Two Days in Delhi

I thought having five days to see Jaipur, Agra and Delhi, I would feel rushed.  Instead, I'm happy that the tour has come to an end.  Yesterday we went to the Red Fort in Delhi. And had we not gone to Amber fort in Jaipur on Sunday, followed by Agra Fort on Monday, I might have appreciated it more.  Once again, we were taken advantage of by a rickshaw driver, this time the bicycle variety, who dropped us at Jama Masjid instead of the Red Fort.  And since it was, in fact, red, it took  us a while to discover the con.  Nothing in the description of the Red Fort in the Lonely Planet seemed to match up with what we were seeing.

Red Fort

At least the driver got us close and we found the way to the Red Fort on foot.  It really was a spectacular bit or architecture that I did enjoy touring.  But, it was developed in the same style as the Agra fort and both are now blended together in my mind.  After an hour or two wandering the grounds, we decided to find a place to eat.  Although, we seemed to be in a very touristy part of town, finding a sit-down restaurant was nearly impossible.  We probably walked 2 miles in total before we found one of the Lonely Planet recommended spots.

Our lunch spot was very close to one of the bazaar's that Nick wanted to check out, so we headed their next.  However, he must have confused the names, because this bazaar seemed to specialize in paper (i.e. wrapping paper and wedding invitations) as well as hardware.  Since neither of us are planning to marry soon, nor were we in need of new faucets for the bathroom, we decided to beat the heat by getting a beer.

Qutb Minar

Alien? Iron Pillar at Qutb Minar

Today, we decided to give sight-seeing one more try by heading to Qutb Minar in South Delhi.  I was reluctant to visit another fort, but this one was worth the drive.  Qutb Minar dates back to time of Islamic rule in India and had very different architecture that what we'd seen before.  The main site is actually the Qutb Minar, a 250 ft. tall, five story, minaret which really was an amazing site.  The rest of the complex is made up of a number of tombs and mosque as well as a mysterious iron pillar.  Some believe that the pillar was brought by aliens because it is constructed of iron so pure that it could not be cast using the technology available at the time. And yet, it still stands, rust free, for 2000 years.

We decided to end the day with a bit of shopping.  Tomorrow, we return home, to the land where hailing a taxi is tough (instead of 5 rickshaws competing for your business), shopping is easy (don't have to worry about being hassled for just looking) and eating is safe (fortunately, I never had stomach problems, but Nick never felt 100%).

Diamond in the Rough

I can think of no better way to describe the Taj Mahal than a diamond in the rough. Only in this case, it is a beautiful marble palace surrounded by a city of garbage.

We took an overnight bus from Jaipur to Agra which arrived on Agra at 5:00 AM.  The bus driver told us we had arrived, but it didn't really look like a bus station.  We seemed to have stopped on the side of the road where the only other people around were rickshaw drivers.  I should have realized then that we were being scammed but I was not fully awake yet.  One driver suggested that we get a hotel room so we could shower and leave our bags until our bus in the evening.  I didn't want to leave the bags unattended in the rickshaw so I sent Nick to take a look at the room. Not only was the hotel 6 km from the Taj Mahal, but it was a complete dump.  The driver assured me that all the hotels near the Taj were much more expensive which was completely false according to the Lonely Planet, but again, I was not fully awake.  There was no way I was going to take a shower in this dump, but after locking all of our bags together, I decided they were safe for the day.

Our first stop was the Taj Mahal itself.  And, even though at this point we were both fully aware that we had been scammed, everything was forgotten once you entered the grounds.  The palace really is deserving of being one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. From a distance the Taj is awe-inspiring but even more so up close.  Once you get right in front you realize how much work went in to the construction and how much Shah Jahan must have loved his third wife, Gauhara Begum, to honor here with this place.

View of Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort

After oohing and aahing at the Taj for some time, we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading to the Agra Fort.  The Fort is just across the river from the Taj and offers some nice views, which is unfortunately, the only views of the Taj that Shah Jahan had of his palace after he was overthrown by his son and imprisoned in the Fort. Once we got our fill at the fort, we decided to take a bus the 40 km to Fatehpur Sikri. Although, or perhaps because, the bus was extremely hot and crowded, I found I had trouble keeping my eyes open for the hour-long journey.  (That being said, I've found that if you can avoid looking out the window while in cars, buses, or rickshaws without getting motion sickness, I recommend you do so.)

