Jain statues are similar to Buddhist statues, except there is a diamond
shaped bump on the chest of the Jain masters, and on Buddha statues there is
not. Some of these statues were
man-sized, but many were much bigger.
The biggest was enormous. It towered over us like something out of
Ancient Egypt.
It reminded us of the
beautiful Buddhist monoliths that the Taliban government of
Next, we visited the tombs of some famous Muslims, like famous
Muslim saint Mohammad Ghaus and a supposedly famous singer named Tansen. I had never heard of him. The burial site was cool, however, because it
had intricately carved windows grates.
The building was surrounded by dozens of these decorative grates, and no
two were alike.
As we drove to our next stop, Suresh told us that
While driving around town, I asked Suresh his attitude
about out-of-body experiences, which, of course, is my favorite thing to
study. Much to my surprise, he took a
very skeptical stance on the subject.
Here I thought that all Indians took such things for granted, since
Hinduism seems to be the one religion that takes them for granted. He basically told me that the ancient texts,
like the Mahabarata, talked about them, but it was all fairy tales and he
didn’t believe a word of it.
We arrived at our next stop, the current palace of the
current Maharaja, the king of kings. The
way I understood it, when the British were kicked out and
As we walked up to the main palace, a ten-year-old boy
came zipping by in his go-cart, obviously having great fun. Suresh told us that it was the son and heir
of the current Maharaja.
So this Maharaja’s palace was fantastic.
If I’m not mistaken, they had
the world’s largest chandeliers at five tons each.
Rumor has it that after the
palace was constructed, they somehow transported five elephants on top the roof
to make sure it could support the weight of these huge chandeliers. Even the “smaller” huge chandeliers were
beautiful.
There were hundreds of rooms, and each room was
fantastic, filled with antiquities from all cultures and periods.
Some of them had lots of
stuffed tigers from the tiger hunting parties they used to have in his father’s
day in the early 1900s. Everywhere we
looked there were priceless Ming vases, painted vases, paintings, tapestries,
silk rugs, statues and wooden objects of all sorts.
There was a famous sculpture
of a woman making love to a swan. It was
in a glass display case, and in low light, so photos were difficult. Its beauty was breathtaking, and no photo
could possibly capture its magic, but I tried anyway.
They even had a huge
oversized shotgun they used for hunting ducks, and I asked Kathy to model it
for her father, Marv, who is a hunter.
After our tour, we went back to the hotel. There, waiting for us, was a palm-reader that
Suresh had told us about earlier.
So we paid to have Kathy’s
palm read. I’d have to say that this guy
was reaching badly, and got at least fifty-percent of his reading wrong. For example, he said I had a hot temper
(wrong) and that I would be blessed with two children (impossible).
We checked out of the hotel and went to catch the train
back to
Then a strange thing happened. Three army soldiers walked up to us, stood
three-feet away from us and they just stared at us. At first I thought we were in trouble with
the Indian military, but then we realized they were just curious about us. In fact, we now noticed that everyone was
staring at us. When I spoke, their eyes
were just riveted on me.
The train ride was a long, boring three-plus hours
long. When we got back to