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.
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| Lotus Temple (better looking from the outside) |
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| Jama Masjid (no photos allowed inside) |
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| The metro station close to our hotel (London Underground influenced maybe?) |
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| Qutub Minar |
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| 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) |
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| Sweets shop! Christine's smile (and blonde hair) got us lots of samples. |
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| Couldn't tell you what any of it was but it tasted yummy! |
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| HAHA! |
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| India electrical wiring gives Wes the shakes. But its better than Vietnam's |
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| Pictures with locals |
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| More pictures with locals |
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| 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!
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| Baby Taj |
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Taj History class with Kushwant
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| TA-DA! |
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| Bench where Pincess Diana sat for her famous Taj photo |
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| Standing over a moat of alligators and field of tigers around the Red Fort...and smiling! (ok ok they're gone) |
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| Decorated marble with inlaid ruby, emerald, turquoise, jade, and others. Serious old school bling. |
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| 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.
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| Christine giving the local kids candy. They were excited but what they really wanted was her watch! |
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| Cow dung patties used for cooking fuel during the monsoon season. The prettiest pile of s@*t we've ever seen. |
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| A local potter's workshop. He made it look soo easy! He spins his wheel by hand... |
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| 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.
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| One of many produce vendors |
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| A Rickshaw traffic jam |
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| Bustling city of Jaipur, also known as the pink city |
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| Bike rickshaws passing through traffic...barely. |
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| Curry school! |
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| 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!
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