Indian Epic Pt. lll: Delhi and Agra

Aaaaaannndd, we’re back! Our journey now continues in Delhi, where Garrett and I spent a day before moving east on our travels.

We landed in Indira Gandhi International Airport after a brief, 2 ½  hour flight from Bangalore.

Apparently this was enough of a problem that a formal warning had to be put up to reprimand people.

After we’d gotten settled in our hotel and were moments away from gnawing off our own arms (it was 3 PM and we hadn’t eaten since morning), Garrett’s friend Preena arrived, having successfully navigated midday Delhi traffic to get there. Preena worked with Garrett in Cambodia and moved back to Delhi around the same time we arrived in India, so she offered to meet up with us while we were here to show us around.

Preena led the way to a nearby restaurant where she pointed at a table for Garrett and me to rest our hungry selves while she ordered food.

First food picture of the post! This delicious raj kapuri, a fried shell topped with yogurt, ground and whole chickpeas, shredded carrots, corn, mint chutney, and cilantro.

Next we shared a thali. Similar to thalis seen in previous posts except this one came with a deliciously fried corn chip which was made even better when dipped in various sauces/curries. This thali also came with a syrup-soaked gulab jamun, or rice ball, which is a sickly sweet way to conclude a meal.

My favorite, however, was this paneer tikki, a plate of roasted cheese seasoned with turmeric and dipped into a cool, mint-based chutney. THIS WAS SO GOOD, YOU GUYS.

Now ready to start our journey we set off for the first of the day's destinations: India Gate, a towering 42-meter stone gate located in the area of Rajpath, or Kingsway.

India Gate was designed by English architect Edwin Lutyens to commemorate the roughly 90,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives during the Anglo-Afghan War and WW1. Lutyens' work on New Delhi was Raj-appointed, and took place between the years of 1914 and 1941, after the British had moved the capitol from Calcutta to Delhi. The intimidating architecture was meant to convey the British Empire’s might, however the imposition didn't last as 16 years later New Delhi had become the "powerhouse of the new Republic" (Thanks, Lonely Planet).

There is a park and a lake on the grounds for families to come and enjoy a boat ride or play an amateur game of cricket. Preena recalled her family coming here when she was younger—waiting for the heat of the day to die down before arriving around 9 PM to spread a blanket out on the grass and feast on a picnic of “ready made” foods.









Next, Preena drove us by Sansad Bhavan, the Parliament House.

And got us up-close and personal to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, or the president’s house, which was surprisingly bare of security, with no one shooing us away when we came right up to the main entrance to put our noses to the gate and take a picture.

The emblem of India is a four-headed lion, only three of which can be seen from the front, standing on top of a circular abacus with a bull on the right and a horse in mid-stride on the left.

Next we arrived at Mughal emperor Hayuman’s tomb, built in the 16^th century by his senior wife, Persian-born Haji Begum.

The tomb's architecture comprises a unique blend of Persian and Mughal styles and was built using marble and red sandstone. In addition to the emperor's tomb there are some of those closest to him, such as that of Haji Begum as well as the emperor’s favorite barber... (?).

Various elements of the tomb later influenced the construction of the Taj Mahal, such as the bulbous marble dome and the reflection pool.

Fun Fact: the Obamas came here to visit while they were in Delhi.

As the light of the day started to fade Preena led us away from the tomb and onwards towards a popular bazaar called Dili Haat. Dilli haat is a bazaar which comprises many outdoor stalls selling wares from around the country: camel-hide sandals, silks, salwar suits (a popular women's outfit with pants, a tunic, and a long scarf draped over the shoulders), homemade soaps, sandalwood carvings, and more.

While we were walking around we came across a stand that exclusively sold sugar-coated fennel seeds. As I have mentioned in the previous post, Garrett loves these things and struggles terribly not to eat the entire bowl that's served after meals... Whenever he sees this picture Garrett narrates it in a high-pitched, vaguely British voice (no offense intended) that I hope to convey here: “Ooooohh…. What do we have here? Shall I choose the coconut flavor, or this lovely green one? Which one shall I piiiiiicccckkkk? Hmmmm...” As you can imagine, it hasn't gotten old at all.

We stood in front of this tray for about ten minutes, sampling various flavors before Garrett settled on a kind he liked (it was a very important decision, as I'm sure you'll understand). He ended up choosing the multicolored "coconut" flavored one in the middle on the left, which despite it being called coconut was actually the best since it had all the flavors (and it's just fun to look at all the colors/shapes as you're eating them).

After we’d wandered around for a while, scoping out the folk-art and ogling the silks, we decided to get some dinner. Preena wanted us to sample dishes from multiple regions, so we started at one vendor which specialized in Chinese-Indian food coming from the region of West Bengal to which Garrett and I would be traveling later on in our trip.

