India - Incredible, Insane, Inspirational!

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Em and Chris go to India

Delhi

8.5 hour flight from London Heathrow to Mumbai International Airport. After a 5 hour delay in Mumbai spent in the Jet Airways VIP Lounge drinking and eating what ever we wanted (which wasn’t much), we finally boarded our connecting 2 hour flight to Delhi. Karan met us at the airport with a car and driver he’d hired. 23 hours after leaving our ex-home at Hollybush St in London, we pulled into our new home for the next few weeks in Gurgaon, 1 hour south of central Delhi. After rounds of hugs and kisses we were presented with the famous mama Sweety’s butter chicken. Karan had been talking this dish up for years, and it was as good as he’d promised it would be. She also made paneer (cottage cheese) saag and green tikka chicken with freshly made parathas.

We were staying at Karan’s sister, Meeto’s house with her husband Aman, their son Oshwin, his mother Sweety, his other sister Silvie and her son Jasmahal and his cousin Pearl had also come to meet us.
The next morning we were up at 10.30 for a cold shower and breakfast. Sweety mum had been up preparing puri (a thin pancake that steams out like a balloon in the pan) with a yellow lentil curry and prashard (a sweet sticky mush that was really nice). Such a heavy breakfast for us as we had been stressing, drinking and packing without really eating for about 5 days!

After breaky we hired a car and driver for the day and first went shopping at a nearby mall so buy to ethnic clothes so we could try to blend with the locals a little. Chris got a kota, which is a long leave, loose fitting shirt, and a pair of long pants. In malls, things are not really that cheap. We went into a gift shop and the prices were similar to London prices, but Gurgaon is the richer, business area so I suppose people can afford it there.

Chris, Karan and Emily left the sisters at the mall and we decided to go for lunch at Vasant Vihar at a restaurant called Punjabi by Nature which is famous for it’s Punjabi and North Indian cusine. Karan ordered for us as we still weren’t sure what was what, we had dhal makhani, galooti kebab, malai chicken kofta, paneer pakora, butter naam bread…we ate until we felt too sick to eat anymore! After this we went to Dili haat, a popular touristy market that you have to pay 20Rs to get in, but it keeps the beggars out. Here we bought a lacquer vase with silver and zinc hand embossed designs and a cute cloth elephant mobile. After this we went to an area called GK where I got a short and long sleaved and length kolti (woman’s version of the kota), and a pair of tights. Our huge day of shopping had left us tired and thirsty so we went to Café Coffee Day, the first western style coffee shop in India which is now a big chain. Chris fell in love instantly and this was the beginning of a beautiful relationship and constant excited sightings of the little red logo! Our driver then took us home. It was 600Rs for the whole day, and he took us where ever we wanted and waited by the car for as long as we wanted. We felt bad for him at lunchtime and slipped him 50Rs so he could get himself something to eat. All drivers in India are lunatics and they cannot got more than 10m without beeping the horn and pulling out in front of oncoming traffic!

Even though we had eating enough food to feed a small nation, they had prepared dinner for us at home. A chicken and a lamb biryani…which was too good to pass up. A couple of Karan’s mates came over to meet us, but we were too tired and full to go out with them so we just sat in the lounge and had a chat.

Saturday we went to Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, the largest Sikh temple. You have to put your shoes in a locker and cover your head, they have a basket of bandannas there if you don’t have your own. The temple and area is mostly made of white marble and has big gold onion shaped domes and a huge pool that I guess is full of holy water that people can dip in. Inside is an alter that you have to put a donation into and a man reads from a book and there is another man who has what looks like a big feather duster and he swings it around. There is also a big community area where free food is given out. We also saw Delhi Gate

On Sunday was the celebration / ceremony at the house , it was like a house warming / blessing. We had to got and get some supplies from the sweets store and a altar from the temple. Everone that came over was dressed in traditional clothing and all sat in a circle while the guru / priest chanted blessings and sang songs of prayer. That night pearl went home with he parents.

