North India Album

I recently returned from a trip which I took with some friends to the Northern part of India. It was such an awesome trip! We had so much fun! We first flew to Delhi and spent the night with some fellow believers. The next day we drove to Agra and back to Delhi just in time for our overnight train ride into Allahabad. We got to experience some great fellowship with each other as well as other believers who hosted us. We also saw many great monuments/places of India. Below is a short summary of all the places we visited with an occasional tidbit of history and memories thrown here and there.

The TAJ, Agra

The Taj Mahal was just as majestic as I thought it would be! When you first walk through the gate and it’s staring you in the face it’s pretty unbelievable. I couldn’t believe I was actually standing there. The white marble was so bright that I could hardly capture it with my camera. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built this tomb after 18 years of marriage to Mumtaz Mahal who died while giving birth to his 14^th child. A few interesting tidbits: it took 20 years to build, the fingers of those who worked on it were cut off so that they could not make another, the outside minarets lean slightly outward so in case of an earthquake they will not fall onto the Taj and the size of the Arabic lettering written on the outside increases as the arch gets higher creating an optical illusion of a uniform script. Favorite memory is walking around barefoot on the cool marble tiles.

Agra Fort, Agra

This fort is just up the Yamuna river from the Taj Mahal and was completed around 1573 by Emperor Akbar. This was the place from which Shah Jahan ruled and where he was later imprisoned by his son. Interestingly, he apparently had a mirror in his room with which he could see the Taj from. My favorite memories were running around the fort, going up secret staircases and giving Mark a huge scare.

India Gate, New Delhi

This is a monument for Indian and British soldiers who died in WWI and for those who died in the NW Frontier, Third Afghan and India-Pakistan wars.

Train Station, New Delhi

My memories of the train station in New Delhi include anxious porters dressed in red awaiting to carry huge loads of suitcases on their heads, eating mutton burgers from Wimpy’s and green elaiche bisquits.

Train Station, Allahabad

Best memory is Levi leaving the three Americans alone in the crowd to fend off the rickshaw drivers while watching from the sidelines. ;)

Sangam, Allahabad

This is sadly the site of the world’s largest religious gathering. It is where the Yamuna and Ganges rivers converge. It is also thought that a third spiritual river called Saraswati intersects them at this same point. The Hindu’s celebrate a festival here called Kumbh Mela where they gather by the millions to dip themselves in the river to cleanse themselves of their sins. Older men and women also pilgrim to this place hoping to die on the banks and attain moksha, release from the endless cycle of death and rebirth. This celebration is held only every twelve years in Allahabad and so we were fortunate to witness the aftermath of this huge event. We arrived here 2 days after the festival had finished. Thousands upon thousands of huge burlap tents were set up to house the pilgrims and hundreds (maybe thousands) of light posts were set up to give light to this receded river bank which is cover with water at least half of the year. My most vivid memory was wading through the trashed sandy banks as the sun set while hearing Hindu mantras droning from a nearby temple. It was very eerie!

Country Village, Allahabad

We took a trip to a village school which was established by Miriam’s dad. It was settled amongst breathtaking fields of yellow mustard plants. There were about 80 children at this school and 4 teachers. They all sat outside under trees on plastic strips of paper while concentrating on the small piece of blackboard which contained their lessons. The children all spoke Hindi so we taught them one of the few Hindi songs we knew and shared the gospel.

Anand Bavan, Allahabad

Anand Bavan is the name of the home to the Nehru-Gandi families, India’s first political dynasty after the Independence Movement around the early part of the 20^th century. Jawaharal Nehru (who worked alongside Mahatma Gandi) lead the nation as India’s first prime minister. After J. Nehru’s death his daughter Indira Gandhi became the second prime minister. It was interesting walking about this home turned museum and learning about the beginning of the modern Indian political era.

Cultural museum, Allahabad

Not too much to say except we saw crazy old statues of gods and such dated as far back as 3 B.C.! It was mind boggling to think that these things were that old (if they really were) and that they were around at the time of Christ! Now I have a little clearer picture of the idols and such that are referred to in the Bible. One of my favorite memories from this place were 3 older men jamming a tool into a really nice display case to open it and ruining the wood. Another is playing on the see-saw outside the museum and trying to balance with Christine and I on one end and Mark on the other.

Crazy car-ride to the train station, Allahabad

We left our place with plenty of time to head to the station. As we were driving to the station to head back to Delhi we hit traffic on the bridge. But this wasn’t just your ordinary traffic, there was a wedding procession in front of us. One of the guys who traveled with us has extraordinary sources of energy and so he went running and skipping on ahead of us to see what was going on and to direct traffic and such. Finally we started moving and then…we hit another wedding procession. We ran into FIVE such processions as we raced to the station. We had windows on both sides of the car rolled down as we were waving at cars to let us by and barreling down the wrong side of the road. We finally reached the station with just seconds to spare. It was definitely exhilarating and probably the best ride of my life! Thanks Sanish! J

Purana Qila, New Delhi

Literally this means ‘Old fort’ and that’s exactly what it was to me. Actually my nifty travel guide says that archaeological excavations have suggested that it’s been occupied since 1000 B.C.!! Mark, Levi and I decided to take the non-tourist route and climbed atop the walls of the fort. While looking down we could see parts of the city and the zoo. Favorite moments were climbing up a rock wall and accidentally stumbling upon a kissing couple. Such couples were everywhere. Apparently it’s a popular getaway from the city.

About 23 hours later I arrived back at the ACA. Ahh...home sweet home.