Incredible India!

I am not even really sure how to begin to tell you about our trip to India.  Going into it, we had mixed reviews from friends who had been before us.  It seemed that there is a split vote: some told us that they absolutely loved it, while others told us they really hated it.  There is really no middle ground.  Brian and I had done so much reading and planning for this trip beforehand, I was almost positive that we were going to be in the "love" camp, but I honestly wasn't sure.  Not to spoil the rest of the story here, but Brian and I had an absolutely amazing trip, and we can't wait to go back.  I have a hard time even talking about the beauty of this country and the people there without getting teared up, but I'll do my best to tell you about this trip.

First thing first - why did we want to even go to India in the first place?  To be honest, India has always seemed like a really exotic place to me, but I never knew a lot about its history or culture, besides the typical things you learn as a child about arranged marriages and their caste system.  I just was intrigued by the people there, and was drawn to learn more about their daily lives.  For Brian, this place is so rich with history, that it was an obvious pick for a history teacher.  We decided that since it was only a 5.5 hour flight and a 2.5 hour time difference (that's right... they have one time zone in India, rather than 2, so they split the difference!), going from Hong Kong would be a smart move.

Some of our friends had mentioned that a good way to avoid food poisoning in India (which is why many people are in the "hate" camp to begin with) is to take a shot of whiskey after every meal.  So, at the duty free store, we picked up a bottle of whiskey and some cigars (heck, we were on vacation, right??).  We ended up NOT doing shots of whiskey after every meal, but even without that, we managed to stay absolutely healthy for the whole time.  It's the same thing you need to do in any country that is not developed: don't drink the water, no drinks with ice, no fresh veggies or fruit.  I also didn't eat any meat, however, Brian did and he was just fine.  We ate at really nice restaurants, even though the roadside stands were intriguing.

Brian with our goods!

We arrived in Delhi around 11:00pm, and were met at our airport by our travel guide.  Originally, we though, oh yeah, let's ride on the Indian trains, wouldn't that be cool??  But, as the trip approached, I had more and more of an anxiety attack thinking about what that would REALLY be like.  I happen to be working with some consultants that are based in Delhi, and when I told them that Brian and I were coming to India, they fixed us right up with one of their friends who owns a travel agency.  We were not disappointed.  They helped us to plan our itinerary, book our hotels, and we had one trusty driver for the entire trip.  There was really no stress from arrival to departure, which made the trip much more relaxing than it would have been had we done it all on our own.  We arrived to our hotel, and were so pleasantly surprised at what a beautiful place we were staying in.  Our neighbor had highly recommended the Imperial Hotel, and we felt absolutely pampered and at ease the entire stay.

Our beautiful colonial hotel room at the Imperial Hotel

We woke up on Sunday morning ready to go and see Delhi.  Our guide, Krisnendu, was great.  Brian, as a history teacher, knew so much about Indian history, so if we would have had a guide that wasn't so sharp on his history, it would have been a completely different experience.  Krisnendu was really sharp on his history, and even taught Brian a few things he didn't know.  Me, on the other hand, well, I have to admit that my Indian history knowledge was almost non-existent, so this was a bit of an awakening for me.  I learned SO much!

New Delhi was where we were staying, and was largely built by the British in 1911.  The first day, we spent the morning in Old Delhi, which is much, much older.  This part was built by the Mughal emperors (descendants of the Mongolians...), and is mostly Muslim in its architecture.  For both Brian and I, it was strange to see so many Muslim sights in a country that is 80% Hindu, however, the Mughal's were the ones to build impressive monuments that have stood the test of time, so that is what we saw.  Our first stop was the Jama Masjid, which is the largest mosque in India.  However, on the way to the mosque, it was just a flurry of sights... such as 1) a man taking his morning bathing with a bucket and soap in the middle of the sidewalk 2) a barber's chair set up on the side of the road, with men getting a shave 3) any brand of shoes you would like to buy being sold on the side of the road (a-hem... please do not buy these shoes - they are fakes or stolen!) 4) fruit and veggie markets everywhere!.  Okay, that is just a start to our visual smorgasboard!

