Delhi and The Taj Mahal

Tom and I made it to Delhi on the 9th after an incredibly long bus journey (about 10 hours). The bus ride down from Shimla to Chandigarh was very winding and vomit inducing for the Indians on the bus. In the future when a bus provides barf bags I will consider myself warned. I always feel a bit bad ass, though, when the locals are puking and I'm not.

Anyway. We made it to my friend's house in Delhi and headed for the Bangladesh embassy the next morning. After dropping off Tom's visa application we headed out on the town. Finally in Delhi I found all of the harassment I'd been missing in India. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly impressed and by early afternoon had already reached the end of my rope. So what did we do? We headed for the mall. Yup, the mall. Where we contemplated seeing a movie (but didn't) and contemplated eating Cinnabons (and did).

The next day my new travel partner, E, came into town. We all stayed one more night in Delhi and the next morning Tom flew back to Bangladesh with his brand new shiny visa. E and I packed up our stuff and headed to the New Delhi train station to try and buy tickets to Agra for an evening train and to store our bags while we checked out the Red Fort in Delhi. We arrived around 2 and barely managed to sort everything out in time for our 5:30 train. And we never got to see the Red Fort. It was a horrible, horrible Delhi day. After waiting in many fruitless lines that never moved or were the wrong ones, and trying to avoid all of the obnoxious touts who sometimes physically tried to stop you from entering somewhere in an attempt to rip you off, and just being led on a wild goose chase in general, we finally managed to wait in the right line to book a ticket on the right train at 5:00. We quickly shoved some food down and then sat on our three hour train to Agra.

Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. I still can't really believe that I got to see it! We woke up at 5:30am this morning to get breakfast and then wait in line for tickets so we could get in at dawn when it's least crowded. It did not disappoint. The crowds were minimal at first and getting to watch the mist slowly fade away as the sun rose was pretty awesome. We spent three hours in there and took obnoxious amounts of photos. We packed in a full day of sightseeing with the Agra Fort (also pretty awesome) and the Baby Taj (amazing detail!). We're exhausted now and are looking forward to a full night's sleep in our really ghetto and cold hotel room. We're moving on tomorrow. Pictures to come when I get back home.

India Update

Hello again!

Just wanted to check in and say that I'm still here and am still enjoying India. Here's the latest update:

My friend Tom and I took what was supposed to be a 30 hour train journey from Mumbai to Chandigarh on the 2nd. The train was delayed by 12 hours, which was nice in a way, because we got to spend a whole other day in Mumbai with my friends from London. We went to another friend's house for lunch and got to meet his parents, which was nice. After eating dinner at one of my friends' favorite restaurants, Tom and I went back to the train station for our train that left at midnight. The train ended up running 20 hours behind, total, turning our journey into a 40 hour one instead of 30 hours. The good news was that we spent two nights on the train, and so didn't have to pay for accommodation for those two nights. It was also a very "Indian" experience and we were definitely the only white people on the whole train. We met a lovely family who had two great kids (a girl, 11, and a boy, 5). They ended up inviting us to their house to stay with them. We didn't take them up on that (because after 40 hours on the train we thought we might just need to shower and crash at a hotel, which we did), but we did go to their house for dinner in Chandigarh and had a really nice time with them. They were so lovely and were giving us gifts as we pulled ourselves away after a good three hours at their house.

From Chandigarh we spent one looong day (~ 9 hours) traveling by local buses (read: no heat and often missing panes of glass in the windows) to a tiny mountain town called Narkanda (north of Shimla). And I mean tiiiiiny. We stayed at this government run hotel for two nights and attempted to go "skiing," which was the whole reason Tom even wanted to go up to this area to begin with. Basically what we found were some hills a bit bigger than at the park across the street from where I grew up and some local kids with some really old downhill ski equipment. They "rented" it out to us and we walked up the hill in our skis about three times and skiied down and now consider that having been skiing in India. It was interesting. We (well, mostly me as a female, since Indian women seem to be fairly unseen that far north) got some very interesting, not particularly friendly looks, and although it was an interesting experience, I wasn't too sad to leave that town. It was freeeeeezing cold up there at night and none of these places have heat, so we had one ancient space heater to heat our entire room (where the windows don't even close properly) that probably hadn't been used in months. The mattresses were like blocks of ice. I don't remember the last time I was so cold for an entire night. 

Today we took a 2.5 hour bus ride back down the mountains to a tourist town called Shimla. So far we're loving Shimla! It has the feel of a mountain ski town in Colorado or something, just without the skiing or the rich people. We saw two other white people today - the first we've seen in a while! We're staying at the YMCA which has beautiful views right out the window. Again, no heat, so I'm kind of dreading getting into bed, but I think we'll rent a space heater, so that should help a little. The town goes all the way up and down the side of a mountain, so hiking up to the hotel with our packs was miserable, but since then we've really been enjoying all of the little alleyways and the markets and the shops. Surprisingly you can get everything here! Tomorrow we'll explore a bit more out of the town since there are supposed to be cool things to see a few kilometers away.

On the 9th we'll head down to Delhi and stay with a friend of mine. Tom needs to begin his visa process and will hopefully fly back to Bangladesh on the 12th or 13th. A friend of a friend is flying into Delhi on the 11th and we've planned to travel together some. Where next, I'm not sure, but probably further west and maybe a bit less north than Tom and I have been going.

So there you have it! Unfortunately pictures probably won't make it up until I get back to the states, but there will be plenty once I get to them. Hope you're all well and are enjoying your central heating.

India

I made it! Just barely. My flight was from JFK on the 26th at 4:20pm. I took an 8am bus from Boston and made it to JFK with plenty of time, and chose to ignore the fact that the snow was coming down harder and harder as I watched the Patriots game at an airport bar. Miracle of miracle, though, as I watched most other flights on the board get cancelled or be majorly delayed (one was the Air India flight I had wanted to book, but was sold out when I actually tried. Everything happens for a reason!), mine continued to be on time. We got on the plane and after waiting on the runway for two hours while they de-iced it we were off! It was a bumpy, nerve-wracking flight, but we made it to Amsterdam without any problems and was then onto Mumbai a few hours later.

I arrived at the hotel in Mumbai finally around 1am on the 28th and crashed into bed. The next morning I met up with my other Goodenough friends from London at breakfast and we started our shopping extravaganza. They helped to outfit me with two different sarees and managed to help me find a tailor who could make the blouses in a 24 hour turn around time - apparently generally unheard of. That night we went to the henna ceremony at the bride's house where I was most definitely the only white person. The next day we continued with the shopping and managed to pull together some last minute accessories for my two different outfits.

The 30th was the day of the wedding. We woke up early because my poor friend Gayathri had to tie three different sarees. We went to the actual ceremony in the morning, went home to change in the afternoon, and went to the reception at night. The wedding itself will require a different entry. It was very interesting and educational, though.

OK, am running out of time on the internet, but am heading north tomorrow on a train ! Will write more when I can! Happy new year, everyone!