At some point in our travels through India we happened upon a quote that read, “Don’t make plans for India, India makes them for you…” This couldn’t have been more accurate in our case.
We began our adventure along India’s Golden Triangle route. This well-trodden tourist trail of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur is where most first time travelers who come to northern India almost always find themselves. It’s an easy itinerary to fall into, connecting the dots of these three must-see cities couldn’t be easier through public transit.
Landing at the airport in Delhi, it was easy to hop right on the adjoining metro. The metro in Delhi has blue seats for boys and pink for girls. Naturally there are dudes in the pink seats…There is also an entire car just for ladies, like we saw in Dubai. It’s really sad this has to be a thing. Fortunately, as women’s rights groups have gained ground in India, there has been a lot of public response in regards to recent crimes committed on women, resulting in perpetrators who have been sentenced to the death penalty. They still have a long way to go, but progress is happening.
Exiting from a metro station to walk the short 400 meters to the train station Which will take us to Agra. Another breathtaking experience, but not the good kind.
Pollution chic. Mandy sports a Vera Wang face mask, and Gucci ear plugs. Yes, it’s dreadful. Our weather app proclaimed air pollution levels in Delhi were at “hazardous” levels the day we arrived. Later, we read breathing a day of Delhi’s air is like smoking 10 cigarettes a day. We faced the same dire air quality conditions in Kathmandu. We’ve never appreciated clean, fresh, air more.
Enjoying a delicious train station thali lunch. (Lunch plate/$1.50) By the way, notice the guy lying on the floor behind Greg. When we looked at him, he was stiff as a board, his eyes wide open. We seriously thought he was dead but when he shifted later on, we realized he apparently was one of those puzzling individuals who can sleep with their eyes open. Creepy.
The Indian Railway experience itself was very positive. Buying a ticket on the their ticketing website, another story. Knowing what we know about Indians ruling the techie world, (yes, it’s a stereotype, which just might be true), we thought it would be a breeze. However, perhaps they’re a little too good. The website was so secure with captchas and bots, we about went insane, especially considering we were trying to use a foreign credit card and oh, there are ten different class options to choose from. Fortunately, through the help of The Man in Seat 61, we found this article which completely troubleshooted us through the frustration and process.
You can even pre-order food online to have food delivered to your seat!!
Even booking nearly a month in advance, we ended up paying for a second-class sleeper car for our three hour jaunt from Delhi to Agra, as it was all there was available. ($17/total.) So, after our thali, we hopped hesitantly aboard our first Indian Railways sleeper car experience. We gritted our teeth having no idea what to expect. But, after all our bus experiences lately in Nepal, it felt like first class on Emirates Airlines! Mandy even got to enjoy a horizontal afternoon siesta.
Some of the raw India scenes we saw from the train, including sacred cow patties being dried in the sun, and later used as charcoal.
Monkeys run amok all over northern India, the train station was no exception. One was even so ballsy as to climb right aboard our train carriage as if he had a ticket!
Although brighter than most canines, who might get a blanket tossed over them, this little guy still couldn’t seem to shake his tagalong accessory.
Agra
And then we arrived in Agra, home of the iconic Taj Mahal. This shot needs little introduction… we’ve all seen it splashed across glossy paged travel magazine articles or through our Instagram feeds where “influencers” flaunt their brilliantly yet surreally staged pictures of it (usually including stunning women draped in vibrant flowy dresses.)
With the Taj Mahal, it’s all too easy to concoct a dreamy idea of what it is like without having actually seen it. Though it is an Islamic shrine, the Taj is in essence a monument to romantic love. (Sigh). Shah Jahan built the Taj as a mausoleum for the body of his favorite wife, known popularly as Mumtaz Mahal, who died after giving birth to the Shah’s 14th child in 1632. The name—Taj Mahal—is a shortened, version of the wife’s name.
Truth be told, we almost skipped visiting the Taj Mahal entirely because it is so iconic, and it is also arguably the #1 tourist attraction in India. Visiting sites like it are not really “our style” rather, we always prefer to get-off-the-beaten-path instead which the Taj most certainly is not. A number of other travelers convinced us however that it’s a world wonder not to be missed while in India so we gave in. Make no mistake you will be swarmed by other tourists, local and foreign, during your visit to the Taj. Even if, as we did, you arrive at the gates when they opened at 6:00 am (after paying the $15/person admission) there will still be a huge queue to jump in. And, as this is India, you will battle to get ahead of everyone else with selfie sticks to get your “iconic” picture of the Taj, and you will get food poisoning at the worst moments, and along the way you will see some ugliness to starkly contrast the grandeur. Currently the air around the Taj is so polluted, it settles as sulphuric acid on the tomb, turning the white marble yellow, and a fungus experts have nicknamed “marble cancer” feeds on the sulfur making the marble flaky and robbing the marble of it’s translucency.
