Caroline and I spent 11 days together, traveling over 1550 miles on 6 train rides seeing Mumbai, Aurangabad (Ellora Caves), Jaipur, Ranthambore National Park, Agra and New Delhi. What a great way to re-get-to-know an old friend from preschool!
As I mentioned in my last post about Mumbai, Caroline arrived on Monday, April 9th early in the morning. We had two quick days in Mumbai and then we were off to Aurangabad to see the Ellora Caves. The Ellora Caves are a collection of monolithic rock hewn temples carved straight out of the hillside over a 500 year period from 500-1000 AD. The three major religions of India at the time are represented in their own distinct styles, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist. Starting early in the day with my trusty adventure hat, we managed to visit all 34 caves before dinner. Caroline and I had a fun day climbing around the ruins, imitating statues and marveling at grandeur of these manmade temples.
Our last stop together was New Delhi. The capital represents some of the irony that is the Indian democracy, as the largest democracy in the world seems to be as open to the public as the largest communist dictatorship in the world. The most exciting things about the sweltering city are that it’s home to the B’haia Lotus Temple and a new, Japanese built metro system. I couldn’t stand the heat, so I got out of the oven pretty quickly.
As I mentioned in my last post about Mumbai, Caroline arrived on Monday, April 9th early in the morning. We had two quick days in Mumbai and then we were off to Aurangabad to see the Ellora Caves. The Ellora Caves are a collection of monolithic rock hewn temples carved straight out of the hillside over a 500 year period from 500-1000 AD. The three major religions of India at the time are represented in their own distinct styles, Hindu, Jain and Buddhist. Starting early in the day with my trusty adventure hat, we managed to visit all 34 caves before dinner. Caroline and I had a fun day climbing around the ruins, imitating statues and marveling at grandeur of these manmade temples.
After a 9 hour train ride back to Mumbai and a 22 hour train ride from Mumbai to Jaipur, we realized we had gone all that way just to be swamped by hawkers and touts, the true tourist experience. While not home to the Taj Mahal, Jaipur is easily the second largest tourist destination in the region. With tons to see and do, it kept us busy for the three days we were there. On the first day on our walk into the middle of the old city we were bombarded with dozens of people hawking every good and touting every service imaginable. When we were almost to our destination we stopped when a man who we had blown off asked us why we were so rude. We turned around somewhat dismayed at the comment and after asking for clarification we explained to him that if, in fact, he wasn’t trying to get our money as well, he would be the first who wasn’t. We ended up getting tea with him and talking for over an hour. He was a really nice guy and possibly the only one we met in the whole city.
Our next stop was Ranthambore National Park and Tiger Reserve! Too bad it isn’t home to very many tigers anymore due to poaching and I don’t think anyone but the guides and touts have seen a tiger there in several years… With that said it was a fun safari experience. It was great fun telling the driver to “head them off at the pass,” in reference to another jeep that had cut in front us. We saw over a dozen exotic bird species and a few other species special to that area. We hung out in the afternoon till it was time to head to our train Agra. We were a little nervous about getting on the train since our tickets were Sleeper Waiting class and we were in the hundreds. That meant we could still get on the train, but that we wouldn’t have a seat and that over a hundred other people were doing the same thing. When the train arrived we started at the end of the sleeper cars and walked all the way down the train to the A/C cars and we couldn’t even set foot on the train it was so packed. As the train was rolling away we pulled our way onto the train and got pushed in to the antry car. We stood in the broiling pantry car for a few minutes then headed to the A/C cars where we paid an arm and a leg just to have the right to be in the car, not even for a seat. After walked up and down all four A/C cars until two Buddhist monks offered to share their seats with us. One of them gave us a book with some stories about Devachandra, which as it turns out, was written by the other one who is actually the leader of the monastery they were heading back too. It was probably the nicest way anyone has ever tried to convert me to their religion.
