Day 10 and 11

Day 10

We went on a Delhi city tour and went to the super modern Lotus Temple. The whole temple was in the shape of a, well, lotus and was whiter that white. All around there was greenery, something rare in India. Tropical trees, trees from temperate countries and desert shrubs were all mixed up. It looked odd but I'm not complaining as all these contribute to fresh air! We said a prayer in the temple and left.

We then went to another relic site where a tall free-standing sandstone tower was. Again, the structure was like the Red Fort, as of all of the buildings built at that period. It was quite fun, as we clambered up and down some old rocks.

At night, we went to some light and sound display. It was quite boring. It was just lighting up some lights in the building and listening to a story. We were quite glad that we left as the weather was very cold.

Hell.

Day 11

The girls from Uttam School hosted us today. Personally, I found it quite fun. The parents of the girls picked us up from the school and we went to the girl's house to play. Haha. It was two boys to one host and me and my "partner" played a board game with the host girl before we had lunch. After a good lunch, which with luck, was not spicy, we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I pretended to watch. After all that, the host parents took us shopping and eventually to Shipra mall, the biggest mall in Ghaziabad. I spent down to my last rupee to buy some gifts and then returned to the school to bid a final farewell.

Then, it was off to the airport back to Singapore.

AND THAT, concludes out trip to USG, Ghaziabad, India.

Day 8 and 9

Day 8

Off to Agra! This will be the highlight of our trip to India as we were going to see the Red Fort and Taj Mahal. We took the train and the interior was susprisingly clean and new and we had a comfortable trip in the sleeper coach. Upon arrival, we went immediately to our new hotel, which was by Singapore standards, 3-star but at the time, it was way better than the motel-class hotel in Ghaziabad. The rooms were nicely furnished and we took a nice rest in our rooms (mine is a suite!) after our long journey on the road and railway.

Near death experience waiting for the train.

Suite sweet suite.

We saw the Red Fort first, which was rather like the castle of the rulers of the Moghul empire. The whole place was built in sandstone and we were greeted by a big gate which used to be surrounded by a moat - but now they emptied it and grew grass all around the fort. The view was very good, and from the place we entered the emperor used to ride with his army carrying the treasures he took away from conquering distant lands. The people of the city would climb up the red towers and throw flowers, with all the bands playing and pretty girls waving.

Back to reality. We then entered a big garden where a large stone vessel was displayed. The vessel hollowed out from a single large rock used to be the emperor's bath tub where he bathed in wine. His life was basically, extremely exorbitant. Architects at the time believed in duality and almost every structure there was another one mirroring it. The architecture was also rather like the Forbidden City, where you entered garden after garden, pavilion after pavilion. We also saw where the emperor did his administrative work, it was the only marble structure in the entire fort. In winter the walls were filled with hot water to ward off the cold and in summer, cold water. That was about it, the Agra Fort.

Back to the hotel for lunch. No continental stuff, still Indian cuisine.

We had a long rest all the way to 4 pm in the hotel till we visited the Taj! The Taj, being addressed as a female here as it was the tomb of emperor Shah Jahan's favourite wife, had a veil, like all the woman wore at that time. The veil took the form of a giant sandstone gate with inlaid marble and semi-precious stones. The artwork on the Taj was never painted on or carved on, created only from the collage on jewels. Inside, we finally saw the Taj Mahal, a true wonder of the world. It was every bit as beautiful as they saw as we saw the white marble turn pink in the sunset. This marble used to build the Taj was of the highest grade as it would change colour under different light, never get scratched, gets shinier with every touch and waterproof. My my, the price of true love. Haha.

If I had that kind of money...

Taj's veil.

The Taj's surroundings were as beautiful as the mausoluem itself; very well-maintained and everything. The thing I like most about the whole thing would be how meticulously the Indian government preserves this wonder; the surrounding area banned fuel engines and allowed only battery-operated vehicles, no shoes on the Taj or buy a shoe cover and security everywhere. The wonder was not damaged to the slightest bit and everyone was caught in the air of respect, never crossing anyone mind to vandalise the Taj or carve grafitti.

Day 8 was wonderful.

