My India Review

So let me start my review of India by saying this ... I will go back in the future and try again. That being said, let me give you a bit of detail about this trip and how it happened for DaLeiLei and I.

There are a few places on the globe that both of us considered ourselves ill-prepared to visit on our own and India was one of them. A friend of ours who travels quite extensively was putting together a trip and described it to us about 18 months ago. She described a trip with 5 star hotels, a second "tour operator" who had experience taking other groups into India and a "first class" experience all the way. We talked about it extensively because the cost was the highest of any vacation we had ever taken and it ended up costing us over half of Dana's massage income for the previous year.

I will be the first to admit that this trip was probably a "failure" for me due to expectations on my part which may or may not have been valid based on the tour operator's ideas of how the trip would work.

When we arrived we found out that meals wouldn't necessarily be included, tips were generally up to us and that there would not be a "guide" every day to give us some history or direction in the locations we were visiting. After two days, I was ready to leave and DaLeiLei had to calm me down. She tried tell the tour operator how we were feeling about this trip and that it was rather unacceptable to not have guides every day or meals included for the $8000 ticket price that we had paid for this trip. (The price didn't include the airline tickets or all of the other extraneous things such as visas, travel vaccinations, transportation back to the airport at the end of the trip, etc.) Also by the time we were on the trip we found out that there was only one tour operator who was on the trip and she hadn't been in the destination cities that we were visiting for the past 28 years. So, needless to say, the trip had a few major blows from the beginning in my mind. But for now, on with the review!

(Also forgive the holes in my memory since my luggage was opened on the flight between India and Thailand and all my notes were lost somewhere en route!)

Day 1 - Kolkata

• Arrived in Kolkata (Calcutta). Immediately had the tour guide take one cab and leave Dana, myself and one other passenger arguing over the cab fare from the Airport to our hotel. After 5 minutes of playing dumb he finally decided to take us to the hotel and try and get the money from our guide.
• Got to the first hotel (HHI / Hindustani Hotel International). It wasn't too bad. It wasn't clean in our room and certainly wasn't what I would have considered much more than a 3-star any where else in the world. At this point, I did some math and started noting that DaLeiLei and I paid a total of $650 per day of our trip and if the hotel room wasn't at least $250 for the two of us per night I was starting to feel a bit ripped-off.
• Went for a cab ride to visit the famous flower market at the Howrah bridge and ended up not getting back to the hotel for a few hours with the cab drivers taking us all over Kolkata and beyond to raise the cab fare. Also, we never made it to the flower market. On the flip side, we almost died numerous, numerous times at the hands of psychotic drivers who were ready to start their next incarnation on this earth!

Day 2 - Kolkata / Varanasi

• Had breakfast and then sat through deliberations on what the day's schedule would include. In many cases, I think it is nice to have flexibility in group settings, but in this, I was relying on someone else to tell me what to see and what was important to visit while in India so the hour long confab as to where we would visit was a waste of time.
• Went to a temple for Kali. At some point, a "priest" associated himself with our group and led us on a tour of the temple. At the end of the tour he took each of us individually through a semi-religious ritual and indicated that we should give money to feed the poor. While normally, I would feel a bit more cynical about such a thing, we were outside Mother Theresa's hospital and the people in front of me in line were giving large sums of money to help feed the local poor. I ended up giving way more than I wanted (approx. $50) and then found out that they were lying through their teeth about how much previous people had given and most-probably about giving any money to the poor. I was livid at this point when I was told about my mistake. What the f**k am I paying a tour operator if not to look out for me in such situations!!! (The best part was reading our tour operators guide book later that afternoon and having it spelled out in the section on visiting the Kali temple ... that says to me that she didn't even bother reading the tour guide book or just figured it wasn't important to inform us about what might happen during our visit to this site. This was the point at which I was truly ready to leave the trip. The remainder of the trip was done with me feeling very, very skeptical about anything else that took place. Any chance of the trip having a spiritual awakening for me was pretty much right-off at this point.
• The remainder of the group went to a planetarium in the afternoon (I couldn't figure out why the hell I would travel to India to go to a planetarium) and I stayed in the hotel trying to lick my wounded wallet and reduce some of the frustration I was feeling at that point.
• We made our way to the Kolkata train station for the 1st class train ride we would take overnight to Varanasi. We then ran back and forth through the station as our guide had no clue where we needed to be to catch our train and when the train arrived on the platform we ran up and down the length of the train (which was no small feat) to try and find the car we were all situated in for the night. Finally we were in our compartments and as we started to think of getting under the sheets to sleep our way to Varanasi, I noticed a plethora of antennae waving roommates who would be traveling with us in our newly acquired roach motel on rails! I slept quite poorly with every few minutes seeming to bring another set of itches across my arms, back or legs. EEEEEWWWWWWW!!!! 1st class my eye! If she had done this in the last 25 years she would have known to hire a van and have us drive or have us fly instead of having most of our group's first experience in a sleeper car be filled with roaches, disgusting toilets and layers of filth on all the floors, seats, walls and windows! By the way, the train ride was covered in our $650 per day and I'm sure the train tickets didn't cost more than $100 for each of us. I'd look into what the actual cost was but I think I would find it depressing to know that it was incredibly low!