Jama Masjid - the Friday Mosque

At a mosque, you need to take your shoes off.  We paid the guy in the white hat to make sure our shoes were there when we returned!  :)

After the mosque, we took a rickshaw ride through Old Delhi.  It was kind of hard to take it all in at the speed of a bicycle, but, to be honest, going through this way was probably better than walking.  India only gets about 5 million tourists a year (Paris, on the other hand, gets over 45 million!), so white people kind of stand out, and we got a lot of head turns and various reactions to being there.  This is a very "local" part of town, where we really saw the striking poverty.  To be honest, I struggled with that for the entire trip... here we are, staying at the nicest hotels I have ever been in, when there is such poverty right outside of our door.  Maybe it is my catholic upbringing, but I did feel almost guilty.  One interesting thing that Brian and I were talking about is the role of Hinduism in life in India.  Because Hindus believe in the idea of reincarnation, if they are born into poverty, they largely accept their life as what they have "earned" from their previous life.  Very different than the American philosophy of "picking yourself up by your bootstraps" and making a better life.  But, it does explain why there is so much poverty, and why the people when you see them seem pretty content in general.

Can you hand me that wire?  This was the system in Old Delhi

Man in the street in Old Delhi

I had always seen this at Indian restaurants, but never knew what it was for.  A pot of sugar, a pot of anise seeds, take one spoonful of each in your hand, pop it in your mouth, and chew.  Instant breath freshener!  :)

After lunch, we went to the Gandhi museum, which is where Gandhi spent the last months of his life, and also the site of his assassination.  I'll tell the truth here - I did not know much about this amazing man until I went to this museum and listened to Brian and Krisnendu talking.  Somehow, this part of history was not taught in my World History class.  Though he was never an elected official in India, this man was able to motivate the masses by living among them, and was largely responsible for the Indian independence from the British.  He was trained as a lawyer in Britain, but lived as a peasant.  What an inspiring story... I won't write it all here, but I would highly recommend the movie "Gandhi".  We watched it when we got home (Brian had already seen it about a million times!), and it was great to see his story come to life.  Parts of the movie are filmed in places we went, so that was also really cool, and now I understand why Brian was so moved when we actually were there in person.

Mahatma Gandhi & his wife, Kasturba

 

Gandhi was a proponent of nonviolent protest, and once said "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

Humbled, moved, and exhausted, that was where we ended our day.  We spent a few hours by the pool, had a lovely Indian dinner, and called it a night!

The next day, we started with a tour of the government buildings.  These were originally used when the British were there in the early 1900's, and are still used today.  Directly down the street was the India Gate, which is a memorial to the 90,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives in WWI.  Did you have any idea that Indian soldiers even fought in the war?  Neither did I... as I mentioned, I learned so much on this trip.   

One of the government buildings in New Delhi - it is round!

The India Gate

Our next stop was Humayun's Tomb.  Who is Humayun?  He's the second Mughal emperor of India.  Again, Muslim architecture.  Beautiful sight... possibly a bit of foreshadowing to the Taj Mahal??  :)

Built in 1562, this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

 

Guess what?  Next stop?  More Muslim architecture - the Qutb Minar.  This one was actually even older - built in 1192, and is the tallest minaret in India.  The ruins were absolutely gorgeous.  When this was built, the pieces of stone were actually taken from existing Hindu and Jain buildings, so you can still see some of their engravings. 

This minaret is almost 240 feet tall!

In Muslim holy places, the only art that is allowed are carvings from the Koran, no pictures of people or animals, so all the carvings had to lose their heads!!!

Our final stop on the second day was Lodhi Gardens.  These were another group of Muslims that ruled India int he 1400's.  The park was just gorgeous, and it was nice to just walk around in nature.  One thing that kind of surprised us was how NOT full of people India felt.  For having over 1 billion people, we didn't really feel that crowded at any point.  I suppose we have just gotten used to Hong Kong, which is the most densely populated place on the planet!  Anyways, walking through the garden was even nicer... beautiful trees, and beautiful ruins, even if they were tombs!  :)

Tomb in Lodhi Gardens

The next day, it was "up and at 'em" early so we could take our 6 hour drive to Jaipur.  Now, just to explain, there is a part of India called the "Golden Triangle", which is made up of three cities forming, you guessed it, a triangle.  These cities are Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra, and this was the trip that we followed.  Our trusty driver, Anil, effortlessly weaved through cars, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, people, and COWS to get us safely to our destination.  Brian and I will both tell you - the car rides were some of the most interesting experiences that we had in India.  There are even some trucks doing "wrong side driving", AKA driving the wrong way on the highway!  Anil just said, "very dangerous!", but it is a normal thing in India.  Another normal thing is packing as many people as you can into one tuk tuk.  I tried to count, but couldn't. 

Mind you, this is on a HIGHWAY!  There have to be at least 15 people in this 3-wheeled tuk-tuk!  Unbelievable!

The holy cows!  Unfortunately, there is not a great solution for garbage in India, so they get sick from eating plastic bags.  :(

These trucks were my favorite!  They were all decorated so colorfully - they had ribbons and banners hanging off of the front and were just so cheerful!

