Day 6

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Today we woke up early and after having some hot chocolate and watery coffee we set off on our morning safari. Did you know that although it is quite hot in India during the day, at night it can drop to about 5 degrees? Which is pretty darn cold! So we all bundled up with our hot water bottles and drove around looking at deer and birds until we got a call on the radio, someone had heard a tiger roaring. We followed the calls around until we received word of a sighting and you can imagine we drove there pretty fast. We arrived and there where about three cars but on the blink of an eye 15 cars and trucks where driving around eager to see the tiger. Suddenly a streak of orange through the trees, the air was filled with the sound of cameras flashing and children screaming. It reappeared once and then was gone

We soon had to leave the park and return to our hotel where we sat by the pool for a while before going out on our night drive. We saw much of the same on the night drive except the tiger was nowhere to be found. So at 5:30 we returned home and while mum and dad went out for dinner Simon and I went to bed. God we need to get on this time zone! 
-Chloe :)
 

Day 5

Welcome back I'm writing this in the car right now on the way to Ranthambhore, a safari camp.

We woke up this morning at three and after making sure we had everything went off to the airport. We arrived there with what seemed like sufficient time, although our guide didn't think, little did we know how right he was. A day in the life of a Wolverton is nothing if not unexpected. There was a huge line up for economy check in but we managed to weasel ourselves into the business class line so we got to skip it. Here in India they are very meticulous about there baggage checking clearly not taking any chances. If a bag is checked and deemed safe it is stamped.

....We are waiting at a train crossing right now and god is it taking forever.... Anyway were was I?

Oh yes so we got our bags and ran to our gate which was closing soon. We got there right at the final call and as you have probably guessed mum didn't have her boarding pass. So they told us to step to the side while they sent someone to go look for it. We sat there for fifteen minutes not knowing if they would find it or not till a man slightly out of breath arrived and told us he found it by the bag check area. Hooray! We were about to go through to board the plane when someone asked us to show the stamps on our bags. Mums camera bag wasn't stamped, so again we waited, and waited till someone eventually showed up and checked it again and deemed it safe. So we boarded the flight and took off. Twenty minutes later we landed in Jaipur where we were greeted by our drivers who had had to drive five hours from Delhi the night before to meet us. We drove four hours passing through small villages and by fields along the way. We saw a whole lot of goats and cows as well as some dogs, chickens, camels... you get the idea there are a lot of animals in India.

We arrived at the Hotel where we received a traditional Indian greeting, a dot on the forehead, a moist towelette and a glass of orange juice. The rooms where giant tents with full bathrooms and electricity and beautiful. We had a little lunch and then went on our first safari. The safaris were in the Ranthambhore National Park home to a variety of animals including the endangered Bengal Tiger. While our guide filled out some paperwork we waited at the entrance of the park where met non other then Kenzie and her family (for those of you who don't know mackenzie is my friend from school) I quote Walt Disney's song that's so catchy it's annoying in saying: it's a small, small world.

So after a little time to catch up with our old chums we set off into the park. The park was made up of plains and forest area that in total covered 400 square km and was split up into different zones. Each group was assigned a different guide and zone at random everyday so sometimes you might get a better zone then others. We saw some different antelope (spotted deer and such...), birds, a monkey and well not much else. The park was situated on an area once ruled by Moguls in 900 A.D. so there were a lot of ruins, roads and even a few bridges that kept you from feeling too in touch with nature. Though overall the park was very pretty with it's small lakes and rivers. At the end of the day we returned the hotel without seeing the elusive tiger but the people who greeted us and later on their "colleagues," as they like to call themselves, all seemed very optimistic about us seeing one.

There was a Christmas celebration going on by the pool which we were all invited to but Simon and I were too tired so we went to bed, mum and dad on the other hand went and enjoyed Christmas carols and dancing.

-Chloe :)

Day 4

Our first stop of the morning was the Red Fort, originally built as residence for one of the many rulers here who's name I cannot recall. It was later taken over by the English who greatly damaged a lot of the palaces inside such as the wives palace which they used as a mess hall destroying the paintings with the smoke from their fires and even causing the roof to collapse. Although while we were there they were in the middle of restoring the fort to its former beauty once again using the same techniques that were originally used to build it. After, having seen the Red Fort, and taken some more pictures with school kids we took to the streets of Old Delhi on Rickshaws, a bike that the driver rides with a sort of carriage on the back that you sit in, and after a while of driving on the busy main roads we took to the back streets in amongst the shops. We emerged at the steps of a temple which we unfortunately could not go inside of because they were in the middle of their prayer, so instead we got back inside our car and went for lunch.

