Sarkhej Roza

Looking at Sarkhej Roza across the lake.

Panorama of Central Courtyard

Last Sunday we went to a place called Sarkhej Roza. It's a mosque/mausoleum surprisingly close to where we live that has been built beside an artificial lake near the King's and Queen's summer palaces. We learned about this place from our India tour book which suprisingly has just a few sentences on it. We were a little concerned about going after the bomb blasts but we looked and didn't have to go anywhere near downtown and we decided that if it was crowded we would just come home. As it turned out, it was almost empty.

Looking out from inside. The walls were beautifully carved.

It was amazing. There is a courtyard surrounded by buildings. The buildings have domes in the center where the tombs are and a columned area around the domes. In the columned area of the main building, it looked like there are grave markers for what we guess were wives of the king. It was hard to tell because everything was in either Hindi or Gujarati, I don't know which. With two of the domed areas, Verenell and I couldn't go in but Jason could. We could go in the third one though because it is where the queens were buried. It was kind of funny because the last building we went in happened to be the library where there was a guy who showed us around a bit and told us about the place. It occurred to us that it would have made more sense to go there first but oh well.

One of the coffins with the dome above it. The tombs are all covered by beautiful cloths.

This place recently began having renovation work performed. It looks really good but we can see where more work needs to be done.

Approach under monument (refer to panorama above) to main tomb

There are porches off the mosque and tombs where we could look out over the lake and see the summer palaces. When we were done, we braved the stairs down to the water and walked around the lake to where the summer palaces are.

The King's and Queen's summer palaces.

While walking around the lake, a group of boys started to follow us. They were really helpful in holding back the weeds so we could get down the steps to the water and loved asking us what our names are and where we are from.

The boys following Vernell and I.

Boys looking at us from the Queen's Palace.

As we walked, people started showing up on the top of the walls and palaces to see us going by. We had quite an audience.

As we were walking back, Jason took a picture of the boys. They loved posing and rushed to look at the picture when he was done. It was really cute.

Getting there was a little bit of an adventure. We took a rickshaw. When we found one, we asked if the driver knew where this place was. He said yes and started driving in the wrong direction. After a little bit, he pulled over and asked a car driving by where to go and then we went in the right direction. Then coming back we found a group of rickshaw drivers and men and talked to them to see about getting back home. They all seemed to have ideas about how to get to where we live. Jason had drawn a map and eventually we found a guy who could read the map and was able to tell the guy who ended up driving us where to go. Apparently, Indians love giving directions and won't admit if they don't know where something is.

Driving home we saw these people and it struck us as quintessential India

This post also illustrates a change in our attitude about India that while there are amazing places to see and fabulous craft items to purchase it is really the quality of the people that we love. Everyone has been friendly, considerate and helpful, those we know and those we just meet. Everyone here has an interesting story and is happy to talk and learn about us as well. In our memories the nice tour guide we met and the young boys helping us around the lake and talking to us with their limited english will be as memorable as the richly decorated tombs and mosque.