TONLE SAP, CAMBODIA

TONLE SAP,CAMBODIA
After a three day stay at Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia (now known as Kampuchea) we decided to go to Siem Reap and the Angkor Vat.
Three modes of transport were available for the trip.
BY ROAD:
Buses are excellent with toilet facilities and a short stop on the way.It takes about 6 to 7 hours. Very Cheap about 6$ per head. Taxis also run but are expensive and not very comfortable. Full taxi cost about 45$ and will carry four persons and will take about 4 to 5 hours. Negotiation is necessary. The more daring hire motorcycles for the trip. Time is at your disposal.
BY BOAT:
Distance from Phnom Phen to Sisowath Quay (jetty) for taking a ferry is about 10 kms. For most of the year (July - March) daily ferries ply the Tonle Sap River and Lake between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The end of the trip is marked by a hill, Phnom Krom, near the ferry dock at Chong Khneas 12 km south of Siem Reap. Costs about 25$ per head. The distance of 250 kms is covered in about 6 hours. Reasonably comfortable.
BY AIR:
Takes less than an hour. Costs about 100$. If you are short of time this is the best.We decide to take the boat. It left Phnom Phen at 07.30 and after a comfortable journey reached Chong Khneas jetty around 12.30hrs. We were picked up by ou guide and taken to our hotel about 12 kms away.
CHONG KHNEAS
Chong Khneas is the floating village at the edge of the lake closest and most accessible to Siem Reap. If you want a relatively quick and easy look at the Tonle Sap, boat tours of Chong Khneas are available, departing from the Chong Khneas boat docks all day long.
A two-hour boat trip through the floating village costs $6 and the boats may carry as many as 15 people. We engaged a separate boat for us. There are Vietnamese floating households, floating markets, clinics, schools, churches and even restaurants, a basket ball court, water treatment plant from where drinking water is supplied to the residents in boats. Chong Khneas, while interesting, is over crowded with tourists. The boat trip included two stops: one at a tourist floating 'fish and bird exhibition' with a souvenir/boutique and snack shop, and the other at the very highly recommended Gecko Environment Centre, which offers displays and information introducing the ecology and biodiversity of the lake area.
Cambodia's Great Lake, the Boeung Tonle Sap (Tonle Sap Lake,) is the most prominent feature on the map of Cambodia - a huge dumbbell-shaped body of water stretching across the northwest section of the country. In the wet season, the Tonle Sap Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, swelling to an expansive 12,000 Sq.km. During the dry half of the year the Lake shrinks to as small as 2500 Sq.km, draining into the Tonle Sap River, which meanders southeast, eventually merging with the Mekong River at the 'chaktomuk' confluence of rivers opposite Phnom Penh. But during the wet season a unique hydrologic phenomenon causes the river to reverse direction, filling the lake instead of draining it. The reason for this phenomenon is the Mekong River, which becomes bloated with snow melt and runoff from the monsoon rains in the wet season. The swollen Mekong backs up into the Tonle Sap River at the point where the rivers meet at the 'Chaktomuk' confluence, forcing the waters of the Tonle Sap River back upriver into the lake. The inflow expands the surface area of lake more than fivefold, inundating the surrounding forested floodplain and supporting an extraordinarily rich and diverse eco-system. More than 100 varieties of water birds including several threatened and endangered species, over 200 species of fish, as well as crocodiles, turtles, macaques, otter and other wildlife inhabit the inundated mangrove forests. The Lake is also an important commercial resource, providing more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia. In harmony with the specialized ecosystems, the human occupations at the edges of the lake is similarly distinctive - floating villages, towering stilted houses, huge fish traps, and an economy and way of life deeply intertwined with the lake, the fish, the wildlife and the cycles of rising and falling waters.
For three days each year the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh is home to Cambodia’s most famous sporting event. The Water Festival is held to celebrate the reversal of the waters back into the Mekong and normally takes place in October or November. Millions of people travel from the provinces to Phnom Penh so they can participate and watch the boat racing. Teams from every province and many villages compete against each other in canoe style boats that they make themselves and decorate to represent their homeland. During the first two days the boats race in pairs but on the third day all the boats join together for a mass race. The festival and the boat racing is all done in order to pay respect to the river God who in turn will provide the country with a plentiful bounty of fish and rice for the rest of the year.
Another interesting feature of the area was the floating rice crop. Peasants plant floating rice in April and in May in the areas around the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), which floods and expands its banks in September or early October. Before the flooding occurs, the seed is spread on the ground without any preparation of the soil, and the floating rice is harvested nine months later, when the stems have grown to three or four meters in response to the peak of the flood (the floating rice has the property of adjusting its rate of growth to the rise of the flood waters so that its grain heads remain above water). It has a low yield, probably less than half that of most other rice types, but it can be grown inexpensively on land for which there is no other use. This practice seems to have stopped now.

DEVI AHILYABAI HOLKAR AND MAHESHWAR

Punyashlok Rajmata Ahilyabai Holkar (31 May 1725-13 August 1795) ruled from 11th December 1767 to 13 August 1795 was also known as the Philosopher Queen. She was a Holkar dynasty Queen of the Malwa Kingdom in Central India.
Ahilyabai was born on May 31, 1725 in the village of Chaundi, in the present-day Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. Her father, Mankoji Shinde, was the patil of the village, a member of the proud Dhangar community. Women then did not go to school, but Ahilyabai's father taught her to read and write.
Her entrance on to the stage of history was something of an accident. Malhar Rao Holkar, a commander in the service of the Peshwa Bajirao and Lord of the Malwa territory, stopped in Chaundi on his way to Pune and, according to legend, saw the eight-year-old Ahilyabai at the temple service in the village. Recognising her piety and her character, he brought the girl to the Holkar territory as a bride for his son, Khanderao (1723–1754). She was married to Khanderao in 1733.
Ahilya Bai’s husband Khanderao was killed during the siege of Kumbher in 1754. Twelve years later, her father-in-law, Malharrao died. Malharrao was succeeded by Malerao, the only son of Khanderao, but he also died on 5 April 1767. From 1767 until her death in 1795, she ruled Malwa, trained in both administrative and military matters by Malhar Rao.
Already trained to be a ruler, Ahilyabai petitioned the Peshwa after Malhar’s death, and the death of her son, to take over the administration herself. Some in Malwa objected to her assumption of rule, but the army of Holkar was enthusiastic about her leadership. She had led them in person, with four bows and quivers of arrows fitted to the corners of the howdah of her favourite elephant. The Peshwa granted her permission on 11 December 1767, and, with Subhedar Tukojirao Holkar (Malharrao's adopted son) as the head of military matters, she proceeded to rule Malwa in a most enlightened manner, even reinstating a Brahmin who had opposed her. Ahilyabai never observed purdah but held daily public audience and was always accessible to anyone who needed her ear.
Among Ahilyabai's accomplishments was the development of Indore from a small village to a prosperous and beautiful city; her own capital, however, was in nearby Maheshwar, a town on the banks of the Narmada river. She also built forts and roads in Malwa, sponsored festivals and gave donations for regular worship in many Hindu temples. Outside Malwa, she built dozens of temples, ghats, wells, tanks and rest-houses across an area stretching from the Himalayas to pilgrimage centres in South India. The Bharatiya Sanskritikosh lists as sites she embellished, Kashi, Gaya, Somnath, Ayodhya, Mathura, Hardwar, Kanchi, Avanti, Dwarka, Badrinarayan, Rameshwar and Jaganathpuri. Ahilyadevi also rejoiced when she saw bankers, merchants, farmers and cultivators rise to levels of affluence, but did not consider that she had any legitimate claim to any of that wealth, be it through taxes or feudal right. She must, in fact, have financed all her activities with the lawful gains obtained from a happy and prosperous land.
Ahilyabai’s capital at Maheshwar was the scene of literary, musical, artistic and industrial enterprise. She entertained the famous Marathi poet, Moropant and the shahir, Anantaphandi from Maharashtra, and also patronised the Sanskrit scholar, Khushali Ram. Craftsmen, sculptors and artists received salaries and honours at her capital, and she even established a textile industry in the city of Maheshwar.
Historians of the 19th and 20th centuries—Indian, English and American agree that the reputation of Ahilyabai Holkar in Malwa and Maharashtra was then, and is, even now, that of a saint. Nothing has ever been discovered by any researcher to discredit that. She was truly a magnificent woman, an able ruler and a great queen.

MANDU,MADHYA PRADESH

MANDU/MANDWA
Mandu, called as Shahdiabad by the Moghuls or the "City of Joy" is in the Malwa region of Western Madhya Pradesh and is remembered for the love tales of the
poet-prince Baz Bahadur and the beautiful Rani Roopmati. This fortress rises 634 meters high in the Vindhya Range and is enclosed in battlements 37 km long with 12 gates. With-in this well-defended plateau is wealth of palaces, pavilions, mansions, tombs and mosques.

