An Expedition North

I’ll start off by saying that North tour was amazing.  It truly was a fantastic trip full of experiences I will remember for the rest of my life.  Though I feel like I say this quite frequently, that just means I’m having a valuable exchange.  Nevertheless, this trip was above and beyond my everyday life-changing ordeal.  Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I mentioned this trip beforehand so, for anyone wondering, that’s what I was up to for two and a half weeks of late February and early March.

As is the norm, we started off the trip with a long train ride and arrived in Delhi the next day.  Delhi is a lot like Washington D.C. in that it is the nation’s capital and resides in its own state.  We started the trip off with a bang and headed straight to the famous Lotus Temple.  It is the most well-known modern temple in India and is renowned for its beauty and unique shape (you guessed it, lotus flower).  For a building with such a stunning exterior, the inside was remarkably simple – a mostly empty area with chairs and space for quiet reflection and prayer, encompassed by plain, white walls.  This is probably an effort to reflect the minimalist nature of the Baha'i faith, for whom the temple was built.  What I understood of their beliefs is that they focus on the spiritual unity of mankind, claiming that all religions are based on the same God who created the universe and all humans.  I believe they also are pushing for world peace by uniting all countries.  Some interesting ideas at least.

After the Lotus Temple we visited some of the other major attractions of Delhi including the Gate of India and Qutub Minar.  The latter was an interesting site which claims a famous tower as well as the oldest solid pillar in the world.  It is made of a mixture of metals and was created using technology not developed elsewhere until centuries later.  Though it is not too much to look at, you cannot argue that it is not impressive.

The next morning we rose early and took another train to Rishikesh (Roo-she-kesh), a city located on the sacred Ganges River.  Many people come to Rishikesh to wash themselves in the water and line the river to participate in the religious ceremonies each day.   We walked along the shore and could not resist dipping our feet in the holy water (followed by a thorough scrubbing in the shower).  

The rest of our stay in Rishikesh contained slightly less traditional Indian culture and slightly more adrenaline.  We started the next morning off by going river rafting in the Ganges.  In two large, inflatable boats we braved our way down the river daring powerful rapids and waves that covered our entire vessel.  Several exhilarating hours later we finished our adventure sore, soaked, and ready to relax.  Naturally, we took the next day easy with only a little light bungee jumping.  I personally did not jump, but I thoroughly enjoyed the looks of pure terror on my friends’ faces at the moment they began their 83 meter (272 feet) plummet. 

The next day we went over to Agra to see India’s most famous edifice, the Taj Mahal.  Naturally there was a lot of anticipation and hype leading up to this moment, but it completely realized my expectations.  Despite paying 37.5 times more than an Indian citizen to see this amazing tomb, it was incredible.  You enter a tunnel leading through the enormous gate and the Taj hits you – framed by the dark end of the passageway the white marble is illuminated as you gaze on one of the most beautiful structures in the world.  Though everyone knows the Taj is magnificent from afar, only those who actually visit can fully appreciate its intricacies.  The Taj Mahal is built from marble and covered in colorful floral designs and Arabic texts, but the workers did not use any paint.  All ornamentation is composed of semi-precious stones inlaid into the marble.  To wholly give the workers due praise, this means that each small stone was carved by hand to perfectly match the piece of marble cut out and held there with only a small amount of natural adhesive.  However, the most impressive testament to the level of workmanship is that when you rub your hand over the engravings you cannot feel the border between the different stones.  Only where the British carved away stones before fleeing a newly independent India are there any signs of imperfection.  The Taj truly deserves its status as one of the Seven Wonders. 

We stopped afterward at a marble-working store that uses the same techniques employed in the ornamentation of the Taj Mahal.  This increased my admiration of the process considerably.  Here they gave us a small sample of the work that went into constructing such a masterpiece.  Two workers sat on the ground one carving out the marble, the other sanding down the stones.  The store owner told us that even small works take two workers months of dedication to complete and showed us examples of finished products from pebble-sized elephants to entire dining tables.  I still consider this one of the most impressive pieces of culture I have witnessed, along with several other sites we visited during the remainder of this trip.