India 2025

India

So another adventure begins…got to admit I feel a bit like a chicken. I went with a prepackaged tour for once. This was with a group called “G Adventures” through a tour company call “Tour Radar”.

Booking a two week tour of northern India seemed like a pretty good idea. Usually you get what you pay for…and one of the things I was paying for was not having to do all the planning associated with a trip. As the tour has just begun, it remains to be seen if this was a good value or not. India is intimidating. The shear number of people (1.5 Billion) for India) is one reason.. This land mass would be the same if you merged arr Alaska, Texas and California. 25 million for the city of Deli alone. Seems like they were all in the area around the hotel! I have seldom seen traffic like this anywhere. So thick that at times when the traffic was stopped there was not enough space to squeeze between the cars and scooters to cross the street on foot!

Departed from New York’s JFK airport at 9 pm for the flight to London…the first leg of the journey. The flight was full as another earlier flight had been canceled and those lucky enough to get a seat were put on this flight as well. We had a strong tail wind which pushed us there in about 5 and a half hours. Pretty good time. I had booked the trip with Delta airlines. They in turn had subbed it out to Virgin Atlantic. They were a really good crew and the meals were above average. No complaints…except…they have a program to help kids where you donate your spare change as you leave the airplane. Didn’t feel that that the loose change was enough so got out the wallet and pulled some bills out to drop in the donation bag. The saying goes “No good deed goes unpunished” and this was certainly the case as I guess I must have missed my pocket when I put the wallet back. It wasn’t until I went to pay for a coffee a half hour later that I noticed it was gone. No chance of a pickpocket as I have these deep pockets with a side zipper to make it almost impossible to access without my knowledge. In the wallet was about a $200 and my drivers license as well as a couple of credit cards. No charges have occurred on the cards so I think it’s still stuck between the seats as it was a very small wallet. Contacted the airlines and they searched the plane again with no luck. Fortunately most of the important stuff like my passport was kept in a waist pack. Still…the loss of a couple credit cards meant I would have to be very careful with the remaining ones to continue the adventure.

The next flight was also Virgin Atlantic to Deli India. This one was 7 hours. Was thrilled to discover the flight was only half full. Was able to stretch out across 3 seats to attempt a little sleep. Seldom attain any sleep on flights. Arrived in Deli around midnight the next day. Went through immigration with no problems. I was very glad I had spent the extra money for a full year multiple entry visa…but more about this later. Got the bags and went through customs with no problems. They never even looked in my backpack. Outside of the customs area there were bicycle barricades with many greeters behind them holding name cards. I was supposed to be being met by the G Adventure tours representative. After changing a little currency into rupees went back and still did not see the greeter. Oh well…time to brave the throng of predatory cab drivers and procure a ride to the hotel

As I walked outside there were another set of barricades to hold the mass of hustlers at bay, patrolled by police carrying AK 47 machine guns. Just then a guy holding a “G-Adventures” sign up motioned me over and asked if I was Mr. Kevin. He asked me to follow him. As he knew my name I figured he was the legit emissary for the transport to the hotel. It’s really nice to be met at the airport in a foreign city. It takes the worry out of being literally “taken for a ride” by scam taxi drivers. I usually take a photo with my phone of the license plate of the cab before entering. That way the driver knows if he messes with you he can be traced…unless of course the cab is stolen! The hotel was another story.

The traffic was heavy as it is at most airports. The drivers did seem a bit reckless, including my own driver. I was soon to learn that she was a very conservative driver and that traffic in India is an entirely different proposition than in many parts of the world. Stop lights are occasionally observed… Stop signs, seldom, and even what direction you’re traveling on a divided highway is subject to interpretation. Not to mention that people drive on the opposite side of the road from the USA. Very scary for pedestrians.

At the hotel, the confusion began. They said I wasn’t checked until the next day. I argued how can that be if G Adventures sent the driver to pick me up on this day? I said I’d already paid for the additional days. I had arrived a couple of days early just in case there was any snafu with the Visa or travel. Turns out this was a fairly wise course of action as my buddy John, who was supposed to join the tour on the 15th, found himself in a situation as he was denied entry into India. Let me explain: He was able to get his 30 day visa in July however, he did not realize that the visa started when he actually got it in July instead of when he arrived so that by the time he got to India, it had already expired! Oh no! I felt terrible for him. More on this later. I did feel a little better about spending the extra money for a full one-year visa with multiple entries as I knew I was going to go back-and-forth from India to Nepal perhaps a couple of times.