Uttarakhand: Dample (roadtrip through the real India) & Jim Corbett Tiger Safari

Monday morning we hired a car and driver and headed North west to Karan’s uncle Nippy and his wife poppy’s house in Dample . We left home at 5am and arrived at around 11 am with one stop for Oshwin to spew one stop for Chris to release some gas as he has a bad tummy and then the last stop to have some breakfast. Know one keeps in the lanes on the road, everyone is ducking and weaving all over the road trying to get ahead of the large overloaded colourful trucks, and the busted up buses, ox carts , donkeys, rickshaws, bicycles, cattle and pedestrians. Along the side of the road there is dried cow poo shaped in disks and stacked into huge pyramids to be used as fuel for fire. So may people live under tin / cloth on the side of the road. Farm houses are usually little brick boxes not much bigger that a dog house. This is real India!

When we got to Dample we when for a walk around the village with Karan. His family has loads of businesses there including Contact lens solution factory , spare parts shop and a restaurant. It was apparent that the people who lived in this village had not seen many if any white people before as they stared so openly and the kids tried to touch us and followed us around. After taking a few pics we went back to the house and had some lunch and a sleep as this work is tiring. The house has three levels and they have two girls that live there as servants. Poppy showed us a video of his trip to Jim Corbett just days before and he had seen 4 tigers, now are hopes are high to see one or two for ourselves. We had dinner at poppy’s favourite restaurant where he had called ahead to make sure that the food the evenings food was not too spicy for us!

After breakfast the next morning we drove 2hrs to the reservation office. At the reservation office Karan had to use all his contacts and all his uncles contacts along with charm and bribes to get us all into Dhikala which is the best camp as it is 50kms into the jungle and is where most sightings of tigers are seen. It’s not what you know, but who you know that’s important in this country. Despite his best efforts we had to stay at Gairai, which is not quite as deep, on the first night.

The Jim Corbett tiger reserve is in Uttarakhand and is one of Himalayan India’s last areas of wilderness. The park is 1288sq Km and was established in 1936 by the man himself Jim Corbett amongst others. Jim was a hunter who the people used to hunt man-eating tigers and leopards, most famously he killed the Champawat tiger that was responsible for 436 humans deaths.

Gairai is a little camp beside a river that sometimes elephants come to drink from in the mornings. Each camp is surrounded by electric fences to keep the animals out, as a few attacks on humans had happened. At this camp the electricity is turned off at 9.30pm to lessen the disruption to the animals. We drove to and around the campsite in an open top gypsy (jeep) was our first safari. Where we saw elephant, barking deer, spotted deer, sambar, rhesus and langur monkeys, jackal, peacocks and wild chickens.

The next day we went for another safari, which is pretty much a drive around to see what you can find. We didn’t see any tigers but we saw fresh pug marks. We went to crocodile point and saw some crocs off the cliff. Our driver/guide was really good and had such a keen eye. We moved into the second camp, Dhikala. A tiger had a kill not far from camp and was guarding and feeding there so the next day we went on an elephant to see it. He was so big, but looked so cute and fluffy because he’d been eating for a few days and was sleepy and not aggressive. It was unreal and the elephant shake when he gets closer. Everyone had seen tigers except us so far so it was so satisfying to finally see one.

On Thursday the final morning Chris, Em and Karan went on one last safari. We saw the sun rise and a herd of elephants with babies going into the trees, on the grasslands we saw big herds of deer and heaps of birds. It was so peaceful being out in the wild. The long trip back to Delhi took about 11 hours including stops for food.

Friday we got a cab to the closest metro station then went into central Delhi. We went to Connaught Place, which is like the Oxford St of Delhi for lunch, the we went to the Red Fort (Lil Qila) at Chandi Chowk in Old Delhi. The fort was commissioned by Shah Jahan. We got a guide which was really good as he explained things we’d never have known, like how he had to try and please everyone so the designs of the palace is a mixture of Persian, Muslim, Hindi and xxxx. The fort is 2km long and is made of red sandstone and has palaces, a private audience area, private apartments, mosques and pretty gardens. Afterwards we went to see Karan’s friend, Akash and we decided to go to Amritsar the next day to see the Golden Temple. Because we’d left it so late we couldn’t get A/C chair seats so we just thought we’d wing it and let Akash and Karan bride the railway men!

