Ahila's travel highlights

A huge courtyard adjoining the harem of Akbar's palace in Fatehpur Sikri was where the Emperor entertained and was entertained by musical performances. The legendary Tansen performed for the Emperor here, while the queens watched from their specially designed windows in their part of the harem. The platform where Tansen performed is surrounded by water, and was said to have been filled with jasmine and surrounded by lighted lamps during his performance.

Akbar was very fond of music and while having given patronage to musicians, Tansen was the only one considered to be one of the nine jewels of his court. The legend has it that fellow musicians jealous of his skill and favour that he had found in Emperor Akbar's court tried to oust him by asking the Emperor to make him sing the Deepak Raga, which if properly sung was thought to cause all things to burn, including the singer. Tansen is said to have sung it and while some stories say he died in the effort, others say that he survived the trial by asking a fellow singer to sing the raga that evoked rains simultaneously.

The best part of the trip was the scenic drive from Jodhpur to Udaipur. I highly recommend this drive to all visitors to Rajasthan. The drive takes you through rustic villages, through beautiful mountains where there was an adivaasi settlement for a long time.

We stopped at a durry weaver's cottage near the famous Jain temple to buy a small hand-woven carpet for INR 600, though we had never planned to buy one nor even heard of a durry weaver before visiting that cottage. We didn't bother to haggle over the price quoted as it was genuine hardwork from a dying tradition in that state.

Sikandara, the resting place of Emperor Akbar, was a beautiful mausoleaum in red sandstone and surrounded by well-maintained lawns which had deers roaming in the park. We walked into the tomb, after removing our shoes at the entrance. It was a dark passage and we followed some other tourists going inside. The passage became darker and darker as we went further inside and we were a bit uncomfortable. We reached the inner tomb, where Akbar was buried and it was pitch black. I admit both of us felt scared. I don't know why but the place felt as if there was a lingering presence. We decided that we would turn back without going around the tomb. As we turned, a loud out-of-the earth voice called out 'Allah-u-akbar'. We stopped in our tracks, stunned. Though I reasoned out that there must be a recorded voice activated by someone stepping over some particular stone or touching a wall, it felt unearthly. There, we were fleeing the tomb of Akbar the Great, scared of ghosts and a voice tells us that 'God is great' and is omnipresent.

Our fear relieved, we took a nice walk around the premises. There certainly is an atmosphere of calm in that place and more importantly, the feeling of some being present in that tomb. I recalled from my history lessons as a child, that Akbar was renowned for his generosity and his just attitudes towards his subjects. I decided that I liked best Sikandara from all the places I had seen upto then in the two days we had been in North India.

The guide's story on Qutb Minar was that Prithviraj Chauhan, the ruler of Delhi had started building the structure for his wife, so that she could pray to the sun and also have a view of the River Yamuna, but he had only reached the first floor, before the invading army took over and their dynasty collapsed. The remaining structure was then completed by Qutb-ud-din. The UNESCO website on the other hand mentions in their brief description about the place that Qutb-ud-din only finished construction up to the first floor, before he passed away and that it was subsequently built by others.

An incomplete structure stands opposite the Qutb Minar, known as the Alai Minar and our guide mentioned that Alai-ud-din had been jealous of the Qutb Minar and had wanted to build his own bigger and better minar and had started the construction but had passed away, by the time he reached the first floor. Odd, all three people I have mentioned here seems to have died after the construction up to the first floor.

UNESCO mentions that the site was completed from the stones of 20 Brahman temples. The evidence lies in the pillars of the ruins and the stones at the site. Our guide put forth an argument for the Hindu origins of the site by pointing at the hindu bells carved on the pillars, the sanskrit inscriptions, the main gate facing the north as opposed to Muslim practice of constructing doors facing Mecca.

An interesting iron rod stood in the middle of the ruins, tall and upright and looking strong. The guide said that it had been part of the older Hindu temples in the place and that no-one had been able to remove it. He said that whoever tried to take it out, died in the effort. This had finally led to people giving up and letting the rod be.

We walked amongst the ruins and came to the Alai Darwaza, a doorway built by Alai-uddin so that he could have a royal passage to visit the mosque. It was a nice doorway and we passed through it to go to the gardens at the back. The old dome had been hit by lightning and a dome was constructed by a British engineer during the British rule. This newly constructed dome of the Minar, however was considered unsightly and removed and placed on the lawn.

The Qutb Minar is a place for good filming experiments as each angle would give an exquisite shot of the same place.

The next day, we were to experience a 10km. dog-sledge ride through the woods and have a traditional lunch in a traditional Sami hut. Our guide was to pick us up from the guesthouse we were staying at in the town of Kiruna. It was a pretty comfortable guesthouse, with self-catering facilities.

In the morning, we got up looking forward to the dog-sledge ride. The guide came in his van to pick us up. The van had a trailer attached to its back. Barking could be heard from within. So the dogs had already been brought along. I realised I wouldn’t get the chance to see the cute Siberian Husky puppies, shown on the guide’s webpage. There were also four other tourists, who were from Netherlands.

We drove for quite some time and as we left the town behind, the dogs started howling with excitement. When the van stopped at Kurravaara, they were beside themselves. The guide got out and handed us our thermal suits. We had opted to use the guide’s suits as our winter jacket felt a bit mushy from the previous day’s adventure out in the cold. The bright orange suits seemed flimsy and smelly and I felt that I was better off in my old jacket but there was no time to change back. The guide was letting the dogs out of their cages to be harnessed to the sledge and was deciding on the order that the dogs would follow for the day and he was handing out a dog to each person to handle. We were told to hold on to the dogs no matter what. All were whining and barking behind their cages. One cage door was opened and out flew my dog. There was no leash and I had to hold onto the collar. My dog was too spirited to be confined by the hand of a stranger. It flew off down the road, with me running to keep up and shouting for it to stop. I finally managed to pull the collar up a bit and the dog suddenly stopped and of course, I fell down into the snow. This amused my dog and he or she thought I was playing and started to play, jumping and trying to bite me, albeit playfully. One of the Dutch tourists came to my aid. I was very much embarrassed because everyone else had their dogs calm and quietly by their sides.

