In my final week in India, I traveled the "Golden Triangle": Jaipur, Agra, and Delhi. I traveled with a tour company, Intrepid, and my group consisted of 11 tourists from Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada, and our trusty leader, Anand, a native of South India and tour guide for the past 7 years. As a group, we had a blast!! Traveling with Anand meant that I saw things that I never would have found on my own, like the old spice market in Delhi, or the best mango shake stand in the city. He also took care of some of my least favorite things about traveling in India, like the haggling for things like rickshaw fares. The transition from the quiet of the mountains was strange at first, but not as difficult as I feared. I loved my time in these cities.
JAIPUR: The Pink City
After a couple of days in Delhi, we traveled first to Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan, one of the most popular states for tourists. The city was originally painted pink for the visit of a British viceroy, and it continues to get painted from time to time to keep up its beautiful coat. The old city, including all buildings and surrounding wall and gates, are ALL pink. The city has since exploded out of its original walls. We went on a walk around the city through the crazy bazaars, flower market, and to the Palace of the Winds. It is undergoing restoration, so there is bamboo scaffolding around it, but you can still see the beauty of the structure.
One thing to know about Rajasthan is that it is a desert state. We saw this immediately on our train ride in. The work animal used in Rajasthan is the camel! We also felt it: every day was at least 90 degrees; most were 100. That said, the first thing we did upon arrival in mid-afternoon in the dead of heat was... go see a Bollywood movie! We went to the famous Raj Mandir theater. Unfortunately, the movie they were showing was a horror movie, but it's Bollywood, so there was still an elaborate song-and-dance number!! Haha. It was about a long-haired witch that turned into a gecko, so for the rest of the trip, every time we saw a gecko (or long-haired woman), we would eye each other and whisper "it's the witch!"
The next day, we went to the beautiful Amer Fort and Palace, about 15 kms from the city where.... I rode an elephant!!! THIS elephant:
The Amer Fort palace is like the Versailles of Rajasthan. It is an incredible palace built into a hill in the desert. It combines Hindu and Islamic architectural influences. We had a great tour guide. One of my favorite stories: there are ramps everywhere in the palace so that the queen could be pushed around in a wheelchair, not because she was ill or could not walk, but because she was always so covered in gold and heavy jewels that she could not lift herself around.
The receiving room or opening hall of the palace
The hall of mirrors! You can see why I thought of Versailles.
The palace gardens seemingly floating in a reservoir in front of the palace. At the top of the far hill, you can see the safety wall, which looks like a smaller version of the Great Wall of China.
Gray/Hanuman langurs! Hanging out on a palace wall.
We finished our stay in Jaipur by shopping around the city then spending dinnertime at the home of one of Anand (our tour guide)'s friends, and his friend did a cooking demo for us, showing us how to make lentils, eggplants, and cheese curries. Yummm.
KARAULI: Desert Kingdom
Next we traveled to Karauli, a town in Rajasthan, and an old kingdom. We got to stay in a palace!! We also got to meet the Queen of Karauli! She and her husband work in politics now as advocates for their town. She told us they have built 90 schools in the past 5 years, especially for girls. We got a tour around the palace grounds: main house, menagerie (peacocks, guinea fowl, other weird birds), pool (I went swimming!!!!), stables, garage, horses, cows, and farm. We also went for a walk through town then to a Hindu temple during their prayer service. My favorite part was when a large group of women gathered and sang prayers with a drum and chime instruments.
Our room
Entrance to our room
Palace courtyard
We also had the opportunity to get mahendi, aka henna tattoos (non-permanent, last 2-3 weeks). The artist draws them on with ink made from the mahendi plant, then the ink stays on, slowly hardening for hours while you try desperately not to touch anything. Eventually, for us it was after about 6 hours in the sun, you apply a mix of lemon juice, sugar, and water, letting the mix drip over the hardened ink. I waited about another hour, then washed off any remaining ink that didn't flake off on its own. Voila! I purposely didn't tell my dad about this particular endeavor in advance. He picked me up at the airport, then noticed it about an hour later. Not thrilled, hahaha.
