Map of our travels - sort of!

So this is basically a map of our travels in India – although the lines don’t connect quite perfectly. We started in Delhi  – at the top marked with a P. We arrived just before noon on the 26th and without leaving the airport flew immediately to Pune – halfway down the west coast of India, (B). There we stayed with Udayan’s family for one night, explored the city the next day and late the evening of the 27th along with Udayan we flew across the country to Chennai (C) on the east coast.

In Chennai we met up with Bose and Lea, and were eventually joined by Kelly and Jeremy to round out our crew! We stayed in Chennai until the 31st, seeing a few sites, prepping for the rickshaw rally and visiting the orphanage among other things. On the morning of the 31st we all headed south to Pondicherry (D). This was the first leg of the race so the boys traveled by rickshaw and the girls enjoyed the comforts of an air conditioned van.

We rang in the new year and spent New Years Day in Pondicherry and on the 2nd the guys took off on the rest of their race basically heading south and ending in Trivandrum (K), the rest of their route isn’t on the map above but you can see it here.

While the boys made their way south to the finish line we loaded up in the van and headed slightly north and west to Bangalore (E) where we spent the night of the 2nd, then on to Mysore (F) for the 3rd, we spent the night of the 4th in the jungles of Wayanad (G) before finally making our way to the west coast and spending the night of the 5th in Kochi (H). On the 6th we floated through the backwaters of Kerala – the flag for Kerala is hidden behind the flag for Trivandrum (K) where we finally met up with the guys just after noon on the 7th. This was the end of the race and the end of our stay in the south of India.

* OK there are missing letters on this map – not sure where I, J and L went to!

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Is that 30 Indian minutes or US minutes? – The conversion seemed to be similar to Rupees to US dollars and we learned quickly that it usually takes longer to get somewhere than you’d originally expected.

There is no wrong way down a one way street in India – I’m sure the boys have their own stories about this given their adventure driving in India, but we quickly figured out that traffic lanes, stop signs and stop lights, other directional signs and traffic laws in general are merely suggestions.  Horn honking is a must and large trucks even have writing on the back telling you to honk. He who is largest or honks or flashes their lights first, loudest and longest has the right of way.

Just about everything requires some amount of negotiation which can be frustrating at times when you just want a fair answer. The good news is though that once you reach an agreement on something people are true to their word. I never felt like people would try to trick me out of a product or service once they’d agreed to do it and that was great.

No one ever says no – but yes doesn’t always mean yes. Especially when it comes to asking directions we found that no one ever tells you they don’t know the way. They will offer you some sort of directions – even if it is just to tell you to keep going down the road you are on – but I’m pretty sure that many of them don’t actually have any idea where we were trying to go. I quickly learned to read their expressions while listening to their answers and as we pulled away I would say whether I thought they actually knew or not and make a decision on if we needed to follow their instructions or find someone else to ask.

My fingers, my clothes my feet and in just about my entire body would get dirty quickly and easily and I’d look around me to see a nation of people in beautiful bright-colored and white clothing all looking sparkling clean. How did they do that?

India is a beautiful country full of wonderful, interesting, kind people. The north offered so many beautiful sites and such rich history and the south offered natural beauty beyond any I’ve seen before. There are many sites I’d like to see in the north but if I was going to relax and vacation I’d easily plant myself in one of many locations we visited in the south and just sit back and relax.

This was truly a vacation like none I’d taken before. I am grateful for the opportunity to have traveled to India and thankful for my friends who traveled with me. I am especially thankful to Udayan and his wonderful family for opening their home in Pune to us and to Bose and his wonderful family for making us feel so at home in Chennai. I will miss the many friends I made along the way and look forward to meeting again.

Clearing customs took much longer than it had on Christmas day – when we made it through but never made it into the city due to the tains being shut down for the holidays. We eventually made it through and quickly made our way to the Heathrow express which had us into the city in about 15 minutes. Two transfers later we walked out onto the streets of London in search of the perfect put to enjoy our fish and chips.

