Live from McLeodGanj, India...it's Becca's Blog!

On May 9th I took an early morning flight from Idaho Falls and was India bound.  Oddly enough on the flight from IF to Denver I met an Indian man who lives in Idaho Falls.  He's probably the only Indian living in Idaho Falls, so I felt lucky that he was sitting by me and was able to give me a lot of helpful hints on India like, "speak slowly...you have an accent."   


My friend, Marissa, was supposed to meet me in Newark so we could catch our flight to Delhi together.  I first met Marissa when I went to Ghana with the University of Utah and we've been friends ever since.  We're both part of the same "book club," which is more of a "hang out and try out a new restaurant and maybe talk about a book that maybe a couple of us actually read" club.  Yeah, we're hardcore.


Anyway, Marissa's flight coming into Newark was late and our flight to Delhi was leaving.  I wasn't really in the mood to go to India alone so I waited for Marissa and the airline re-booked us for the same flight the next night.  And, instead of spending a day stuck in a slightly scuzzy Ramada in Newark we decided to go to New York City for the day. 


It was a great choice because it was an absolutely gorgeous Spring day.  I hadn't been to NYC since 1998 and even then I didn't get to spend much time there, so I was excited to have a day to visit NYC.  

We spent most of the day just wandering through Central Park.  The weather was fantastic and we just walked and walked and walked until we both had blisters.  

We ran into Morgan Freeman outside Madame Tussauds.  He looked like he wasn't in a very good mood so we just snapped a picture with him and left.  

Then we stopped by Sbarro for a New York slice.  

Then we walked some more in Central Park and saw all the pretty flowers...  

and the great view of the city.

And that was that.  

We caught our flight that night to Delhi.  I think it was about 14 hours long.  I can't remember for sure...I think I've blocked it out.  Anyway, we got to Delhi the next night, May 11th.  It was 10 PM or so when we exited the airport and it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Holy crappoly!

The next day, May 12th we did a city tour of New Delhi.  Delhi is divided into three parts I think...New Delhi, Old Delhi, and a third part that I can't remember what it's called but is mostly populated by squatters.  I read somewhere that a third of the people in Delhi are either squatters or homeless...which is a ton of people when you consider that Delhi has a population of nearly 17 million.  Anyway, I don't know how true that little statistic is, but if it is true then it's really crazy, huh? 

Here I am at the India Gate in New Delhi.  It's a big gate.  I don't know anything else about it.  

While we were at the India Gate this little boy's dad asked us if he could take a picture of his son with us.  We thought it was kind of funny that he wanted our picture and that it was a funny little one time incident.  But, no, it was only the beginning.  I'll talk more about it in another post, but basically we are famous in India and tons of people want to take pictures with us.  I would imagine they ask other tourists for their pictures too...I have no idea why they do it, but it is a super common occurrence   

Anyway, we spent our first day in Delhi planning our travel for the rest of the trip and taking the New Delhi tour.  

The next morning we headed out to Jaipur in Rajasthan.  We went by car.  We had a driver though.  And good thing, because driving in India is pretty insane.  Besides the normal hazards of driving in a developing country, in India you also have to watch out for elephants.  We saw one on the road in Delhi and then we saw this one...

when we got to Jaipur.  I like how they paint the elephants in India.  I think it's pretty cool.  

Anyway, I've added a ton of pictures on this post of Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra.  I'll try not to bog you down with too many details but instead will just try to let the pictures speak for themselves...and I've added a lot of pictures.  If you want more details on something you can Wikipedia it or ask me about sometime...not that I know very much...India's history, religions, it's caste system, etc. are still somewhat of a mystery to me.  I'm learning more every day but I can't say that I have a firm grasp on understanding India just yet.  

I guess another reason, apart from my India ignorance, that I might not explain as much as I normally do, is that I don't really know how to describe India.  It is just such a mix of everything...of smells, sights, history, religions, and emotions.  One minute it feels like the most peaceful and beautiful place on earth and then next minute it seems to be just the opposite.  It is definitely a place of stark contrasts...a place that you kind of have to experience to totally understand.  

Anyway, enough about that.  On to Jaipur, the Pink City...