We started with this plate of chow mein with chicken, which had shreds of radish, carrot, and fresh peas, and was spiced up with a yummy, Indian-influenced sauce.

To wash it down we drank glasses of fruit beer, which I thought tasted like carbonated prune juice.

And for dessert we tried a Rajasthani specialty: a ghee, or milk fat-based dessert, which was like warm apple crumble without the apple (so, basically just the graham cracker part… Come on, you guys we all know this is the only reason any of us eats apple crumble in the first place) and pistachio-flavored kulfi, a creamy custard-like ice cream served in a terra cotta bowl and topped with slivered almonds.

Before we left I got a henna tattoo from a vendor outside.

As she did the design I couldn’t help but hold my breath as I watched the cold cream morph into swirls and patterns on my hand.

The henna peeled off in chunks after it dried and I rubbed oil into my hand and put a plastic bag over it the first time I showered to preserve the design. It lasted for the next couple of weeks and the pattern on my palm, which was the darkest, is still vaguely visible.

Back at the hotel. Preena is urging me to display my new henna tattoo for the camera.

The next day, we rose early to catch the train to nearby Agra, to see what you've all been waiting for… Krishna's Second Butterball. Just kidding you guys- it was the Taj Mahal. :-]

Since we hadn't had lunch and it was now around 2:30, we decided to quickly grab some food before heading to the sites. Just outside the station we found this: warm, tomato-based chickpea curry, potato and pea masala, puffy, air-pocketed chapathi straight out of the frying pan, and perfectly individuated grains of fluffy rice. The vendors smiled approvingly as we wolfed down the food, throwing more steaming chapathi and helpings of rice and curry our way when we'd run out. The whole meal cost 45 rupees ($0.85) and was so good we came back for dinner.

Now, ready to fully soak up what Agra had to offer, we made our way to Agra Fort, a military structure made of red sandstone which was built by Emperor Akbar in 1565 and later transformed with marble additions into a palace by his grandson, Shah Jahan.

Here is the Amar Singh Gate, which is now the only public entrance to the fort. The "dog leg" shape of the gate was meant to confuse attackers if they'd made it past the first barrier: a crocodile-infested moat.

Garrett, imagining falling into the moat

The sky was breathtaking today: the definition of sky blue with just a few cotton ball clouds

The grounds are beautiful, too.

Here is the Diwani-Am, or Hall of Public Audiences, which was used by Shah Jahan for governmental business and features a room with a large thrown where the emperor would sit and listen to petitioners make their cases.

Can you spot the Taj Mahal?

Along the eastern edge of the fort, now closed to visitors, is a marble, octagonally-shaped tower and palace, which was built by Shah Jahan and then later served to imprison him when his usurping son took power in 1658. Shah Jahan was the same guy who undertook construction of the Taj Mahal. Imagine having dreamt up and then created something like that, only to be kept in isolation from it, viewing it from afar, tortured by your own creation...

It was getting on to late afternoon at this point, so we decided it was time for the main feature. As we walked out of the complex, an elderly rickshaw driver motioned to us and asked if we needed a ride. Since we’d recently been advised by Preena to pick older drivers if we wanted a safer ride, we agreed and asked him to pick us up by the refreshments so we could pick up some waters.

When the driver came back with his rickshaw- or “helicopter” as he called it- we immediately realized our mistake: it was a cycle rickshaw (the cart was pulled by a bicycle), not an auto-rickshaw where the cart is pulled by a moto, meaning the ride would take much longer than originally planned and this poor old man would have to lug us the whole way...

Already having agreed to let him take us, however, we hopped on and proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes worrying whether or not this guy would make it as he sat pumping his legs and wheezing under the combined weight of our tall American frames.

We made it safe and sound, however! All of us still very much alive.

Here is the first picture Garrett and I took of the Taj Mahal. Isn't the Taj spectacular?

Take two, now featuring an actually visible Taj Mahal.

The required Look-at-me-touching-the-top-of-the-Taj! picture

The required Look-at-me-lifting-the-Taj-with-my-manly-strength! picture

And it wouldn't be a blog post by me if there weren't some silly pictures

Pure silliness

tehe

Construction for the Taj Mahal began in 1632 by Emperor Shah Jahan, one year after his beloved wife Mumtaz, died while giving birth to her 14th child. Mumtaz was Shah Jahan's third and most favored wife, and he was devastated when she died, so he decided to build this extravagant mausoleum to preserve her memory. The white marble mausoleum took eight years to complete, and the rest of the Taj wasn't finished until 13 years later. Just five years after its completion, however, the emperor's son took over and banished Shah Jahan to Agra Fort, where he remained until his death in 1666.

