More travels in the North
Before starting, let me say that this post has a uniquely Indian twist to it, in the sense that this is my second attempt at writing it. At the last internet cafe, the power went out and the computers all turned off, so I lost everything I had written. Oh well, if anything, India forces you to become a more patient person.
Ok...catching up, starting with Jaipur. As I had written before, the hotel we stayed in was really nice, especially for only about $10 a night per head. It was classic Rajasthani Indian architecture, which basically means it was the kind of place you'd only find in India, with ornate (but not opulent) decorations. Plus, it was quite comfortable with A/C, comfy beds, and hot water, so we were happy.
Tuesday began pretty lazily, but we soon got off our butts and checked out Jaipur. We hired a driver, and he took us out to see all the sights of the city. The first stop was Jaighur Fort, which was relatively cool, and it was also the setting for Jesse and Michael's first and only camel ride. It was pretty hilarious, too, because we found out that camels get up relatively abruptly, and the dudes got tossed around a bit after boarding the camel. We got a lot of pics, and it was a cool place overall. From there we went to the Amber Fort, and that was pretty cool too. Jesse really wanted to ride an elephant, but I guess he decided against it, and we went from there to lunch at the Taj hotel, where I had a quite tasty club sandwich with french fries. Mmmmm. After lunch, we checked out the rest of the city, with the first stop being Jantar Mantar, which is a really funky astronomical observatory that has all kinds of weird instruments in this huge plaza. We got a tour guide for 100 rupees, and he described all of the instruments to us...definitely money well spent. The coolest instrument by far was this huge sundial (it was 30 meters high) that is able to tell time within 20 seconds of accuracy. It was pretty amazing to see, especially in the middle of Jaipur, even considering the fact that it was 100 degrees outside. The last stop was the Galta Monkey Temple, which was pretty awesome. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but it was a really cool place. I got blessed by a Hindu priest, and he put a Bindhi on my head, which was kind of cool (Joel, I know you'll get a kick out of that). Another funny moment was when Justin was trying to feed monkeys with the monkey food he had bought, and one of them just ran up and ripped the bag out of his hand, spilling food everywhere. It was quite hilarious. Anyway, after that, we had a pretty standard, but good, Indian dinner, and we went to bed pretty early.
The next day was basically just a travel day. We hopped the bus from Jaipur to Delhi, and it was pretty painless. We had found a good deal on orbitz.com for a nice hotel in Delhi, so we were very comfortable there, but we were quite disappointed with the Japanese meal that we had for dinner, but oh well, you can't win 'em all, right? We again went to bed early, as we had a wakeup call at 4am.
Which brings us to yesterday....4:00 am came really early, but we made it to the train station with no problems at all. The first train we were on was from Delhi to Kalka, and it was pretty uneventful, aside from the annoying people that kept getting on every stop trying to sell us stuff, being really loud, etc. It was about a 5 hour ride to Kalka, where we met our narrow-gauge Himalayan Queen train to take us through the Himalayan foothills to Shimla. As for the Himalayan Queen train, let's just say that we were all a bit disappointed. I guess I had romanticized the whole thing, and I expected a much more luxurious experience...but wait, this is India, I forgot. Basically this train was really crowded, the seats were tiny little bench seats that were WAY too small for two people, not to mention hard, and there were a bunch of people pushing around everywhere. It wasn't half as crowded as a Bombay train, but it was plenty crowded for a 5 hour journey. Needless to say, we were quite happy to arrive in Shimla.
As it turns out, Shimla is a nice place to spend a few days. We immediately noticed how much cooler the air is here, and it isn't quite as crowded. Of course, when we arrived, we were followed around by some porters/hotel touts, and we made the (incorrect) decision to go take a look at one of their hotels. We ended up hiking around the whole town with our huge backpacks on until we finally found their hotel, and when we arrived we checked out the rooms only to find that they smelled really bad. We finally ditched the touts, and we wandered around town for a while longer until we found a hotel that we liked for a good price. It turned out to be a long search, but in the end it was worth it, and we got a nice place. We had dinner at a place that we found in the Rough Guides book, and afterwards we checked out a bar that turned out to be full of only Asian males. No more than 30 seconds after we walked in, three of the guys started fighting, and this one guy kept sucker-punching the other guy while the other guy held him back. They were all escorted out, and needless to say we decided it wasn't our kind of place and walked back to our hotel. We hit the beds pretty soon after that, and we all slept like rocks until about 10:30 this morning.
Today was a very cool day. After our late wake-up, we went into town to try to make arrangements for travel to Dharamsala tomorrow night. While at the travel agent, one of the guides offered to take us to Chedwick Falls for only 200 rupees (a little more than 4 bucks), so we decided, what the hell, let's go. It turned out to be a great walk, and at a certain point it turned into a full-fledged hike through the mountains, complete with narrow, rocky switchbacks and steep inclines. As a point of reference, it was a bit like the Ute trail in Aspen, but definitely not as wide. Anyway, I hadn't expected quite that intense of a hike, and I was wearing flip-flops, so that it made it a bit more difficult. Nevertheless, it ended up being a great hike, and we all ended up getting pretty worn out. We stopped by the Viceroy's Lodge, where used to be the main center of the British government in India during the summer months, which was very cool to see. Now we're back in town, and we're about to head to get some dinner...yummy.
Tomorrow, we'll spend the day in Shimla, and we're off to Dharamsala tomorrow night. It doesn't look like we'll get the chance to meet HH the Dalai Lama, but oh well, hopefully another time. I can hardly wait to get to Dharamsala...I have a feeling this will be my favorite part of the trip. More stories to come!
