Incredible India, Part 1

The month of December brought the end of first semester of school, a number of holiday celebrations, report cards, a life-changing trip to India, and no time (or internet connection) for blogging.

I'd like to most of all tell you about India for now. Incredible India. Not only was this a slogan the country used to advertise it's tourism industry, but it was also what myself and my travel-mates kept saying the entire trip: Incredible India. Never have I travelled somewhere that was able to shock, amaze and intimidate me while evoking tears, laughter, gasps, and utter silence all at one time. The pollution made us physically ill, the poverty filled us with sorrow, the unexpected kindness of strangers made us speechless, the insane amount of scams being pulled made us frustrated, the freezing temperatures made us long for our sweaty days in Saigon, the pure joy that was experienced by children who couldn't afford a pair of shoes made us question our self-pity. I felt like almost everyday I was battling emotions: Loving India, mourning India, feeling hopeless for India, wanting to stay forever in India. My love-hate relationship with Guatemala was similar, but was developed over the course of 2 years, not 3 weeks.

Let's take a look at some of the things that happened, shall we?

Our first night was full of nerves and anxiety; I was literally nauseous with expectation. We flew into New Delhi late at night and were instantly terrified with its size and congestion. All we really wanted to do was fall asleep but our incredible lack of preparedness for this trip meant we needed to spend our first night organizing. We thought the "Travel Agent" we were working with could simply point us in the direction of the train station, bus tickets, and reliable hotels, but apparently everyone in India is looking to make a buck (rightfully so). In our exhaustion, we were intimidated enough to go with a set plan for the first 9 days of our trip that included hotels each night with breakfast included, a personal driver in a comfortable enough car, a camel safari excursion, and train tickets to our most northern destination. Okay, first half-- planned and over with, right?

Not so much.

We started out the next day eager to see the Taj Mahal in Agra, the one place we all agreed we couldn't leave India without seeing. What became of that day, however, was a seven hour car ride in New Delhi traffic (the train would have taken under 3 hours), an argument about a "free guide" that was being included in our trip (nothing is free in India!), and a denied entrance to the Taj Mahal for being, literally, 5 minutes too late.

India: 1, HAK (Hannah, Alex, and Kristi): 0.

Told ya! Moldy toilet paper plus Alex.

It didn't end there though. When we got over our disappointment of missing out on the Taj, we headed to our hotel only to find wet sheets, moldy toilet paper (I am so serious right now), cold water in the coldest place any of us had been to in lord knows how long, and an unprepared staff that continually woke us through the night with knocks on the door for breakfast orders and phone calls for who knows what (I didn't answer, and instead left the phone off the hook).

Which stage of emotions towards India were we in at this point? One I haven't mentioned yet: Eye-rolling at India.

But...our distaste and disrespectful eye-movements were completely wiped away the next morning. Though we were indeed met by a "free guide" that we specifically asked to not accompany us, we arrived at the Taj Mahal around 8am to be confronted with the clearest, bluest skies we had seen in months. We zipped through security, listened half-heartedly to the guide tell us about the foregrounds, and were shocked into silence when we finally laid eyes on that incredible, historical, marble-full structure. It really is an indescribable feeling to check off one of your life goals. Seeing this man-made structure, the hours-- no, the DECADES-- that were put into creating it was like nothing I have ever seen. The detail carved into marble was beyond what I could even draw. The labor of 20,000 slaves over the course of 22 years was not done in vain (um... yes it was! Slavery? Super lame) in that moment as the three of us came out of our silence and became giddy with happiness.

All smiles today!

iiiiincredible detail!

Nothing could have disappointed us that day. We were filled with love for India and the magnificent wonders it worked so hard to preserve (seriously, there were rules about what you couldn't bring inside the Taj, one being a calculator. We can't have any math-geeks trying to question any of the numerical facts, right?). We almost had to be dragged out by force with the amount of infatuation we were displaying but the next place we headed was also immaculate. Fort Agra was captured by the Moghuls in the early 1500s; history us Americans could barely fathom. This fort, or city rather, was completely red. Not from paint, mind you, but stones that needed to match each other throughout. We had a good time playing in the fort but were unaware at the time that we would eventually become "forted-out" seeing as the majority of India was once constantly on guard and made most of their abandoned forts into monuments for tourists to see.