It took a bit of searching and we had to ask for help along the way but eventually we found ourselves at The Clachan in the Soho and Oxford Street neighborhood. Our flight home departed at 2:30 so we wanted to be back to the airport between 12 and 12:30pm. Intially I was told that they wouldn’t start serving the lunch menu until noon which was not going to work with our plans but by asking nicely the bartender said they should be able to get us fish and chips sooner than noon and we sat back to enjoy a drink – with ice, something I hadn’t had in weeks – and wait for our lunch. We were not disappointed and after enjoying our yummy meal we hurried back to the subway, retraced our steps and made it to the airport with time to spare.

We weren’t able to see the palace or any other famous London sites but we enjoyed our mini adventure and will definately find our way back to Jolly Old England for a longer visit in the future. For now though we are headed back to Seattle and looking forward to seeing our buddy Edward!

OK it wasn’t really a midnight train, I think it left Udaipur at 6:30pm and then arrived in Delhi at about 6:30am on the 12th. Actually we don’t know when exactly it arrived in Delhi because we sort of missed that. When we got off the train we thought we were at the New Delhi train station and we told our driver we were at the New Delhi train station but eventually we figured out that the train went another stop after New Delhi and that is where we got off. Thankfully we had a very sweet - very funny actually – driver waiting for us and with plenty of laughter in the background he tracked us down.

My former boss and good friend Peter is now living in Delhi with his family and he invited us to use his home as a base point for the day. After freshening up and taking care of a few logistical details we headed out to see a few of the sites Delhi had to offer. Dave and I were scheduled to fly out at 3:30am on the 13th so this would be our last day in India.

Our driver, Raju, took us to some of the major sites, the India Gate and several parliament buildings, we visited a Ghandi Museum that was really nice and finally made a quick visit to my office in Delhi. We had a few errands to run like picking up the bags we’d left at the airport earlier in the week and finding a hotel for Jeremy and Kelly and we were all pretty wiped out so we made it a low-key day, grabbed some take out and crashed at Kelly & Jer’s hotel until it was time to leave. Jeremy talked Kelly and I into hopping onto the metro (subway) with him and going for a late night shopping adventure before we all called it a night and an end to our.

It has been a fantastic trip but we are all looking forward to getting home and having a few days to recover before we head back to work!

City Palace hangs on the side of the hill overlooking the lake and offering beautiful views of the Lake Palace. The Lake Palace has been turned into a hotel and we’d hoped to have dinner or lunch there but learned that the only way to get a reservation is to be staying at the hotel. The City Palace is huge, a portion of it is open for the public to view, a portion of it has been turned into two different hotels and a portion of it is still occupied by Udaipur’s royal family. This palace is also famous for the role it played in the James Bond film Octopussy. Everyone you meet in Udaipur will use every chance they have to tell you about it.

The City Palace is the second largest palace in India – Mysore Palace which I speed visited a week ago is the largest. After winding our way through the palace we made our way down to the edge of the lake where we took a boat tour that took us out to the Lake Garden Palace. Once back on dry land we enjoyed a roof top lunch and headed back to the hotel to checkout and finally board the train back to Delhi.

We made our way to Chunda Palace where we would be staying for the next two days. We were very excited to be staying in a palace and while we found out this wasn’t and old palace as we’d originally thought, we were certainly not disappointed. Chunda Palace is actually a hotel that has been built rather recently. It took 16 years to build and is pretty spectacular with the marble floors, exquisitely detailed furniture and outstanding rooftop views.

After checking in we decided to relax and enjoy our surroundings for a bit before heading out to see the sights. Eventually we made our way out to the street and flagged down a couple of rickshaws to take us around. We’d wanted to see a Jain Temple we’d read about and later learned that it is quite aways away and requires a day trip to visit but would have been worth it. So instead we visited a smaller temple where we had the good fortune to meet a lovely woman who showed us around. We visited a local garden, and did some shopping including a market area where we found some great spices and finally had lunch before heading back to the hotel.

