Gwalior Day 1
Wed 14 January
14.01.2009 - 14.01.2009
21 °C
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Bannisters in India
on bannfam's travel map.
Room very quiet, lovely sleep. Intermittent bell sounds in the morning, turned out it was a man (resident holy man?) using the palace's shrine. Sound of the city wafting in, was very hazy. Great buffet for breakfast but we are paying for it. Some pictures around the palace
and then out into real India, picked up an auto to the western gate of the Gwalior Fort, then walked, amazing Jain sculpture carved into the rockface, some of them huge.
Some guys doing some cleaning of the sculptures, using toothbrushes. Funny little guy latched onto us but in the end not a tout. Got up to the Palace end. Cheeky little kid practising his tout skills on us, he was fun. Looked in the museum first, lots of parts of sculptures. Group of students latched onto Oliver. Wanted to take a picture of all of us with them but Oliver saw it was only a closeup of us.
Palace had quite good remnants of blue and yellow tiling left on the exterior, rows of ducks, crocodiles, tigers, elephants.
Beautifully carved cortyards and two levels underground.
Walked down the eastern side and auto to a market where the hotel lady had told us about. It was around the Lashkar PO, finally found the henna person. Amelia got her hands done.
Back to hotel, had to go back through security check.
Had dinner in otel with live sitar and tabla, yound players. Loverly atmoshhpere, biryani great but not worth te markup. Oliver and I did have home-made Kulfi which came in pattery pots.
Took some night palace shots, very atmospheric.
Posted by bannfam 18.01.2009 02:50 Archived in India Tagged family_travel
