Indi-ahh! or Indi-arggh?

Hi all, its been a while.  We needed a bit to think about India, let it sink in, and decide how to present the experience.  Also, we’ve been totally absorbed by Turkey.  It is amazing here!

While researching India as a destination for our trip, the majority of experiences we read about were separated into love and hate responses to the overall visit.  We appear to be a rarity in that after our time there, we’re stuck right in the middle with how we felt about it.  In the end, we definitely wouldn’t have changed our decision to visit and wouldn’t trade our experiences and memories gained while there for the world.  There were many emotional highs driven by incredible sights, experiences, food, and people.  There were also some basement lows driven by sights (third world poverty), experiences (mostly in Indian “budget” hotels), food (the “Delhi Belly” result of food), and people (pocket grabbing kids and persistent touts for shops).  We won’t get all intellectual and discuss a “study in contrasts” or anything fancy but that’s really what our ten days in India felt like - a constantly changing opinion of wanting to be there or not.  As a result, there were times when we both felt a little homesickness set in, and a tear or two may have even been shed.

The smartest decision we made for India was to book a fully guided tour.  The stop came almost at the halfway point and until now, we’ve done almost all of the planning and logistics ourselves.  We thought a tour would give us a nice break and boy were we right.  We did save a day on each end of the tour to just hang out in Delhi and get to know the city a bit.  This provided for some great opportunities that we didn’t receive on the tour.  Overall, the tour was fantastic and we owe that to our wonderful local guide Kushwant.  He went above and beyond to provide immersive local experiences that we’ll never forget and never would have seen on our own, and also served as an expert on all the things that most Westerners come to India to see.  He was able to bring the Taj Mahal to life, making it much more than a pretty picture, yet also tell us very personal stories about village life in rural India that makes us very very thankful to have been born in the United States.  We also learned that we are very happy that we will never have to raise a daughter, or any child for that matter, under Indian cultural expectations and traditions.

For our time in Delhi, we jumped right in as much as we could and used their public transit system.  (A quick side note for NYC residents... Delhi has built their ENTIRE METRO SYSTEM since 2004 consisting of half elevated tracks and half tunneled tracks.  That’s almost 1/4 of the time that it has taken the NYC MTA to NOT finish one stop on the “new” 2nd Avenue subway line.)  In our time on our own in Delhi, we visited the Lotus Temple, after a very hot mile or so walk around the place in the wrong direction, India Gate War Memorial, where we took photographs with locals for the first of many times, Cannaught Place, for some British Imperial architecture and great coffee, Humayun’s Tomb, and Qutub Minar remnants.  We also found a sweets shop near our hotel (surprise surprise) and some tasty local restaurants.

Lotus Temple (better looking from the outside)

Jama Masjid (no photos allowed inside)

The metro station close to our hotel (London Underground influenced maybe?)

Qutub Minar

A security guard wanted to take this picture of Wes...he then insisted we give him a tip for it! (he had a gun so we did)

Sweets shop! Christine's smile (and blonde hair) got us lots of samples.

Couldn't tell you what any of it was but it tasted yummy!

HAHA!

India electrical wiring gives Wes the shakes.  But its better than Vietnam's

Pictures with locals

More pictures with locals

In the tight streets of Delhi old city, this is more maneuverable than a delivery truck and cheaper on gas.

Agra - Taj Mahal & The Red Fort

After a few hours on our bus, we arrived in Agra and visited the tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah, also known as Baby Taj Mahal.  The real Taj Mahal would be seen during a sunrise visit the next morning and it exceeded every expectation.  After a bit of a history class from our guide, we had the next several hours free to explore on our own before returning to our hotel for a nap!  Later, a sunset view of the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort was the perfect way to end the day.  The early Indian Dynasties were serious about their forts and the palaces within!

Baby Taj

Taj History class with Kushwant

TA-DA!

Bench where Pincess Diana sat for her famous Taj photo 

Standing over a moat of alligators and field of tigers around the Red Fort...and smiling! (ok ok they're gone) 

Decorated marble with inlaid ruby, emerald, turquoise, jade, and others.  Serious old school bling.

Old Hindu traditions meet modern capitalism side by side on the street in Agra.

