India: Enjoying your visit while leading a group tour

by Judith Anshin, Contributing Editor

Having visited India before, I decided to try a customized tour on my journey to the country last year. In the fall of 2003, I had worked with Nino Mohan, owner of Worldview Tours (Newport Beach, CA; phone 800/373-0388), on arrangements for a visit (see Sept. ’04, pg. 6 & Oct. ’04, pg. 60) and was impressed with his efficiency, so when he suggested I form a tour group through the travel club I lead, I decided to give it a try.

Forming one’s own tour group to visit a country can be hard work, but it’s rewarding in so many ways. With Nino’s help, I spent more than six months setting up our November itinerary for India, including the price, hotels and things to do in each place.

The benefits of being a leader

Once we had the details set, I began publicizing the tour. Ultimately, Nino came to Sacramento and made a fabulous PowerPoint presentation that resulted in a majority of the tour signups. My expenses for publicity were less than $100.

The main benefit of being the tour leader was that my tour was free if I could arrange a group of 10 paying passengers. If I could book 15, it would include a single hotel room (otherwise, I was prepared to pay the single supplement myself). I paid extra to fly business class, since I don’t do well in economy on very long flights.

Director duties

During the tour I had work to do, but it was not burdensome. At each hotel I had to make sure the group got proper rooms (such as a first-floor room for one participant whenever there wasn’t an elevator) and that the rooms were satisfactory. Making sure all the bags were present on arrival and departure and getting the bags properly marked with room numbers for delivery to the rooms were other chores.

Keeping the group informed of plans and departure times and generally being the conduit between the local guide and the group was sometimes challenging. And as Worldview Tours includes gratuities in the tour price, I was in charge of dispensing the tips. My biggest concern here was in keeping the money and hotel vouchers safe, so I utilized the hotel safes and room safes when they were available. However, I never felt concern about pickpockets in India when I had these items with me.

One important item to keep paramount in your mind when forming a tour group is the mix of travelers. People unaccustomed to traveling in developing countries or who expect American standards and are unable to “roll with the punches” can be vexing. Our tour was remarkably smooth, thanks to the experience and local connections of Worldview, but I have known travelers who had terrible problems with their tour operators. In that instance, the job of the tour leader would not be worth the free passage, in my opinion.

Udaipur

I had planned this tour for the first-time traveler to India, so it included many places in Rajasthan that tourists have always heard about. But I also included places I had a special interest in, such as the Ranakpur Jain Temple, Khajuraho and Varanasi.

Flying from San Francisco via Singapore, we started our tour in Delhi. After a full day of sightseeing there, the next afternoon we flew to Udaipur, a beautiful city situated on the banks of Lake Pichola in southern Rajasthan. In the middle of Lake Pichola sits a former Maharaja’s palace, now a famous and much-photographed hotel.

At one end of the lake sits the Jag Mandir Palace, which is extremely beautiful at sunset. It too sits on an island and covers four acres, with beautiful marble structures. Many people will recognize it from the James Bond movie “Octopussy.”

Udaipur also has a wonderful City Palace, much of it beautifully restored, but I found the Jag Mandir Palace more pleasing to my tastes.

Udaipur is famous for miniature paintings, and we visited a shop for a demonstration of the art. Many paintings are done on silk, using brushes made from hairs from the tails of chipmunks, and every year in May and June the hairs are gathered from the chipmunk dens in the surrounding hills. A brush may have as few as one hair!

Knowing the steps involved in creating these beautiful paintings, I found the prices to be extremely reasonable.

In the same shop, we were shown an intricately carved sandalwood sitar about 26 inches high that was one of the most incredible pieces of carving I have ever seen. It took one year to carve the piece, which was priced at $3,850 — a modest price for a piece of such beauty and intricacy.