We finally arrived to our hotel in Jaipur, which was called the Devi Ratn.  It was a little off of the beaten bath, but to be honest, it was nice to have a bit of quiet rest.  We just stayed by the pool that afternoon, and enjoyed being in some quiet nature.  It was kind of strange, because we arrived just before the tourist season started, so we were one of the only guests there... I felt, again, kind of guilty to have a private flute playing for us at breakfast, and a private sitar player at dinner.  The kicker was when we were (alone) at the bar, they brought in a DJ.  They asked us what we wanted to hear, and we asked for some Punjabi rap.  That brought a smile to the guy's face, but I think he was disappointed that we didn't want to dance.  Um, not when there are only two of us.  :)

Our next day was full of seeing the sights of Jaipur - the Amber Fort, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar, and the Wind Palace.  Okay, to be honest, the Amber Fort and City Palace were interesting, but things were starting to look the same to me by this point.  The thing that was different was the landscape - Jaipur is in Rajastan, which is very mountainous, but dry and desert-like.  I miss the mountains of Oregon, so this was nice.  Jantar Mantar was something I had been looking forward to since I read about it.  One of the Kings of Jaipur had been really into astronomy, so he built this space full of astronomical instruments, including the world's largest sundial.  It was a little bizarre-o, but interesting at the same time.  We also learned about how you get your astronomical sign in India - it's not only the day you are born, but also the time.  And... you can only have a name that starts with certain letters, depending on your sign.  Now, I'm not sure if that is just an old thing, or if everyone still does it, but our guide was about our age, and his family named him according to his sign.  Very interesting!  Finally, we saw the Wind Palace, which is basically only one room wide, and was built so the women of the court could watch what was going on in the city.

Amber Fort

Oh, India... you can't escape without seeing the snake charmers!

Jantar Mantar - the world's largest sundial.

This thing tells time to the 20 second increment!

Wind palace - can you see us??

Monkeys on our way back to the car - they were everywhere, and I couldn't get enough!!  :)

The lobby of our hotel, Devi Ratn - one of the coolest places we have ever stayed!

Next stop was Samode Palace, which was a kind of summer home for the Maharaja (or King).  Because it was just before the tourist season, this place was also not very busy.  So... they upgraded us to the Maharaja's old room.  Holy smokes!!  It was almost double the size of our apartment in Hong Kong!  We just relaxed in the wonderful pool for the afternoon.  This trip was really the perfect balance of sights and relaxing.  Ah...

Welcome to Samode Palace!

More monkeys by the pool!!

Our beautiful room!  King and Queen for a day!  :)

Final stop... Agra!!  We stopped to see the famous Fatehpur Sikri along the way.  There are mixed stories on what this place actually is, but some say that there was not enough water there after it was built, so it was abandoned.  The entire reason it was built was because one of the last Mughal rulers did not have an heir, and a wise man in this location told him he would have three sons.  When his wife conceived and gave birth to a son, the ruler built this complex here.  It was pretty impressive with all of the beautifully carved red sandstone.

Fatehpur Sikri

Mosque at Fatehpur Sikri - you tie on a piece of thread to wish for conception.  ;)

We had three hitchhikers on our way back to our car!!  :)

After Fatehpur Sikri, we made our way to our hotel in Agra.  We had saved the best hotel for last... this one had a view of the Taj Mahal from every room.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  I sometimes just really have to take a minute to let things sink in.  I've had this same feeling at a couple of places... the leaning tower of Pisa.  The Great Wall of China.  The Eiffel Tower.  These are all places I grew up my whole life knowing, yet never in a million years thinking I would actually see.  I feel so humbled and blessed to be able to see all of these places, and to get to share them with my family and friends. 

Our view from our balcony

The next morning, which was our last in India, we got up at 5:00 so we could watch the sun rise at the Taj Mahal.  Oh my goodness.  The beauty of this building speaks for itself.  The entire thing is covered with beautiful carvings (again, this is a Muslim tomb, so the carvings are words, not animals or people) and inlaid precious stones.  Our guide kept telling us it was a monument of love, as the Shah Jahan had built this as a memorial for his wife, Mumtaz, who had borne him 14 children and who he had loved deeply.  We stood there in awe for quite some time... what a way to end the trip!

The Taj Mahal - no further explanation needed!

India was truly incredible.  The people, the food, the sights... it was a perfect blend of everything we were looking for on a holiday trip.  I felt so inspired the entire trip, and I can't wait to learn more and go back to see more of this amazing country.