Occasionally, a tourist attraction is all it’s cracked up to be and extremely rarely is it even more than that. The Taj Mahal fit into the latter category. Caroline and I started walking there just after sunrise and on the way a shopkeeper told us that it was free today. We walked away laughing assuming that he was just running one more of a vast number of scams that dupe tourists every day, but when we arrived and saw the signs for World Heritage Day we knew he wasn’t kidding. We got in for free and spent a few hours checking the place out. Later that morning we went to the Agra Fort, for free, and were summarily unimpressed (don’t blame us, we just came from the Taj). That night we went back to the Taj for sunset. As we were meandering around enjoying the evening light, we stumbled upon a few monkeys. After her run in with a few feisty monkeys in Jaipur, Caroline would have nothing to do with them and when one started to follow her she threw something down to distract the monkey. It just so happened that she threw her shoes down and the monkey took the bait alright, ran away with it too. After trying to get her shoe back for a minute or so it was clear that the monkey was intent on dropping it down to the dried up river bed below, it did. Caroline had to get a security officer to go down and throw her shoe back up to her. With Caroline happily reunited with her shoe we headed back to our hotel for the night.
Our next stop was Ranthambore National Park and Tiger Reserve! Too bad it isn’t home to very many tigers anymore due to poaching and I don’t think anyone but the guides and touts have seen a tiger there in several years… With that said it was a fun safari experience. It was great fun telling the driver to “head them off at the pass,” in reference to another jeep that had cut in front us. We saw over a dozen exotic bird species and a few other species special to that area. We hung out in the afternoon till it was time to head to our train Agra. We were a little nervous about getting on the train since our tickets were Sleeper Waiting class and we were in the hundreds. That meant we could still get on the train, but that we wouldn’t have a seat and that over a hundred other people were doing the same thing. When the train arrived we started at the end of the sleeper cars and walked all the way down the train to the A/C cars and we couldn’t even set foot on the train it was so packed. As the train was rolling away we pulled our way onto the train and got pushed in to the antry car. We stood in the broiling pantry car for a few minutes then headed to the A/C cars where we paid an arm and a leg just to have the right to be in the car, not even for a seat. After walked up and down all four A/C cars until two Buddhist monks offered to share their seats with us. One of them gave us a book with some stories about Devachandra, which as it turns out, was written by the other one who is actually the leader of the monastery they were heading back too. It was probably the nicest way anyone has ever tried to convert me to their religion.
Occasionally, a tourist attraction is all it’s cracked up to be and extremely rarely is it even more than that. The Taj Mahal fit into the latter category. Caroline and I started walking there just after sunrise and on the way a shopkeeper told us that it was free today. We walked away laughing assuming that he was just running one more of a vast number of scams that dupe tourists every day, but when we arrived and saw the signs for World Heritage Day we knew he wasn’t kidding. We got in for free and spent a few hours checking the place out. Later that morning we went to the Agra Fort, for free, and were summarily unimpressed (don’t blame us, we just came from the Taj). That night we went back to the Taj for sunset. As we were meandering around enjoying the evening light, we stumbled upon a few monkeys. After her run in with a few feisty monkeys in Jaipur, Caroline would have nothing to do with them and when one started to follow her she threw something down to distract the monkey. It just so happened that she threw her shoes down and the monkey took the bait alright, ran away with it too. After trying to get her shoe back for a minute or so it was clear that the monkey was intent on dropping it down to the dried up river bed below, it did. Caroline had to get a security officer to go down and throw her shoe back up to her. With Caroline happily reunited with her shoe we headed back to our hotel for the night.
Our last stop together was New Delhi. The capital represents some of the irony that is the Indian democracy, as the largest democracy in the world seems to be as open to the public as the largest communist dictatorship in the world. The most exciting things about the sweltering city are that it’s home to the B’haia Lotus Temple and a new, Japanese built metro system. I couldn’t stand the heat, so I got out of the oven pretty quickly.
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