Day 9

We started the day by visiting our sick friends who spent the night in the hospital. They had a bad fever and had to go under drips. At the sight of us, they lighted up immediately and we had fun taking pictures of them. Haha. We moved on to another "excavation site" of India's many relics. It was the home of a Moghul emperor and the walk was quite nice. (Don't know what to say here) It was very much like the Red Fort. However, something we dreaded from the start of the trip finally hit us. I did not expect it to happen here, though at the Red Fort it did occur to us a little bit. These dealers who tries to force into our hands every bit of low-grade souvenirs that we practically do not want or already bought. Words fail me here to describle them, let's just say that they were beggars with a cause; but at least they were doing something to make a living.

A story: Here I was walking, minding my own business, and there came a horde of souvenir-desperadoes trying to sell something to me. Be it bead necklace, terribly made models of the Taj Mahal or postcards, they were all the same. Finally, I decided to buy postcards to ward these guys off. I need not walk far (or any further from the place I was "assaulted") before a young boy tried to sell me postcards. "Four for 100" (Four sets of postcards for 100 rupees - SGD3.8) I said, "Five for 100. Final." Along came a middle-aged man who pushed the boy away and said, "Five, I sell you." The boy incensed, cried, "I came first, six!" The middle aged man: "I sell you six! 100!" Then they started fighting. As I could watch on no longer (our group was leaving), I upheld justice and paid the boy, 100 for six. The last I saw of him was his triumphant look...

At night, we went to a marble emporium to buy models of the Taj. This emporium sold genuine marble and those who had bought beforehand discovered that theirs were fake.

REAL MARBLE: let light pass through
no powdery residue
cannot be scratched by a wooder plank

second biggest taj in the world

Of course, all this came with a price.

Day 7

Today was a special day as we vistited the Akshardham temple. It is quite a modern temple; construction started in 2000 and ended in 2005, taking only five years to complete the entire structure out of sandstone, with all the complex artworks on it hand-carved. The grandeur of the temple was beyond comprehension. And the beauty of its vastness and at the same time, the intricate carvings commanded all respect. We feasted on the sight of the temple and gulped in every detail. And as we were told that there was no photography allowed, sadness took over us. Haha. But at least we bought a guidebook on the temple with every aspect of it photographed.

First, we went for boat ride in the temple. It was not a real one, obviously. We journeyed through time on a boat with wheels, looking at the history of India from the very beginning. It seems that the very first idea of trigonometry, "Pythagoras" theorem, aviation and plastic surgery originated from India. It was just that nobody "patented" it and passed on history from word of mouth until primary history sources were found. The experience left all of us very open to new ideas and taught not to be definitive on anything in history as anything could be possible.

Along the way, someone puked in the temple after the boat ride.

After some cleaning up, we moved on to watching a movie in an "imax" theatre. We saw the inspirational journey of Neelkanth Darshan on 85 by 65 feet screen. He left home at 11 to seek spiritual understanding and along the way, inspired many across India by his wisdom and understanding of what is right at just a tender age. His most wonderous story would be his time in the Himalayas, with no food and only a piece of loincloth covering him, he survived for 4 months. Though I know that would be seemingly impossible, it is his determination and strength that inspires, just like religions all around. Finishing the story of the child-yogi, we rushed to catch the musical fountain display (told you it was a modern temple). The fountain display was fine, the water and lights were choreographed to Indian music so we did not really understand it. Still, we enjoyed it, it whole show, water and all.

After all that, we were semi-drenched and feeling very cold. We finally moved in to the main temple, which was warm! There were many pieces of artwork, a gigantic Buddha in gold, many beautiful statues of the Hindu gods and most wonderfully, no incense! We totally enjoyed the walk in the glorious space of gold, with hundreds of gods in sandstone smiling down on us from the ceiling. We smiled soon after as they informed us it was time for dinner. (Not me, though, I was still dizzy that night of vomiting!)

Dinner was less exciting as the temple, so I will stop here as we returned to the hotel later. Day 7 ends. Or not, as we moved off to Delhi railway station at 3 early in Day 8 morning.

