Advertisement
Published: February 14th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Welcome
No hot water! UPDATED WITH PICTURES
There are no pictures for this entry, yet. We have been taking quite a few pictures but we need to transfer my pictures to CD so we can then upload onto the site. Since most of you are waiting for pics,we'll try to get them up as soon as possible.
The flights were on Cathay Pacific from San Fran to Delhi via Hong Kong. Other than some turbulence, great service, movie selection and veg indian food. We arrived in Delhi on Jan 3.
Day 1 - Took a taxi to our hotel (not much of hotel) in Paharganj. Very crowded, muddy and smelly street (I am still having smell flashbacks); if you think New York City is stressful, this is a whole other level - hard to deal with just off the plane. We toured the street but were fairly tired so headed to the train station to scout out schedules. Somewhere between the mud, smell and our jetlag, we made a decision to leave the next morning; this was especially a good choice since we did not have hot water and couldn't shower. We got some dinner (which might have been a mistake in
Train from Delhi to Agra
With some dude peering between seats restrospect) where Roy had falafel, hummus and bread. All the restaurants have Israeli food some advertise in Hebrew. At some point during day 1, Jill commented on whether we should have come to India; not sure if she was serious. As you can tell, we didn't really do much here and I don't have much to say about Delhi.
Day 2 - 6:00 am train to Agra. It was a 2 hour train ride to the destination and included (since we were in executive class - which is less than $8 each) breakfast of some cous cous type stuff and fried rice (all veg) which of course I ate (again, also might have been a mistake). So you can all assume that no matter what city in which we arrive (in India), we will be consumed by many auto-rickshaw drivers looking for a fare. We quickly learned that you can go to the prepaid auto-rickshaw booth which cuts out alot of the negotiation and scams. Got lucky with the hotel which we didn't reserve but the had a room which was clean and had hot water, and there is a great court yard. We checked in (and Roy finally
showers though in cold water - India has power cuts daily and hot water is not available during this time) and then headed to Agra Fort (there are many forts in India) - I will attach a picture for any interested persons. Crashed at like 3 pm and slept through pretty much until early, early next morning.
Day 3 - Woke early and headed to the Taj Mahal (right down the block) at about 6:30am to beat the crowds and catch sunrise at 7:15am. We haven't mentioned that it is really cold here especially when the sun is not out and we have definitely been unprepared for the weather. This morning was particularly cold but was well worth it. The Taj Mahal is a beautiful structure which hopefully comes across in our photos. We then grabbed breakfast and headed back to the hotel at approximately 10 am. So we were checked out of our room and sitting in the courtyard from 10 - 5pm (6 pm train to Jaipur). This would have been fine except around 10:15am, I started to feel the rumblings of "Delhi Belly" except I'm not in Delhi but the effect is the same; this was
very bad timing especially since we had no room and the shared facilities was the equivalent of a gas station in NY. So I was sick pretty much the whole day at the hotel and then at the train station (after the rickshaw ride). Very luckily, once aboard the train I had no incidents. I jumped on a top bunk (while Jill chatted with two guys from Bucknell Univ) and passed out for a good portion of the 5 hour trip. I'm hoping that you get sick once and that is it for the whole trip, but it is way too early to tell.
Once in Jaipur, we took a rickshaw to our hotel which we secured in advance; woke up the owner at 11 pm and he showed us to our room. No hot water, 10 Rs ($.22) for a bucket! so we left and were wandering the city in the middle of the night with Roy wearing a headlamp and reading the Lonely Planet. Found a rickshaw and went the second choice which has been great. Karni Niwas has extremely friendly owners and clean, large rooms with hotwater (good water pressure); also, laundry services (20 Rs a garment)
and internet (60 Rs per hour).
Overall, this place is crazy. As Jill told me, "if I wasn't here, I wouldn't believe this place existed." There are pigs feeding on the piles of trash down the street from our hotel. The auto-rickshaws, cars and bike rickshaws share the streets with cows (so many cows), camels, dogs, mules and horses. And monkeys are everywhere jumping off of buildings and chilling on power lines.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0325s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
gail schor
non-member comment
thanks
Thanks for sharing- I actually feel like I am there with you- keep it coming! Love