A woman at Fort Agra watering the grass by hand

We ended the day in high spirits and began our drive to out next destination: Jaipur. We thoroughly enjoyed our two night stay here as we felt we finally had time to explore and become a little more in touch with nature. We fed monkeys on the side of the road, freely walked the streets, strengthened our relationship with Indian food, and toured around the city sites. I remembered having fond feelings towards Jaipur at the time, but looking back on it there doesn't seem to be much else to say. Shame on me for waiting so long to write!

All I remember from Jaipur is in this picture

Oh yeah, we went to some astrology site too. We didn't understand anything we read, but took a cool shadow picture!

We headed to Mandawa next for a one night stay in a town that was halfway between our next point of interest. Mandawa provided Alex with a straight razor shave (which I'm learning all men think are the coolest thing), a new friend named Krishna who gave us his email address so we could help him with English (which reminds me...), and the most breath-taking view of dozens and dozens of kites being flown from the roof tops at sunset. This quiet town afforded us with moments of peace and sleep, things we had been lacking from the previous days.

No caption needed. Just... awesome.

head massage post straight-razor shave?

:)

From Mandawa, we headed straight to Bikaner and found out upon arrival that our camel safari was actually that day, not the next, and that we had 30 minutes to get ready. We quickly put what little warm clothing we had into day-bags and were bussed out to a small village where our camels awaited us. Fortunately, one camel wasn't quite ready yet which gave us the chance to discover the unique experience of being perhaps the first white people an entire village of children had ever seen. School was just let out as a group of kids, most likely aged from 5-12, stopped dead in their tracks when they saw our white skin, light hair, and weird clothing. We spent close to 20 minutes with these children and probably 17 of those minutes were spent being stared at. We desperately tried to communicate, as Americans tend to feel awkward when stared at, but were only able to have the children repeat everything we tried to say to them.

Alex: Hello!

Kids: Hello!

Alex: My name is Alex (points to self)

Kids: My nam iz Al-ax (giggles uncontrollably) 

Hilarious. And also precious. I let my hair down at one point and gestured that the kids could touch it, remembering my dear friend Jaron's experience with this in Guatemala. Luckily a Hindi-speaking gentleman was able to tell them to stop after I had 10 kids pulling my hair seconds later. We took pictures of them and then had to show them all the result of the photography. We commented to ourselves how strange it seemed to see 6-year-olds with nose piercings but then remembered how our own culture will pierce the ears of infants. When it was time to go, the children had a good laugh as they watched us attempt to board camels for the first time, and we parted ways.

lets gooooooo!

Camels are funny. In India, they symbolize peace, and as I sat there adjusting my uncomfortable crotch region like a pre-pubescent boy, ignoring the foul smell of the camel's breath, holding back laughter at the camel's farts, and clinging for dear life as the camel decided to eat ground-level plants whenever it wanted, I thought long and hard about why this animal is the symbol of peace. I'm still not sure I know why, but I figured it had something to do with the fact that it so effortlessly and without resistance carried my friends and I into the unknown. Perhaps camels are simply at peace with the world, knowing they have enough water to supply them for a good amount of time, and strength to get them to where they need to be. Look at that, India has gotten me all poetic about camels... weird.

roomies!

The safari took us into the desert just as the sun was setting. We ate a home cooked meal provided by a man called Mama who had worked for the company for twenty years. We drank tea and huddled around the fire to stay warm and eventually retreated to our tents (with actual beds in them; so much for roughing it!) and shivered until we found warmth. The next morning we took an interesting Jeep ride back to our hotel and allowed ourselves to spend the afternoon watching movies and laying in bed, mine being a mattress on the floor that night :)

I think I'll put this on pause seeing as the next portion of our trip was the turning point in our India discovery. I still have loads to tell you, including the most horrific train ride there ever was, a Christmas memory to cherish for a lifetime, a whole week in a holy city that became our sanctuary, New Years Day with a dear friend, and an experience that will never be forgotten in Bombay. Stay tuned.