The Plan B Adventure

Moving through India on our world tour was planned as just that….moving through. We knew we wouldn’t have enough time to explore even a fraction and we had less than a week since we had extended and added on time in previous countries. So what would we do in country this rich in history and so big that we could barely view a slice of it??? Well we decided to focus on a few towns. The first being Amritsar just a few miles from the border and the home to one of the most accepting religions on earth, Sikhism. The second city would be Agra for a view of the Taj Mahal. Finally, the third would be a two or three day jaunt in Jaipur, the pink city of India, which was recommended by a few fellow travellers we have met along the way.

Well, the plan started off well, kind of. As we previously mentioned we crossed the border with ease. Even while encountering 115F+ heat we joyously lugged our bags into the closest taxi knowing we wouldn’t run across any Chinese roadblocks…..seriously, that’s the last unkind word. And that’s when the hilarity started…..the 90 year old man driving our taxi pulled over to switch to an alternative tank of gas and never got the car to restart. Thankfully for us he had chosen the opportune location of a cattle grazing field to pull over at…..so with 115F heat and enough flies to feed all of India and China Jeff helped to jump start the car while Becca sat composed (yea, right!) in the vehicle fending off the swarms of flies and pleasant smells of muddy cattle. Needless to say…the car never started so Jeff flagged down an autorickshaw for a ride to town. Not so fast! After 20 minutes of attempting to fix the taxi, the driver still wanted us to wait or pay him the entire fare. How bout 1/4 of the fare for 1/4 of the trip? Nope, that makes too much sense. Instead let’s tie the broken taxi to the tiny autorickshaw and drag it to the mechanic so it could be fixed and then continue the journey. While we had no intention of continuing the journey with the broken taxi, we still agreed to help him to the mechanic where the fun continued. At the mechanic we were told 5 minutes….No thanks we will just give you the 1/4 fare and take the rickshaw to town. Ok, easy enough? Once we sat down in the rickshaw the driver decided to triple our fare!! Apparently rickshaw drivers don’t understand the simplest economics because there are only 1 of us and thousands of them. Jeff proceeded to hold an Ebay style auction with 5-6 rickshaw drivers on the side of the road. After agreeing on the previously quoted fare with another driver, our old driver said “OK, I’ll take you”. UGH!!! Does anyone see why we just paid for a month of organized transportation??? Fortunately, we hadn’t had such an experience in a while so we played along and ended up getting to the hotel room (10 lbs lighter from the sweating) in just over 2 hours for a 20km trip…..Welcome to India!

Over the next few days we enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells (definitely a lot of them) around Amritsar. We were pleasantly surprised with it’s ‘Indian’ quaintness. Now it can’t be as quaint as the arrondisements of Paris but Amritsar has a charmed quality to itself. Not at all what others had been telling us to expect of India. Now there are definitely a LOT of people but they were all very endearing, willing to help educate, and not as scammy as we had been warned. The major sight in Amritsar is the Golden Palace. This place is really something….a complex built entirely of white marble and gold which sits in the middle of a holy pond and houses the holy book of the Sikhs. The palace is free to enter (an anomaly worldwide), issues free guides on religion and sights (another anomaly), and provides a free meal and 3 days lodging (yet another anomaly) to all pilgrims as well as tourists. And the food….ahhh Indian cuisine……Dhal Makhani, Garlic Naan, Jasmine Rice, and a new vegetarian favorite (give it a try Haase), Navratna Korma. We indulged and days later ended up paying for it.

As many of you know we have been very lucky with our health on this trip. Well, as we made our way by train to Delhi to meet Jay Singh, our driver, for a trip to Agra….we felt the rumblings begin!!! Uh-oh…the 115F degree heat combined with the dreaded Indian food attack. Thank God (or Allah, or Krishna, or Guru Nanak, or Buddha) we made it off the train and the three hours to our hotel in Agra before all hell broke loose. WHEW! Knowing that things weren’t going to be fun we decided to pony up for a plush place in Agra with an actual working generator since in Agra the power can’t be trusted to last for more than a few minutes at a time and most smaller hotels don’t cough up the cash for decent generators. That’s about all we will say on that topic except that as we document this a week later we are still feeling the effects.

We faced the reality that we couldn’t possibly travel to Jaipur with our tummies as they were so we opted for a day of rest in Agra and then an early return to Delhi for our flight out of the 13th. Good choices! We saw the Taj Mahal the next evening for sunset and really enjoyed comparing it to the Islamic structures we have seen over the last month. It’s quite a grand sight sitting in the middle of God-forsaken Agra. It rises from the river bed in all it’s white marble splendor and provides a great view as it sits at the end of a reflecting pool of water. Just so you are ready when you get there……there are people everywhere!!!! Really try to view at sunrise if you can but just seeing it is worth the journey. The next morning we travelled back to Delhi and viewed a few of its sights (Delhi Gate, Gandhi statue, Main Bazaar, governmental building) by car. It’s really tough to see anything during the middle hours of the day in India when it’s that hot and we’d prefer to come back on our own timetable and enjoy the sights without having to think about the closest bathroom!! Thanks to Jay Singh for a great, albeit brief tour…..we hope to employ his services again sometime.

Good bye speed India….Hello speed Turkey. Well, we knew this would happen. Getting to a city that we were just passing through and falling in love. Istanbul is that city so far. In the simplest explanation take the narrow cobblestone streets of Europe and combine them with the hills and waterfront of San Francisco…..now give it an Islamic Eastern European flair and you have Istanbul. That’s a very novice description as we have had less than 72 hours here but we really believe this city AND this country should be on everyone’s Top Ten List for international travel. We took the advice of veterans (thanks Val and Russ) in order to get the most of our time and our relishing our time spent here. Just a little insight, if you are coming to Istanbul stay in the Eminonu area and make sure to give yourself enough time to get lost in the small side streets of the city. Simple advice but it will make your journey even more memorable. Yes, the sights (Aya Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace) and history are amazing but having Turkish tea on the waterfront, bargaining with rug salesmen at the Grand Bazaar, and eating doner kebabs makes the journey the experience.

Finally, we are present day on our blog (most of you wouldn’t have guessed Becca was weeks late with updates) and very proud of ourselves!!! Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers (Em…that means you too!!) reading our blog. We are off for Jordan for 10 days and are looking forward to a completely new experience. Hope everyone is enjoying our writing and stay tuned for the Middle East!!!

Tags: Delhi, Istanbul, Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 at 9:05 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.