It took about five hours to get to Jaipur from Delhi.  When we arrived we went up to the Tiger Fort, which is pretty run down and wasn't that great.  It was fun to explore though.  And it did have a good view of the city.  While we were exploring the fort we unknowingly walked into a Hindu Temple...with our shoes on.  A little man came running up to us saying, "open the shoes, open the shoes!" which apparently means "take off your shoes!"  He was really nice about it but we still felt bad for desecrating their temple...even if it was covered in pigeon and monkey poo.  

After that incident we climbed a super long flight of stairs to a Hindu temple...I think one dedicated to the elephant god or something...it wasn't that cool either but also had a great view.  And we remembered to "open our shoes" that time.

Jal Mahal (the Water Palace)...is an 18th century palace, surrounded by a man-made lake.  I think the palace is pretty dilapidated these days so I don't even think you can visit it.  But it looks pretty cool from afar.  

Marissa and I with the Amber Fort in the background.  

We rode an elephant up to the Amber Fort.  It would have been super cool, but we had a turbo elephant and turbo elephant driver and we were mostly just hanging on for dear life and not enjoying the moment and snapping pictures like the other tourists, on much slower elephants, were.  

But we survived the super speed elephant ride and were able to tour the Amber Fort.  It was pretty amazing.  

Inside the fort there is a Hindu Temple so we went in and got little Hindu dots painted on.  After about an hour or so my dot was all smeared.  Our guide said that having my dot smear was good luck and that it meant I would come back to India.  I just thought it meant that it was hotter than hell (105+ degrees F) and that I was sweating like a sow.  But I'll go with the good luck theory.  

Jaipur at one time had a wall around the whole city.  It kind of reminded me of the Great Wall of China snaking up the mountain.  

Back at the palace...this is me looking through a screen that the wives/concubines of the Maharaja would look through to watch and hear the meetings held below.  They weren't allowed to attend but they listened and I'm sure had a lot to say about what went on in the kingdom.  I know I would...

Outside the Amber Fort there was a snake charmer.  So, we decided to stop and help him charm his snakes.  And it really does sort of hypnotize the snake...it was weird. 

And then I touched the cobra...

and then I got away from it...just in case the snake got un-charmed and angry.  I would say that I was totally awesome for petting a Cobra, but I think they remove the venom from these snake charmer snakes...at least I think so...hope so.     

After the Amber Fort we went to the City Palace.  It was pretty cool, but I didn't take too many pictures.  It was informative visiting there because they have a lot of good museums inside the palace and I learned a lot about the Maharajas.   

Marissa and I at Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds)...isn't actually a palace but is a giant screen the royal women could hide behind while watching proceedings on the road below without being seen.  I don't know what was happening on that road that was so interesting, but apparently, it was worth building this ginormous structure for.  

Just me with some more kids who wanted a picture with me.  Even after two weeks of having people take pictures of us/with us, it still is funny to me.  I guess I'm a freak show in India.  

It is definitely wedding season in India...or maybe it's always wedding season.  I guess with a population of 1.2 billion, there should always be a few thousand people getting married on any given day.  Anyway, this picture isn't the greatest...I got a much better video but can't get it to upload...anyway, it's of a wedding procession in Jaipur.  As part of the procession they are carrying big chandelier lights and to power those lights they have a guy following the procession with a generator to power the lights hooked up to his bicycle.  So funny!  I'd probably just have my wedding during the day and skip out on the chandeliers and guy pushing around a loud and stinky diesel generator on a bike, but whatever.  

On the way from Jaipur to Agra we stopped off at the Monkey Temple, which is called that not only because of the packs of wild flee-ridden monkeys roaming the premises, but also because the temple is built to honor the Hindu monkey god, whose face was supposedly miraculously carved into the mountain. 

A pretty little building and baths on the monkey temple grounds.

Just me with more of my fans...

The residents of the monkey temple.

Me in front of the actual monkey temple only moments after nearly being attacked by a monkey.  I'm not a big monkey fan...unless they are in zoos or totally out in the wild.  I don't dig monkeys just running around everywhere.  

I think that the best way to describe the monkey temple complex is that it's one part sacred Hindu monkey temple, one part Lava Hot Springs (except without hot water), one part public baths/laundry area, and one part animal shelter (except not the nice kind...the cruel kind).  It's a really quirky little place.  

Near Agra we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, which is basically a huge ghost town...but with palaces and forts instead of cowboys and fool's gold.  It was built by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late 16th century to honor a saint who foretold the birth of his son.  It was only occupied for 14 years before the water source for the city dried up and caused it to be abandoned.  Dang.

