Namaste! Welcome to India!

We visited India for a wonderful week in the beginning of October.  We visited Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra, and made a stopover somewhere between Agra and Jaipur to visit Ranthambhore National Park for two days.

Is India the right vacation for you?  Here's a little questionnaire.

1.  Do you mind incessant honking, traffic, and the worst roads you've ever, ever seen? 

We arrived in Delhi (or New Delhi, as it came to be known during British time) and were greeted with our first taste of Indian driving and roads.  We had booked a tour group, which gave us a driver as well as local guides in each of the cities, and these guys helped us to navigate the streets of India.  Lanes here are completely optional.  We would drive along a 3 lane highway that easily had 5 cars, two motorbikes, a few tuk-tuks, and some regular bicycles across it.  Oh, also probably a few cows.

Cows are considered holy to Hindus, so the cows here are fearless!

Oh, don't mind me...

Took this out of the car window, no zoom.  :)

In a city of 27 million people, the only way to get where you're going is to continually swerve around people.  Also, as we quickly learned, it is customary to honk when you go around someone, to let them know you're approaching and passing.  I thought maybe when we left Delhi for the smaller cities, we would hear less honking... uhhh nope.  There was definitely less traffic, so in that way there was less honking, but the drawback was the further we got from Delhi, the worse the roads became.  Now in addition to honking and swerving around cars, we were swerving around potholes the size of small elephants (or just going through them).  I was carsick pretty much the whole time, so to go to India, you also shouldn't mind popping Dramamine for a week straight.

2.  Will the poverty bother you?

I'm not going to sugarcoat it.  I saw the most impoverished people and homes I've ever seen in my life in India.  There were quite a few people (mostly children) who were beggars.  We were advised by our tour company to not give to child beggars, because it discourages them from going to school, but it didn't hurt my heart any less.  We're planning on finding a reputable charity to donate to instead. It also makes you really appreciate all that you have.

3.  Do you like history and world heritage sites?

India is FULL of history!  Especially forts!  We saw a LOT of old Mughal forts.  The sites were all well-maintained for the most part, which was nice.  We also had a local tour guide for the day in each place, so that helped a lot, since there were very few signs (and even fewer in English).

Snake charmers are a real thing!

We also saw some markets! The night market in Jaipur was pretty interesting to see.

 Of course, what trip to northern India would be complete without a visit to the Taj Mahal?!  This site was so incredible.  Built as a mausoleum for Shah Jahan's wife in 1653, this structure is one of the "New" Seven Wonders of the World!  We saw it from across the river at sunset one day, then visited the actual Taj at sunrise the next day.  It is completely made of marble, and the inside has semi-precious stones inlaid into it.

 

Monkeys (and baby monkeys!) all over the Taj Mahal

No shoes allowed inside the Taj!  They gave us sweet shoe covers instead.

 

And of course, the requisite jumping pictures...

4.  Do you love Indian food?

The food is really good there.  The tour company brought us to restaurants they trust, so we may not have had the MOST authentic or delicious food India had to offer, but it was good and we didn't get sick.  There's a lot to be said for not getting sick in a foreign country!

Of course we did eat at McDonald's one night, and had some of the local selections there.

This was good!

This was not.

Authentic Indian McDonald's food

5.  Do you want to meet some of the nicest people in the world?

We met so many friendly people in India, who were all excited to show us around their country.  One part of the tour was dinner at an Indian family's home, and they were so gracious and kind.  The wife made a delicious, home cooked meal, while the husband told us about life in Delhi.  Our driver for the week, Anand, made us laugh and kept us safe.  There were many times when he went above and beyond the call of duty for us, and it was much appreciated.  The little Indian lady who gave me a henna was happy to practice her English while quickly drawing up a beautiful design on my hand.  Our guides for the safari were arguably more excited than we were for us to visit the national park.  We did have a few negative experiences with some people in India, but for the most part, we had overwhelmingly positive interactions with the people we met.

Getting a henna!

So so excited

Wet henna

Dry henna (also, when I thought this was what henna looked like on white people)

Whew, I don't have orange henna! (24 hours later)

6.  Do you want to see TIGERS?  IN THE WILD?!?

Our favorite part of the whole week in India was a two day trip to Ranthambhore National Park, which is home to nearly 60 tigers, and countless other deer, bear, birds, and other wildlife.  The problem with these safari adventures is that if you see lots of animals, you likely won't see a tiger.  Likewise, if you see a tiger, you probably won't see any other animals.  Also, tigers are solitary creatures; we wouldn't see a bunch of tigers on the trip, so we'd really have to look hard to find the one tiger in that entire region.  All the people we talked to all week commented on how you had to be extremely lucky to see a tiger, but they were all praying to Ganesha for us.  :)

We took three safaris (to hedge our bets that we would hopefully see a tiger) and were pleasantly surprised to see a tiger on two of our three safaris.  On the first safari, no tigers, but plenty of other animals.  The third safari, the tiger was pretty far away, and had a lot of other jeeps around it, so we didn't get a good look.  We saw a lot of other animals that time too, as well as beautiful vistas.

The second safari, however, was EPIC.  This national park is divided into zones, and jeeps are only allowed to enter one zone per trip.  It was unclear if the driver chose a zone, or if a zone was assigned to the driver, but regardless, on our second safari, we were the ONLY jeep in our zone.  We were driving along looking and listening for the tell-tale signs of tigers:  paw prints in the road and warning calls from other animals.

All of a sudden, our driver, Raj, slammed on the brakes.  "Tiger!  Tiger!  Tiger!"  There she was.

Do you see what I see?

We spent the next 45 minutes off-roading in our jeep to follow this Bengal tiger.  At one point, the tiger was no more than 20 feet away.  "Don't make any sudden movements!" said Hanu, the guide.   Umm, Hanu, don't worry!!! 

When the driver and guide are freaking out, you know you've seen something special.

Our friends from England, Graham and Jill

Eventually the tigress got tired and retired to her den, and we were left with a gorgeous view of the park and surrounding farmland at sunset.  What a fantastic experience!

India was a great trip, and was extremely affordable, coming from Saudi Arabia.  I would definitely recommend visiting India if you have the chance!