Saturday
New
Delhi
In
new Delhi, we looked for a way to get a cab we walked back and forth in the
airport since it was maybe 2 in the morning. We eventually found the official
place to get a cab and got one, bay 39 is where we were supposed to go.
We
were intercepted by another one of the cab drivers who said he’d take us there
for half the estimated price they gave us at the official thing, so we never
made it to bay 39.
As
we got closer to the hotel we started getting a little scared the neighborhood
was not very…clean looking and we just kept thinking that we ended up getting a
crappy hotel for looking online. The hotel was actually great, the people were
really nice and polite to us (they kept calling us “boss”), everything inside
was very organized and clean and the room was great they asked for our
passports and we checked in. It was a good surprise. Before we went to sleep we
talked with some of the people and setup our plan for the next few days. For
about 1000 dollars we would get a city tour in Delhi, a car ride and a tour of
Agra, then a car to Jaipur, a hotel there, and then a flight to Calcutta for
all 4 of us. Things in India are cheap.
Also
since we only got there at 2-ish in the morning and were leaving at 6 the next
day the only charged us for one night, like I said REALLY nice people.
After
naps and recovery we went out to see New Delhi, we went to the red fort, which
has something to do with Delhi becoming the capital instead of Agra. There is
this market on the way in where they sell fabrics and little wooden statues and
purses and all sorts of stuff that tourists love to buy, apparently only people
who are descendants of the original shop owners can work there. In 1857 the fort
was captured by the English who broke through the main gate using an elephant.
Building the place took 9 years 5000 workers and 10 million rupees. It’s crazy,
nowadays if a building takes more than 2 years to be finished everyone gets
angry and thinks it’s a crazy project. WE WANT RESULTS NOW!
We
did not have time to stop by the rajghat (surprisingly easy to pronounce) which
is where Gandhi’s ashes are held. But we went to the Gandhi museum where they
have a lot of pictures and speeches, which were actually really interesting, I
took some pictures of them and will see how many I will bother to put on the
facebook of course if anyone wants to see more of them just let me know, they
were really good I thought.
Most
of what he talked about could be related to how having one big leader that was
corrupt messed everything up, and I thought that what a revolution did in
general was get rid of that one big leader (or government). But what comes
afterwards, either a replacement that is chosen in the middle of chaos, or a
break up into smaller units, smaller leaders that can (and usually do) take
advantage of their new position. Where does true progress come from then?
Dunno.
We visited
Jantar Mantar which is an astronomy complex, giant pieces of equipment, that really
look like buildings, were used to measure the position of the sun and other
stars. People were so creative! Well I guess just creative in different ways
than we are now, but man, it’s crazy to imagine how much ancient cultures knew
about astronomy, and they ways they used to study it.
We visited
the central gate, took some cool pictures and had ice cream, it was really hot.
There is a big problem with people trying to sell stuff to tourists; as soon as
you get out of a cab there are 5-10 people trying to stuff stuff in your hands.
This lady selling henna tattoos grabbed Maria’s hand and started drawing on it,
she didn’t know any better and thought it looked cool so she let her do it, we
ended up deciding (not that we really had a choice) to let her do it, and Maria
was happy. When she was done though, she wanted to charge us a lot of money so
we ended up telling her to take 5 bucks and leave us alone. At some point some
guys approached us told us his name and shook our hands, I’m pretty sure they were
going to try something weird, but either we left too quickly or our guide
scared them off, it was a little weird.
We visited
Humayun’s tomb, which is a complex that includes some temples, the guy’s tomb
and the tombs of some of his wifes, it’s really amazing to see such beautiful
buildings and monuments. To think that someone was willing to spend so much
time money and effort to building these things is crazy. I had a lot of mixed
feelings, on one hand they’re literally awesome, but then again it’s a lot of
resources spent on a building. Then again, if you have a lot of money and
resources why not use them to build amazing cultural monuments that everyone
will get to visit and be amazed by centuries later? Oh wait…you could use them
to help all the starving people that live next door.
It was
definitely an interesting experience and the whole time I felt incredibly lucky
to have the opportunity to experience them.
Next up
was the Lotus temple it is a temple dedicated to the purity and equality of all
religions. A really beautiful building, in which anyone is welcome to come and
pray to whatever they believe in. However they do have some kind of own
religion with their own prophet. I didn’t find out much more than that. But the
idea was interesting. We went for lunch, a little too spicy as always, and then
another monument. A huge tower, in a plaza where there was another really big
and heave iron pole monument. I don’t really remember the history of this
monument but the detail on it was crazy, you can see it on the pictures, the
craftsmanship is hard to believe. Only pictures can even begin to do it
justice.
We went
for some shopping which was nice because everything was so cheap. My mom bought
little presents for everyone at home.
This was
an exhausting day, we went back to the hotel and Maria and I jumped in the pool
and played for a while before bed.
Sunday
Sunday…man
what a day. We woke up early to go to Agra, mainly to see the Taj Mahal. I
slept on the way there, which was nice, we got to the parking and as always
were immediately surrounded by a bunch of people trying to sell us stuff, that,
however is when my dad realized he didn’t have our passports…BAD. They had
asked for them at the hotel in Delhi, and told us they’d return them but they
forgot, and we did too. Luckily we didn’t need them until Monday afternoon when
we were supposed to fly to Calcutta, but still, it was really scary, we called
the hotel and sure enough they had them, and were happy to offer to mail them
to us the next day, which was of course, crap. So we talked and fought for a
little while until we got to the point where the guy would hire a cab to take
them to our hotel in Jaipur, where we would be that night, we’d have to pay for
the cab but this was one of those situations where you don’t have a choice and
so we were just thankful that we would get them back, it was a scary time.
