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Published: August 26th 2008
...Just kidding. No sultry vixens here. We checked the stats on our blog, and the most popular blog entry by number of hits (by a long shot) was the one entitled "Belly Dancing". So we thought a more provocative title might inspire some more readership. And we also knew exactly where our readers' minds are (unless, of course, my brother Dave reread that entry 150 times).
Actually this entry is about India, as we just arrived in Beijing yesterday and are still shaking the remnants of India from our intestines. We can't say that we really enjoyed India as much as we'd hoped. Actually, we really disliked it. At least, the parts we saw, which was the "Golden Triangle" of Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra (home of the glorious Taj Mahal). "Golden" indeed, as people certainly don't mind using the street as their own personal urinal.
First we start with the flight from Johannesburg on Etihad Airlines (after a regional flight from Cape Town). Besides a slight mix-up with the airline over the flight we had to postpone for a few days because of our illness (all was pretty easily resolved), we were very impressed. Etihad is based out of
the United Arab Emirates, and is the small oil-producing country in the Mideast that is most famous for the city of Dubai where they build ridiculously expensive seven-star hotels and vacation islands in the shape of the world map. And indoor ski slopes.
Well Etihad Airlines is pretty schnazzy as well. The flight starts with complimentary hollywood gossip magazines at the gate (our favorite!). Then we boarded the flight and we took off. Then the stewardesses passed out bottled water. Then they came by with a package containing blanket, eyeshades, socks, earplugs. They followed with a moist face cloth. Then a nice snack while a nicely printed keepsake menu was given to us for our perusal. Then headphones for the personal television each of us had mounted on the seat in front of us from which we could select from scores of movies, arabic and bollywood music videos, songs and even video games. You haven't seen "Drillbit Taylor" until you've seen it with Arabic subtitles. It even had the Qu'ran on audio. We were very impressed. Then we had drinks and a delicious meal. When we saw first class, we almost passed out. Each passenger had their own roundish
More Delhi
Pigs and Junkcubicle with a fully reclinable chair and a 20 inch flat screen TV. And this was the CHEAPEST airline we found. We felt like we got a good deal until we realized that we've been paying for this flight every time we filled up our gas tank.
So this is how we flew from Joburg to Abu Dhabi, UAE and then on to Delhi. And then it went downhill. Maybe our expectations were too high. Perhaps we just didn't see the best areas India has to offer. Or it could be that we hold our Indian-American friends in such high regard that we think that their country of nationality must be just as nice as they are. But it isn't. At the end of the week we spent here, one of us noted that if they built a replica of the Taj Mahal in Las Vegas, then there wouldn't be any reason left to visit India. I know I sound harsh, but I'll try to explain as we go along.
Interestingly, Delhi is kind of in a "half time zone", so when we adjusted our watches upon arrival, we set them for 3.5 hours ahead of Cape Town
Parade in Jaipur
Elections are coming up. time. Just a cool, quirky fact. We then met up with our car pickup from our hotel. Actually there were two guys. One driver and one guy who was apparently there to keep him company. Neither spoke English (which actually ended up being the exception to the rule as most people do), so we had separate conversations on the 40 minute ride up. Our hotel was in the Pharaganj area of New Delhi and is a heavily touristed area mainly because it is right by the train station. We just didn't realize how dirty the area would be until we got there.
We knew that India is a developing country with cows roaming the streets and agressive touts looking for business from the tourists. We also knew to use only bottled water (even when brushing our teeth), and to avoid certain foods, etc. Knowing all this, we were very careful. But there are still some things you can't avoid. No matter how careful you are in India, you will get diarrhea. It's just a fact. How bad you get it is the concern. Also, the touts (particularly the autorickshaw and bike rickshaw drivers) swarm westerners, and you find yourself
saying "No thank you" over and over again. You can't fault them for it. They are trying to make a tough living. A lot of these guys work all day in 90+ degree heat and 100% humidity and then spend the night sleeping sprawled out on their bike rickshaws. We saw a lot of that. But if you don't need a ride you don't need a ride.
And then there's the smell. Most of it comes from the garbage that's left to rot on the side of the street. It seems to never be picked up. We saw people sweeping at times (and they never stop sweeping when you walk by ... these guys will sweep right on to you), but they only push the garbage away from their shops and never pick it up. Add to this smell the fact that there are open urinals right to the side of the road with no plumbing so the smell just stays there. When there are no urinals, men will just pee right on the side of the road. Then there's the cows. The poor cows are supposedly revered in India and that's why they are allowed to roam the
city streets undisturbed. But we don't know if anybody feeds them. All the cows we saw in the city streets of India were just eating the rotting garbage on the side of the road. And because of this all the cows had diarrhea too (at least the tourists aren't alone) ... which just adds to the smell.
Now, say you're a Western tourist, and you inevitably get a little diarrhea and maybe some nausea. You have to eat plain food, right. Well, almost all the food in India is spicy. You really have to try hard to find something plain and mild. And when you take a train, the meal you get is already selected for you and is ... spicy. We both love Indian food, but we just couldn't take it after our stomachs gave out on us. The smell outside and the oppressive heat and humidity just make you feel worse. Factor in the aggressive touts and the constant honking traffic almost running you down -- hopefully now we've illustrated for you what our problems were. It's really awful that we were complaining (to ourselves) so much considering how fortunate our lives are compared to some people's
View over Jaipur
From the Minaret. lives that we saw. We feel really bad and many times it was heart wrenching to see the living conditions around us, especially for little children. Hopefully, as development increases in the future so will the lives of many more people living in India.