Day 5 and Day 6

For Day 5 and 6, the school organised a science symposium , so I will not break up the two days. This symposium was attended by lots of schools in Ghaziabad and many important people like scientists were there. On the first day of the symposium, we had competitions like drawing a ScienceToon or debate. Most signed up for ScienceToon and fared resonably well against the other schools. They were to draw cartoons on saving the Earth with green energy as that was the theme for the symposium. Sean and I signed up for the science debate: "Green Energy, a Myth?" and all I can say about our performance is that we are thankful nobody got anything on tape. The other schools received weeks before notification and thus were able to prepare while we had to do it on the spot. Excuses aside, we were truly dreadful.

A resounding voice crying out to save the Earth...

On the evening of the fifth night, we were introduced to the art of the Indian dance. India is a vast country, thus, Indian dance also takes on many forms in different regions. The teachers at Uttam School demonstrated three out of the six forms to us and it was interesting because each variation had different ways of showing a mood or expressing something. The unique thing about Indian dance is that the dancers had to wear the jingly thing on their ankles, like ankle bells.


Let's dance, baby!

After the dance demonstration, we went for stargazing. I had doubts about this from the very start and they were confirmed. Ghaziabad had a very bad haze and the sky was not at all clear for anything more than moon-gazing, which was what we eventually did. After the scientists set up an amateur telescope, we looked at the moon. It was interesting enough, as we have never seen the moon close up in our lives, seeing the craters and everything. We managed to squint at the most obvious star constellation, the Winter constellation, in which the stars formed an triangle. But all in all, it was sort of a letdown, which I had expected.

On Day 6, before we reached Uttam School for the second day of the symposium, we visited a school for the underpriviledged. Underpriviledged here means seriously underpriviledged, far far away from "underprivileged" in Singapore, or FAS or anything of those sort. The school grounds span 3m by 5m, sheltered by a tin roof propped up by twelve wooden poles. If that was bad enough, it was an improvement since they used to study under the tree until Uttam School decided to help out. Now they had a uniform and also textbooks to study, all donated by Uttam School. They sat on the bare ground and shoes to them were a luxury that they did not have. That, however, did not stop them from welcoming us with a dnace and a song. We interacted with them, though that would be an overstatement as it was the girls who did, not us. I could say that we were more shy than the underpriviledged.


Very solemn here.

After some disappointment from the teachers, we went back and around the school viewing the art pieces done by students as their means of saving the earth with green energy or energy conservation. It was quite a fun experience for us. However, my experiences were not so exciting as on the night of day 5 I was sick and vomited. Due to gluttony, I had to suffer at 2am in the morning and sort of repainted the hotel toilet. From day 6 onwards, everybody started falling ill.

We had lots of lectures on saving the earth in the near future and possible action plans were proposed on powerpoint by teams from each school. Our school presented an innovation project that went to the finals which was a concept clothes hangar. It was quite irrelevant but the judges were impressed by our flashy and animation-rich presentation.

Day 3 and Day 4

Day 4

We had a city tour around Ghaziabad today. Basically, we went around the city's temples, a Hindu temple, an Islamic mosque and a Sikh mosque. We learnt about the different gods Hindus worshipped and the going ons in the temples. We looked around, took part in saying some prayers and breathed in heavy incense. I did not find the temples all that interesting until the Sikh mosque, which got "deliciously" interesting. After the teacher at Uttam School explained to us the history of the city of Ghaziabad, we were offered two kinds of sweets. Sweets by Indian definition was not rock candy or chewables or anything of that sort, but rather cakes. The first type was a sticky, white ball and the other was a much larger orange ball. And as we popped the white ball into our mouths, our eager anticipation for treats turned our faces into a sickly shade of green. (or whatever colour your face turns into before you vomit) The white sweets, as it turned out were purely made of ghee and sugar. Ghee, mind, was cow fats churned from milk and there was so much sugar in those things that I was sure I had stepped onto the fast track towards diabetes. We forcibly shoved the sweets down our throats or else retched. The orange one was alright as it was made of coconut and other nuts.

Temples

At first, we were given a task of map reading and navigating around the city, but due to the fact that we were so ill-advised in this skill that the girls had to take over as we sat around. So after the girls plotted the map, we handed it in to the teacher to make it look like we did the work. Along the way, we had some good ice-cream, and then made our way to a big temple. It was grand in its own way. We took off our shoes for the upteenth time that day and visited the temple.