After lunch we went to Qutub Minar, one of India's many world heritage sites. We saw the remains of a muslim mosque built on the palace grounds whose parts had been taken from other temples in the area and then configured to match it's religion. Reduce, reuse and recycle! On the site there was also a minaret that was over 2000ft tall (with a diameter of 14ft at the bottom and 2.5ft at the top, it is the tallest in the world. On the other side of the mosque another ruler had started work on another minaret that was supposed to be twice as big as the first but after his death they quickly ceased work on it and it was never finished. After visiting the original rulers tomb, taking pictures of the parrots and owls we were pretty tired and so we decided to stop for the night. 
The next day we were going to our next stop in India so we packed up and tried to get a good nights sleep.

-Chloe :)

Day 3

All bright eyed and bushy tailed, (well except mum who hard as she tries can't seem to fall asleep), we had breakfast and set off with our guide to explore India. First stop was the Gate of India, basically the same thing as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris except that this one was built by the English for all the Indian soldiers that died in W.W.1. Then it was off to the presidential palace which is on the same street as the Gate of India so they line up in all your pictures which looks pretty cool. Turns out women are in power in India right now, yay for us :) Security there is pretty tight too they have a guy who goes around with his special "detecting stick" and pokes it into flower pots, if they don't blow up, there safe. Then after we got back in our car and drove to Humayun's tomb, the building that inspired the Taj Mahal. We got to see how they restored it using the same techniques that they had used back then, carving and chiseling all of it by hand out of red sandstone. There were a lot of field-trips going on while we were there and they were all eager to take pictures with us. Once we were done wandering around the site we made our way to the Sydney Opera House! Ok no we didn't but it sure looked like it. It was actually the Lotus Temple home to the Bahai religion. The bahai believe that it is not important what religion you belong to, only that you pray, so they welcome all religions to come together and pray in harmony. Amen to that! :) The temple was built out of solid marble which kept it relatively cool and around it were built big pools which also kept it relatively cool. You had to enter the temple bare feet and once inside sit on solid marble chairs which kept you relatively cool. Talking inside was prohibited although mum being chatty Kathy had only taken five steps before she broke that rule. Another rule was that you weren't allowed to take photos and I have no idea how mum managed not to break that one. 

The temple was shaped roughly like an egg and so it had some pretty different acoustics which were interesting to listen to.

 Then after the ten minute prayer session we went to a cafe to meet one of our guides and enjoyed drinks well we chatted over what we would be doing next. Later we tried to go looking for a charger for our iPods but came back empty handed. Simon and I were tired so we went to bed shortly after returning to the hotel while mum and dad went downstairs and had dinner.

-Chloe :)

Trip to India - Days 1 and 2

Okay so this is my first entry in a while so for those of you who have read this before, welcome back :)

 Anyway today marked the beginning of our two week journey in India. We left the house and made our way to the airport and in a few hours we were on a plane on our way to Toronto. Four hours later after a bit of a mad dash we were on another plane, this time headed for Frankfurt, Germany. 

Germany was a winter wonderland that we didn't really get to enjoy because frankly we were just too tired. We checked in, went upstairs and passed out. We woke up a few hours later to find that it was about two in the afternoon and so we decided to go look for something to eat. Turns out the Germans no how to drink hot cocoa in style, they give you hot milk and a block of solid chocolate on a stick which you dunk to your hearts content till its nice and chocolatey, it's really quite nice. They also had this life size gingerbread house that you could go sit inside which was pretty cool. Later we decided to go visit the pool for a dip where Simon proceeded to run outside and roll, and I mean literally roll in the snow before jumping in the hot tub. Also did you know europeans like to swim naked? I don't think Simon did and after he saw that he suddenly lost all interest in swimming and wanted to go up to the room.

The next day at 10:30am we left for the airport, and it was probably the most hectic airports I have ever been in. So as you may know Heathrow was out of commission because of all the snowfall and actually so was most of Europe. Therefore Frankfurt didn't have any planes for most of the morning so they had to cancel all of the planes till 1pm onward (ours was at 1 so we just made it) and even when planes were there most of them weren't able to leave because there wasn't enough de-icing fluid for the wings. So as you can imagine that left a LOT of people stranded without flights and frankly in pretty bad moods. I'm not going to go into detail about what went on because it was quite stressful and will most likely bore you. Anyway we stood in line forever got yelled at a lot and eventually got through to our flight where we had the whole cabin to ourselves, well ourselves and another guy for yet another six and a half hours. 

We arrived at 1am and were greeted by a driver from our tour service who was surprisingly perky for the middle of the night. On the way to the hotel we almost hit a bobcat who at the last second decided he best not cross the street. Then we checked in and were greeted by yet another perky person, (if there is anything I have learned so far it's that people on this trip are WAY too perky way too early in the morning) and then went off to bed.

-Chloe :)