So on Monday we left home at 5.15am and got a cab to the station. We get about 10mins down the road and the cab runs out of fuel. There weren’t any other cabs around, so Em jumps into the driver seat and Chris and Karan push, while the cab driver runs beside the driver door yelling directions. We head up the wrong side of the highway with trucks beaming down on us, as this was the quickest way around a large around about. Everyone goes up the wrong side of the street, but it’s different when you’re pushing the car! We finally make it to a petrol station where we tell the cab driver to go to hell and we’re not paying him. So we jump into another cab who takes us all the way to the train station.

Akash bought us standing tickets then we went down to the platform and went looking for the ticket checker for the A/C chair carriages. After 20 minutes of bribing and sweet talking he finally gives in and gives us chairs in the A/C chair cart and pockets 700Rs from each of us! Not bad considering he probably earns less than that in a month!

After a breakfast of cutlet sandwiches we arrive in Ludiana at 12, where Akash needs to get a chasis number off a car for his work. No one has any idea where it is, so Chris has to save the day, by pulling the car about to find what they needed. Akash works for United Breweries so Chris says he can pay him in vodka!. Punjabi food is famous and the state produces enough food to feed the nation, one of it’s best dishes is butter chicken. So we went to a well known restaurant for a lunch of butter chicken.

Punjab: Ludiana & Amritsar (Golden Temple)

The next train to Amritsar was severely delayed so we decided to bus it. We took a rickshaw to outside the city where the buses stop on the side of the road and you jump on while it’s still moving. The buses are packed with people and are hot and dirty. We sat on the engine cover beside the driver, while Karan and Akash were sandwiched between a few big ladies. By the time we’d got to the outskirts of Amritsar we’d had a enough and jumped off to try find an A/C volvo bus, which are the nicest buses in India. However, there were none so we took auto rickshaw down to try get a cab, but they wanted to charge us 1100Rs, the rickshaw driver said he’d take us for 600Rs so made this poor man drive for 70kms (3.5 hours). There was a festival on that night so the traffic was horrendous. On the way we bought disgusting beers, played charades and Akash even had a drive. We stopped for lassis and icecream half way and gave one to the driver, he ate it like it was the best thing in the world! It was the craziest thing ever, it got dark and the rickshaw didn’t have a light, we thought he was lighting a candle to see by, but it was just a beade. Both boys come for well-to-do families so had never gone a trip like this before, so it was hilarious to all of us!! At Amritsar we picked 2 local boys who directed our driver to a nice hotel. After a nice shower we ordered room service and sent the waiter down to the shops to buy some whisky and vodka for us, then passed out.

We had planned to get up at 6am to get to the temple early, but the boys slept in, and we also found out one of Akash’s friends, AP, had come down during the night. It wasn’t until 9 that we left for the temple and the line up was huge. The Golden temple is surrounded by a big white wall with a giant lake in the middle that the people dip in, same as the one in Delhi, but in the middle of this lake a narrow causeway leading to the temple that is made of gold. It was built in the late 1500s and every Sikh tries to make at least one pilgrimage here in their lifetime. All around you can here the chanting/reading and there are musicians that play. We let the boys go inside and while we took photos and listened to the musicians. People kept coming up to us and asking to take our picture. There were giant carp in the lake that followed you when you walked past and came to the surface begging for food. Afterwards AP bought us a steel bangle each and we treated everyone to a cheap lunch of aloo and gobhi parantha (potato and cauliflower stuffed thin pancake).