Bharatpur

Bharatpur was really just a rest stop for a night to break up the long bus trip to Jaipur.  It provided some much needed rest, a fun dinner on the front lawn of our hotel, and an unexpected local village visit for some exposure to rural Indian life.  Watching sunset in a field with kids playing a game of Cricket is a memory that will be with us for a while.  

Christine giving the local kids candy.  They were excited but what they really wanted was her watch!

Cow dung patties used for cooking fuel during the monsoon season.  The prettiest pile of s@*t we've ever seen.

A Stepwell - Wikipedia can explain it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwell

A local potter's workshop.  He made it look soo easy!  He spins his wheel by hand...

We ran across this local festival for the Hindu god Ginesha.  Fun but LOUD.

Jaipur - More markets & cooking class

Our arrival in Jaipur was a very welcome one.  Our bus AC had broken so everyone was more than ready to finish the trip for the day and get checked in to the hotel.  Since the bus was away for repair, we had a few exciting opportunities to try out the local rickshaws to move around town.  Our guide walked us through a street market of vendors selling spices, produce, meats, tea, dried fruits, etc. and at many stalls he would buy a bit for us all to try.  Most of this wasn’t terribly out of the ordinary except for a Paan leaf filled with more ingredients than we could keep track of.  Oh, and a silver dusted cardamom seed that made Wes’s eyes water.  The evening wrapped up with a cooking class in a local family’s back yard.  The hospitality and food were perfect and it was probably the best Indian meal that we've ever eaten. 

Paan leaf vendor.  Again, we'll trust Wikipedia to explain it for you - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paan

One of many produce vendors

A Rickshaw traffic jam

Bustling city of Jaipur, also known as the pink city

Bike rickshaws passing through traffic...barely.

Curry school!

Huh?  We certainly didn't have any problems not putting our legs inside.

We will attempt to catch you up on our travels quickly.  We got a bit behind but time flies when you're having fun!

A Little (ok maybe a lot) of R&R- Southern Thailand

This post mostly consists of just hanging by the pool or on the beach, eating a lot of good food, and sleeping a bit late.  It was time for a much needed longer term stop (a vacation from traveling per say) and boy did we make the most of it!  The weather was hot, sunny, and perfect to spend most the time in or very near the water.  The pools were warm and the ocean was even warmer, sometimes so warm that it wasn't quite as refreshing as we would have liked, but please don't read that as a complaint.  We hit three different locations in the south of Thailand- Ao Nang beach in Krabi, Koh Phi Phi island, and Karon Beach in Phuket.

Ao Nang Beach and other islands in the background

Always just a quick walk to a great sunset

Krabi

We spent hours trying to chose the right hotel which we usually TRY not to do.  We wanted a hotel in a good location, not too expensive, but very nice and this was not an easy feat.  While we love TripAdvisor for all their reviews and comments sometimes it can be a chore to sift through them all to find the right match for us.  Well, we beyond succeeded in our decision and loved every minute we spent at the Krabi La Playa Resort.  As a bonus we chose to treat ourselves to a free stay! (THANK YOU American Express points!)

Walkway to our room

Pool view from the room

Pool and pool bar at night

We stayed in the beach town of Ao Nang and were close to all we needed.  Food, beach, 7-11, shopping...what more could we ask for?  The pool was huge and luxurious and the beach not even a ten minute walk away.  Food was just across the street from the hotel served from food stalls with noodles, curry, rice, meats on a stick (some a mystery), fresh smoothies, papaya salad, and it was all delicious and CHEAP!  We ate lunch here just about everyday for about $3 each.

Our favorite vendor's well stocked cart

Krabi is very geared toward the tourist crowd and while it was nice to see some Westerners, we didn't really love how most of the restaurants cater to their tastes.  We wanted to eat real Thai food in Thailand and that's exactly what we did.  We found a legit Thai restaurant under a tent back off the main road and ate there 4 nights in a row.  They had the best curry we have ever had...green, red, panang, massaman!  Yum!