I'm pretty sure it was like a thousand degrees Celsius when we were touring Fatehpur Sikri...okay maybe not a thousand, but probably 43 or 44 degrees C (110+ degrees F)...so don't judge me for being sweaty.  

Hot, but happy...

Inside the ghost town there's a mosque... specifically built for the wise man who foretold the birth of Akbar's son.  

Inside the mosque women tie strings to the screens which supposedly will bring them luck in having children or something.  I did it.  So we'll see if it works and I have kids someday.  Miracles do happen I suppose.  

When Marissa and I were looking at the above picture she said, "you look like you're from Holland."

And then I looked at her picture and quickly (and without thinking as usual) replied, "you look like you've just wandered out of Auschwitz."  

Luckily Marissa thought it was funny and didn't take offense, and we're still friends...I think.  

Anyway, on the road from Jaipur to Agra you see many interesting things...camels pulling carts, hand-powered ferris wheels, men who look like their pet monkeys...

and lots of really crowded vehicles...some overloaded with people and others overloaded with goods.  I wonder what the average life span is in India...I'll have to look that up.  

Anyway, we finally arrived in Agra...the home of the incredible Taj Mahal.  

You know how some things in life turn out to be less amazing than how you've imagined them...and other things are more amazing than you expect?  Well, the Taj Mahal is definitely a place that was way more incredible and beautiful and awe-inspiring than I thought it would be.  The pictures don't really do it justice, but I'm including a whole bunch of them anyway.  

Us at the entrance gate of the Taj Mahal.

We went right at sunrise...it was beautiful.  

You walk through the gate and see this...

and then this...

It's kind of crazy that the whole huge Taj Mahal is a mausoleum for only two people...and it was only intended to be a mausoleum for just one person.  The Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1653 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third, and apparently favorite, wife.  

Our guide, who kept telling us what an awesome photographer he was, couldn't even seem to get the horizon straight.  Nice one dude...nice one.  

What you don't see from a distance is how intricately decorated the Taj Mahal is.  There is all sorts of amazing marble inlay work with precious stones making designs on the Taj.  That's why it glows in the sunlight.  

I don't know why guides always want you to take pictures like this.  They're so ridiculous.  But we humored our guide and did it.  And what would a visit to a major tourist site be without a picture of you pushing over or picking up that site?  I don't know...

Me with the view from the back of the Taj Mahal.  

A hazy view of the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort.

After the early morning visit to the Taj Mahal, our guide had us go back to the hotel, get some breakfast, take a rest, wait for it to get unbearably hot, and then we went to visit the giant Red Fort overlooking Agra.  

Here I am inside the Red Fort.  It was pretty sweet but after having already seen other forts we maybe weren't as impressed as we should have been.  It really was cool though.  Especially since it had such an amazing view of the Taj Mahal and it was where the emperor Shah Jahan was put under house arrest by one of his sons for eight years.  Well, at least he had a good view of the Taj Mahal from there.  

After the Red Fort we took a quick visit to the "Baby Taj" which was quite amazing itself.  

After a full day of sweaty sightseeing our driver dropped us off at the train station in Agra to catch our train to Varanasi.  

Here I am waiting for our train in the "first class" waiting room.  I don't know what's so first class about no air conditioning, squatter toilets, and a room full of people staring at us, but it said "Upper Class Waiting Room" on the door.  

I look happy here but really I am kind of freaked out and culture shocked at this moment.  I honestly didn't think, after traveling to approximately 60 countries, that I could get culture shock anymore.  But, if anywhere is going to give it to you, it's India.  And if India itself doesn't shock you, its train stations will.  I'll spare you the gory details but let me just say that if you don't think you can handle things like: rats running around everywhere in sight, loogie hawking like there's no tomorrow, piles of human excrement, watching people walk through the human excrement to get to their train instead of taking the bridge over the tracks, super sad beggar children, watching those children eat food they've picked up off the filthy train station floor, and watching people who can't afford a first class ticket load themselves like cattle into a crowded, un-airconditioned train car with bars on the windows...then I'd recommend that you definitely not visit an Indian train station. 

But, I'm glad I did it...while I'm still young and a bit crazy.  Because I know that when I'm old (and hopefully rich) and I return to India that I won't be taking trains anywhere.  I think that taking a train in India is sort of a rite of passage...and I guess I'm glad I've done it.  

Anyway, I'm loving the trip so far.  I'll try to blog more along the way...