Kelly and I were bound and determined to wear our saris before this trip was over and decided that tonight was the night. We were planning to have dinner at a lake side restaurant so we dressed up for the occasion. I’m sure our many Indian friends would have found great amusement watching us as we searched the internet for instructions – and videos – on how to wrap a sari and then proceeded to do it wrong several times before getting to a point that seemed acceptable. The guys had both purchased traditional Indian clothing but had worn it on the rickshaws and it was now dirty so they donned more western clothing – al though Dave did wear his new kurta. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Ambrai, a pretty outdoor restaurant located right on the lake with a spectacular view of the Lake Palace.

Once inside the fort there were plenty of spaces to wander around and get lost in. In the main courtyard there was a group of performers, singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. I think I must not have an appreciation for old style Indian music because it sounded like wailing more than singing and I suspected they were just making up the songs and dances as they went along.  At the bottom of the hill thought we had been treated to really beautiful music played on this combination violin-horn type instrument. We’d seen these at the museum in Pune so it was really cool to see it played live.

Amber fort was really cool and we spent about two hours exploring before heading over to Jaigarh Fort where the world’s largest cannon on wheels can be found. This fort was not quite as interesting overall but still good to visit. From here we headed back into the city stopped to enjoy the view along the lake and then visited the City Palace which was also cool however by this time I think we were hitting fort/palace/museum overload for the day. 

Soni stayed with us until about 5pm and our train to Udaipur didn’t leave until 10pm so we found a super cheap – super sketchy – hotel room to drop our bags for a few hours. Although we’d made our train reservations weeks ago we’d been put on the wait list and hadn’t received confirmation of being moved up. Everyone we talked to assured us it would be no problem – a phrase we’d heard often on this trip. Hmmmm… turns out it was a problem and only three of us received confirmed spaces on the train. This did not make us happy as we needed to get to Udaipur and didn’t want to spend anymore time in Jaipur. The gentlemen working at the train station kept assuring me it would be no problem and that we were all entitled to a space on the train – we may just end up sharing a bed. OK, I can deal with that. In the end it turned out ok. We did end up sharing our cabin with a super cranky, very unfriendly lady but we each had our own bed and most importantly we were on our way to Udaipur.

Upon arriving in Delhi we found our driver, Soni, found a place to check some of our extra luggage for a few days and headed to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Our plan was to see the Taj and then continue down the road to Jaipur. We’d been told there wasn’t much more to see in Agra and from what we saw, they are right. The Taj was an interesting stop. Clearly the major tourist attraction in India for both Indian and non-Indian tourist, I think we were all a bit surprised at the number of Indian tourists there.

The Taj is certainly something you need to see in person. It is huge and regal. The silhouette it cuts against the sky is spectacular and up close you can see the beautiful detailing of this amazing monument. The one part that was a little overwhelming in an underwhelming way though was going inside. The Taj was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, a beautiful tribute to the woman he loved. The experience of going into the mausoleum where she is interned was anything but beautiful, serene or respectful. I have never been in such a mosh pit of people pushing and shoving their way through doorways. The sound was deafening with people shouting and police whistles blowing warning people to put away their cameras inside the mausoleum. Insane place! The outside was beautiful though and I am grateful for the chance to have seen it in person.

Taj Facts & Figures

• Cost 41 million rupees to build
• 20,000 workers built it over the course of 22 years
• More than 1000 elephants were used to haul materials
• Completed in 1653
• 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble
• 2-4 million visitors per year (200,000 from overseas)

Our driver Soni was a super trooper and a speedster who agreed to make the drive on to Jaipur for us that night, ensuring us a full day to explore the city. With a quick stop for dinner along the way and making record time due to Soni’s speedy driving we arrived in Jaipur around 11pm. Because we weren’t sure which city we’d end up in that night we hadn’t made any hotel reservations. I think Soni was a bit surprised at our lack of planning but with the help of modern technology and good luck to get a signal just in time we were able to use our phones to search out options and find a hotel for the night.