Indian Adventures Initiated

As we were packing up our bags ready to take off to India someone said to Shaina “I hope you have a lot of travelers luck.” She went on to explain that travelers luck is the family you meet who teaches you how to cook their specialty dinner all because you missed your bus. It’s the little side street you stumble upon while simply looking for a bathroom. And it’s the beautiful sunrise you catch because you couldn’t sleep due to a ridiculously hard bed. This trip is only 8 days old and we are already counting our lucky stars for the amazing and hilarious experiences we’ve had thus far.

We had a relatively easy introduction to the bustling city of Delhi as the friend’s house that we were staying at turned out to be a gorgeous palace off the beaten track. We spent three days there getting accustomed to the somehow organized chaos of Delhi, the touts, food and mayhem with our own driver and history teacher. We spent each night sitting up late with Mr. Sahgal learning how to cook India food, about the history of India, the religions, the culture and why selling cigarettes makes sense. (Yes, we really did cover a lot of topics in a very short time!) On day two we took a rickshaw into Old Delhi and from what we saw there knew that we would definitely love exploring this country.

By day four we took off on our own for Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur. This was when we realized the wall we’d been hiding behind in Delhi. Being on our own introduced a whole new challenge but was twenty times more exciting. The slow introduction in Delhi left us excited and prepared but cautious for the time on our own. We feel that we could each write a novel about how spectacular and surreal the Taj Mahal is, the friendly rickshaw driver that saved us in Agra, the bus ride that was more like off roading through incoming traffic, learning how semi-precious stones are inlaid by hand into marble, the bus stop that was no more than a pile of dirt and random carts selling even more random things beside a camel and some wandering cows in Fatehpur Sikri and the even more ridiculous “bus ride of death” with hairpin turns at every bend and no guard rail between the narrow road and the sheer cliff up to monkey-governed Shimla. As we really can’t go into detail on all of these things, we will tell you about our day in Jaipur. We never had plans to go to Jaipur but were encouraged to go because it is nothing like the north or south but rather its own little place, and is part of the “Golden Triangle” that is made up of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. We arrived late at night and knowing it was a high “tourist” town (which means you don’t see any other tourists) knew we’d get hassled more than any other place. We spent the day walking through the many bazaars buying amazingly cool and comfortable Indian cotton skirts and shirts. We have to say that we have become masters at bartering. Although our first few tries were embarrassing and awkward to say the least, we have progressed so much that one of the shop keepers even said to us “You girls are very intelligent in barterting” – now that is a real compliment coming from someone who does this for his life! This is also one area in which being a female is super useful. Now we know that everyone probably thinks that they are great at bartering, but trust us, we have a darn good system and got deals that we didn’t even know existed! Before we knew it, the sun was setting and we had yet to see a single site in Jaipur. We’d only seen the many stores and random side streets that we constantly went exploring down. Making the firm decision to stop shopping and see the town’s wind tunnel we started heading towards the Wind Palace. For some unknown reason, without shouts or calls to come to their store and utterly bored of shopping, we stepped into one last store just to look for a shirt. Before we knew it we were sitting in the back covered in colorful clothes chatting with the sales man. Usually we’d be in an out of a store in 20 min because you know right away if they have what you want or are just pulling you around. Somehow we stayed in that last store for almost two hours drinking tea and merely chatting with the many Indians around. We drank tea with them and started dressing up in their Sari’s and Punjabi suits. Next thing we knew we were in a mini-photo shoot with the Rajakstani newspaper photographer, striking different poses in our peacock blue and golden Punjabi’s. We left the store with a free bag, tea and two shirts just to come out to a parade with elephants, camels, weird naked monkey men, bullocks and people dressed in celebrational Indian wear. What a day, oh what a day.

We had a few more run ins with “travelers luck” last night where we somehow ended up a some government building drinking tea and eating sandwiches before being given a free room to stay in all because we were led astray by our travel agent and missed the overnight bus to Shimla. Funny how things works out that way…

I know we’re going to have a blast for the next four weeks in India. No sunburns or illnesses yet. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

'Til next time...

"It is not down in any map; true places never are." - Herman Melville