The trip home was another adventure. As before we bought standing only tickets and planned to bribe the ticket collector, however this time, he wouldn’t have a bar of it plus the train was full. So we spent 4-5 hours in the standing carriage. When people get on the trains it is like a violent brawl and fighting to keep your space requires strength and stamina. Luckily for us we were with 3 big boys who made a human fortress around us! Kids were being passed over head to go to the toilet, women were trying to crawl between the guy’s legs, everyone was squashed in like sardines except us! For the last 2-3 hours we finally made our way to the A/C chair compartment as seats had become available. It was such a relief to sit (and sleep)!

At the station we got a cab home. Other drivers had to push start the cab, the front seat was not attached to anything and he had to stop half way to put water in his radiator…we finally got home exhausted and dirty, but also so much more enlightened.

Rajastan: Agra (Taj Mahal) & Jaipur (The Pink City)

Monday and Tuesday we rested at home and planned our trip to Agra and Jaipur. Wednesday morning we took a cab to the train station (800Rs) and got the 6.15am Shitabi express train to Agra. It is a really nice train and they first served tea and biscuits followed by a lunch that we have no idea what is was and then more coffee. In Agra we caught a taxi (50Rs) to the west gate of the Taj Mahal. Tickets to get in for foreigners are 750Rs each (but about 50 for Indians). After going through ticket check and security, Emily got stopped because she had an ipod in her bag…you can take pretty much anything in expect food and ipods…what the?? So we had to go back down the road and check our bags into a locker room. Second time lucky, we were in front of the Taj…it was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky and the white glistening domes were breathtaking. It was about 9am when we got there, so it wasn’t too busy or too hot. The emperor Shah Jahan wanted to create an unsurpassed monument to enshrine the body of his favourite wife, Mumtaz when she died after having given birth to their 14th child. Work began in 1632 and took over 20 years to complete being made from marble sourced from all over Asia and semi-precious stones. I’m pretty sure 90% of the world’s marble is in India, even crappy old buildings have marble staircases! Around the Taj is a red sandstone wall and inside are mosques, a long pool, a museum and beautiful gardens.

From the Taj Mahal we first walked around Taj Ganj then caught a rickshaw to some market, that actually had nothing of interested except…Café Coffee Day! We had iced coffees and club sandwiches, it was actually really nice to eat ‘normal’ food again. A boy with really twisted up legs chased us down the street walking on his knees and begging. Chris gave him 10Rs and he looked so happy, but then all the other kids started coming out of the woodworks so we had to make a dash for it. The rickshaw driver was this little guy with the crappiest bike in Agra! The poor thing had to pedal so hard with is broken seat and chain that kept falling off and it was the middle of the day so he was sweating profusely. We didn’t want to use him to get to the fort a, because we felt bad and b, because it takes forever…but he begged us to let him take us and said he’d do it for free…so we went.

Agra Fort is a big red sandstone fortress, and the Red Fort in Delhi is modelled on this one. It was built in 1565 along the Yamuna river as the strong of the Mughal empire for successive generations. There were monkey playing in the windows and the view of the Taj across the river was gorgeous. It was like a labyrinth of rooms, so we had fun playing hide-and-seek and running down corridors from room to room.

It felt like a storm was brewing later that afternoon, the wind was whipping all the dust and rubbish that is in Agra as swirling it around, but there were only a couple of drops of rain. We went back to the station and got the 5.45pm 3rd tired class A/C train to Jaipur.

We arrived in Jaipur at around 11pm and got a auto rickshaw to Jaipur Inn, had a nice warm shower and a good, deep sleep. Jaipur is also known as the Pink City as a lot of buildings and walls are a faded pink colour. The next morning, Thursday, we got up fresh as daisies and hired an auto rickshaw for the day for 250Rs. We first went to the bus station to get tickets for the A/C volvo bus (500Rs each) back back to Delhi that evening. Then we went Hawa Mahal, which we later found out opened about half an hour after we got there, so we only got to see the outside of it. Hawa Mahal means Palace of Winds. Out the front were 3 snake charmers. Emily videoed them while their scary cobras darted around and they smacked them in the head…but the dumb dumb didn’t push the button propertly so no video ☹ We gave them 10Rs each and they chased us down the road demanding more.