Respect for life

Our visit to the Ranakpur Jain Temple the next day was something I had been looking forward to for many months, and I was not disappointed. Jain followers do not believe in a supreme being but believe that God can be found in the pure, human traits of everyone. Their most important principles are nonviolence and respect for all life. For example, before they sit or kneel on the ground, they brush away any ants or insects that they might otherwise crush.

The temple is situated in a somewhat remote area because a very famous guru lived there; his followers built the temple to honor him. Constructed of white marble, it contains 1,444 pillars and no two are alike. The marble is extensively carved, sometimes looking like lace, and it is exquisitely beautiful. The temple grounds, with 29 halls, five spires and 20 domes, cover 40,000 square feet. Enclosing the temple on all four sides are 86 chapels.

To enter the complex, visitors must remove their shoes and leave anything made of leather, plus cigarettes, outside. One could easily spend a full day exploring the temple complex and shoot many rolls of film in an attempt to capture its beauty.

On the drive to Jodhpur that afternoon, we stopped to visit a Bishnoi tribal village. The Bishnoi date back more than 450 years, and they are environmentalists in the fundamental sense. They are strict vegetarians, so deer roam unharmed around their villages, which are always away from towns and other villages.

They do not cut trees for fuel, using only dry or dead wood and cow dung for cooking and heating. Oil and kerosene are used for lighting, and rainwater is stored in tanks. In times of drought, water can be brought out from the nearby towns.

Our visit went too quickly, and we left as night fell and the women began to cook dinner.

Jodhpur and Jaisalmer

Jodhpur and Jaisalmer were the next two stops. Both have forts, and while Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh Fort has a striking setting on an enormous hill overlooking the city and is beautifully restored, I preferred the “living fort” in Jaisalmer.

Inside the walls live 25% of Jaisalmer’s population. A warren of narrow streets, each one more interesting than the last, the city also has a large number of havelis, or mansions, built by wealthy businessmen of the past. We visited one of a group of five built by brothers; all were beautifully carved with filigree, screened windows, pavilions and balconies and are still inhabited today. The art of carving stone is still alive, so newer buildings are also adorned with the detailed cutwork.

Outstanding beauty

We continued on to the Pushkar Camel Fair which, while crowded and noisy, was a visual feast. The brightly colored women’s saris and men’s turbans, with camels everywhere you looked, made for a photographer’s dream. Some travelers do not realize that this is a religious festival, with many pilgrims coming to bathe in Pushkar Lake, said to have been created by Lord Brahma.

Jaipur and Agra were wonderful stops for our group. I had visited Jaipur two years before but on this visit had time to wander the local streets and markets.

This was my third visit to the Taj Mahal but my first at sunrise, and it was well worth getting up at 5 a.m. The luminosity of the marble in the rising sun is more beautiful than at midday.

Another stop at Agra, at a small private museum of 3-dimensional embroidery by an artist called Shams, was again a result of Nino Mohan’s friendship with the owners. Shams had started each work by sketching the subject, then embroidering it in several thicknesses of cotton thread until the proper depth was reached. Using fibers from silk threads in the desired colors, he then twisted them into a single thread which was embroidered over the cotton threads.

The stitches were remarkably uniform and the works, unparalleled. I was literally moved to tears by the artistry and beauty of the embroideries and the dedication of the artist.

One large piece (8'3"x6'3") of Jesus as the shepherd of a flock of sheep took 6,570 days, or 18 years, to complete! For his wife, Shams created a bouquet of flowers in a vase with semiprecious stones embedded in the embroidery. It stands 7'9"x5'9" and took 4,170 days, or nearly 12 years, to complete.

Before he lost his eyesight from the extremely delicate work, Shams produced pieces for the U.S. Government. He presented the official Seal of the President of the United States to President Johnson in 1966, and in 1976, in honor of the bicentenary of America’s independence, he presented President Ford with an embroidered portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which is currently preserved in the National Museum in Washington, D.C.

Khajuraho

The temples at Khajuraho are located in an out-of-the-way area and have been on my must-see list for many, many years. After all the years of expectations, I feared I would be disappointed, but they were even better than I had anticipated.

