A Week in North India

Wow - I'm exhausted. Now that was a whirlwind trip. I will try to add pics of the whole trip when we get back to Iowa, but for now, here's a summary of what we've been doing for our first week or so here. I would have posted along the way but our internet access has been very limited. Plus, we've practically been going too much and too fast to take a breath.

Monday, Jan 7: We got up early and headed to the train station in Hyderabad. We got on a 27-hour (or so) train to Delhi. It was our own small room, with 2 beds that folded down on the top to make 2 sets of bunk beds. It was fun because we saw a lot of countryside out the window, and also nice for the jetlag to be able to rest and relax and even nap a bit when we wanted. Unfortunately I was not in that great of a mood for whatever reason (now I can't remember why) so that of course made everything a little less fun :( I ended up sleeping from about mid-afternoon until early the next morning.

Tuesday, Jan 8: The train arrived in Delhi maybe mid-morning. We expected to get off and clean up and get ready in a locker room in the train station, and then pay to store our bags there, but that is not how it worked out. We ended up renting this cheap hotel (2 rooms actually - they wouldn't let us all 4 go in one, even though we weren't even staying overnight - we just wanted to use the bathroom for like an hour) where we showered in cold water, and it was seriously in the ghetto. We walked like a mile down this tiny alley with people following us frighteningly close and staring like we had 4 heads with rainbow-colored hair. I was not in a good mood for a good chunk of this day either. Once we got cleaned up by early afternoon we went to a few tourist attractions in the city (although we had a hard time leaving our bags in those rooms!). We went to a fort and a mosque. We had a good time at the places we visited. This day, by far, was the worst day of the trip - we were all a little tense (ask my sister about her fun with the mouse). That night, we caught an overnight train a small city close to China (within maybe 60 miles) called Ramnagar. The train was a sleeper train, this time with triple-decker bunk beds but no room/door. We were together with the whole car.

Wednesday, Jan 9: We arrived early morning in Ramnagar, and a shuttle service picked us up at the station. By 8:00 we were outside the entrance to Corbett National Park (a tiger sanctuary). The govt. worker who was supposed to let us in was on time for "Indian Standard Time" (one hour late), so by about 9:00 or 9:30 we were on our way into the sanctuary. We had rented an open-air jeep and a driver, so it felt quite authentic. Our room was a few hours drive into the park (called Dhikala). When we got there, we showered (cold again) and got ready for our day. By this time it was around noon. For some reason I was not feeling well, so I rested when everyone else got lunch. By mid-afternoon, we were ready to go on a jeep safari looking for the tigers. By this point I was sick and actually had a fever, but how do you pass up a real-live safari :) So I drug my warmest clothes and my blanket out and sat in the cold jeep. It really was cold, but fun. We got really close to seeing a tiger a few times that day, but never actually did. We saw a bunch of other cool stuff and animals though. By the time we got back, I was miserable. I went straight to bed and slept all the way until the next morning. There was no heater in the room, so Narasimha convinced them to give us a small stove for cooking to put beside my bed - it was sooo cold, which is no fun when you're sick!

Thursday, Jan 10: We woke up by 6:00 and went out to begin our tiger safari riding the elephants. All 4 of us fit on one (plus a driver). It lasted 2 hours, and we almost saw a tiger we thought, but our guide said the people on the elephant behind us were too loud and it probably got scared and ran away. Bummer. Even with no tiger, it was still cool enough to be worth it. We were really in the jungle. When we got back, we chilled for the rest of the morning, and then had lunch, and then headed out to this really big stand in the jungle where we sat just the 4 of us several stories up on this platform and just watched and waited to see stuff. We saw a bunch of birds, wild boars, monkeys, deer, and even an alligator swimming in the river. We had quite the experience when one of the monkeys climbed the stand and tried to attack us - it was actually pretty funny once we got him down. After 2 hours on the stand we headed out of the park, sometime mid-afternoon. We took the long way hoping to see a tiger but no luck. We got back into town, had dinner, and did a little souvenir shopping. Then we caught another night train back to Delhi. This time we had a snorer on top of our bunks, and none of us got a whole lot of sleep that night :(

Friday, Jan 11: We jumped off the train in Delhi, which arrived late, and caught a cab to go across town (not really all the way - just a little across) and hurried to our next train which left only one hour later. We caught that train with little time to spare. We rode that to Jaipur and got off there sometime around late morning. We made it to our hotel just before lunch, and we were in love! It was very clean, didn't smell like mold, the sheets and the towels were dry, and the water was hot (for everyone but Narasimha) - all of those in stark contrast to the day before. We caught an auto (small open-air 3-wheel vehicle that comfortably sits the driver and 3 in the back) and went to a big palace in the middle of the city, an outdoor palace thing for astronomy, and a pink palace. At the city palace we were also able to do some shopping. That night we went to a special Rajasthani dinner - complete with some traditional dance and music (a show, not us). That night we all slept well, and warm :)

Saturday, Jan 12: We got up fairly early and visited 3 forts on the outside of the city for past rulers - these were pretty amazing. The girls got to "ride" a camel on the road. We finished our "pink city" sightseeing and caught a train late in the afternoon. We rode for about 5 hours, and arrived in Agra. Our hotel was cute, but again, no hot water. We slept like rocks.

Sunday, Jan 13: We got up early (again) and went first thing to the Taj Mahal. Of course no matter who you are or where you live you know what this world-renowned beauty is. It was everything we expected, and we spent like an hour or so walking around. Not only is there the outside structure, but you can go in and walk around on the inside (that only takes a few minutes) and there are a few outlying structures, and a river. After the Taj we went to a fort called Agra Fort and stumbled around a bit. It was cool too (you can see a theme - we went to a lot of forts and now I am having a hard time being able to distinguish between them in my head). We went and ate lunch, and then headed toward Delhi by a small van we rented (and driver). On the way we stopped at a famous mosque still in Agra. After that we drove to Delhi, which took around 4 hours. We got there and finally found our hotel (it's a big city). That night we all had warm showers, and space heaters in our rooms! We (again) slept like rocks.

Monday, Jan 14: We slept in a little this morning - felt a little more vacation-y :) We got up in our own time and headed out to see some sights. Delhi is the capitol of India, so there were many political sights to see. We started at a sight with the tallest minaret in India, and this place had many cool ruins of buildings. Then we drove by a place called Lotus temple, but couldn't get in because it was closed on Monday. Then we went to the street that has the India gate, and saw stuff like the president's house, and parliament buildings, etc. Then we went to the place where Indira Gandhi was assassinated, but that too was closed on Monday. Then we went to the cemetery where Mahatma Gandhi (the "Gandhi" you've heard of) and Rajiv and Indira Gandhi (who were two assassinated Indian presidents) are buried. Then we did a little shopping, and got some dinner at a western bread store. Then we went to the hotel to gather our bags, and headed to the airport to return to Hyderabad. We got back to Hyderabad late, to return finally to familiar environment.

The trip was great, but we are so happy that we did the away week first so we can relax and have a restful vacation for the rest of our time here, instead of go go going all the time. I think I took something like 750 pics in that one week, if that tells you how cool some of the stuff was.