After a nice rest, we headed off to The Great Indian Place, which was a big shopping centre full of things that we could buy in Singapore. We did not find it very interesting though some of us did buy some clothes. We had dinner there and we ordered whatever we liked. I had pizza and it was okay. All of us were quite tired by the time we returned to the hotel, as bouts of discomfort hit certain members of the group, it signalled the start of something nasty laying ahead of us.


Big mall

Day 3
Okay, we are back from India and I am writing this at home. It's not our fault, the programmes were so packed there was no time at all to use the computers. Anyway, long story short, I will write the main events that happened each day and cut the part about the 3 hour bus rides.

The main thing we did in Day 3 was that we went to an adventure camp with the grade 9 girls. It was a really good camp. We woke up early and filled our stomachs with something light, then arrived at camp to have breakfast. We had eggs, spicy potatoes and other stuff. We started off with an ice breaking game of volleyball. The catch was that there was no ball. We passed an invisible ball to one another by calling who we wanted to pass to, and if we failed to come up with a name within 3 seconds then you were out. We did not really get to know the girls that well on the bus so both sides lost badly. It was quite funny. The two teams playing were Bala with Mr. Bala in this team and Nameless Wonders (because this team failed to come up with a name quickly enugh) and Mr. Tieu was in it. We were supposed to pass to a teammate first before passing the ball to the opponent, but somehow Mr. Bala kept screwing up by passing to Mr. Tieu on the first turn! We were laughing like mad.

The Campsite

Afterwards, we began with an obstacle course of rope bridges, tunnels, rubber tyres and such. I remember we had to crawl through a pipe and we were totally roughing it! The girls did not fare so well on the obstacle course as all the swing ropes and the height was a little intimidating. We boys got on fine and my favourite was crawling upside down on a rope. At first, I thought I could not acheive it but after trying it out it was quite easy! The only difficult thing about the obstacle course was stepping planks suspended by ropes. We could not get our balance and some of the heavier ones looked like they were on the ballet!

Breakfast

We crossed some seriously rough terrain with spiky creepers and steep rock. The creepers were really irritating and painful, and their spiky seeds clung hard to any fabric they came into contact with. Goats fared better than us. Mountain climbing was not rock wall, mind you. It was a real face of a small mountain. By the time, we finished, it was near dusk. I climbed and reached very quickly and was actually quite surprised as I was terrible at the rock wall. Guess it was different. The brave ones stayed back to do abseiling, which was to get back down by rope. Most decided to take a long walk to get down the mountain. Abseiling was a bit scary but I already had experience doing it, so it was okay. By the time the last guy was back down to earth, it was pitch black into the night. We took the coach back to the hotel, in the chilly night of Day 3.

Mr Bala and Mr Tieu



Me on the go

Day 1 and Day 2

Day 1

Today marks the start of our journey to India! All of us were excited and in high spirits. 3 pm was the time by which we have to be at Changi airport Terminal 1. Fortunately, none of us were late.

After having our plane tickets distributed to us, we checked in our luggage. The time of our departure was at 5 pm. Having 1/2hr before we checked in, most of us spent this time with our parents.

We boarded the plane at 5 pm. The airline in which we are flying with is Thai Airway. The less said about this the better, anyway.

The flight to Bangkok took 1hr 30 min. After that, we had our second flight to Delhi which is around 3hr 30 min; it was an ardous journey, mark you. (haha) We touched down in India at around 12.30am India time. Indira Gandhi International Airport had no ceiling for some parts, so the airport was not exactly great, but run-down. Most of us were exhausted and lethargic.It was a 2hr drive to our hotel. Our hotel was located in the market area of Ghaziabad and sadly not up-market. We were quite disappointed but none of us complained. After checking into our hotel, we did a quick wash-up before our headed for bed. We had to assemble at the hotel lobby at 8.30am and we needed to catch some sleep. Most of us slept at 4 am. We were extremely tired and thus slept rather easily. It was a mere 4 hr sleep before we had to get up and continue on the second day of our adventure. No complaints there!

Stampede at the airport.

