It's Hot In Here!

May 21 - Delhi
Wow. It's hard to even describe what it is like here. India is the most filthy place I have ever been. The poverty is evident by the people laying in the streets, idle men everywhere, trash strewn across the streets and beggars on many street corners. On top of the filth, it is so hot here - easily 100+ every day. There are frequent power outages and by government directive all A/C units have to be shut off between 6 and 9pm. And to top things off, we are stared at, sometimes leered at, to a ridiculous extreme. So its very interesting how we can be so hot and uncomfortable, harassed, dirty and still...we are having such a great time. It's all so interesting and strange and wonderful.

Our first day we started off early to do some sight-seeing with our guide and air-conditioned car (yea!). The city is pretty run-down and full of dirt roads. I had expected something a little more modern. I'm not sure why, because I was totally off. There are no skyscrapers and very few tall buildings. Everything is very basic, block buildings that look really old and run-down. Even the five star hotels don't look very remarkable. Anyway, it was good to see what Delhi was really like and we were off to see the India Gate, President's House and the Parliament buildings. We also visited the Quth Minar and Lotus Temple. Unfortunately I can't tell you anything about the history of these places because I couldn't understand our guide, but hopefully you'll be able to check out the pictures in a couple weeks. We were stopped several times throughout the day as people wanted to have their pictures taken with the freaky Americans. One of these days I am going to have to start charging for this service! We had a great lunch that day and I am slowly learning that I do actually like some Indian food. This is good news since Matt loves it and I have never been a fan. I still don't like curry, but I'm digging the garlic naan, pineapple raita, dal makhani and tandoori chicken and mutton. Maybe I wouldn't do well in the south but things have been good on the food front in the north.

That evening we went to Connaught Place, a "nice" part of town and had dinner in a Chinese restaurant (the main criteria for selecting a restaurant was whether or not it had air-conditioning). Then we retired to our windowless room in Hotel Ajanta. Not crazy about the safety implications there but it seems like a pretty common thing in the area.

May 22 - Delhi to Agra

We headed to Agra in the morning and the roads were crazy. It was very chaotic, with everyone honking and changing lanes. Our driver was great though and he kept us safe and nice and cool - he had one of the nicer cars on the road (a Chevy SUV type thing). On the way to Agra we stopped at the Sikandra Temple. We picked up our Agra guide there and he showed us around. He was a bossy kind of guy who had very little patience for our picture taking. Rob and I made him mad as we dawdled along trying to take "artsy" shots. The Indian architecture is so cool with its ornate stonework and wonderful use of symmetry. After the temple we continued on to Agra where we checked into our much nicer hotel and were happy to see that it had a pool. We had a quick stop there to drop our bags and then headed out for a quick lunch of more Indian food. Tandoori chicken is a popular choice with our group and Matt can demolish a whole chicken himself if he is in the mood.

Then we were off to the Taj Mahal. We arrived there around 5pm or so and were hoping to catch a good sunset. Entering through the gate is amazing as you have a beautiful view of the Taj straight in front of you, framed by a beautifully arched doorway. Definitely good stuff. There were a lot of people there, but still the views were amazing. We did the required tourist pictures and then went to see the tombs. The Emperor built the Taj for his deceased wife and they are both buried there. After walking around for an hour or so and getting our fill of picture taking we grabbed a spot on the lawn to sit and take it all in. The Taj is truly an impressive monument and the artistry is amazing. Much of the decoration is stones inlaid in marble and the quality is excellent. I have a vague recollection that it took 20,000 people eleven years to complete it. It is truly a wonder of the world.

While we were sitting in the grass two boys were milling around obviously checking Ilsa and I out. They were carrying on and staring. Eventually they sat down on a bench behind us and by then we were tired of their gawking. Matt got up and walked toward the bench and you should have seen the look on their faces. When he sat down I thought they were going to cry, but the best thing was one of them looked at him and asked, "do you speak Hindi?" and Matt said "yes" and the kid nearly fell off the bench. Oh, it was very entertaining.

After our fun with the boys we decided to take off. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at an inlaid marble factory to see how the process works. It was interesting to see how it is done and of course they had a showroom full of stuff to buy. Although we had a piece in mind we decided not to buy but Rob and Ilsa found themselves a treasure.

Back at the hotel we did some night swimming and then settled in to watch Dodgeball on Star Movies. I think that movie is better the second time around or maybe I was just in the right mood because I was laughing hysterically. We had our first taste of the power outages in India...missed several parts of the movie as the power flickered on and off.

May 23 - Agra to Jaipur

We were back at the Taj by 6am hoping to see the sunrise. Unfortunately it was not meant to be as we missed the sunrise and then it started raining. The good news is that there weren't too many people around so we did get some soggy pictures of the Taj sans tourists. We were all pleased.

After we fed our bellies back at the hotel we went to see the Agra Fort. It is an impressive structure with more cool stone work, awesome arches and some amazing symmetry. We had some cool views of the Taj, just as the Emperor did after he was imprisoned there by his son. They say he died on a marble balcony that has the best view of the Taj, the monument to his wife.

After the Fort we headed to a carpet factory where we learned all about hand-woven carpets. We saw vegetable dyed wool, chemical dyed, hand-spun, machine-spun, you name it, we saw it. We watched demonstrations of the whole process from start to finish and it was actually pretty interesting. Rob and Ilsa were looking for a carpet for their house so we thought it would be fun to tag along. And then the vegetable dyed carpets caught our eye and before we knew it we were making more purchases! So we are now the proud owners of a very fine carpet.

All of the negotiating wore us out so we had to take a break at Pizza Hut. I can confirm that it's pretty much the same as everywhere else except that there are no pepperonis. It was good and we all needed a break from the local food.

We had a long trip to Jaipur ahead of us so we all settled in for the ride. It is amazing what you see as you drive down the "highway" in India....camels pulling carts, monkeys crossing the street, pigs, donkeys, peacocks, and of course tons of cows. Our driver told us that the cows know to go home at 5pm everyday and are very good at finding their way back even though they wander freely during the day. There are many types of transportation on the road - from elephants to rickshaws to cargo trucks. The tuk tuks were crammed with 10-15 people - a ridiculous number for their size - and people were riding on the tops of buses. We saw a lot of brick factories between Agra and Jaipur and there were thousands and thousands of bricks stacked up waiting to go to the kiln. We saw cow chips stacked everywhere drying in the sun so we guessed that people use them for fuel...that's definitely using your natural resources!

On the way we stopped at Jami Masjid, a Mughal mosque. It was another beautiful temple and we followed the local custom of tying a string near the alter and making a wish. We ran into a local family who asked me to pose in a picture. We took a group shot and then they started thrusting their babies at me asking for pictures with them. So we have a couple good shots of me with both arms loaded with kids.

We arrived at our hotel at 8pm and were excited to see a beautiful old mansion. The hotel is the former home of a royal family and it has been carefully converted into a small guesthouse. The architecture was really great and there were 20 foot ceilings in the room and cool antique furniture. Best of all, there was a pool.