That being
said it was time to visit the Taj Mahal, one of the 7 wonders of…yeah I tried
to look up a list of the 7 wonders, there are like 70 lists of 7 wonders, I
think the famous one is the 7 wonders of antiquity and I’m pretty sure the Taj
Mahal and the Terra Cota warriors are 2 of those, but even versions of that
vary from source to source, so who knows.
This place
was awesome though, standing in front of something so majestic makes you feel
small, but at the same time really happy to get to see it. The guy who had it
built did it for one of his wives, the one who gave him the most children and
so the one he loved the most (naturally). I think it was something like 13 or
something else that was ridiculous. So ladies if you’re wondering why you don’t
have a Taj Mahal, it may have something to do with the fact that you don’t want
to share your husband with an undetermined number of other ladies, and at the
same time give him 13+ children…so no complaining!
Seriously
though this place was so beautiful, 22 domes one for every year that it took to
build. The estimated cost fixed to represent today’s currency was 20,000,000,000
USD. INSANE, yet incredibly and undeniably beautiful. It’s closed on Fridays
except for the Muslim mosque. I won’t try to describe it, there’s no way,
pictures are on facebook. Man…it was crazy, there are 2 tombs in the center for
the guy and his (favorite) wife. The stones that are used to decorate the whole
place are semi-see-through so you can see light through it and sections of the
marble that are not as think. It must look even more incredible under the
moonlight. It’s also surprisingly cool inside.
I forgot
to say that we rode from the parking lot to the monument on a camel, and the
little sister of the kid who was in charge of the thought Maria was really cool
so she gave Maria one of the key rings she was selling as a present. It was a
really cool moment…Also I rode a camel! It was cool.
On our way
back to the car a big storm hit, and it started raining a lot, and there was a
big accident on the road so our driver decided to take an alternate route. This
alternate route was not in as good a condition at one point we had to go
through a puddle…that turned out to be about a foot deep. The car died halfway
through it and it was pretty scary but eventually it started again and we kept
going. We went through a few towns in the middle of nowhere where I saw the
most poverty I have ever seen in my life. There were houses which basically
consisted of 4 wooden poles about 4 feet away from each other that formed a
square. A plastic square to protect from the rain and then some leafs to sleep
on. Imagine a few hundreds of these back to back and that’s what these towns
looked like. It was hard to see.
At some
point we stopped for foodsies and realized that we had lost our license plate
probably around when the car died in the puddle. Eventually we got to Jaipur,
which apparently was completely new to our driver, he looked for the address
for a while and couldn’t find it, asked a few people and still couldn’t find
it. Sure enough, a cop saw that we didn’t have a license plate and pulled us
over, we don’t really know what they talked about but the cop asked for the
guy’s driver’s license, he pulled it out but didn’t want to give it to him
since he’d get a ticket…they talked a little more, then our driver was quiet
for a second…put the car in gear and
drive off!
Yeah,
insane, we were scared as heck, sat there quietly and hoped for the best, a few
blocks down another cop pulled us over, he was standing in front of the car,
the driver slowed down, stopped, and when the cop moved to the side to go
towards the window, we drove off again.
It was a
fun time, since we still didn’t really know where we were going so we kept
driving around, hoping the cops wouldn’t find us…We ended up going to a place
to put some credit in our driver’s phone since he was out. He called the hotel
and got someone to come get us.
Got to the
hotel, it was nice but no internet, also no food, so we went out for food, all
we found was cookies and juice…but oh well. Then we got back to the hotel and
then they did have food. So it was good.
Monday
We toured
Jaipur, went to see a famous wall-house and shopped for more presents. We did
not have a lot of time before our flight and our driver had no idea what was
where so we just went to the airport and after going the wrong way only twice
we made it and flew to Calcutta.
Calcutta
We had
about an 8 hours layover so we hired another taxi-tour. We ate at KFC so our
stomachs wouldn’t cry. Saw victoria palace and walked around the gardens,
walked by the riverside, where there were a lot of little shops selling all
sorts of exotic foods. And finally went to visit mother Theresa’s house. When
we asked people about her their reaction tended to be very strange, they looked
even a little mad and said that she got a lot of credit for not really doing a
lot, but they really did not want to talk about the issue any more. When we got
there though it was really cool, a nun told us they had just closed visiting
hours but she would let us in exceptionally since we came from so far. The
people there were all incredibly nice told us some of the history and showed us
around. Apparently a lot of young people from all over the world go there to
volunteer for a few months or years and then go back, so that helps them a lot.
When we came in the nuns started cleaning Mother Theresa’s grave, they looked
really happy and honored to do so. There was a general feeling of peace and
niceness in the whole house. I was very glad to have visited.
We took
our taxi back to the airport and that was it for India.
On
the way back our flight stopped in Frankfurt, we had some pasta that was
alright, but most importantly they had Mary Poppins available to watch on the
plane, it was cool. Maria said that Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) looks a lot
like Barbara.
