In case you haven’t heard…

I’m having the THAIme of my life.

The End

Well I’ve made it to Bangkok and have half an hour to kill before my hotel room’s ready, at which point I’ll take a MUCH needed shower (23 hours traveling have not been good to me) and probably even nap against all my mother’s best jet-lag counsel since it’s not the nicest of days and I’ve got a few hours before Wayne arrives. So that sixty-word sentence aside, I’m going to do my best to keep this brief.

Our time in Delhi went something like this: The day after Agra we relaxed and did some shopping. It was Laura’s last night in town and I had a contest I was planning on entering that required a travel video, so we decided to document our last meal. You can watch it here:

Something I’d neglected to mention before is that since I was gone for my second Thanksgiving in a row and my parents knew we’d been living a budget lifestyle, they threw some cash our way to go out for a nice Thanksgiving dinner. We did this the night before going to Agra, so pardon the anachronism. Rather than turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes we thought it would be appropriate to indulge in some upscale Indian fare at a place in the ritzy Connaught Place area, as recommended by our hotel staff. We dubbed the occasion “Indianksgiving” because we’re punny like that.

It was sad saying goodbye to Laura, my longtime friend and travel buddy for a whole 15 months! We did a gift exchange to accompany the farewells, and she so kindly lent me her old camera in order to have documentation of the final days of the trip. These days were spent with Kessi, our French friend from the Agra trip; and Justin, an American whose services as cameraman we’d employed for the final shot of the dinner video, and who we then got to know a little better. With Kessi we went to Old Delhi and the Gandhi memorial, and as a foursome we checked out the Lodi gardens.

haha… henna!

old delhi street life

preparing paan

indian school bus haha

favorite. maybe my favorite photo i’ve ever taken, in fact.

once again, have the, “what is this, china?” jokes gotten old yet?

oh yeah, delhi has a red fort too

tree at the ghandi memorial

i was invited to help prepare street food! a crowning achievement in my culinary development.

heading into the lodi gardens on justin’s excellent recommendation

chipmunks!

ceiling detail

bidding adieu to kessi

thought the ubiquitous red-stained teeth on paan-chewing indian men should have been a huge deterrent, we thought we might as well give it a try. i’ll try to get a gif in here of the guy putting together our tobacco-and-flavorings-in-betel-nut-leaf satchels

not loving it

Oh riiiight, and then there was that whole little thing where Wayne and I got to the airport (after getting a flat tire in our cab?) at 7 in the morning for my departure flight via London, only to be informed that the weather conditions were dire there and my flight was canceled! This turned into a hasty goodbye for us as I was shipped off to a hotel in the Gurgaon district to await the 3 am flight I’d been put on instead (that actually became a 6 am flight). After reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga I was under the impression that Gurgaon was one of the nicer districts, but after walking around a bit with Martin, a South Dakotan in similar straits, I found it was decidedly not. Our hotel was great, but the surrounding area was as impoverished, if not more so, than any I’d seen in Delhi.

well the litter problem ain’t gonna take care of itself now is it?

Last but not least, an awesome sign at the check-in gate for British Airways when I was finally on my way out of there. One of these things is not like the others?

In theory I suppose this is where I finish off with some insightful quip to sum up my Long Way Home, but even at the time I was a bit at a loss for words and now, four months later, I kind of feel the same. I feel so lucky to have been able to experience all of these things, and especially to experience them with such amazing people as all my travel companions (some more constant than others) turned out to be. Thanks so much to Laura and Wayne for making this such a special adventure, and also to my parents for helping me out along the way. I learned tons about the world and about myself, and I encourage everyone to find an opportunity to get out there to do the same (say, by making a trip out to Thailand sometime soon 😉 )!

Agra

Things are really down to the wire here. I’m updating from the free wireless terminal in the Doha, Qatar airport (seriously, American airports really need to get on the ball with free wireless in airports) after an 11-hour flight about which I really can’t complain. Though my eye was caught by films like 127 Hours, The King’s Speech, and The Social Network that I’d been very eager to see, somehow it was The Aristocats that earned the first viewing. And by “somehow,” I mean for obvious reasons:

I did end up watching 127 Hours as well and was very impressed. Guess I’ll have to find time on the upcoming 10-hour flight for the other two.