The building was constructed using white marble and inlays of pietra dura stonework of semi-precious stones. The marble is so pure it's suggested you shine a light up to it at night to fully appreciate its translucency. It took over 20,000 workers from India and around Central Asia to complete, as well as specialists from Europe to do the inlay work. One of the many myths about the Taj Mahal is that after its completion, the emperor ordered all of the workers' thumbs cut off so they could never again create a work so beautiful...

In Shah Jahan's words, the Taj Mahal "made the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes."

It really is breathtaking, especially when the sun starts to set...

I tried to choose just one or two sunset pictures, but couldn't... They all seemed slightly different to me.

... And that concludes our journey through Delhi and Agra. :)

To keep you occupied until the next (and final) installation of this series, I thought I'd give you a couple of riddles to try and solve (no googling the answers!), courtesy of the back page of yet another menu Garrett and I encountered while in India. Here they are (oh, and the first person to guess the answers correctly gets the highly sought-after status of being my favorite follower of the day...:P). Enjoy!

1. What gets wetter as it dries?

     2.  The man who invented it doesn’t want it; the man who bought it doesn’t need it; the man who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?

...Stay tuned to find out the answers for these, and to hear the last of the stories of my travels in India: an encounter with dead bodies in the Ganges, tea in Darjeeling, and the best lassi I've ever tasted, still to come...

Indian Epic Pt. ll: Mysore, Ooty, and Bangalore

Hello again, friends! Are you ready for the second episode of this saga? Our journey now continues in lovely Mysore, located in the region of Karnataka and birthplace of Ashtanga yoga, as well as home to beautiful palaces, temples, and tax-free spices, sandalwood oil and premium silk. Mysore takes its name from the demon Mahishasura, a half-breed of buffalo/human who was putatively slain here by the goddess Chamundi.

Our travels began with the most important meal of the day: third lunch. Just kidding, you guys! It was breakfast. Here is what I ate:

A dosa, or, as I mentioned in the previous post, a pancake/crepe-like bread filled with spiced potatoes and onions, and- a specialty of Mysore- smeared on the inside with a spicy chili chutney.

While we waited for our food we learned some interesting new ways to beat a hangover, courtesy of the back page of our menus. Surprisingly, Garrett had never heard of the Jewish remedy before...

After we’d gotten settled in our hotel we ventured forth to our first destination: the 1062 meter-high Chamundi Hill, upon which stands the looming Sri Chamundeswari Temple, able to be reached only after a climb of 1000 + stairs.

Maybe if we smile now, we'll notice the pain less later...

The climb is steep but the view as you get closer is worth it.

This statue of Shiva’s bull Nandi, carved out of solid rock, is located about ¾ of the way to the top. Nandi represents moral order, justice, power, and potency.

Heh

View from the top

Over the course of Garrett’s and my travels, we got very comfortable taking awkward pictures with strangers, who would see us and without even saying "hello," pull out their cameras and motion for a picture.

We made it!  

Our second stop of the day was the Maharaja's Palace. The old palace burned down in 1897, after which this extravagant stone structure was completed by English architect Henry Irwin over the course of the next 16 years at a cost of 41 lakhs ($4.1 million). The inside comprises elements of Mughal, Roman, and Gothic styles of architecture.

Always ready to get in another buddy pic

Expansive trees stretch over the grounds.

After the palace we had lunch with Shankar, our auto rickshaw friend, who taught us how to properly eat a thali, or a south Indian meal.

A thali is made up of papad— the large rice cracker you see in front, chapathi—a wheat-based flat bread I mentioned in the previous post, various kinds of soups/curry made with bases of tomato, chickpea, potato, or mint, pickled and spiced mango, curd, and a sweet, soupy dessert with pieces of dried fruit, almonds, cashews, and vermicelli noodles.

The entire meal is eaten with the right hand (left is reserved for other matters), the soups or curry poured over rice or bread which is then scooped up and shoveled into the mouth using the thumb. Curd is eaten last, and is combined with rice and a touch of salt to form a mild yogurt gruel which is spiced up with pickled mango. This meal cost about 60 rupees, or $1.18.

Garrett and I quickly got over our timidity of eating food with our hands, and left India thinking how gypped our toddler selves would have felt had they known there are cultures out there that get to eat with their hands their entire lives...

In the afternoon we went to an Ashtanga yoga class at this studio, where the teacher bent us into positions we weren't sure we'd ever get out of, forcing limbs to go in directions they flatly refused to go while assuring us that “pain was good.” It was unlike any yoga class I’ve ever been to.

Afterwards, though, we rested our aching muscles outside a lassi shop and drank these thick, sweet yogurt drinks, putting the past two hours into much kinder perspective now that they were behind us. I gulped mine down in about eight seconds after which Shankar informed me that the proper way to enjoy a lassi is to sip it. I maintained that we would simply have to agree to disagree on that one.