Fatehpur Sikri

We had a bit of trouble finding the ruins in Fatehpur Sikri, but what would you know, a nice gentleman was happy to show us the way.  He assured us that he was not a tour guide and that there was no cost to his service.  Although, after he showed us around and explained some of the history to us, he requested we tip him. And we did, but apparently we did not appreciate his service as much as he thought we should.



Once back in Agra, I think that both Nick and I were ready to head to Delhi.  Unfortunately, we came to learn that our bus was cancelled and that they had arranged a taxi to take us. This was good in that it would drop us off directly at our hotel, but bad since it did not include a bathroom or food as was expected on the first class bus we arranged.  We also came to quickly learn that our driver was not familiar with Delhi and circled for quite a bit before I finally had to direct him using Google Maps to get to our hotel.  But at least we were guaranteed a good night sleep before exploring our last stop on our whirlwind tour of India.

The Pink City

On Saturday morning we boarded a flight to Jaipur, India.  This was our first stop on our whirlwind Golden Triangle (Jaipur, Agra and Delhi) tour of Northern India. Since we arrived around1:30 in the afternoon, our first order of business, after checking in to our hotel, was food. Both Nick and I were starving.  We were naïve enough to think that we could walk and find a spot, but within a kilometer of our hotel an Auto-Rickshaw driver, that called himself John Travolta, ran up and informed us that there was nothing nearby.  For a mere Rs 30 (about $0.50 US) he would drive us to MI road where we could choose from a variety of options, McDonalds and KFC to name two.  Instead, we requested a non-veg, north Indian spot.  Turns out, John Travolta has great taste because Nick claimed this was the best food he’d had in India.  My was good too, but, for me, everything is starting to taste the same.

Motorcycle and Camels sharing the road in the Pink City

After a leisurely lunch, John Travolta drove us through the Pink City (old Jaipur where all the buildings are painted pink) to a textile factory were we could see people block printing fabric and making rugs.  Unfortunately, they also sold some nice stuff which resulted in some unplanned purchases as well.  While my purchases were being assembled, I took the opportunity to “Go Native” and try on a sari. 

Next, Nick and I took in a Bollywood movie at the famous theater in Jaipur. We arrived a little after the start but since the majority of the movie was in Hindi, it really didn’t matter.  It seemed to be about a Bollywood singer/actress with low self-esteem that destroys any chance at love and happiness in favor of her career.  It was very dramatic and resulted in lots of oohs and ahs from the audience. 

One of many astronomical sculptures at Jantar Mantar

On Sunday, we hired John Travolta again to take us to all the sites Jaipur has to offer.  This included a museum, and astrological park, and several palaces.  All of the places were really fascinating for me, but tourists from India seemed more fascinated with Nick and I.  At the Central museum, I think I posed for at least 2 dozen photographs with a variety of Indians.  I had one, particularly long, photo shoot with some women and their husbands while I waited for Nick to finish his stroll through the museum.  Most people were friendly and asked for a photo, but many others attempted to take them on the sly.  It was both flattering and uncomfortable at the same time.

We continued our tour at the Jantar Mantar which is a hard place to describe. Apparently, Jai Singh II (founder of Jaipur) was a huge fan of astronomy.  It is said that he like astronomy nearly as much as war and built five astronomical observatories in India, with Jaipur's being the best preserved.   

View from Amber

Later we headed just outside of Jaipur to visit Amber and Jaigarh Forts.  These were build high up in the hills and you have three options for reaching them.  You can take a jeep, ride an elephant or walk.  We chose the latter in an attempt to burn off all of the heavy Indian food we've been eating.  The forts were a both prime spots for playing hide and seek.  There were many corridors and rooms to hide in and kids were running all over the place. The forts were pretty amazing, but it was the views they provided that really made the trek worthwhile.

Delightful Bangalore

After a week of commuting for an hour to each way to travel eight kilometers (which, by the way is slower that it takes me to run the same distance), Symphony moved into their new headquarters just two blocks from our hotel.  There was a beautifully maintained sidewalk through and IT park that connected our hotel to the office.  However, on day one we learned that we were not allowed to access that road. Instead, we were required to walk along the dirt sidewalk along the main road. Unfortunately, the sidewalk was full of hazards… low hanging tree branches, multiple foot-wide ditches, and last but not least, bus and rickshaw drivers were relieving themselves at along the edge. of the walkway.  But that wasn't even the worst part of our commute.  The worst part was crossing a rather small road to get to the office entrance. The road was only two lanes, but crossing was like playing Frogger, but you were the frog.  Fortunately, I only really had two close calls where I was nearly hit, once by a motorcycle and once by a car.