But I digress. One of our highest (if not only) priorities for things to do in Delhi actually had nothing to do with Delhi. We felt a very warranted need to make a day-trip to Agra to see the marvelous Taj Mahal. It was four hours away and we decided it made the most sense to go with a tour group. Unfortunately this had us standing on the sidewalk for two extra hours waiting for our bus to arrive (flat tire?), but it also meant we had the pleasure of checking out Agra’s Red Fort, something we might not have opted to do on our own. There are pictures but I haven’t come into possession of them and needed to get the ball rolling. So here’s what I do have from the Taj Mahal:

With us in the pictures are Kessi, a French-Mauritian guy in the group who was often mistaken for Indian and two very nice (and seemingly very loaded– they were picking up tour guides’ and horse-drawn-rickshaw-drivers’ tabs left and right) Indian girls whose names I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten. We’d go on to spend some more time with Kessi in Delhi in the following days.

We’d read in a tour book that it was official policy at the Taj Mahal that Indian citizens paid 20 rupee (the equivalent of 50 cents) for entry, while foreigners paid $20 (the equivalent of, well, 20 dollars). I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case. Indian citizens did indeed pay 20 rupee, but foreigners only had to pay 750. You know… just $18.75. This ruffled our feathers a bit, especially since the delay earlier in the day prevented us from actually entering the giant marble mausoleum (though I’ve heard reports to the effect of, “It’s kind of just a big white room…), but I suppose in the end it was worth it.

I’m also missing photos from our later stop (when we were all pretty tired and just eager to get to bed) at some town along the way that is the supposed birth place of one of the most revered Hindi gods, Krishna. I got in a bit of a shameful scuffle with the ladies at security (made me go all the way back to coat check to deposit my dead iPod whose presence in my purse I’d forgotten… the nerve!) and as I said everyone was kind of tired/hungry/cranky, so I can’t name this as the best stop of the trip by any means. But 2 am eventually rolled around and found us back, safe-and-sound in Delhi for the last few days of our trip.

In honor of Laura, who deemed this the soundtrack for the day, Sam Roberts’ “Taj Mahal.”

A Wedding in Jaipur

I’m down to the wire here… I fly to Thailand tonight and will have a whole new world of blogging to pursue. So without further ado, here are the finishing touches.

Our tour-guide Ali invited us to the wedding of one of his friends/cousins/brothers on our last night in town. It was an experience we didn’t want to miss. The first part of the evening was spent in the home of the brother (?) of the groom, mostly entertaining and being entertained by a small army of children running amok. Then we were all herded out of the house and into the procession of almost entirely men and children, complete with generator-powered lights and a uniformed band. We were the only foreigners, but had a great time dancing around with everyone. I suppose it’s worth mentioning that the bride wasn’t even present, and I guess it’s not fair to label this event objectively as the wedding. Rather, it was a few hours out of what I’m sure was a week-long affair.

haha, he could be related to them

At around midnight we had Ali drive us to the train station for one last train ride– a short and sweet six-hour one to Delhi. Thanks to Laura MacKinnon for photos and video clips!

Jaipur: Days 2 and 3

The title says “Days 2 and 3” but I really have only one picture/thing to say about Day 2. Golmaal 3.

We finally got our Bollywood movie, and if you didn’t click the IMDb link I provided (as I know you didn’t), here’s the synopsis:

After selling fake examination papers to students, Madhav, Laxman and Lucky re-locate to Goa, and not only get into verbal & physical confrontations with Gopal and Laxman, but also ruin their jet-ski and fire-works businesses. Feeling threatened, they inform their bus-driver father, Pritam, who goes to confront Gopal and Laxman, and finds out that their mother, Geeta P. Chopra, is his long-lost love. Gopal’s girlfriend, Daboo, overhears their conversation, and gets them dramatically married – just in time as Pritam is heavily in debt and is about to be evicted by goons led by Raghav. Chaos and violent confrontations will become the order when he takes his children to live with Geeta, and the newly married couple may conclude that divorce may be the only solution to end their respective children’s disputes.

I’m glad I read that, because I actually had no idea about 90% of those details. One point we were savvy to that that synopsis failed to mention was that the girl’s dog was named Facebook. It was all in Hindi (except for the one character who spoke like a monkey), but still an enjoyable experience. Something to whet your palate:

theatrical trailer– start at 0:30 for the real action

opening sequence, as it really happened in the movie

Other than that Day 2 was a very lazy day without much to write home about.

Day  3, as I can recall found us back in the Pink City for a bit of a walking tour, and then that evening before getting on our final train at Ali’s friend (brother? cousin?)’s wedding. My camera had officially retired by then so I’m waiting on Laura or Wayne to come through with pictures of that.

laura: “ew did you just take a picture of that naked kid?”
me: “oh, he’s naked? i just noticed he was crying.”

cleaning their feet

gathered around for their cups of chai

favorite

then there was this… mind-blowing

naan and curry… mmmm