Well, hopeless for Virgin to turn Julie away. All the advice i received here in India is that if she had managed to get to Delhi, she would have been fine. We have usually been very happy with Virgin, just this once they did not behave as I would have expected. Anyway, a useful warning to all the seasoned travellers who come with us.
Well missing Julie, but managing to take a few photos. Jaipur at this time of year is amazing. It is about 30 degrees but with a dry heat ... perfect. The Elephant festival is the day before Holi. While I was a little concerned that the Elephant festival was just for tourists; it is really for the Indians. Amazing scenes with 95 Elephants parading around. Painted trunks, tails and toenails!
The guys riding the Elephants (and there are no Woman, aside from a token bride) are performers. As you can see, this one was throwing flowers in the air, riding an elephant and looking pretty cool. However the dancers were also very impressive with their skills.
Even the toes of some of the Elephants were painted. In this case a rose pink from Chanel
Why do I like India so much? Just about everyone likes having their photo taken. Combine that with the colour and food and it is a place that is hard to beat.
Finally, I will leave that to the Elephants ....
Adam
Jaipur Elephant Festival - 28 February 2010
Holi Holi No Holi Saturday Feb 27, 2010
Q: When is a multi-entry visa not a multi-entry visa?
A: When it's an Indian multi-entry and you use it more than once!
Caught out badly at Heathrow last night. It seems India has introduced a new rule two weeks ago preventing you from returning on your multi-entry visa to India within a two month period unless you have an interview and get some sort of certification from the Indian authorities (although the specifics of this given by Virgin were a bit vague). I returned from India in mid January so my Indian visa with 4 months remaining validity was actually not valid again until mid March.
Pretty disastrous for me, Adam OK as he was traveling on a new visa obtained since our January trip. So a well planned 5 day shoot of the elephant festival and Holi festival on Feb 28 and March 1 coinciding with Adam's 50th birthday was shot down in flames, for me at least. Adam got away fine and he will hopefully have a colourful March 1 and get some shots including the ones I was going to take!
You would think any of the airlines would be emailing passengers who have bought Indian tickets from them to warn them of this change. I am certainly getting a ton of sales emails from the airlines currently, looking after existing sales is equally important, perhaps more so. Virgin especially surprised me, given how good their service is typically. The Heathrow staff were specifically looking in passports for old stamps indicating prior visits to India, it wasn't random. Yet they hadn't thought to email passengers, can you work that out??? The cost is one thing (flight, lens hire, waterproofing) but the lost experience is the biggest cost. Boo Virgin and Boo Flight Centre.
Julie and Adam (from London and Jaipur respectively!)
Have a great weekend.
India; an explosion of colour - 8 February 2010
Well, here is a short slideshow of shots that bring us many good memories. Without question, India is one of the places where people love to have their photographs taken!
Enjoy
Julie and Adam