My vacation began last Saturday and much less relaxed as I would have hoped. My flight was delayed 2 hours from Bhubaneswar to Delhi so I finally got to the hotel around midnight. Matt and I chose the hotel from online reviews and it’s not the first time that that has proven to be a mistake here in India. The place looked run-down even though it was only 2 years old, the floors were dirty, the bedlinens were dirty…I could go on, but the short story is that I decided we couldn’t stay there, and especially because I didn’t want that to be the first experience Matt would have in this country. So, at 1am I went on a quest for a new hotel. It was lucky that the boy that was going to drive me to the airport to pick up Matt 3 hours later didn’t actually work for the hotel and insisted on showing me another hotel in the neighborhood before I resorted to staying on “tourist row”. I didn’t get my hopes up as we drove to this other hotel, but it ended up being just fine. The boy, Rausen, really saved me a lot of time and hassle that night. So, by about 2am I was checked into the new hotel, with just enough time to unpack a little, shower and rush back downstairs to go to the airport with Rausen to pick up Matt at 3. Phew. Matt arrived on-time and with all his luggage!!! (Although he purposely didn’t check any bags, so this really isn’t a great accomplishment on Etihad’s part, but worth celebrating nonetheless. ***Side note: Etihad never found my bag that they lost in May, and have been utterly unhelpful and just plain rude in most of my dealings with them. Lesson learned: don’t fly Etihad!!)
We slept for a few hours and true to jetlag expectations Matt was up and ready to go at 8:30. I, unfortunately at this time, was not suffering from jetlag, but only 2 hours of sleep. Needless to say, we’ve been on slightly different sleeping patterns. It was dreary and rainy in Delhi that day so we decided to go to a hindi movie which I had been told are quite the event. We saw Love Aaj Kal which means . They don’t put subtitles on the movies in the theatre, but being sort of a romantic comedy it wasn’t hard to follow the main plot line. That night for dinner we went to Bukhara, a place listed in the “1000 Places to See Before you Die” book. It had a very cool atmosphere, but REALLY expensive Indian food. We ate an appetizer but decided to skip the main course. I decided that spending a lot of money on food in India is definitely not utility maximizing, considering you can get the best food EVER from a street stall for literally 10 cents.
The next morning we went to an American breakfast place called Mrs. Kaurs Crepes. I know, it’s probably not what Matt wanted, but it’s a place Colette took me when I was in Delhi in July and I just couldn’t resist. It was pouring rain that day again, which made traveling around a little uncomfortable, but we went to the famous Khan Market, then to a few boutique shops that we let an auto driver take us to (all way overpriced and designed especially for unsuspecting tourists to be taken unknowingly by an auto driver who gets a cut for bringing you. We knew this but decided to go anyway just to kill some time before our train. We also stopped quickly by India Gate. It’s very similar to the Gateway of India that I saw in Mumbai, but honestly, I don’t know the significance.
We took a train that afternoon to Agra. I have to say that the Delhi train station might be the most hectic, chaotic, unnerving travel experience I’ve had yet.
Thankfully our only goal was to find the right platform number, which you’d think would be easy staring down at rows of train tracks. There were so many people crowding you and pushing to go in one direction or another that you could barely move in the direction you wanted. We didn’t even know what direction to push in since all the signs were in Hindi. After a couple minutes of just pushing at random we finally found a security guard who spoke enough English to tell us what platform number to push towards. Well, we made it to Agra in a few hours with no problems. When we got off the train we were looking for an auto to take from the airport. In general it’s a pretty good rule not to accept an offer from a taxi driver that comes up to hassle you the second you get off the train/plane, etc because they tend to be more expensive. In true form we were greeted by a taxi driver who showed us the list of pre-paid prices (trying to indicate that he was not ripping us off). We kept walking towards the group of autos and looking back I can’t remember what made us turn around, but we decided to accept this guy’s taxi offer. It ended up being the best decision we could have made. The guy introduced us to his brother (introduced as Ali Baba but we later found out his name is Akhtar) who would be the one driving us. Once in the car and on the way to the hotel we found out that Akhtar spoke English impressively well and had a witty sense of humor. He had the same rate card in the car that his brother first showed us and we decided to hire him for the entire next day to take us around to all the sights and then back to the train station. I have to say that it was really nice not hassling with auto drivers all day! That night we went to a restaurant that the guidebook said had a rooftop patio with an excellent view of the Taj Mahal.
The book didn’t mention a word about the food...it wasn't good.
The next day we woke up at around 5am so we could see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. I've been told it's the best time to go since it's really beautiful with the sunrise behind it and also it's much less crowded so early in the morning. Unfortunately it was really nasty and rainy outside that day so we didn't get very stunning photos...oh well.
There were a lot of camels in Agra.
After we went to the Taj we visited the Red Fort.
A view looking from the Red Fort back onto the Taj Mahal. This is also where the builder of the Taj Mahal was imprisoned by his son...purposely so he could look out onto his creation.
The monkey was getting interogated by the guard (actually he was feeding him sweets!)
We had some time to kill before our train left that night so Akhtar took us to some craft stores where you could see how the goods were made and then you were taken into a showroom where you could buy them. It's a very touristy thing to do and consequently very overpriced. This following picture shows men inlaying local marble with stones by hand.
Next we went to a carpet showroom where they even let us try tying a few knots.
At one of the other shops we went in Matt and Akhtar sat down to play a local game called Luda while I was searching for a dvd of Om Shanti Om (I found it by the way). The other guys that were hanging out in the shop got a kick out of Matt playing and were helping him choose his moves. He ended up beating Akhtar, which he reminded us was only because of his beginner's luck!
We took the train back to Delhi with no problems and left the following morning really early to go to Leh. It's one of the northernmost cities in India and sits right at the base of the Himalayas. The next couple pictures I took on the flight into the city.
We had found the hotel online and were both pleasantly surprised with how great the accomodations were. It was nothing too special but it was beautiful and peaceful. We were greeted with a van at the airport and tea and biscuits once we arrived.
The resort was owned by a local Ladakhi family who had decorated the entire place in traditional Ladakhi decor.
The view from our balcony...you can see the mountains in the background - far off, but they're still there:
The view as we walked into town from the hotel.
We visited some of the local monestaries and even sat in on an early morning prayer service.
The last day we were there we took a drive up the highest motorable road in the world. The top of the pass was at 18,380 feet. It took about 2 hours to get to the top of the pass from the town but it was amazing. Neither Matt or I had ever been up that high before and we could both feel the altitude (as well as the extremely cold weather that we were not dressed appropriately for). This crazy biker was riding UP the mountain.
I think Matt would agree with me that our time in Leh was the most relaxing and "vacation-like". We technically had another full day in Delhi when we returned, but unfortunately we had to spend almost 5 hours in the airline's office that day getting my flight figured out for the next day, so we weren't able to see any more of the city.
Thankfully the flights coming home all worked out without much delay, and all 3 of our checked luggage made it all the way to Durham. And that ends our great Himalayan vacation...
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