But enough complaints, we did actually go out and do some things. We spent the first day in New Delhi, had lunch at a pretty decent restaurant called "Veda" where Aaron had the Veda Aloo which was described as "a bunion of peppers, cream and cheese stuffed potatoes". It tasted great, and the place was relatively expensive and sharp-looking, but the menu description should have been a warning.
Next we went to the train station to get our train reservations for the week squared away. There, luckily, is a separate line for foreigners to make reservations, and before we knew it we had round trip tickets to Jaipur and then Agra.
The next day we left for Jaipur, the Pink City of Rajasthan. Actually, we didn't see too many pink colored buildings, but at least it was smaller and a little less dirty than Delhi. We liked our hotel there better too, a
City Palace- Jaipur
The residence of the royal family of Rajasthan small hotel called Karni Niwas. The owner was polite, and a clean air-conditioned room with clean sheets and towels and huge bathroom cost about $25 for the one night. We spent the rest of the day getting a feel for the city and went to bed. The next day we made our way to lunch by foot, and a rickshaw-wallah approached us on his bike rickshaw. We've avoided taking a rickshaw to this point because every place we'd been to was walkable, but this time we had farther to go, and the sidewalk was virtually nonexistent making walking dangerous. So when he gave us a desperate "Please, I need the job," we couldn't resist the old guy with the orange-dyed hair. He offered to take us for 20 rupees to the restaurant (about 50 cents), and we accepted. He told us he'd wait for us while we ate if we wanted him to take us on a tour of the Old City. We knew that usually these guys will try to rope tourists into an inflated price, but we already decided that a rickshaw would be the best (and most fun) way to see this part of town. So we
went for it. He took us to a minaret, which we climbed for a nice view of the city. Then we saw the City Palace -- a relatively high-fee but very interesting palace complex tour with an audio guide included. We enjoyed taking pictures of the complex (and Aaron with the cobra which the charmer let him pet -- and Cosmina wouldn't get near). What tourists! After buying a couple silk scarves at a nearby shop, we called it a day. Our rickshaw-wallah took us to our hotel to pick up our bags and then dropped us off at the train station. We didn't set a price with him before hand like we knew smart travellers do ("No, pay me whatever you want," he said beforehand), but we knew what a good price would be for him to take us around for a few hours (most of the time he was not pedaling but waiting for us) was, and we were prepared to give him a little extra. We knew 400 rupees (about $10) was plenty. We know this doesn't sound like a lot, but in India, this is worth like $100 so it was a good deal. Sure enough
his response: "No, 600 rupees". If we'd offered 2,000, he would've said 3,000, so we didn't budge. Then he really poured on the drama: "Oh my, you're killing me" like we were taking the bread right from his mouth. We insisted that was it, and he switched right back to being our friend and told us thanks and to have a safe trip. Just like that.
We got back to our hotel in Delhi, slept, and left the next morning for a quick day trip train to Agra. Our train arrived at 8 am and would leave to return to Delhi at 8 pm. At this point, we were feeling a little sick in the gut, so we decided just to see the Taj Mahal, take it easy and not rush around. We arrived and went to pay for our tickets. Now the tickets to the Taj, like most tourist attractions in India, are more expensive for foreigners than for Indian citizens. We know that this would never fly in the US, because that would be racist and xenophobic. Now we can kind of understand this, though: India is a developing country and tourists have money. It seems fair
.. kinda. However the difference was 750 rupees for foreigners to 20 rupees for Indians (that is about $20 versus 50 cents). We can admit to feeling a little bit used. The Taj was very amazing, however. It was worth the money we spent. What a view. We hope the pictures do it justice, but at least you don't have to bear the substantial heat that we did that day. Phew!
So after spending a generous three hours at the Taj, we realized we needed lunch and still had about six hours to kill before we had to leave for the train station. We read in the Lonely Planet guide that the Oberoi Hotel (only 500 meters from the gate of the Taj) was perhaps the best hotel in India. So we formed the plan to go there for lunch and a drink and just plop ourselves in air-conditioned luxury until they kick us out. We made it in past the security and hostess (even though after sweating in the heat all day we probably smelled like we took a nap in a dumpster) and ended up having drinks at the bar. The hotel was absolutely gorgeous with very
Silver Urns at the Courtyard
The largest silver objects in the world! attentive service and a view of the top of the Taj from the bar. We were going to have soft drinks, but went for the non-alcoholic cocktails (just to show them that we're classy). Cosmina got a delicious green fizzy lemonade concoction, while Aaron had a grape/Sprite/rock salt thing that tasted a lot worse than the menu made it sound. I couldn't quite pinpoint the strange overpowering flavor, but Cosmina was able to: Sulfur. The drink smelled and tasted just like a rotten egg (probably from the rock salt). Ugh! Needless to say, I didn't finish that one, but the damage was probably done, and I ended up feeling nauseous later. We had a light and plain-as-possible lunch and then went to a large sitting room with couches and a view of the Taj where we plopped ourselves down, read our novels, and tried to act like we belonged there. It worked. We actually took turns taking naps on the very comfortable couches (sitting upright, of course). After a relaxing, air-conditioned six hours, we decided to leave before they made us pay $600 for a room and caught a cab to the station for our train to Delhi.
Once
in Delhi we slept very soundly. The next day (our last in India), Aaron was feeling 100% better after the nausea from the day before), but Cosmina started to feel a little under-the-weather, so most of the day was spent in our hotel room watching tons of Bollywood music videos on TV and reading. We made it on the flight the next day to Beijing, China on the day after the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics. Maybe its that the city still has some of that Olympic polish, but we were impressed from the time we stepped in the airport. Very clean and organized. So far, so good, and we hope to update in a day or two.
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