Back at the hotel, there was still no resolution in sight as they said the hotel was full. In retrospect, at that point, I just should’ve said, “Well, screw you. I’m going to another hotel.” But I felt that since I got the ride from G-Adventures that I should honor the agreement that transportation was included if I stayed at the hotel the tour started from…The Hotel Perfect. (which was anything but)… this was a big mistake. I should’ve just looked on booking.com and found one with good reviews. Instead, I let them talk me into walking half a block down to this real dive hotel with no hot water, no toilet paper, and it looked like it was built in 1920. Other than the mosquitoes, dim lights constant honking and beeping street noise,and bugs in the room, I guess it wasn’t so bad. It did have a bed. The next day I got up and went over to the other hotel where they gave me a pretty good room with a king-size bed for the next couple of days. The hotel itself was in a pretty sketchy location with a lot of traffic and a lot of hustlers on every street corner…but good cheap street food. Here I was introduced to “Marsala Chai” which was soon to become a favorite hot beverage here as most of the coffee is instant.

Toured around the next couple of days seeing the local sights. Braved the metro system…not easy…but got to the center of town, Connaught place. This is laid out like a hub with streets like spokes on a wheel radiating out from the center. Again…full of street hustlers wanting to take you to their “Official Tour Desk”. Once there they immediately get you a cup of Marsala tea to keep you captive while they try to sell you every package under the sun. As our tour with G adventures would be visiting many of the offered sites it was easy to just drink the tea and leave. Perhaps rude…but by the second “Official” agency I was hip to the jive and when they kept me waiting for a “specialist” I walked out without looking back despite their pleas. Getting back on the metro system was harder. Got close, then hired a rickshaw to take me the rest of the way. Good decision. We were to have the meeting that night and meet the group. Turned out the “group was one couple Vickie and Dan, a guide, Jai and an Austrian lady by the name of Leonine…who went by the nick name of Leo. She seemed like a good person and fun. Our guide, Jai, gave us a long talk and made sure we were all on the same page.

My buddy John Hand, who I had invited and talked into this trip was unable to make it. I had advised him to come a couple of days earlier in case of problems. He did not do so. He had applied for a 3O day visa to India which he had gotten. He was however…unaware that they had listed the start date of the visa for when he got it in July so that by the time the trip started it had already expired. This being a Friday he could not get it renewed until the following week. Bummer dude. He had been to India before but never got to visit the Taj Mahal. As it happened the group was to visit there before he would be able to join the trip. At this point he was about to write the trip off and not go. Our guide Jai talked him off the ledge so to speak and arranged to have him picked up from the airport and taken to the Taj Mahal if and when he got his visa. On the forth day of our tour he got the visa and a new flight to Deli from Bangkok. At the airport, he could not find the guy Jai sent to pick him up so he got a cab and checked into the Raddison Hotel. Constantly on the phone with Jai and myself we got the guide to reach him and they set off to the Taj Mahal. A long couple of hours diving on incredibly dangerous roads. Because of the time …he would not get there before closing time to purchase a ticket! Jai call a friend and had him buy a ticket for John and they made it just in time to get in. Once there he had a wonderful time and spent a few hours there until closing and was very glad he went. His flight to join the group was early the next morning. As it had been a long drive back…he slept through the alarm and missed THAT flight. He then re-booked and met us in the next city Varanasi. More about that later.

Day 2 Delhi – Jaipur

Up early to begin our tour. We started by going downtown Delhi to visit the India gate and Connaught place before traveling to Jaipur. I was a little surprised by some Indian women in Sarongs wanting to have their picture taken with me!

India Gate with friends

From Wikipedia:

The India Gate was part of the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission, which came into existence in December 1917 under the British Raj rule for building war graves and memorials to soldiers who were killed in the First World War.[3] The foundation stone of the Gate, then called the All India War Memorial, was laid on 10 February 1921, at 16:30 hrs, by the visiting Duke of Connaught in a ceremony attended by officers and men of the Imperial Indian Army, Imperial Service Troops, the Commander-in-Chief, and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy.[4] On the occasion, the Viceroy is reported to have said, “The stirring tales of individual heroism, will live forever in the annals of this country”, and that the memorial which was a tribute to the memory of heroes, “known and unknown”, would inspire future generations to endure hardships with similar fortitude and “no less valor”.[4] The Duke also read out a message from the King, which said, “On this spot, in the central vista of the Capital of India, there will stand a Memorial Archway, designed to keep”, in the thoughts of future generations, “the glorious sacrifice of the officers and men of the Indian Army who fought and fell”. During the ceremony, the Deccan Horse, 3rd Sappers and Miners, 6th Jat Light Infantry, 34th Sikh Pioneers, 39th Garhwal Rifles, 59th Scinde Rifles (Frontier Force), 117th Mahrattas, and 5th Gurkha Rifles. The land was owned by contractor Sir Sobha Singh who helped construct large tracts of New Delhi and was the primary contractor.[5][6]