During our last week in Bangalore, we only headed to the office 3 of 5 days.  Wednesday was a holiday (Ganesh’s birthday) so we took advantage of the day off to explore the highlights of Bangalore.  After going to the Iskon Temple, where Hare Krishna’s attempted to sell us a variety of goods and services, then to MG Road for shopping, and finally to Cubbon Park (imagine New York’s Central Park but smaller and less maintained), we came to realize that Bangalore is not really a city for tourists.  There are few tourist attraction, and those that exist are not really that interesting. We stopped for lunch at one of Lonely Planet’s top recommendations and had perhaps the worst fish and chips ever.  Rather than a strip of lightly battered fish, we receive two round patties that required a knife to cut through and had a few spots of dark brown, fishy bites that I had a hard time swallowing. 

The only real highlights were the people. It was really great to get to know everyone at the Symphony office as well as to catch up with my friend Nita from my Intuit days.  Nita and her husband, Ratnesh, took me out for a great dinner on Wednesday night at a restaurant best described as Indian meet Korean Barbeque.  And then on Friday they showed us where the Indian hipsters hang out.  It is at a karaoke bar called Opus.  I was fully planning to get on stage and belt one out since it was highly unlikely that I would ever see any of these people again. However, within 10 minutes of arriving we discovered that nearly everyone that went on stage, not only knew their lyrics cold (no one looked at the screen with the lyrics that was behind them), but most were really good singers.  And for those that weren’t good, the manager quickly lowered the volume on their mikes and he or other ringers would jump in as “back-up singers”.  Since I’m fully aware that I cannot sing to save my life, I wasn’t willing to embarrass myself by standing on stage with my mike turned down or off while the manager sang my song.

Gone to Goa

For our second weekend in India, Nick and I decided to hop on a plane down to Goa.  We woke up early Saturday morning and boarded at 6:30 AM flight.  By 8:30 we were eating breakfast at our Hotel in Calangute.

We spent our first day in Goa exploring the beaches and towns of Calangute and Baga Beach.  Both of these towns are known for their beaches during the day and their parties at night. However, this being Monsoon season, they were really more like sleepy beach towns.  The beaches were largely deserted with the exception of an occasional woman selling jewelry.  One of these women approached us and indicated that she could see me from miles away due to my white skin (apparently my Hawaiian tan has faded).


It was so hot and sunny that it was surprising that it was still monsoon season. That was until the rain came out of nowhere and came down in a torrential downpour. Fortunately, it only lasted 20 minutes, and 5 minutes after that everything was dry again.

On Sunday we decided to take South Goa tour.  It was really less of a tour than a driver that took us on a pre-defined circuit of tourist traps with an occasional point of interest thrown in.  We started at a museum that housed rather poorly painted portraits of all the Portuguese Governors of Goa.  Next we hit up a temple of unspecified importance before heading to a spice plantation.  This was the most interesting part of the day (and had we known that at the time we might have skipped the rest of the tour).  We were given a tour of the grounds and then fed a buffet lunch.  Afterwards we had the option to go on an elephant ride.  I expected that the ride would take us through the grounds of the plantation, but instead we just circled the parking lot.  I felt a bit ripped off but it was the first time I had an opportunity to pet and elephant so I was still happy.

With the exception of stopping at a beach in South Goa, (where we learned that swim suits are rare and most people swim fully clothed), the rest of the tour was rather disappointing and not even worth describing.

Mysore

For our first weekend in India, we decided on a day trip to Mysore, about 80 km Southwest of Bangalore.  This was perhaps the longest day trip I have ever embarked on.  Our driver, Shankar, picked us up at 5:30 AM to take us to central Bangalore.  There we boarded an overly air-conditioned bus run by the Karnataka State Tourism Office.  Our first stop was a 15 minute break where we could by some cheap souvenirs.  I spent most of this time gaping at the number of people that you could fit in a single auto-rikshaw.

