There a great many things to do, see, and eat in India. Check out the song/video I made about some of the things I did.
Follow this link or click the picture below to view the video.
#IncredibleIndia
The Beach of Berries
How fun it was to collect berries! Abijith (Abi) and Gotham told me they were poisonous. I thought they were lying, so I filled a cup with water, then put the berry inside. I let the berry soak in the water, then took it out. I offered them a drink, but they refused. Then Suneil, Abi’s father, told me that the berries were not poisonous, but too hard too eat. So my mom decided to make some kind of rattle with them. We used half a coconut shell, some of the red berries, and a plastic bag.
We also learned some Malayalam, the local language of Kerala. We learned the word for “hello”, “namaskaaram“, and the world for “plastic bag”, “sañci“. The sunset was beautiful, too.
One day we saw Saint Angelo’s Fort. It was small, and it looked like a walled cliff-side backyard with a cobblestone walkway and man-made caves. We also saw Theyyam. A man with a face painted so brilliantly danced using his feet, to bless a new home. We also had New Year’s at our hotel. We lit sparklers, had a cake, and did the countdown with our hosts, since we were the only guests there.
During our last day, we were lounging out on the hammocks, when a lot of leaves and a stick floated down. We looked up, and saw a wet branch. Then, the branch started to move. It was a snake! We were not in danger, because it was only a rat snake. It was nearly two yards long, though! We watched it crawl from branch to branch, then it used a couple of trees to climb down like an acrobat. Then it slithered away, never to be seen again.
Rat Snake
Our Friends Suneil and Krishna Priya recieving blessing
Theyyam
Making friends – Gotham, Abi, and Krishna Priya
Spraklers for New Years!
I love Papad!
A New Years cake with our new friends
St. Angelo’s Fort
I milked a cow!!!
James Marshall’s Fort
Miles of Tea and an Orange Stream
We crossed over the orange stream, which was not dyed orange, but it was orange because it had orange mud. It smelled. Next we crossed a larger river. I jumped from one rock to the other. I almost missed! I found myself tottering above the small waterfall, saved only by the guide’s hand. He wasn’t there to show us the way, he was there to save our lives! Then I nearly fell again. Later, when we were crossing a rock with a trickle of water running down it, I tried to walk across, but slipped! I managed to cross by crawling sideways! Near the end of our hike, we crossed a river with a big gap between two rocks. I tried to jump, but missed! I fell in the water down to my waist! Quickly I scrambled onto the rock I had just been on. I jumped again, but this time my right side fell in the water! Then I just walked across a submerged rock. I have to admit, that was scary, almost dying four times in one hike!
The next day we saw some very pretty tea. Miles of tea, rolling up to the mountains with trees and bushes spotted here and there. It was also fun to see a machine make the tea leaves into the stuff you see in tea bags. They were cut four times, dried, and ground. The tea, though – that stuff was glorious! Good thing they actually made something, instead of turned into a tourist attraction!
The finished tea
Trees in the tea
Listening to a talk about tea
Miles and miles of tea!
The cutting process
I got soaked!
The Orange Stream
The view of the wildlife preserve from the tower
Before I fell
Catching tea
Getting help across the river
Lots of stairs!!
After I fell
Christmas in Kochi
I was woken up. The mass was about to start. A little grumpy, I was surprised that the mass was in English. I was told that it was going to be in Malayalam. The Malayalam songs were cool. I liked them.
The next morning, I woke up, and unwrapped our presents from Santa. I got a book and some Uno cards. There was candy all over the table, and our socks with different sizes, which we were using as stockings, were all filled with the same amount of candy. I gave our extra candy to the people working at the hotel. I felt so good! It was an action that filled me with joy. I also felt relieved that I had been freed of longing for things.
Then we tried to get to the mall. It took a while to get there, but we did. We booked our seats for the Star Wars movie. We had a little time, so we went to Sparky’s family fun park upstairs. It was very interesting. One side was an indoor amusement park! The other was an arcade. I spent my time in the arcade. Then we had lunch at the KFC nearby. Afterwards, we spent time walking around the mall. I was bored to death. Then we went to the movie theater. We had to wait 45 minutes for the movie to start, but I’m glad we did. The movie was really good. So was the Christmas!
Fun at the arcade!
The stockings were hung…
Midnight mass at Santa Cruz Catherdral in Kochi
Santa showed up at the carol service
Carol Service at St. Francis Church
They had a Christmas tree!
Christmas with the Colonel!
Santa Cruz Cathedral all lit up!