One morning we took a longtail ferry boat about 15 minutes and landed on Railay Beach.  It was a stunning beach, had a street with food and shopping, and has some of the best rock climbing near water in the world apparently. (we didn't try...we'll leave that to Kristin and Daniel)  We took about a 20 minute walk to Railay East Beach and found a couple hotels in the most private, secluded area that we thought about staying in a few nights then we decided we didn't want to move around so much.  Railay was a beautiful place to spend the afternoon laying on the beach and staring at the limestone cliffs that surround it.

Longtail boat motor- basically a car engine with a prop strapped onto the back of the boat

Railay West Beach and surrounding cliffs

No cars on this island, just one small pedestrian street market

We booked a longtail boat day tour to Hong Island where we enjoyed snorkeling, relaxing in the water, and the wind in our hair on the ride.  Hong Island was absolutely stunning and the sand was the softest, whitest sand we have ever seen and felt.  We were the last group at the end of the day to leave the beach so we had the island almost to ourselves for a while.  It was really postcard perfection.

Koh Phi Phi

We had heard amazing things about this island and wanted to check it out for ourselves.  Since we had to transit by ferry from Ao Nang in Krabi to Karon Beach in Phuket anyway, we decided to make this a two night stopover on the way.  Many tourists do this as a day tour from another area but we chose to spend two nights there to cut down on our traveling.  This, friends, was a mistake!  Our hotel on the island was not cheap and it was probably the worst we've stayed in on this trip.  We didn't really love the vibe of the island and our tour around the islands was not our favorite.  We know, it's hard to complain when in paradise and we do understand that but this island did not appeal to us much at all.  We did explore the nightlife areas a bit and can certainly see the island's allure if you are a barely twenty one backpacker, like to party, and don't care what your hotel bathroom looks like.  There were two highlights 1) great snorkeling on a small island nearby and 2) we went to Maya Bay, the beach used in the movie The Beach and described in the book of the same name.

We took another two hour ferry to complete our trip to Phuket except this time it felt more like we had boarded a Bearing Sea crab boat from the Deadliest Catch.  Thank goodness for Dramamine.  We both popped a half a pill and it was night night for us for the entire trip.  Many others on the boat did not fare so well...

In order to get to The Beach beach we first has to climb this really safe set of stairs, haha!

The almost surrounded lagoon of Maya Bay

Phuket- Karon Beach

Again, choosing the hotel, not easy.  You can easily be a victim of "creative photography" when looking at these hotels online.  But again, success!  We have never heard of this before but the hotel offered a "run of the house" special and if you were willing to change rooms in the middle of your stay if necessary then you got a REALLY great deal.  We opted for this since it also included breakfast every morning and wifi and it worked out great!  We only had to switch rooms once on the very last night and being that we don't have much with us it was no big deal.  The hotel was on the side of a mountain and the pool was on the roof so we had a stunning view of the beach.

View from the rooftop pool

April is monsoon season in Thailand and though we really lucked out with weather during our stay, it was interesting that with almost the flip of a switch on April 1st, a cloudy haze hangs over everything.  It didn't bother us in the least but the pictures are not as phenomenal because it looks quite cloudy.  We still had plenty of wonderful time in the strong sunshine.


There's really not much to tell about Phuket.  We loved the beach and being able to cheaply rent chairs and umbrellas since the sun is ridiculously strong.  We ate good food but the best was at the hotel which made life very convenient.  We found ourselves really fall into a daily routine in Phuket and found that we do miss that a bit.  We had breakfast, went to the pool/beach, went to the beach/pool, enjoyed the herbal steam sauna (AMAZING!), had dinner, and caught up with family, watched tv, and did some trip research at night.  It was so nice.  We also celebrated Christine's birthday and Wes gave her the perfect gift...a bag of Oreos!

Karon Beach view from our chairs

For about $1.50, locals would hack open cold coconuts and bring them to us

Wes being artsy with a beautiful sunset and dragon statue

We are quite sad to leave Thailand but have had a wonderful time exploring the country and the cuisine.  We have really loved the food and also enjoyed the hospitality of the Thai people and their country's beautiful scenery.  It has been an incredible experience in Southeast Asia and we are so happy to have dedicated time to this part of the world.  That said, we are really excited for India, Turkey, and the rest of what's ahead in the next few weeks!  We are currently in Bangkok waiting for our flight tomorrow morning to New Delhi!

Bye for now!