AGRA: Home of the Taj Mahal
Agra of the state Uttar Pradesh is most famous for housing the Taj Mahal. It is also home of the Agra Fort and nearby ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri, but I missed these two monuments due to GI illness; I made it through the whole trip without getting sick until then. I spent the day sweating (over 100 degrees) and recovering when we traveled from Karauli to Agra so that I would be ready to see the Taj the next day. I was fortunate; I felt ill for less than 24 hours, no problem.
We went to the Taj Mahal at sunrise!!! It was beautiful. It is worth all of the hype. It was also a wonderful time of day to see the Taj since it went up to 110 that day. Yikes.
Hooray! Jumping for joy with Stacey, my friend from HHE and roommate for this last week.
Later that day, we had a real "Amazing Race" moment getting on our train back to Delhi. After seeing the Taj, we leisurely spent the day relaxing, eating lunch, and doing a little bit of shopping. We pushed our time back before leaving for the station to see a wedding band play, to which I did some bhangra dancing, which they loved and cheered me on haha. We finally get on our mini-bus, laughing, stop for Fanta and Limca, drive a bit farther, and then we just stop. The bus stops moving, we all start looking at our clocks and frantically asking Anand when our train leaves. He gets out of the bus, jogs down the road to see what's happening, and gets back: "Ok, uh, guys... if we stay in this bus we have a 99.99% chance of missing our train. We could also get out and walk..." We also agree that we need to get out, so then we frantically grab our bags, start quickly weaving through the stopped traffic, rushing past some construction and lanes of traffic just facing each other, not allowing anyone to pass. We see auto rickshaws just past, which ask for an inordinate fee, go a bit farther and and the next tuk tuk driver is drunk. Finally, we get to an intersection where we load the group into 3 tuk tuks (a squeeze with all of our bags and 10 people). My tuk tuk arrives at the train station (5 km past construction) with 5 minutes until our train leaves, the next one arrives, and..... we wait and wait for the third one. Anand worries it went to the other train station in town..... then it arrives! (apparently the driver was singing "no worries, no hurry!" the whole time as they all shouted YES HURRY!!). We run through the station to our platform, and our train isn't there yet! We made it. Within 3 minutes, it arrives, we load up, then leave. PHEW! Many in our group had early morning flights the next day, so it was pretty important to make this train that arrived in Delhi at 11 PM. This night we said good-bye to most of our group.
DELHI: Back in the Big City
The end of the tour left me with one final day in Delhi. My flight left at 3:20 am the next day, so I had a day to spend with Stacey, my roommate, and Louise, a Brit from the tour, before a 10 PM cab ride to the airport. We had breakfast with Anand at our favorite nearby South Indian restaurant, then got mango shakes. We spent the rest of the day at some of the most peaceful places in the city.
We first went to Humayun's Tomb, called the predecessor to the Taj Mahal. When the Obamas came to India, this is the one place they were taken. I can see why. It's an awesome structure in the middle of beautiful Persian-style gardens. In the center foreground of this picture is a mini-canal for water, which runs throughout the gardens in a perfect geometric design.
Another angle, from the platform of Humayun's tomb.
We next went to Lodi Gardens, a beautiful park dotted with 14th-16th century tombs. Below pictured is the second-oldest mosque in all of India!! Another highlight of the park was seeing a mongoose scurry alongside the path!
Next we went to Jantar Mantar, which houses the astronomical instruments constructed for Emperor Jai Singh. There was a sundial about 3 stories tall and a bunch of other crazy-looking instruments for measuring the height of different celestial bodies; I do not understand how most of them work, or how they figured out any of this back when they were constructed.
Ta-da! Sun!
And that's it! We went to the market, ate dinner together, then prepared for our departure. After almost 30 hours of travel, I made it back! I'm sitting on my parents' couch alongside my dog, letting the "Project Runway" finale play in the background as I write and upload photos.
What an amazing trip!! I got to do a lot of really cool things and see some incredible sights. Even my list of highlights is looooong. My favorite part was probably hikes, walks, and the views in the Himalayas, but close seconds are: elephants in Jaipur, the Amber fort, the Taj Mahal, being a wedding guest, sightseeing with my friends in Delhi, dancing bhangra at our end-of-clinic celebration, stories and jokes around the campfire, learning to play cricket, "Insanity" workout team, and some of the memorable patients I met. I feel so happy and lucky to have spent my last month of medical school in this way, because of both the amazing setting and the great clinical experience.