Day 2

We are all geared up and ready to meet our hosts! All of us woke up early in the morning to dress up and took great care in grooming ourselves. In blazer, tie and all, we set off after a rushed breakfast on the school bus to USG. Upon arrival, we were greeted quite enthusiastically. We received a traditional welcome from the school, in the form of three cute girls putting a red dot on our hea, another giving us a handful of scented flowers and a garland of flowers. I t was rather interesting. After all the "formalities", we went to the school auditorium for a cultural tryst with SPIC MACAY.

SPIC MACAY

SPIC MACAY is a group whose mission is to spread the influence of Indian classical music to the world, regardless of race. We listened to the performance of a professional "cero" player (or something spelled like that). It was rather like an Indian version of the guitar. The special thing about Indian classical music is that at different times of the day, only specific melodies was to be played. Also, music is very individualistic, different players play music in their all styles, quite differently. They sometimes are even unable to recreate a piece they just played, so music was a very free expression. At first, I did not really enjoy the experience, as the mood of the music was hard to place. But as I listened on to the climax, it was actually very good, giving the feeling as if I had reached sudden clarity. That feeling is almost inexplicable.

Lunch with stars.

The performance was graced by the spokesperson for the Daniel Pearl foundation. This foundation believed in harmony in all humanity, achieved especially through music. The late Daniel Pearl died in violence while trying to spread the message of peace. His primary message was to let people understand the similarities between different races, rather than to scrutinise at the differences.

The music was rather long, so when it ended, it was time for lunch! We at South Indian cuisine, but it was somewhat different from the one wwe had in Singapore. Most of us was not used to it as it was very spicy and curry as pratically redefined to something we did not know at all! To the Indians, curry was like any sauce eaten with the main meal, there was even red bean curry. A few other odd dishes included sweetened rice vermicelli with coconut flakes. That's pudding for you in India, haha!

Does it look good?

After lunch, we had a really, really fun workshop for us. In preparation for an international community service started in California called Project Citizen, we learned how to identify problems in society and steps to overcome them. Through some genuinely fun activities, we learnt lessons that I am sure I will remember for a long time as we learnt in a interesting way. We had the workshop together with the girls and their English standard was very good. Us Hwachongians said things, not unintenlligently, but in dull, meagre vocabulary, whereas they spoke in a variety. I thought, "So much for being a top school in Singapore!"

USG

Following the workshop, we had sports games like golf, basketball and tennis. We were literally thrashed in basketball, as the girls in the basketball team were really good. We did not dare to block them, if you know what I mean. Personally, I took up tennis. It was a short but fun game as we got the basics right. The games only took half an hour to around 40 minutes before we were off to dinner. I could not remember exactly what we ate, but I remembered something sour. After that, we retired for the day in the hotel. That was Day 2.

Pre-trip reflection and preparation

Hi, on behalf of the other 19 students going for the Uttam, India student exchange programme, this is your webmaster, Zhihao writing. In 12 days' time, we will be departing for Uttam, India. As we are making our preparations for the trip, our fantasies of what it is going to be like are already forming in our heads. Basically, I am doing a bit of pre-trip reflections here.

Firstly, all of us are very excited. I do not think any of us volunteered this for fun or without any mental preparation. I would think it is because we wish for further exposure overseas, (widening our global perspective), in turn learning valuable lessons, experiencing a different culture and ever-so-importantly, making good use of our long holiday. Other than being excited of the prospect of visiting India, we are also nervous and slightly apprehensive as to whether we will be up to the mark of being Hwachongians, especially so in front of girls.

Certainly, we are not without fears. I, for one, am concerned with water in India. After reading travel guidebooks, it is said that the tap water there causes an ailment dubbed "Delhi Belly". People like us who are not used to water-before-reverse-osmosis-and-UV-light-purification will likely experience this if we are not careful. I mean, how do we get water if we are in places without supermarkets? To make sure that we are at the top of our health, we have to hydrate ourselves regularly. Our packing list emphasised Poh Chai pills, and that, makes me nervous.

But the biggest thought on my mind now is, 'are we up to the expectations of being able to embrace our hosts' cultural differences?'

