...continued from previous entry
We got safely to our stop and entered Pahar Ganj which is kind of the grungy, druggy backpacker area of town. We went to a recommended hole in the wall type food place called Sitaram’s Chole Batura and had this wonderful stuffed roti with chenna curry (chenna=chickpea) and spicy vegetables. We were the only white people in the place and stood around our little metal table chowing away.
We then went shopping and with Rohit’s knowledge, I found out that even with my haggling in Pondicherry I had still been charged more than double what my souvenirs were worth. Oh well. You can’t win ‘em all. He helped us haggle for items and then we got some chai on a roof deck pleasantly removed from the blackened air of the market. Afterwards, I got hit in the foot by my first rickshaw and came out unscathed, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
We got cheap drinks at My Bar where people were smoking hash and hookah and cigarettes, there really is no law enforcement unless money is at stake. And a couple brave souls tried street vegetable juice (both fresh vegetables and water are bad ideas for travelers in India...Side note: with eating tons of street food in Delhi, we had to be wary of getting the infamous ‘Delhi belly’ which you can google if you want, but I’m sure you can imagine. A couple of us got a little taste of it unfortunately.)
We took the metro to Connaught Place which is super ritzy and filled with nice restaurants, bars, and markets that could easily be in a Western country. One very interesting thing about Delhi is that each part of the city is entirely unique from South Delhi where our hotel was with it’s posh residents and less dense population, to the east villagey Haus Kaus, to the ritzy CP, the grungy Pahar, and the ridiculously crowded and dirty Old Delhi. You could never be bored living in this city.
We tried some street food--Nepalese dumplings called chicken momos and sweet potato grilled over coals and covered in starfruit juice and spices. All of it delicious and completely unique.
After that our culinary tour continued and we got rolls at Nizaam’s which looked like a diner with red table tops where you order at the counter to a guy grilling in the back. These rolls are like Indian burritos--deeply fried paratha with egg filled with chicken or mutton and spices and vegetables--dripping in grease and dripping in deliciousness.
We took our food coma to a bar where we got many 2 liter jugs of Foster’s beer (even weaker than Kingfisher), hookah, and met up with some friends. We hung out there until late, and when we tried around 12 to go out, the city was closing up. After the gang rape of a tourist in December 2012 brought the rape culture in India to public attention, many previously ignored rules have been taken more seriously including shutting down all bars by 1am. So sadly I never got to experience Delhi nightlife. It was definitely sketchy walking home at that time of night though so I had the boys I was with stand guard as we walked.
The next morning we picked up our driver for Agra that was arranged for us. And we did a whirl wind tour of the monuments we had not yet seen as well as the food we had not yet eaten. We dropped by Lotus Temple for a hit and run tourist pictures.
We went to the DC-esque area where India gate (a tall arc de triomphe structure) stands and tree lined boulevards with houses of government officials and cronies go for 20-100 million USD.
We rode bike rickshaws through Old Delhi where the streets are so packed with people that a car would not be able to maneuver through. Our bikers were very friendly, although we probably could’ve walked faster than they pulled us. We meandered through the narrow market ways usually bustling with wedding markets except for Sundays when we rolled through.
We got lunch in another hole in the wall this time at Parantha Wala Gali where the six of us squeezed into a corner booth and ordered 7 different sweet and savory paranthas (like none other I had had before) rapid fire, all of us going at it with our hands and delicious sauces dripping everywhere and locals amused by our presence.
We hustled through the streets to make sure we tried Indian fried dough (galebi wala), ice creamsicles (kulfi), and pani puri which involved tapping a hollow bread puff, filling it with spiced veggies, and dipping it in spiced mint water. We stopped at a spice shop where the store owner told us all about the spices and teas and had us smell each one of them. Interestingly, a bunch of the spices came from different parts of the same tree, mango is used for sour curries, and turmeric and cumin are the essence of pretty much every Indian dish. Then he struck two rocks together and asked "do you like eggs?" And then we tasted the rock salt, which had that sulfur-like taste of hard boiled eggs.
We finished up the whirl wind tour by going to the largest mosque in India called Jama Masjid Mosque, but between having to remove shoes and us females being required to wear a cloth smock I just watched from the entryway (who knows where those smocks have been!). We biked by the famous red fort, dropped Rohit and the car/driver and booked it to Agra... For nothing. Apparently you needed to send in copies of your passport and visa a week in advance for security clearance to see the taj at night. Would've been nice to know online or when we called multiple times. It was too foggy to see from any hilltops and then poor communication with our driver led us to try and enter the closed gates which led to an angry police man leaning in our car window yelling at us that the taj was closed.
Without Rohit's help, we ended up at a mediocre, touristy restaurant. We ordered a few good breads and a good saag and spicy mutton but a pretty gross mutton korma which was an unappealing shade of whiteish brown. To compensate we ordered another chicken dish and when it came out looking exactly the same as the korma he explained that no, it was very different, because it had egg in it too. Double fail.
My friend Theresa is the one amongst us with a sweet camera and photography skills. Tragically the night before the Taj, she found out that neither of her batteries were working. We took an adventure to look for the fancy camera battery charger in the dirty, shack filled streets of Agra. We found a small road side stand with cell phones and showed them the battery. The owner was off on his motorcycle and back in 15 minutes with just what we needed. Noooo idea where it came from though... There's no radioshacks or best buys around!
Our lazy tour guide claimed that the taj did not open until 7am which we found out was incorrect because people were already inside when we got to the line at 650. So me missed the sunrise by a bit but still the second you see the taj everything is fine. It's so majestic and breathtaking and more spectacular than even in photos. It also looks different in every light and even morphed over the couple hours while we were there.
It was built by Shajahan as an ode to (one of) his wives and cost something like 1.2 million dollars (and this was in the mid 1600s)! It was all so romantic. He and the Mughals were also all about symmetry so the building and surroundings are all perfectly symmetric. So much so that the large, elaborate mosque built to the taj's left is replicated to the right and the latter was just used as a fancy guest house.
The taj is even more intricate and elaborate up close with tons of Sanskrit calligraphy, designs and floral patterns carved into the white marble, and symmetrical architecture within and without. It took 22 years to complete.
After the taj we headed out on our twelve hour journey requiring a 3 hour drive, 2 hour airport check in (just barely made our flight!), 3 hour flight (better in-flight meal and plane conditions on this airline), 1 hour wait to meet our friend Tim, and 3 hour drive to Vellore. Totally worth it though. Such an epic trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment