Mayo College India
Mayo College Exchange Programme
India offers a broad diversity of landscapes, people and wildlife, with an incredible mix of colourful cultures and a sense of history and colonial influences at every turn. The opportunity to experience this has been made possible through the exchange programme that we now have in place with Mayo College – “The Eton of The East”.
The last trip to take place pre-Covid was in February 2020. Following the break of School on the Friday for the February half-term break, staff and 18 pupils left for Heathrow. Following a 9 hour flight, they arrived at Mayo on the Sunday evening to a fanfare welcome of music and smiling faces. Within 15 minutes the boys and girls were gone – playing football and making new friends.
The week was a busy one as the boys and girls were assimilated into the Boarding Houses and Mayo life. They experienced waking up at 5am; wedding music through the night; a range of new and different Indian foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner; warm assembly welcomes; and numerous lessons - English, DT, Debating, Geography, IT and 3D concepts, Indian Cooking and Art, horse riding, climbing, shooting and of course the traditional football match. Unique experiences were the warm dry climate (and consistent blue-sky sunny days), dry brown surroundings, the Mayo Museum with its many special historical items to be found nowhere else in the world, and the Performance Evening. This was an evening of music, dance and poetry items presented by Orwell, the Mayo girls and Mayo boys on an open air stage to an audience of around 800. What an evening! The group also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Pushkar Market where the children got their first taste of exploring the wide range of items and clothes and bartering to get the best deals.
On the Friday at the end of the first week the group said goodbye to the many old and new friends they had made, travelling to Jaipur, also known as the Pink City because of the terracotta colour of many of its buildings. The setting for ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ films, it’s a fascinating city and gave the group a good cultural introduction to India, whose frenetic and vibrant street-scenes assaulted and shocked the senses wonderfully. Here, pupils got a taste for night shopping at the Jaipur Market, experienced the age old tradition of hand printing at the Anokhi Hand Printing Museum and visited Amber Fort, a magnificent ornately-decorated hill-top fort perched above the city – taking an elephant ride up to the gates; there are stunning views over the surrounding area. They saw monkeys playing on the fort walls and made time to visit the famous Observatory, or Jantar Mantar – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and explored City Palace. On the Sunday it was off to an early start to Agra. Agra itself is a huge, modern city with some beautiful historic landmarks – the most famous of which is the iconic Taj Mahal, but first the group visited the “Baby Taj” which was just as if not more interesting that the Taj on the Sunday afternoon. Monday morning was a 4.30am start for the unmissable experience and a wonderful finale to the Indian trip, the Taj Mahal at sunrise. This incredible monument – built by the Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife in the 17th century – changes hue as the sun grows stronger and the shadows recede. It was truly a trip to remember, especially the hospitality, friendliness and openness of the Indian people that the pupils met – for whom nothing was too much to make sure we well taken care of.