Next we stopped for a quick bite to eat and then we were off to our first real stop on the tour, Daria Daulat palace in Srirangapatna.  It wasn't much to look like on the outside since it was largely surrounded with green blinds to protect the paintings from damaging sun rays.  Inside it was nice glimpse at how the sultans lived about 300 years ago. 

From there we drove through the town of Srirangapatna while the driver pointed out sights to the left and right of the bus. Unfortunately, his English was so heavily accented that we sometimes were not sure if he was still speaking English or had switched to repeat the spiel in Hindi.

Next we stopped at a Roman Catholic church for 10 minutes, followed by a 40 minute stop at another shopping stop. This one apparently know for it's silk saris and fragrant oils.  Although it was repeated many times that we would not have to pay any sales tax here, unlike everywhere else in India, Nick and I both managed to resist purchasing anything.  

After lunch, we finally made it to the Mysore Palace.  Although it was quite beautiful, I was surprised to learn that it was only 100 years old and was designed by a British architect.  I expected everything in India to be much older.  

Our next stop turned out to be the most interesting.  We drove quite a up a winding road to the Chamundi Temple.  Here we were swindled into a brief tour and ceremony but at about $6 it was worth it.  Our guide walked us through the process of giving and offering, blessing ourselves with incense and ending with a bright red dot (bindi) on our foreheads. Although we got a few more looks after the ceremony, it was definitely interesting to learn about some of the various Hindu gods (just don't quiz me on this).  

The final stop on the tour was to the Brindavan Gardens known for their illuminated fountains.  I guess we were expecting something more reminiscent of the Belagio fountain show in Vegas so were a bit disappointed that they just lit the fountains a variety of colored lights.  We suspected there was more to it on the other half of the gardens but before we had a chance to check it out, the light rain we had been experiencing turned in to an outright downpour.  As a result, we booked it for the bus rather than continuing to explore.  

 

Driver by Day...

Nick and I arrived in Bangalore late Monday night and while I tried and failed to keep my eyes open on the road from the airport to the hotel, Nick was so overcome with fear that he couldn't close his.  What we've come to learn our first week in Bangalore is that lane lines, if they exist, are ignored, brake lights are not to be trusted, and horns are a must are not just for audibly flipping someone off as they are in the States.  I'm fairly certain that everyone learned to drive at the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride Driving School.

Fortunately, we had a great driver.  Meet Shankar... happy-go-lucky personality and a great smile to greet us each morning to drive us the 8 km from our hotel to Symphony's office.  This drive took us nearly an hour each way.  Shankar managed never to get flustered, even when another driver bumped into his side mirror while at a stop and then stared at him with daggers as if it was Shankar's fault.  Given the amount of honking that was non-stop in the city, I was really surprised that Shankar never hit the horn. However, by day two I finally observed him honk the horn.  What I realized it that he had been doing this the entire time.  He managed to just, ever-so-quickly, twist his wrist on his right hand to depress the horn.  All without removing said hand from the steering wheel or his left hand from the shifter.  It was almost ninja-esque the way he did this that it got me wondering what other skills he might possess...

Unfortunately, and fortunately, we will not be seeing Shankar this week.  Symphony's office is moving tomorrow to a spot walking distance from our hotel.  I will miss seeing Shankar's smile each day but I will not miss the 2 hours we spent in the car each day.  Nick will not miss the 2 hours following the commute each day it took him to recover from the roller coaster effect the drive had on his stomach.

An Afternoon in Singapore

No trip to India would be complete without an 8 hour layover in Singapore, right?  Obviously extending the already long travel time by an additional 8 hours might seem terrible but at least it gave me the opportunity to check out another country, albeit briefly.

We quickly realized that the clothes that we wore on the airplane with the goal of keeping us warm on the red-eye flight to asia were not ideal for the 88 degree, 100% humidity weather that exists year-round in Singapore.  Before we even saw our first sight, we were already sweating and looking for a way to escape the heat.  We sucked it up long enough to traverse a pretty cool foot bridge but then found our way inside of one of the many malls we found in Singapore.

After cooling off and getting a bite to eat, we headed back into the heat to check out the brand new park, Gardens by the Bay.  While the park opened about two months ago, it was clearly not yet complete.  That being said, we did get a spectacular 360 degree view of Singapore from up on the canopy foot bridge.

Next stop was China town. Unfortunately, it was very similar to a much hotter version of San Francisco's China town so we quickly ditched it in favor of a Singapore sling before heading back to the aiport to resume our journey to India.