I do not deny it - that my knowledge of India and her people is very limited. In preparation for our trip, I have read up on the places we will be visiting and what to expect.

This is a political map of India:



If it is too small, click on it and then zoom. We will be going to Uttar Pradesh, which means the Northern Province. (It is to the right of New Delhi.)

The state capital of Uttar Pradesh is Lucknow.

Map of Uttar Pradesh:



The UGS resides in Ghaziabad, which is really close to Delhi, and you can see it on the west of the Uttar Pradesh map. Most of the major sights we will be seeing is in Agra, south of Ghaziabad, namely the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort or Agra Fort.

maps courtesy of mapsofindia.com

:::The Taj:::
Shah Jahan, fifth of the Great Mughals*, was so devoted to his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal that he could not bear to be parted with her and insisted that she always traveled with him, in all states of health. While accompanying him on a military campaign, she died at the age of 39 giving birth to their 14th child. On her deathbed, it is said, that she asked the emperor to show the world how much they loved one another.

The grief-stricken emperor went on mourning for two years. He turned away from business of running the empire and dedicated himself from architecture, resolving to build his wife the most magnificent memorial on earth. On the right bank of the river Yamuna in full view of his fortress palace, it was to be known as the Taj-i-Mahal. (The Crown of the Palace).

According to the French traveller Tavnier, work on the Taj commence in 1632 and took 22 years to complete, employing a workforce of 20,000. The red sandstone was available locally but the white marble was quarried at Makrana in Rajasthan and transported 300km by a fleet of 1000 elephants. Semi-precious stones for the inlay came from far and wide: red camelian from Baghdad; red, yellow and brown jasper from Punjab; green jade and crystal from China; blue lapis lazuli from Ceylon and Afghanistan; turquoise form Tibet; chrysolite from Egypt; amethyst from Persia; agates from the Yemen; dark green malachite from Russia; diamonds from central India and mother-of-pearl from the Indian Ocean.

info courtesy Footprint India, 14th edition, Footprint Handbooks Ltd, October 2005



*more on them later

:::Agra Fort:::
This was originally a brick fort and the Chauhan Rajputs held it. It was mentioned for the first time in 1080 AD when a Ghaznavide force captured it. Sikandar Lodi (1487-1517) was the first Sultan of Delhi who shifted to Agra and lived in the fort. He governed the country from here and Agra assumed the importance of the 2nd capital. He died in the fort in 1517 and his son, Ibrahim Lodi, held it for nine years until he was defeated and killed at Panipat in 1526. Several palaces, wells and a mosque were built by him in the fort during his period.

After Panipat, Mughals captured the fort and a vast treasure - which included a diamond that was later named as the Kohinoor diamond - was seized. Babur stayed in the fort in the palace of Ibrahim. He built a baoli (step well) in it. Humayun was coronated here in 1530. Humayun was defeated in Bilgram in 1530. Sher Shah held the fort for five years. The Mughals defeated the Afghans finally at Panipat in 1556. Realizing the importance of its central situation, Akbar decided to make it his capital and arrived in Agra in 1558. His historian, Abdul Fazal, recorded that this was a brick fort known as 'Badalgarh' . It was in a ruined condition and Akbar had it rebuilt with red sandstone. Architects laid the foundation and it was built with bricks in the inner core with sandstone on external surfaces. Some 4000 builders worked on it for eight years, completing it in 1573.

It was only during the reign of Akbar's grandson, Shah Jahan, that the site finally took on its current state.

info courtesy of wikipedia



:::What to expect:::
Money

Rupee (Re/Rs)
Notes are in 1000, 500, 100, 50, 20 and 10 Rs.
Coins are in 5, 2, 1 Rs and 50, 25, 20, 10, 5 Paise.
1 Rs = 100 Paise

Conduct

Do not wear tight fitting clothes or ones that expose too much.
Be polite and patient on the streets with dealers or beggars when they are asking from you/having no sense of urgency. Bad temper will result in fights.

Use the right hand for eating when there is no cutlery. The left hand is associated with washing after toilet.

Do not touch or take pictures of women without their express permission as some conservative females can think of it as having sexual connotations.

Do not give in to dealers/beggars "looking sadly" at you to attack your confidence. Just be firm.