Ten years after the foundation stone’s laying on 12 February 1931, the memorial was inaugurated by Lord Irwin, who, on the occasion, said “those who after us shall look upon this monument may learn in pondering its purpose something of that sacrifice and service which the names upon its walls record.”

From here we then walked around Connaught Place which is now mostly high end shopping. I had visited here before on the metro so I knew about a couple of good shops which I shared with the group.

From Wikipedia:

Connaught Place was named after Prince Arthur, the 1st Duke of Connaught (1850–1942), the third son of Queen Victoria and uncle of King George VI. Prince Arthur visited India in 1921 and laid the foundation of the Council House (now Sansad Bhavan, or Parliament House). In 2013, Connaught Place was renamed Rajiv Chowk, in honor of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Connaught Place’s Georgian architecture is modelled after the Royal Crescent in Bath, designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774. While the Royal Crescent is semi-circular and a three-storied residential structure, Connaught Place consists of two floors, which made almost a complete circle intended to house commercial establishments on the ground with residential space on the first floor.[7] The circle was eventually designed with two concentric circles, creating an Inner Circle, Middle Circle and the Outer Circle with seven roads radiating from a circular central park known as Radial Roads. As per the original plan, the different blocks of Connaught Place were to be joined from above, employing archways, with radial roads below them. However, the circle was ‘broken up’ to give it a grander scale. Even the blocks were originally planned to be 172 metres (564 ft) in height but later reduced to the present two-storied structure with an open colonnade.

Now it was time to risk life and limb and continue the drive drive to Jaipur on the crazy Indian roads where it was not unusual to see people going the opposite direction on a 4 lane divided highway…on your side of the divided highway!

We stopped at a place called “the Anoothi Project” where we were to try our hand at block printing. this method uses had carved wooden blocks which are inked then applied to fabric. Many patterns are used in making dressed and shirts. this project provides employment for many women which are sadly under employed in India.

The block printing station…note blocks and ink. My masterpiece

Returning to the van, we continued on to Jaipur. The whole trip that day.was about 5 hours. We checked into our hotel…as we had made good time we opted to visit the Amber Fort in the late afternoon. It was still hot here at this time of year…mid 80’s so going in the late afternoon was preferable.

The Amber Fort

Jai Mahal known as he Water Palace

Day three Jaipur

This morning we were supposed to take a Hot Air Ballon ride over the city. It was very windy so the ride was canceled. Oh well…such is life.

One of the other options on the tour was getting up early and taking a bicycle tour of the city. It sounded interesting to me and Leonie was interested as well. Getting up early to greet the Dawn we went to the bike place where we were fitted with bicycles and helmets and proceeded to cruise in the city with a guide in front and the Guide in the back there were only two of us on the tour.

A MOO-ving experience…

One of the first things we did was feed the cows… Apparently a tradition in the city of Jaipur while everybody shouted, greetings to us as we were driving along on our bike bikes. From there, we stopped at a place for marsala tea…

Morning Marsala Chai

This particular tea spot has been visited by the Prime Minister and had a special recipe that added 38 spices to the tea. It was very good. It is served in little ceramic cups, which you then just throw away when you’re done with them. I guess they get ground up into the powder and who knows maybe used again sometime.

Our next visit was to the Asha Nagar Palace. As it happened, we were there when they were doing a photo shoot with a pretty woman in a sarong walking among the pigeons so that they could take a video of this. We took a couple shots and one of the more interesting ones.

Our guide had us pose in the yoga tree position while he slowly panned the palace, and we ran around behind him and did the poses again so we were in the same photo twice.

We then continued onto the palace of winds or Kanwar Nagar.

Hawa Mahal – Palace of the Winds

From there, it was on to the early morning flower market, which was vibrant happening, noisy, and filled with color.

Flower Market

We were told we needed to hurry because we were running late for the next part which was laughing Yoga. You may wonder what laughing Yoga is as did we until we got there and everybody starts in a circle and one guy leads it holds his arms up and starts belly laughing ha ha ha ha and we all join in ha ha ha ha and it actually became kind of funny. At the end, they gave us all hands full of flowers and we threw them up in the air for our guy to film.