Ok...catching up, starting with Jaipur. As I had written before, the hotel we stayed in was really nice, especially for only about $10 a night per head. It was classic Rajasthani Indian architecture, which basically means it was the kind of place you'd only find in India, with ornate (but not opulent) decorations. Plus, it was quite comfortable with A/C, comfy beds, and hot water, so we were happy.
Tuesday began pretty lazily, but we soon got off our butts and checked out Jaipur. We hired a driver, and he took us out to see all the sights of the city. The first stop was Jaighur Fort, which was relatively cool, and it was also the setting for Jesse and Michael's first and only camel ride. It was pretty hilarious, too, because we found out that camels get up relatively abruptly, and the dudes got tossed around a bit after boarding the camel. We got a lot of pics, and it was a cool place overall. From there we went to the Amber Fort, and that was pretty cool too. Jesse really wanted to ride an elephant, but I guess he decided against it, and we went from there to lunch at the Taj hotel, where I had a quite tasty club sandwich with french fries. Mmmmm. After lunch, we checked out the rest of the city, with the first stop being Jantar Mantar, which is a really funky astronomical observatory that has all kinds of weird instruments in this huge plaza. We got a tour guide for 100 rupees, and he described all of the instruments to us...definitely money well spent. The coolest instrument by far was this huge sundial (it was 30 meters high) that is able to tell time within 20 seconds of accuracy. It was pretty amazing to see, especially in the middle of Jaipur, even considering the fact that it was 100 degrees outside. The last stop was the Galta Monkey Temple, which was pretty awesome. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but it was a really cool place. I got blessed by a Hindu priest, and he put a Bindhi on my head, which was kind of cool (Joel, I know you'll get a kick out of that). Another funny moment was when Justin was trying to feed monkeys with the monkey food he had bought, and one of them just ran up and ripped the bag out of his hand, spilling food everywhere. It was quite hilarious. Anyway, after that, we had a pretty standard, but good, Indian dinner, and we went to bed pretty early.
The next day was basically just a travel day. We hopped the bus from Jaipur to Delhi, and it was pretty painless. We had found a good deal on orbitz.com for a nice hotel in Delhi, so we were very comfortable there, but we were quite disappointed with the Japanese meal that we had for dinner, but oh well, you can't win 'em all, right? We again went to bed early, as we had a wakeup call at 4am.
Which brings us to yesterday....4:00 am came really early, but we made it to the train station with no problems at all. The first train we were on was from Delhi to Kalka, and it was pretty uneventful, aside from the annoying people that kept getting on every stop trying to sell us stuff, being really loud, etc. It was about a 5 hour ride to Kalka, where we met our narrow-gauge Himalayan Queen train to take us through the Himalayan foothills to Shimla. As for the Himalayan Queen train, let's just say that we were all a bit disappointed. I guess I had romanticized the whole thing, and I expected a much more luxurious experience...but wait, this is India, I forgot. Basically this train was really crowded, the seats were tiny little bench seats that were WAY too small for two people, not to mention hard, and there were a bunch of people pushing around everywhere. It wasn't half as crowded as a Bombay train, but it was plenty crowded for a 5 hour journey. Needless to say, we were quite happy to arrive in Shimla.
As it turns out, Shimla is a nice place to spend a few days. We immediately noticed how much cooler the air is here, and it isn't quite as crowded. Of course, when we arrived, we were followed around by some porters/hotel touts, and we made the (incorrect) decision to go take a look at one of their hotels. We ended up hiking around the whole town with our huge backpacks on until we finally found their hotel, and when we arrived we checked out the rooms only to find that they smelled really bad. We finally ditched the touts, and we wandered around town for a while longer until we found a hotel that we liked for a good price. It turned out to be a long search, but in the end it was worth it, and we got a nice place. We had dinner at a place that we found in the Rough Guides book, and afterwards we checked out a bar that turned out to be full of only Asian males. No more than 30 seconds after we walked in, three of the guys started fighting, and this one guy kept sucker-punching the other guy while the other guy held him back. They were all escorted out, and needless to say we decided it wasn't our kind of place and walked back to our hotel. We hit the beds pretty soon after that, and we all slept like rocks until about 10:30 this morning.
Today was a very cool day. After our late wake-up, we went into town to try to make arrangements for travel to Dharamsala tomorrow night. While at the travel agent, one of the guides offered to take us to Chedwick Falls for only 200 rupees (a little more than 4 bucks), so we decided, what the hell, let's go. It turned out to be a great walk, and at a certain point it turned into a full-fledged hike through the mountains, complete with narrow, rocky switchbacks and steep inclines. As a point of reference, it was a bit like the Ute trail in Aspen, but definitely not as wide. Anyway, I hadn't expected quite that intense of a hike, and I was wearing flip-flops, so that it made it a bit more difficult. Nevertheless, it ended up being a great hike, and we all ended up getting pretty worn out. We stopped by the Viceroy's Lodge, where used to be the main center of the British government in India during the summer months, which was very cool to see. Now we're back in town, and we're about to head to get some dinner...yummy.
Tomorrow, we'll spend the day in Shimla, and we're off to Dharamsala tomorrow night. It doesn't look like we'll get the chance to meet HH the Dalai Lama, but oh well, hopefully another time. I can hardly wait to get to Dharamsala...I have a feeling this will be my favorite part of the trip. More stories to come!
posted by david.m.marcus at 7:05 AM
1 Comments:
David, I really think you need to try out for the Amazing Race show! You would love it! I have really enjoyed reading your blog.
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