Arriving at 6 am, we joined a couple hundred other friends in line before the doors opened at 6:15. As the gates opened we rushed forward to snap the iconic picture of the 55-meter main dome in the reflection pool. The one picture you need to get without other people in it. Naturally, what you can’t see is the collection of people on the platform waiting in a queue (or shoving to the front of the queue, or shouting at other people to move out of their photo so they can get their peopleless shot) to get said iconic picture. Despite all this mayhem, we must admit, the Taj Mahal really is a striking sight and even, inspiringly surreal in its perfect proportions. Standing on this spot, trying to soak it in, we were very glad we made the effort to see it once.
There is beauty everywhere you look at the Taj. A delicate Indian arch frames the Taj’s wondrous face.
The gracefully flowing arches of the accompanying buildings were also exquisite.
Built by the Shah (emperor) using a workforce of 20,000 men from across Asia) starting in 1632. It took more than 20 years to complete.
The garden is segmented into four quadrants mirroring the Quran’s description of paradise, where rivers flow with water, milk, honey, and interestingly…wine.
The optical illusions at the Taj are truly mesmerizing, the minarets were deliberately constructed leaning slightly outwards in order to counteract an illusion which would have made them appear to lean inwards from ground level if they were actually vertical.
The way the colors of the white marble developed was an absolute spectacle with the rising sun. According to our guidebook, this is play of light is a consequence which the architects intended to be an important decorative element which symbolically implies the presence of Allah.
The morning sunrise haze meets Taj.
We could see the colors starting to change as the sun rose when we took this picture.
Other glamour snaps before we move to the less glam side…
That said, for the record, Mandy was the one taking all these pictures. Poor Greg was developing a churning, gurgling, not very happy tummy so he was mostly sitting on the sidelines trying to keep some inner peace. It wasn’t until we were on our way out of the Taj that his stomach had finally had enough and protested, letting Greg have the dubious distinction of having thrown up at the Taj grounds. We quickly deduced it was the rice biryani from the evening before.
Other uglier sides of visiting the Taj…
- A very disturbingly polluted waterway near the entrance gate.
- The (way too small 250ml) and totally unnecessary complimentary water bottle distribution at the ticketing window, which later is destined to decorate the waterways and surrounding landscape.
- Waiting in line to get in, and begin the mad dash to get a photo
- The smartphone photo clog at the entrance
The river on which flows on the back side of the Taj. Glancing at the riverbank we could see the normal Indian kaleidoscope of suspects going about their usual morning routines including monkeys, cows, food vendors, worshipers, and of course lots of rubbish.
Impossible not to get photo bombed here! (Before “the incident.”)
Jaipur
Next stop…Jaipur, aka The Pink City. We settled into a rooftop hostel accommodation situated deep in the old city for four nights before moving into some swankier digs at an Indian palace for our final night. There were so many beautiful sights to see in Jaipur and we were excited to get to them. Unfortunately for us, India had other plans. The upper respiratory bug that had infected Greg in Nepal a week earlier had now taken root in Mandy’s lungs. Sadly, for us, this meant we had to lay low in Jaipur for 4 days, only scraping up the energy to venture out to see the Galta Ji Monkey Palace (home of the infamous Galta Gang of monkeys) and the Hawa Mahal, or the “Palace of Winds” on our last two days in the notoriously photogenic pink city.
Jaipur, the Pink City, lives up to its nickname. The ‘pink’ is a result of many builders using pink as camouflage for the poor-quality materials from which its buildings were originally constructed. Hawa Mahal is the most iconic of the landmarks at the royal palace of Jaipur. The “Palace of Winds” was built in 1799 as a way for the women of the court to watch parades and processions in the street below while remaining unseen and also avoiding the pandemonium of Jaipur’s bustling streets. Um, can we experience India like the royals please?! Its five story countenance is decked with hundreds of matching screened windows & balconies making it seem much larger than it is. It’s truly remarkable, but basically just a facade.