The dogs were then harnessed to the sledge. We were told that we had to win the dogs’ respect by showing them who was in control and if that key message is missing, the ride would turn out a total disaster. Two of the Dutch tourists had requested to ride their own sled, while the rest of us had opted for the guide’s sledge. We were not too confident of our mastery over the dogs. Least of all me. For the benefit of the two adventurous sledge-riders and for our general knowledge, the guide took us through the basic points of dog-sledge rides.

• Always use a tone that is friendly but firm.
Never be harsh. You wouldn’t like to be ordered about, would you? So wouldn’t the dogs. Never be too soft, either. Dogs spot weaknesses and if they think you are too pliable, they will lose respect for you and will not listen to your command.

• Always reward them with an encouraging word, after they have followed a command.
You like to be recognized for a job well done. So do they.

• Always acknowledge the leader of the pack.
Egos are fragile. If you disregard the leader, the rest of the dogs will follow suit. And, then your team will disintegrate and that’s the end of a ride.

• Always act upon perceived misdemeanour.
If you see a dog disrupting the team movement or trying to incite another dog, act upon it immediately. Make the whole team stop. Give a word of warning to the disruptive dog. If you let it pass, the dog will perceive your move as acceptance and continue disrupting and this may erupt in total mayhem.

With these words of wisdom, we began our ride. I can only describe the movement as akin to a roller coaster ride. Apart from the numb sensation that I felt in my entire body and icicles forming near my nose and mouth, I only recall a mad dashing through snow-covered woods, too fast to enjoy the beauty of the landscape and too cold to enjoy the ride. I only wished we would reach the hut quicker. My head had begun to hurt. I guess I have low levels of tolerance for the arctic cold or I was not warmly dressed. Finally, the sled stopped. To my dismay, I saw no hut but an expanse of snow all around. Were we going to have lunch in the open? I could not stand another moment in the cold.

The guide told us that this was as far as the dogs would take us. From here, we would continue on our own to the hut. What about the dogs? We were going to tether the dogs to a rope nailed in the snow. The dogs were tired so it was easier tethering them to the rope. The guide had dug a small hole in the snow in front of each dog and we were asked to pour the contents of a bowl, filled with dog food, into the hole in front of each. After feeding the dogs, we walked on, until we came to a little river. Actually, it was a big river: the River Torne but we were walking over its frozen parts. The hut was on the other side of the river. How were we going to get across? The guide pointed to a small dinghy, covered by snow. He un-tethered it and pushed it slowly to the edge of the flowing river. Slowly he lowered himself in and taking three people at a time with him, he paddled to the other end and back. The other end seemed like a small island. It had trees beautifully covered with snow. There was snow all around. Our feet buried itself in the soft snow and we smudged our way through the woods and reached a tiny hut, made out of what looked like roots. Circular in shape and having a conical roof. This, our guide informed us was the traditional Sami hut, made of birch poles and covered with sod, and there we would be having our lunch. We could either have a nice walk and explore our surroundings and come back for lunch, or sit in the hut while he cooked lunch. The four Dutch tourists immediately set off. My travel partner and I were simply too cold and so we went into the hut with the guide. It was dark inside and I put my foot down and stumbled headlong into the tiny room. I had missed the step. A dirty looking bed occupied a narrow space. We walked past the bedroom, into another small space that constituted of the dining room. It had a small wooden table against the wall and two wooden benches on either side. A candle holder stood on a wooden stand in the middle. There were a couple of books on a tiny wooden bookshelf.

Our guide offered to make us some hot tea and we gladly acquiesced. He went into the kitchen, adjacent to the dining area and lit the small stove and boiled some water. We sat on a wooden bench leaning against the birch poles holding up the roof. He measured some tea leaves into a pot and placed two large wooden mugs in front of us. When the water had boiled, he poured the water into the pot and brought the pot to the table and poured us some tea. Then he returned to his cooking and pulled out a sack and took out some potatoes. From another huge brown bag, he measured out some dark nuggets. We asked him what it was. Smoked reindeer meat. It was the Sami staple food. Our guide informed us that it was a banned delicacy and could not be exported out of Lapland. As the reindeers were dwindling in population, they could only be consumed by the locals. I thought of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, my first introduction to a reindeer in my childhood and here I was going to have its meat for lunch. My inclination for vegetarian food aside, I was not comfortable with trying out the meat of a large animal and that too, a reindeer and Santa Claus’ friends. He started cooking and the warmth of the stove and the smell of spices made us feel really comfortable and pretty hungry soon.

The group from Netherlands returned from their walk and we chatted over boiled potatoes, eaten with reindeer meat and gravy in little wooden bowls and hot, steaming cups of tea. Our aurora watch, the previous night, was heard with much interest by our new acquaintances and they decided to look out for the aurora during their visit to the ice hotel that evening. They were planning on staying overnight at the ice hotel. It was a pleasant lunch and we were loath to end our conversation but the guide decided it was time for us to return. We went back on the dinghy and we could hear the howls and barking of our dogs, who were really glad to see us. The poor fellows must have really frozen in the cold and being unable to run about to keep warm, as they were tethered to a spot. It was around 2p.m. in the afternoon and it was almost completely dark. We drove back to Kiruna and were dropped off at the station for our return train to Stockholm.