Next we went to the City Palace (300Rs with a free audio guide) in the centre of the city. It was built by Jai Singh in the 1720s, each door is beautifully decorated and is guarded by guards dressed in white with red turbans. There are old carriages, textile/arts factory, armoury, museum and a cafe. There are 2 silver urns in the public audience area which are listed in the Guinness world book of records as the largest objects made of silver. The royal family still occupy part of the palace.

We had to check out at 12 so we went back to pick up our bags, they had turned the electricity off so we couldn’t have a shower. When we got back to the rickshaw the driver’s nephew had decided to join us. We then went to Jas Mahal, the Water Palace, which is an old seemingly long disused palace built in the middle of a lake. There are walls and poles where boats must have docked along the shore and it looks like they rowed right into the palace. In the surrounding mountains you can see a wall (a bit like the Great wall of China) weaving around like a big long snake joining fortress and temple.

They took us to a textile factory where we were shown how the cloth was printed and taken on a tour of the factory. We spent ages looking at all the different fabrics and styles and finally decided to 3 big cloths for presents and a patchwork elephant piece for ourselves. It was not cheap, but was so beautiful and you could see how much work had gone into it. The nephew started taking us to random shops, which got really annoying so we went back to the bus station a bit earlier and waited for our 4pm bus. The bus was the nicest/flashest bus we’ve ever seen with big reclining seats with extendable foot rests, 2 LCD tvs and free water bottles. We watched Slumdog Millionare but it was in Hindi, so it was lucky we’d seen it before in English. There was a halfway station were we stopped for 15mins then on to Delhi, we got out at Gurgaon and saved an hour of travel time. It was so nice to be ‘home’ and we had missed our Indian family!

Friday we spent hanging out at home, going to the Omaxe mall across the road and packing. Emily got her dresses and shirt altered and we bought a big gold and green vase as a thank you gift to Meetu and Aman for everything they’d done for us. That night Sweety taught us how to make butter chicken…yummy!!!

Goa

Saturday at 7am we got a taxi to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye and we wrote a little letter to Oshwin, who hadn’t woken up yet. We arrived in Goa at 1pm and a driver took us to our hotel ‘Om Sai’ (900Rs/night) in Palolem beach. The beach here is beautiful, with big long sandy beaches, huts and restaurants along the beach, boats and cows. The water is a bit murky on the shoreline but is warm and very swimmable. The food here is great, because there are so many tourists, especially English and German. The guys at our hotel are really helpful and our room has A/C and a TV. We think it’s much better to be staying off the beach as we stayed in a hut in Thailand, and everything gets sandy and the mozzies are bad, but the hammocks on the veranda and the sound of waves at night was really nice. After exploring our little village and walking down the beach and over the hill to the next bay, we came back to the room for a nice nap in the A/C. We had wood-fired pizza and salad for dinner.

The morning sun woke us up early on Sunday so we down to the beach for breakfast. Later on we went to the internet to look up how to get to Mumbai for our flight home and to talk to Mel, who just told us she’s pregnant!! Emily bought a little green dress and skirt and we got one for Mel too. Now it was time to got to the beach as it is not so hot in the afternoon sun. On went the togs and the frisbee in the bag and we walk down through the market place and restaurants to the beach. We had a swim and played Frisbee for a couple of hours and just lie in the sun, arrr such a hard life but someone has to do it. It was not until getting home to our room did we see just how much sun we’d got…we looked like the ‘tandoori kids’!

Everyday at Palolem was pretty much the same, we get up at around 9, go for breakfast, come back to the room watch some TV, walk around the shops, have some lunch, go for a swim, play frizbee, have beers or cocktails, have some dinner, maybe play some pool, come home watch some TV or read a book, go to sleep. It’s so relaxing…we never wanted to leave...but all good things must come to an end...so it's back to reality for us...

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Comments

[David]

awesome!
roomies that was such a cool diary, i thought u guys might have decided to just stay :)