In the 10th century Mandu was founded as a fortress by Raja Bhoj. It was conquered by the Muslim rulers of Delhi in 1304. When in 1401, the Mughals captured Delhi, the Afghan Governor of Malwa, Dilawar Khan, set up his own little kingdom at Mandu and the Ghori dynasty was established. And thus began Mandu's golden age. His son, Hoshang Shah, shifted the capital from Dhar to Mandu and raised it to its greatest splendour.
It changed hands a number of times between the Moghuls, Sher Shah Suri and his sons. At various times Akbar, Jehangir and Shahjehan have stayed at Mandu. Jehangir who stayed at Mandu with his beatiful wife Nurjehan, wrote“I know of no place so pleasant in climate and so pretty in scenery as Mandu during the rains."
Mohammed Khilji, who established the Khilji dynasty at Mandu went on to rule for 33 years. He was succeeded by his son, Ghiyas-ud-din in 1469 who ruled for the next 31 years. Ghiyas-ud-din was a pleasure seeker and devoted himself to women and song. He had a large harem and built the Jahaz Mahal for housing the women, numbering thousands. Ten more years of feuds and invasions followed and in the end and Baz Bahadur emerged at the top spot.
Rani Roopmati was a Rajput singer in Malwa. She revered the River Narmada and it is said that only after darshan of Narmada River she will eat her food. She was so fair and delicate that the colour of the food she took was seen in her neck.
Roopmati was married to the Prince of Benaras and missed Narmada. Seeing her problem the Prince divorced her and she returned to Malwa.
Baz Bahadur, a connoisseur of arts once went out hunting, where he chanced upon Roopmati frolicking and singing with her friends. Smitten by her enchanting beauty and her mellifluous voice, he begged Roopmati to accompany him to his capital. Roopmati agreed to go to Mandu on the condition that she would live in a palace within sight of her beloved and venerated river, Narmada. Thus Roopmati Pavilion came to be built.
Since on cloudy days Narmada was not visible, she prayed to Narmada, who asked Roopmati to get a pond dug up in Mandu. At about 70 ft depth, the excavators found sand and pebbles similar to those on the banks of Narmada. This is now called Roopmati Talab.
There are two cupolas on top of the Roopmati Pavilion, one on each end in which Roopmati and Baz Bahadur would sit and sing alternately.
In 1561, Akbar's army led by Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad Khan attacked Malwa and defeated Baz Bahadur in the battle of Sarangpur on 29 March 1561. One of the reasons for Adham Khan's attack seems to be his infatuation for Rani Roopmati. Rani Roopmati poisoned herself to death on hearing the news of fall of Mandu. Baz Bahadur regained his kingdom for a short period. In 1562, Akbar sent another army led by Abdullah Khan, the Uzbeg, which finally defeated Baz Bahadur. He fled to Chittor. Baz Bahadur remained a fugitive, served at a number of courts till he surrendered in November,1570 to Akbar at Nagaur and joined Akbar's service.
26 songs/poems of Roopmati survived as a manuscript and after changing hands a number of times reached C.E. Luard and was later translated into English by L.M. Crump , in 1926, under the title, “The Lady of the Lotus: Rupmati, Queen of Mandu: A Strange Tale of Faithfulness”. This manuscript has a collection of twelve dohas, ten kavitas and three sawaiyas of Roopmati
The Mandu Fort is spread over an area of 82 km and is considered to be one of the biggest forts in India. The fort has many historical ruins which include a collection of various palaces, pavilions, gates and picturesque canals. The nearly 40 monuments within the Mandu Fort are broadly categorized into the following three Groups.

1.The Central Village Group:

Ashrafi Mahal: Ashrafi Mahal is one of the famous structures in Mandu Fort . Ashrafi Mahal is also known as the Palace of Gold Coins. Ashrafi Mahal was built by Mohammed Shah Khilji, who was the successor of Hoshang Shah, one of the Mogul Conquerors. Initially Ashrafi Mahal was built as a Muslim Religious School (Madrassa) but later it was just converted into a palace.
Jami Masjid: Jami Masjid forms one of the prominent structures of Mandu Fort. Jama Masjid is a huge mosque which was probably built in the year 1454. The architecture of Jami Masjid is a great example of Afghani Style Architecture. The modelling of Jami Masjid is said to have been inspired from the original artworks of Omayyed Mosque located in Damascus
Hoshang Shah’s Tomb: This India's first marble structure, is one of the most refined examples of Afghan architecture. Its unique features include the beautifully proportioned dome, intricate marble lattice work and courts with porticos and towers. It is said to have served as a template for the construction of Taj Mahal.

2.The Royal Enclave Group:
Hindola Mahal: Meaning Swing palace is so named due to its sloping side walls.
Champa Baoli: Champa Baoli is one of the interesting structures within the Royal Enclave with a Step-well which was used as a hot-weather retreat and features cool wells or bathrooms. Champa Baoli is called so because it was said that the waters from this well smelled like the Champak Flower. There is a hot bath reserve made at the side for the well.
Water is lifted from the pond by a waterwheel and is circulated to all buildings and the swimming pool through a network of channels.
Jahaz Mehal/Ship Palace: Situated between two artificial lakes. This two storied architectural marvel is so named as it appears as a ship floating in water
Taveli Mahal: Taveli Mahal once was a guard house and also housed stables for the Royal family.


3.The Rewa Kund Group Roopmati Pavilion: This is a large sandstone structure originally built as an army observation post but is known today as Roopmati Pavilion.
Baz Bahadur's Palace: Built by Baz Bahadur, this 16th century structure is famous for its large courtyards encompassed by large halls and high terraces. It is situated below Roopmati's Pavilion and can be seen from the pavilion.
Neelkanth Palace: Built by the Mughal governor, Shah Badgah Khan, the Neelkanth Palace was erected for the Hindu wife of Akbar the Great. The palace bears some inscriptions of the era of Akbar which preach the superiority of emancipation over earthliness. The Neelkanth Palace is located very close to the Neelkanth shrine, which is a shrine of Lord Shiva. The shrine stands at the very edge of a steep ravine. The courtyard of the shrine has countless trees and a sacred pond which is fed by a nearby stream.