The next day, after another breakfast of steaming dosas and hot chai, we once again met up with Shankar to visit various bazaars and shops to buy spices and oils, and check out some of the IPI or "Intellectual Property India" stamped silk, which ensures it's of the highest quality.

At bazaars, goods are separated into different sections; for example, all the flowers are found in one aisle, all the bananas in another… It’s very organized and I'd imagine makes shopping a lot less chaotic than at Khmer markets.

Bindi powders are sorted into different piles based on color

After being in Mysore for two days and seeing much of what there is to see there, we decided to take  a day trip to nearby Ooty, a hill station about 120 km away, in the region of Tamil Nadu (where Chennai is located). Ooty is popular amongst tourists for its lakes, forest preserves, homemade chocolates, and, perhaps most intriguing to us, its cooler temperatures.

We left in the morning, after waiting at our hotel a mere two hours for the bus to come to pick us up... 

This door remained open the entire trip (~ three hours, driving up a steep mountain side).

Along the way we continuously curved around these terrifying hair pin bends, which are essentially 180 degree turns which require the driver to slow to a crawl so as not to risk hitting oncoming traffic.

First stop: Ooty Lake

What is this strange, tingly feeling? Oh yeah! I'm cold. Mmm...

Ewwww gross, I know. Sorry, everyone.

Tea plantations stretch up into the hills

Homemade chocolate! This was the fruit and nut

And this- omg!- was the (hopefully) not factually-named "choco finger"

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we really love food… Here is Garrett trying not to consume the entire bowl of candy-coated fennel seeds which are eaten after dinner to freshen breath and act as a digestive, but which- we were informed later- can act as a laxative if eaten in too great a quantity.

Goats are silly hehe

Our last stop of the day were the Government Botanical Gardens, laid out in 1848 and cascading over 22 well-manicured hectares.

Chili coated unripened mango slices. Nom nom nom

View of the town

The next stop on our journey through southern India was Bangalore. Bangalore is the IT capital of the country, referred to as the “Silicon Valley of India" by many, and coming in at one of the biggest Indian cities with a population of 8.4 million. This may not sound like the most ideal spot for a relaxing vacation, but we had a contact to meet up with- Kiran, who, like Garrett, works for Population Services International (PSI)- and who generously donated his time and energy to show us around and expose us to the best of Bangalore.

Here is Kiran and his lovely wife, Mona, on a toy train ride we took around the park. The four of us met in a 120-hectare garden called Cubbon Park the morning after Garrett and I arrived in Bangalore by night train. We walked and talked and learned a little bit about one another. One interesting thing about Kiran and Mona is that they had an arranged marriage, and were not shy or uncomfortable at all in talking with Garrett and me about it. They answered all of our curious but cautious questions warmly and openly, and seemed just as happy if not more than many couples I’ve met who have been married for several years already. Arranged marriage is still very strongly believed in and practiced in India, although "love marriages" are starting to gain popularity amongst younger generations. According to Mona and Kiran, however, most marriages that end in divorce in India are those that are begun out of love, not those that are arranged. Pretty interesting to consider, especially when thinking about our own situation in the States with over half of marriages ending in divorce and none of those being arranged.

After the park, we went to this ice cream shop, to cool off during the hottest part of the day. That styrofoam bowl is filled with about a million calories of a sickeningly rich ice cream concoction called “cake-a-mocha”: a slab of ooey gooey brownie topped with coffee ice cream, nuts, and hot fudge… #gainingtenlbsinonesitting

Close up. I had to concede to Garrett, who, disgustingly and impressively, was able to finish both his bowl and .25 of mine. #posticecreamstomacheaches

The next day we went to a temple Kiran recommended called “Bull Temple,” which dates to the 16th century.

It had similar architecture to the temple we visited in Mysore, with a big elaborate gateway and a granite monolith of Nandi inside.

 

Also, like the Nandi in Mysore, this bull had all its parts.

tehe

In the afternoon we relaxed at a botanical garden…

…And then saw the cheesiest and most amazing Bollywood film of all time: Himmatwala (be sure to watch the "Taki Taki" video on the sidebar if you want to see more...), which follows the escapades of this manly and courageous mustachioed man who fights for justice and peace, whether that means punching a tiger in the face or spontaneously breaking into a dance sequence...

Reenactment

In the evening we met up with Kiran to eat this...

 ...And take this buddy pic, which only took six previously failed attempts to capture.

The next morning Garrett and I made our way to the airport, where we would fly from Bangalore to Delhi to continue our adventures in the north…

"Tiffin" aka breakfast: the accurately if not creatively named “veg puff”

 Getting through the line for security was brutal

Aaaaaannnnddd we’re off! Off to meet with more friends and adventures, and discover more sites, smells, and foods in the north. Stay with me as I lead us onwards to Delhi, Agra, and beyond...