Gandhi the Great
Gandhi was a fascinating character in world history that used non-violence to give his country, India, independence from the British Empire. His struggles started in South Africa, in 1893. This happened when he was seated in the first class section of a train. The conductor ordered him to move to the third class section, because he wasn’t white. Gandhi refused, because he had bought a first class ticket. At the next stop, Gandhi was kicked off the train. Later, Gandhi led a protest to burn the Indian’s identity passes. His rich Muslim trader friend was sent to prison, and Gandhi was beaten. In a march in South Africa, Gandhi was met by men on horses. Gandhi told his marchers to lie down. The men tried to make their horses step on the marchers, but the horses wouldn’t do it. Gandhi did a lot of work in India, too. One of his biggest marches was the march to the sea to make salt, which the British had a monopoly on. Then he had some men try to take a salt mill. Police stood in front of the gate. The marchers came up to the police in rows. When the marchers came up to the police, the police caned them, some more than others. Then their wives or mothers carried them to safety, where they were treated. Gandhi eventually succeed in freeing India, but there was one thing that was uncalled for: the Partition. Gandhi was completely against the Partition, because he saw Hindus and Muslims as equal Indians. In Calcutta, it looked like a civil war. Gandhi nearly fasted to death. He only ate again when the chaos completely stopped. As he was making his way to Pakistan, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist, who believed that Gandhi was too sympathetic towards Muslims. Not long afterwards, Gandhi’s practices traveled to the U.S., when MLK started studying him. Gandhi fascinates me.
I love how he said “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”.
The Backwaters of Kerala
Can you get any fresher than live? The truth is no. So I guess you could say that on the backwaters of Kerala, we got fish, prawns, and crab as fresh as possible. The backwaters of Kerala are rivers and lakes stretching throughout the coastal region of Kerala. They are a large group of villages reached only by narrow passages, so narrow that the main mode of transportation is a canoe. It is in area where the land is rice as far as the eye can see. It is an area where you tour on a houseboat. It is an area where everything is fresh and local. It is an area where you look around for a while, then disappointingly turn back the next day. It is a place where I wrote a lot, because it is so quiet and an amazing place to be a writer. It is a place where nature meets man, and reality mixes with surrealism.
Rice Paddies as far as you can see!
Watching a tiny whirlpool
That’s some fresh food!
The backwaters from our houseboat
Backwaters
Ultimately Awesome Udaipur
We arrived in Udaipur. It was late at night. We ate, and went to bed. The next morning we got up, found a new hotel, packed up, and moved down the street. We didn’t like our first hotel because it was too loud. We just hung out at the second place all day, but the on next day, we went to to the City Palace. We learned lots of things, such as the fact that every Maharana, king of Mewar whose name meant ‘great warrior’, built his own lake in Udaipur, eventually creating the large lake that you see today. Chittorgarh was the capital of Mewar, but it was being attacked too frequently by the ever-expanding Moguls, so they moved the capital to Udaipur. Later we saw a dance show at Bagore Ki Haveli. My favorite part of that was the traditional Rajasthani puppets. Once, my new Italian friend, Francesco, was picked to pull some string out of a puppet. The puppet kept jumping at him, and he punched her away.
After Francesco was done, the ‘puppet whisperer’ said, “This time she has delivered a very weird message. She says he is so cute she wants to marry him.” That was hilarious.
Our next active day was our last out of five. It was my mom’s birthday! We had lots of fun things planned. First we tried a sitar lesson. I eventually switched to the tablas, a kind of Indian hand drum, because the sitar was too frustrating. I picked up the tablas pretty quickly. We also did a sunset cruise of the lake. It was beautiful. Finally we had a snack and dinner. Udaipur was amazing. I love it.
The Dance Show
The Lake Palace
Goofin’
Dosa
The Dance Show
Learning lots from the audio guide!
The Dance Show
The Dance Show
The Dance Show
The Dance Show
View from the City Palace
Sunset Cruise!
Learning about birds of India
Eating a Dosa twice the size of my head! YUM!
Many Temples and One Taj
“Service is prayer,” said the guide.
He had been telling us of the Sikh religion. It is a very pragmatic religion. They believe in equality of all people concerning gender, race, religion, culture, beliefs and more. They believe that everyone is equal. In every gurdwaras (*0), they serve food 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for free. They do this because they believe that even the rich and poor are equal, and that service is prayer. When you sit down to eat, you notice that everyone is sitting down like you, and it’s the most magical feeling ever.
After the gurdwaras, we saw what would be(*1) an amazing view of Old Delhi from a minaret above Jama Masjid, a big mosque in Old Delhi.
Afterwards we saw Hayuman’s tomb, which highly resembled the Taj Mahal. After all, Shah Jahan had gotten his inspiration for the Taj from this tomb. When we turned around to leave, there was a dog on top of the grand gate. He had probably got up there by grabbing a pigeon, who flew up there.