If you’re never queued up the National Geographic show “Monkey Thieves” on Netflix, you should. The Galta Ji (Monkey Palace) is the home of the docu-series about the tales of the “Galta Gang,” a troop of macaque monkeys who inhabit this shrine in Jaipur. It’s very entertaining, and surprisingly addictive to follow the monkeys around town. Although the monkeys dominate this holy space, the assorted shrines dedicated to Krishna, Rama, and Hanuman are equally atmospheric.
In fact, there are estimated to be 5,000 of these mischievous little troublemakers romping and thieving through the area causing all kinds of ruckus. The monkeys don’t just stay within the boundaries of the palace, but also stray far into the streets and neighborhoods below.
Clearly this one is very prim and proper and would never cause anyone grief.
Although they’re reasonably well nourished by the bananas locals toss to them for tribute, (not too smart foreigners also hand feed the monkeys hoping for a photo-op, but instead the monkeys can and do bite the hand that feeds sending people home with a nasty bite and a trip to the Indian hospital.)
The monkeys are EVERYWHERE! Stealing food from trash bins, marketplaces, restaurants and even breaking into the homes of locals and causing complete disasters. There was even a sign on our hostel roof that stated, “Beware of monkey thieves! (Not a joke.)” They clearly own this town.
Other shots of the temple and surrounding areas. Can you find the monkey(s) in all three pictures?
A compilation of some of our favorite monkeys in India.
A pitiful skeletal cow on the way up to the temple. No one seems to be tossing him bananas. Guess he’ll survive on plastic bags. Really sad.
Many people, particularly ladies, seem to come and bathe at the temple.
After four days eking out a recovery from our respiratory infections in a hostel, Greg surprised Mandy by moving us into the Krishna Palace for our fifth and final night in Jaipur. Yes, you can stay in a freakin’ Indian palace in Jaipur, ours was just $23/night.
So it’s not an actual palace per se but this 80-year-old gorgeous residence is certainly made to look like one. And we certainly felt like royalty here!
Our Thanksgiving… An Indian buffet dinner. Ironically it’s not much different than how we used to celebrate Thanksgiving in Portland. Uh, but we are…in India now…so there’s that!
The Royal gates to enter the Pink City.
So, to complete the golden triangle, we were left with our final stop of Delhi. We had set aside just one full day to attempt to explore Delhi. But, once again, India had other plans for us. Mandy was hit hard on the night of our arrival to Delhi by an especially nasty gut bug that totally incapacitated her. So, in the end all we got to see was a metro station, the inside of our hotel room, and the airport. ?
India has a way of making you appreciate certain things about your life, as well as learning a lot about yourself. Because we got so sick, perhaps it was even more apparent for us the things we should be grateful for like:
- Clean air. You don’t truly understand what it’s like not to have it…until you don’t.
- Clean water. Same story
- Peace and Quiet. We had a reasonably quiet top-floor hostel room in which to recover
- Turmeric Tea. Because no one makes it quite like the Indians
- Cheap and quality medicine: Cold meds, cough syrup, nausea medication, strong stomach muscle relaxers…all available by visiting a pharmacist for $.50-$2.
- Kindness of strangers: We were overwhelmed by the strangers who have noticed we were sick and tried to help. One couple even bought us tea and gave us medicine on a train
- Warm weather. Lying around in shorts and a tshirt
- English. Being able to natively speak the USB of languages has been immensely helpful. (In India, and everywhere.)
- Time. Being able to take the time to recover (although it did cost us).
- Support and Love. We are beyond grateful for the friends and family who support our journey back home, and look forward to seeing some of you very soon! We also are thankful for our followers who we’ve never met. It’s been amazing to see our following grow of people from around the world, and even develop “personal” online relationships with many of you.
All this said, we saw some incredible one-of-a-kind attractions, and met some very kind people during rounds one and two of our brief travels in India. India however, is an assault on all your senses and really tests your fortitude… there is simply no way to fully prepare yourself for it until you arrive. Because of the illnesses we suffered, we pretty much missed Jaipur and Delhi… meaning we pretty much missed really experiencing this corner of India.
We will be returning to India for a third time in January, to Goa. So the verdict is still out if we love or hate it, but we sure hate being sick there… We’ll let you know in January. We’re hoping to fall into the love camp, maybe the third time is a charm! ?
