mango on an apple

Delhi WIN

on Saturday 23 April 2011

in India, travel

We ended up back in Delhi with two full days to sightsee, hang out, and absorb the capital as more seasoned travelers in India than three-and-a-half weeks ago. It was a smart move, because this time, we really enjoyed it.

We started off with the Salaam Baalak Trust street walk in the morning. It is a street walk done by former street children of Delhi, who tell you about their stories of surviving on the streets, what it’s like for street kids, and how the Salaam Baalak Trust has helped them and continues to help other kids everyday. We’ve seen the slums of India first hand on our train journeys, as a lot of the ragged tents and straw huts are built near train tracks, so it was especially nice for us to see the other side of the story on how poverty is being turned around.

The kids from Salaam Baalak Trust in class learning English

After the walk, a surprise crept up on us, literally. The guides chased us down, along with the camera crew from BBC World News, and we got interviewed for our thoughts on the foundation! Totally random, and who knows, maybe we will see it some day.

Alex getting the paparazzi treatment. Notice the two randoms on the left hand side just hanging out, gawking

We continued on to the Qutb Minar, which Alex had much difficulty pronouncing due to the lack of vowels. There, we found out it was World Heritage Day, and admission was free, even for foreigners! We wandered around the site, with Alex focusing on the audio guide tour (as usual), and me hanging around, hiding from Indian people trying to take pictures of me with their cameras and phones. (The whole gawking/people taking pictures of me thing deserves a whole other post, full of ranting.)

The Qutb Minar – world’s tallest minaret

This tomb was supposed to have a dome ceiling. They tried twice, failed twice. It is now a ceiling-less tomb, lol

We met up with a local Delhite, a friend of Alex from high school, for dinner. Anu took us to the amazing Bukhara in the ITC Maurya hotel, where we feasted on meat for the first time in India. It was a lovely meal, and I’m glad to say we at least tried something fancy on our super-budget trip!!

The next day Alex and I ventured out sans camera to enjoy our last day, and because some sights didn’t allow cameras anyway. We went to what is now dubbed as “Hindu Disneyland”, the Akshardam. The temple and the buildings and sculptures in the grounds are all beautifully and intricately carved, and it is a massive complex with lots of people pouring in from all corners to pay their respects. The architecture and grounds alone were well worth the visit, and it was free, with donation. We decided to pay a little extra to go through the Exhibitions, and we saw the short film on Neelkanth Darshan, to whom the place is dedicated. Since I’m not particularly religious, I found the storyline a little exaggerated and full of impossible feats, but to each their own, I guess. The more ridiculous exhibit was the boat ride that told the story of the Indian civilization from the beginning. According to the narrator, pi and gravity were both discovered in India 3,000 years before anyone else did, and they were building intricate metal aircrafts and spaceships (I kid you not, the models were there with the wax figures) 3,000 years ago too. Alex and I kept on exchanging really amused glances with each other, holding back giggles so as not to offend fellow passengers on the boat.

From there, we got to Old Delhi and had the honour of a three-hour Old Delhi walking tour, complete with a souvenir, from Mohit whom we met in Jaipur along with Tracy. It was fantastic, and we feasted along the way on lots of different street snacks. Old Delhi has some very old and famous shops, and we walked down a street full of just decorations for weddings. If I had known, I would’ve totally waited to buy my ribbons from there – I didn’t even want to find out how much cheaper they were. The whole street was an amazing sight that, even if I had my camera, I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture to depict just how extensive the collections were. Since we were full from all the delicious street snacks, we took a break to hang out at India Gate a little bit, before having a fab last meal in Delhi late at night – a perfect ending.

All in all, we had two very fun and relaxed days in Delhi, and I can now happily say I truly did enjoy the capital of India :-)

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Good Morning, No Thank You

on Friday 22 April 2011

in India, travel

Auto rickshaws waiting to ask us if we need a ride

In the bigger cities we’ve visited, there are lots of rickshaw drivers, both auto and cycle, who follow us around on the road as we attempt to walk half a kilometre to a destination. I’m still not sure if they really think walking around is that unthinkable, or if it’s because we are tourists…but sometimes they would seriously pull over and ask us if we wanted to pay them Rs.40 to go 500m to the next monument.

Unless we are walking a long distance, we typically say no politely, and continue on our way. Some of them would follow, especially the auto drivers, and continue to pester us with other destinations they could take us to, or simply (and very ignorantly) assume that I don’t speak English, and look at me while shouting “TUK-TUK! TUK-TUK!”

Let’s just say, it’s hard for someone as impatient as me to bite my tongue and hold back from saying “F-off, I speak English!” – but so far I haven’t slipped.

At our hotel in Jaipur, a lot of rickshaw drivers would hang out outside in the morning, waiting for business. Every morning as we walked past them, they would ask if we needed a rickshaw, and rattle off the tourist destinations that they would like to show us. Most days, we were taking a simple walk down a block to the tailor’s, or the post office, or another restaurant. So Alex would always politely say, “No, thank you” as soon as the barrage of inquiries came our way from the four or five rickshaw drivers chilling outside the hotel.

On our last morning in Jaipur, as we walked to the tailor’s to pick up Alex’s suit, one of the rickshaw drivers looked over at us, and said cheerily, “Good morning, No-Thank-You!”

I snickered. It was quite a becoming nickname for Alex.

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Agra, over and out

on Thursday 21 April 2011

in India, travel

The Taj Mahal in the morning – this required us waking up at 5:30AM, blehhh

From Udaipur, we took a night train to Agra, getting into the city just before noon. We had arranged for our hotel to pick us up at the train station, as it being a tourist city, Agra is famous for touts trying to take you to different hotels than the one you’ve booked. Our driver was friendly and chatty, and offered his services for the two days and one night we were there to take us to all the sights and show us the local flavour. Since we were there for such a short period of time, and we’d never actually hired an exclusive car to take us places, I thought it was a good idea and agreed.

As soon as we got into the hotel, the hotel manager tried to sell us the same deal, for cheaper. He claimed his driver was much cheaper and better, and gave us ideas on how to turn down the man who picked us up. It was awkward, but in the end we went with the hotel driver.

It wasn’t later in the evening that we realized everyone in Agra wanted our money. Sure, we went with a cheaper driver, but he was getting commission on the restaurant recommendations he gave us and took us to – and even told us the place we wanted to go was closed. I’m not sure if it’s a lie, but I didn’t trust the man at all with anything he said after that little incident.

Agra is a city that survives on tourism, and everyone there who has anything to do with possibly getting a buck or two off of tourists would stick themselves on us like white on rice. This included the tourism board. Indian citizens paid Rs.110 for the Taj Mahal, but tourists paid Rs.750. For the Sikandra, another major historic site in Agra, locals paid Rs.10, and we paid Rs.110. It was daylight robbery, and had a slight racist undertone that we didn’t appreciate at all.

The Sikandra, another burial site for a Mughal emperor. They had real deer in the grounds!

Since Agra was an experience that was primarily overshadowed by the money-hungry locals, I am glad we saved it for the end of the trip. Had we been to Agra immediately after arriving in India, I think it would’ve made me want to come home then. Being a little more seasoned in Agra definitely helped, and we were even savvy enough to venture down an alley where locals were feasting on street food, and partook in the action with some papri chaat and aloo chaat. Both were delicious, super spicy, and totally hit the spot after weeks of curries.

I’m glad that we saw the Taj Mahal, but seriously, after all the hassle and expensive admission fees everywhere, I can’t say it was the most amazing place we’ve been, nor the most beautiful historic site I’ve seen. Thus, over and out, and back to Delhi and then a taste of home in Taipei!

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