Our next stop was for early morning in temple where it was packed full of people who knew all the words of the chants. We were not among those chosen few… however I do remember being a little nervous because we had to remove our shoes to go in there, and I was concerned that my only pair of shoes for the trip might get taken. My fears were unjustified, however, as they were right where they had been left when we came out.

After the bike tour we rejoined our group who had gone to a cinema to participate in a “Dollywood” movie. Apparently during the showing of the movie…it is a cultural thing to become vocally involved in the movie. While Dan and Vicki may not have done so…they did enjoy the experience.

We visited the Jantar Mantar. This is a collection of instruments for observing the stars. The Astrominical exhibit was quite interesting. one had to wonder who thought up these huge structures to chart the movement of the stars and planets. At the time astrology was taken to heart as evidenced by the separate signs of the Zodiac each with their own structure. It is said that they can accurately tell the time to within 3 seconds. Gotta wonder who really needed to e THAT on time in those days.

The Observatory

Later Jai though we should get a taste of street shopping in Jaipur so we were turned loose to shop for ourselves in the crowded streets.

Street scene Jaipur

Day 4 – Jaipur – Agra

Day Four – Jaipur to Agra & the Taj Mahal

So this was a daythat was the focus of the trip for myself as well as John… Who unfortunately was not with us yet. Years ago I had obtained a needle point pillow of the Taj Mahal, which has graced my sofa for some years. I have a little doubt that this was one of the impetus’s for this trip… at least on s sub conscious level. I’ve always been a little reluctant of going to India because I thought I might be confronted with the poverty. Well, yes, I was confronted to some degree with the poverty. It was not like wI thought it was going to be. Poverty, yes…mostly in the form of Women with child on their hip asking for money. We were told that there is a entire syndicate of these women who go begging and will rent a child to do so. What I was not prepared for was the amount of people here (25 million in Delhi alone as opposed to say New York with with only 8 million.) as well as the traffic. Unbelievable traffic.

We got an early start at 8 AM for the seven hour trip to Agra. We of course stopped for lunch on the way and had breaks for tea as well. Upon reaching the Taj Mahal, we had to go through some serious screening with many military police around complete with their AK-47’s and hand guns with no nonsense attitudes. We then entered the complex and started a fairly long walk to the Taj Mahal buildings themselves. On the way I noticed a bunch of monkeys and a cute little baby one and decided “oh this would be a good time for a photo opp” what I was unaware of was that the monkeys were very territorial, and that they would attack if you even made eye contact with them, let alone wanting to get close to their babies! I was soon to find out as was Vicki, who tried to get a close-up photo and was chased away by the monkeys and our guides.

Kevco..posing …and on the run!

When I say Guides, plural, that is because we had a separate Taj Mahal guide, who was very knowledgable about the Taj Mahal joining us. Dan and Vicki broke off to explore as well as Leonie and myself did to go exploring. We were to take two or three hours there.

Entrance building – Taj Mahal

We were required to don paper booties to protect the marble floors. No problem. Photos were not allowed of the interior. It was a most enjoyable few hours. I was unprepared for the scope of the place as one normally just sees pictures just of the main building. The grounds, however, are huge and very well maintained. Only fly in the ointment was that the normally water filled pools were dry for maintenance. Oh well.

Day five Agra to Orchha

We were again up early for a short train ride of three hours to get to Jhansi. From there our van took us to our hotel in Orchha. Here we would be visiting three different Mahal‘s or palaces… the Raj Mahal, the Jehangir, Mahal, and the Raj Parveen Mahal… All with mediaeval architecture.

From the front our hotel..the “Gampa Palace” looked anything but palatial. More like it was just a little hole in the wall… however, the rooms were nice and the showers were hot. It was located right on the river, so it was a great view from the courtyard. And very centrally located yet away from the street noise. A good choice. As it was still early we started our explorations in the afternoon.

Raj Mahal – the bridge was a defensive measure…to enter the castle one must turn 90 degrees to the right. this was done to prevent Elephants from getting a head of steam to ram the gates. There were also nasty metal spikes protruding from the doors.

Palace Pics

The next morning we were up before the dawn to go for a bird watching expedition. Leonine and I were the only takers for this early morning adventure. Our guide met us was the hotel and we proceeded to go back across the bridge but then continued on. there was a walkway all newly constructed …but very few people on it.