simonjames

While many people begin their journey through India in Mumbai, this city is the final leg of our trip. Making our way from the airport, it was clear that Mumbai was much different than the India we have seen so far. Crossing a large bridge toward the city it looked as if we were approaching Vancouver or some other such coastal cosmopolitan city. Large buildings, both commercial and residential, dot the horizon as far as the eye can see. Oddly however, interspersed among the affluent areas and modern buildings are large slums consisting of flimsy-looking makeshift shelters that are constructed of scrap materials and mud. Many look to be about 5 feet square, and likely house anywhere from 2 - 5 people each. Some of these slums house literally a hundred thousand people, and it is ... read more

We've arrived in Udaipur after a long day of and delays at airports, possibly due in part to the tragic Air India crash which occurred this morning in Mangalore, and claimed the lives of 158 people. Our travel woes were exacerbated by the completely unhelpful staff at the Mumbai airport, who couldn't have been less interested in assisting us to find the terminal we needed to get to. We arrived to Mumbai late with very little time to make our connection to Udaipur on another airline (Air India), and were asking for directions to Terminal 1 where our connecting flight departed from. Two of the airport staff just stared at us blankly, and then looked down at our cards as if trying to figure something out. After they stared at our cards trying to decipher the ... read more

Greetings all, We are now in Ranthambhore National Park. After watching the sunrise over the Taj Mahal from our balcony at the hotel in Agra, we had a quick breakfast and then our driver took us to Bharatpur where we were to catch the train to a town near the park. We had been “warned” by our tour coordinator in Delhi that the trains in India are not like the trains in Europe and North America and this would be quite an experience for us. Then, two days ago, we read that two people were killed and eight injured in a stampede at the train station in Delhi. I guess they announced that the train would be departing from a different platform than where people were congregating; in their rush to get to the new platform, ... read more

Hi Everyone, Our time in Varanasi is over, and we couldn’t have had a better time here. Varanasi is the oldest continuously occupied city on Earth, and it shows! The streets conditions here are significantly more “3rd world” than anything we saw in Delhi. With over 3 million people living in the small city, there are incredible traffic problems, the likes of which we have never seen (mind you here what passes for traffic is a mélange of bicycles, motor bikes, rickshaws, ox carts, pedestrians (no sidewalks), autos, and random cattle). Still, it somehow seems to flow and work in spite of the appearance of complete and utter chaos. Another thing that flows is filthy sewage-soaked water through the gutters and into the festering underbelly of the city. Without proper water and sewage sanitation systems, the ... read more

So we made it safely (albeit exhausted) yesterday into Delhi. In spite of our lack of sleep, the ride from the airport captivated us with a combination of sights, sounds, and smells. We immediately noticed how dense the air is with smoke from the burning of any and every kind of imaginable fuel. We both were surprised that we neither hit anyone on a bike nor were run down by some of the larger busses that always seemed to be centimeters from the car, merging, flowing, and pulsing with the rhythm of the city streets. Honking is a way of communicating here, and traffic seems to follow a natural flow instead of adhering to Western conventions such as lanes, right of way, or even in many cases which side of the road is appropriate to drive ... read more