The next thing we did in Delhi was see the Lotus Temple. We learned about how widespread the Baha’í religion is. Queen Anne Marie of Romania and the king of Samoa became Baha’í. There are Baha’í temples all over the world, including Turkmenistan, Uganda, America, Australia, Panama, Samoa, and other countries. They even had a Baha’í conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
Before I knew it, I was staring at the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of my world (*2). I got a magnificent photo of the Taj with its reflection. The problem is that either it is very hazy or super crowded. Either way, it is still amazing. I had already read a Magic Treehouse book about it, so I knew that it had been built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan in dedication to his 14th wife. He took food out of the mouths of his people to do so, but it was built anyway. He was going to build a Black Taj across the river for himself, but then his son imprisoned him.
*0 = a sikh temple or holy place
*1 = without the pollution
*2 = which could change
Agra – the Taj Mahal
Delhi – Making Friends
Delhi – Learning to make chapati
Delhi – Service is Prayer
Delhi – The Red Fort
Delhi – Langer at the gurdwara
Agra – The photo I took of the Taj!!
Delhi – Hayuman’s Tomb
Delhi – “view” from the minoret
Delhi – Wild Parrots!
Delhi
Delhi – Making more friends
Delhi- Gurdwara
Delhi – The Lotus Temple (Baha’i)
Terrifying Tigers
The tiger jumped below the hill and it just kept walking. We went somewhere we thought the tiger would go. We lost the tiger, so our jeep rushed over to another tiger that we had missed earlier. The tiger woke up and its tail flicked. Some female peacocks flew up and away loudly. The tiger had caught a peacock. We couldn’t track it down anymore, but our driver got news of another tiger not too far away on the bank of the lake. We rushed over there. Everyone soon followed us. The tiger had jeeps in front of it and to one side with the lake behind it. One side was a free escape. It looked like it felt trapped. Then it saw the escape. As it walked along, it looked at us with hunger in its eyes.
One in the distance.
A tree tunnel!
There she is!
Ranthambore National Park
Trapped
Can you spot the tiger?
Our guide called this cute fawn “Tiger Chocolate”
Monkeys
Spying a tiger in the grass
Croc
Deer
On Safari in Ranthamore
“Snack Bird”
A large male
Feeding on grass in the lake
Rajasthan for Real
We arrived in Jodhpur. We were tired, so we didn’t do much. One day, we saw the clock tower, Umaid Bhawan Palace, and did an art class. We spent hours at the art class, which was a huge relief from the commotion of the clock tower area. I painted a part of a weapon to go along with one of my stories, while my mom painted a blue elephant.
Another day, we saw Mehrangarh Fort. We later learned that the fort was one of the most well preserved forts in all of India and that it had been built by Rao Jodha around 1460. We learned that it was never conquered. My dad zip lined a zip course. It took a lot of courage. There was a lot of musicians, one whose music I danced to, and another whose instrument I tried to learn to play. We also saw a performance of mellow music and toured the museum in the fort. It got boring for me. Afterward, we rested from the long day in their hotel. As we headed for the dunes (visit Down in the Dunes) with our new Australian friends, the honking and fumes of Jodhpur started to stray away from our ears and noses.
Jaipur was pretty cool for me. On the first day, we saw the monkey temple, which was full of pigs, cows, monkeys, and dogs. We also painted and fed elephants. I painted a couple of flags and a smiley face. We all fed the elephants bananas. The bananas were like a treat to the elephants. That was my favorite part. I really liked it. When I said goodbye and hugged the elephant, I noticed that the beasts had very wiry hair. The next day we saw the amber fort, which I liked because of all the passages. We also saw some other tourist attractions, such as the Water Palace and the Hawa Mahal.
Jodhpur – Watching Dad zipline from the fort
Jodhpur – Art Class
Jodpur – I was so nervous watching dad!
Jodhpur – Fort Goofin
Jaipur city view
Jaipur – Elephant Painting
Jaipur – Chasing birds!
Jaipur – Amber Fort Snake Charmer
Jaipur – Amber Fort
Jaipur – Amber Fort
Jodhpur “The Blue City”
Jodhpur – Goofin at the Fort
Jodhpur – Sparklers!
Jodhpur – View of the Temple
Bad Kitty
One day in Pushkar, I had to do math, but I could play Goat Simulator for 15 minutes first. When my timer rang, I was going to do math. Then I realized that our room had no internet connection. So I got all of my stuff together, then I opened the door. There was a cat sitting right outside the door. The cat ran in the room, then jumped up on my parents’ bed, and laid down. I picked her up and carried her out of the room. She followed me back in the room and crawled under the couch. I chased her out from under the couch, then she climbed under my parents’ bed. I chased her out from under there, then she laid on my bed. So I picked her up and carried her far away before I put her down. How stubborn she was! The process repeated, but she came back yet again. It took five times before I could finally get out without having to hassle with the cat. Then I couldn’t find the lock. I found the lock, packed up, locked the door, and then the cat followed me almost all the way to the steps. When I got up there I tried so hard to remember the Wi-fi passcode. After I got connected to the network, it was not strong enough for schoolwork.
Round the World Kid 