Much of the pleasure in seeing the temples came from the quality of the guide we had. Anu has a B.A. and an M.A. in Asian art, is writing a book on Khajuraho and doesn’t usually guide groups — except for those from Worldview Tours. Normally, he is a private guide for VIPs such as the director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anu started our visit to the Western Group of Temples with a 35-minute lecture on the history of the temples, which are on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list. The Eastern Group is smaller, but the temples are just as nicely preserved and beautifully carved.

There were 85 temples built originally, but only 22 survive. Muslims and Mughals plundered many, and at the end of the 13th century the king left ahead of a Muslim invasion. He asked his followers to leave also, and by the end of the 15th century the jungle had overgrown what temples remained.

In 1838 a British soldier discovered them, and in 1852 British Army Captain T.S. Burt started saving the temples, forming an archaeology department which helped preserve them.

Mainly built over a century (circa 1000), Khajuraho boasts a fusion of styles, including Dravidian and Greek. No cement or glue was used in the construction; instead, there are joint holes and projections, like mortises and tenons. The site was chosen because there is a lot of granite in the area; indeed, the temples are built on natural platforms of standing granite, and it is an earthquake-free area.

While often called the erotic temples, only 5% to 10% of the total carvings on the temples can be classified as such. In Hinduism, sex is not stigmatized but is seen as necessary for life, so erotica is not uncommon in Indian art. Very fine examples can be found on the main Lakshmana Temple, which is dedicated to Vishnu.

The temple dedicated to Shiva, Kandariya-Mahadev, represents the Himalayas. With 84 peaks and spires, it is the highest Hindu temple in central India. It is also lavishly carved both inside and out.

Whether erotic or not, the stone carvings at Khajuraho are incredibly detailed. Folds of fabrics are easily recognizable, as well as jewelry and other ornaments and items used in daily life. The animals depicted are equally detailed and lifelike. While we spent about two hours examining these carvings, they were so intriguing that I was unaware of the passage of time.

On the Ganges

Our last stop on the tour was Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges River. In the city suburbs is Sarnath, where Buddha preached after he reached enlightenment at Bodhgaya. The nearby museum is one of the better small museums I have ever seen, with wonderfully preserved statues and artifacts.

We walked among the ruins at Sarnath during dusk, as monks were lighting candles and the fog was starting to descend. The atmosphere had a mystical quality to it, and it left me with a feeling of warmth and joy.

Dawn on the Ganges the next morning was also a moving experience. Walking about four blocks to the waiting boat, I watched the city come alive with many people making their way to the Ganges. At least once during their lifetime, Hindus are each supposed to visit Varanasi and bathe in the Ganges. The dead are also brought here to be cremated, their ashes scattered in the river.

Once on our boat, we found our guide had arranged for two young girls to sell us offerings to float on the river. The small bowls made of a thick waxed paper held a small oil lamp in the center and a ring of marigolds. Each of us made a wish and floated our offerings on the Ganges.

The air was rather chilly at this time of the morning, so the pilgrims bathing and swimming in the river must have been quite cold. For all of us it was quite a sight to behold, so different from anything we were used to.

The cremation sites along the banks were in use, and we saw two bodies wrapped in saffron-colored cloth waiting to be cremated. I felt uncomfortable looking at the bodies, as if I were violating their privacy in some way.

Our entire group was rather quiet while on the river, as the religious importance of what we were seeing modulated our usual boisterousness. In many ways it felt as if we were in church, so respectful tones were appropriate.

Our tour encompassed 22 days and nine cities plus Ranthambore National Park, where we did not see a tiger, unfortunately, and a few other places along the way, so for the first-time visitor to India it presented a good cross section of what this wonderful country has to offer.

Our trip was wonderful. There were so many terrific extras resulting from the fact that Nino and his company are widely known and respected in India.

This was my third trip to India, and I know it won’t be the last.