The cow is sacred in India so expect to see them casually walking down the street as you drive past. Don’t be surprised to have a monkey run past you or a man have his cart pulled by a camel or even an elephant down town! Public bathrooms consist of mens urinals at the side of the street with the modest covering of a small tile wall. At least these men have some modesty, other men will casually excrete on the side of the street in full public view. The smell will hit you before the sights though, food, spices, urine, faeces, cows and other odours that we have yet to pin point!
However don’t let that put you off!
We began our journey through the Wagha border into Amritsar where the border control officers asked us what on earth we were doing coming to India in June during weather of 40 degrees plus! Our only escape was our air conditioned bus and our hotel, or so we thought …
We arrived at Hotel Jay Vee Continental where air conditioning consisted of a simple fan blowing the hot air around our room. Power cut out frequently, although to be fair this is a regular occurrence throughout India. And the hotel staff made any excuse at all to casually waltz into our rooms. Our tour leader had warned us about this though, in India their concept of personal space differs to ours.
Another trait you will find with the locals is that no matter what you ask them they will answer yes, just to keep you happy! It doesn’t mean that they are giving you the right answer though!
That afternoon we headed to the very lovely Orchid Restaurant where we enjoyed Tandoori platters for about €4 and then we headed to the Golden Temple. This beautiful temple lays in the middle of a man-made lake in the city. It was so calm and relaxing we stayed there all evening. A lot of people came up to us asking where we were from and taking photos of us, like in Pakistan we were celebrities again!
The local people were very friendly and curious. It’s just the pushy people who try to sell you items and rip tourists off that we had problems with. These type of people would put you off India if you hadn’t met the real genuine local people.
The next day we headed to New Delhi, and that’s where the drama began! Our hotel double booked us and shoved us into a lower standard hotel nearby where we had the friendly company of gekos and cockroaches. Fair play to our tour leader, she was having none of it and after getting the hotel manager and owner down to us we ended up getting a better hotel for the second night and a free dinner.
On Friday the heat was so unbearable it was hard to do much, we visited the Baha’i House of Worship, aka the Lotus Temple and the National Gandhi Museum. Both of these attractions are highly recommended and free. We ended our day at the Gandhi Memorial Park and had our evening meal at the hotel.
Now, after two weeks in Iran and Pakistan you can understand that a few of us wanted to have a nice cold drink in a bar for a change. We are on holidays after all! We had come across the very cool Mocha Bar and decided to head there after dinner. Big mistake! Whilst flagging down a rickshaw and trying to haggle on a price, about 50 men started to surround us, curious about these tourists. They began to touch us and two younger boys grabbed one of the girls bum. It was very scary and intimidating. We jumped into the rickshaw and after about five kilometres he told us to get out because he was lost and didn’t want to go further!
So here we were stuck in the middle of a road in New Delhi with no idea where we were when we noticed what looked like a disco nearby. There were pink canopies and loud music and bouncing castles ... it turned out to be a local wedding! And the guests were only too delighted to have some Western visitors. After some snaps and videos we decided it was time to give up and go back to the hotel, vowing never to try go out pubbing in India again!
The next day, Saturday, we headed to Agra, home of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal. That evening we visited the Baby Taj and watched the sunset on the river side. We got up at 5am Sunday to catch the sunrise at the Taj Mahal, which costs 750 rupees to visit for a foreigner and 20 rupees for an Indian. (€1=60 rupees.)
That afternoon we watched a Bollywood movie in the local cinema and visited the Red Fort, (visit here for the best views of the Taj Mahal). That evening we enjoyed a traditional evening meal in the Indiana Restaurant and headed off on Monday morning for Lucknow.
If you can get past the smells, pushy sellers and sleazy men, then India is a great place to visit. It’s definitely a good place to do a bit of soul searching or to see a completely different culture to our own. Oh, and we almost forgot … be prepared for the scary drives and constant blowing horns. Cars don’t have wing mirrors here so they signal to each other to move out of the way by blowing their horns!
Next week’s blog will be about Varanassi to the Ganji River and going to Nepal … party time!
Till then … slan!
Sara, Emily and Jacinta.
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