Day 3 - Varanasi

• Arrived in Varanasi after the roach coach train and headed into our hotel. This was another HHI but was of a lesser quality than the first one. The pool was out of commission and the building was quite a bit shabbier. Had breakfast and then tried to take a walk from the Hotel.
• Taking a walk was near impossible. "Auto-rickshaw" drivers (similar to Tuk-Tuk) would actually pull their vehicles in front of our path and then block us from continuing so they could try and get us to hire them to drive us around. This didn't go over too well for me, and after walking a few blocks it was evident that our hotel was no where near any part of the city that we wanted to be walking through.
• I believe it was at this point that DaLeiLei had a talk with the tour operator to try and let her know that we weren't pleased with the services being offered for the amount of money we spent and that if she wanted to try and make the trip better, we would suggest she start lining up tours as well as taking care of meals as well as the hotel rooms. Honestly, at this point, our operator did start paying for all of the meals (minus drinks) and there were also tours being given almost every day from this point forward. It looked as though things might get better from here.
• We hung out in the hotel until Gaurav, the gentleman from Delhi whom our tour operator had befriended over the Internet while booking hotels for this trip, arrived and took us down to the Ghats to view the Ganges river.
• The Ghats were one of the more interesting things I saw in India. I enjoyed the life down there when it wasn't busy trying to separate me from my wallet (which was 90% of the time) and watching the holy-men bathing in the Ganges river was quite fascinating. I personally would not set a toe in the river for fear of any number of diseases which could creep into your system but hey-ho ... they certainly wanted to bathe in the "mother" Ganges for religious reasons as well as hygiene (of a sort).
• We took a boat ride to the largest crematorium on the river and watched as bodies were placed on the pyres and then set alight. Afterwards we watched the religious ceremonies being performed to say good night to the river.

Day 4 - Varanasi

• A tour guide took us to the ghats in the morning and we got aboard another boat and went up and down the Ganges looking at the ghats we had seen the night before. He told us some things we didn't know but mostly repeated what Gaurav had said the night before.
• We then were taken to a shop as part of the tour but it was really just a stop so the guide could make a commission of any of the sales that were made by us. We then walked back to the rickshaws and were taken back to the hotel.
• We were then at the hotel with the option to go back to the ghats again that afternoon.
• For the life of me I can't remember if we did anything else on day four. If we did, I'm feeling that it wasn't very memorable at this point.

Day 5 - Varanasi / Sarnath / Delhi

• Hung out at the hotel until the afternoon when we went to Sarnath. An interesting site, this was where the Buddha gave his first teachings after receiving enlightenment. We visited the museum, viewed the Stupa (memorial) and then went to the local Buddhist temple.
• Headed back to the train station. This was exciting. One of our fellow travelers had brought "leftover" food from lunch and upturned the plastic bag on the train quay for a cow who seemed to be waiting for the train as well. We watched locals stepping up to the tracks and then urinating onto the train tracks without any sense of modesty. Another member of our group screamed rather excitedly at the rats that were enjoying the comforts of the ladies toilet. It was all great and we got to spend an extra hour and half waiting for the train to arrive so that it was about midnight before we got in our sleeper cars and were able to go to sleep. I didn't see quite so many roaches on this train ... but it was still nothing like a first class sleeper in Europe!

Day 6 - Delhi

• Arrived in Delhi around noon and made our way to the hotel. Not really a great hotel and it didn't bode well when the drivers couldn't find the destination no matter how many times they stopped to ask for directions.
• Our tour operator attempted to find us another hotel and was unsuccessful for the first night so we got to stay in this lovely slice of heaven. The shower never got hot, the towels were filthy and our bed sheet looked as though some one had blown their nose on them while making the bed. We were grateful to have brought our hostel sheets to travel with at this point.
• One of our groups members reported back that when the room porter brought them their two bottles of "complimentary" water, he then announced that it was complimentary at the cost of 40 rupees and waited for them to pay him to leave. They instead, strong-armed him from the room and told the front desk to not have another person bother them in their room or they would start throwing the bodies down the stairs rather indiscriminately!
• Our group all got back together and headed over to the Imperial for a late lunch, early dinner. It was a wonderful meal in a beautiful hotel and while everyone enjoyed it, it depressed Dana to no end. She went to the front desk and asked what the room rate was for a single night. The rack rate was $450 US per night. This room had been announced as far too expensive for us to have on this trip, but even at full price, it would have left $200 in our nightly budget if our operator had only bothered to do the math. (Another excuse our operator kept telling us was that there were no more rooms available anywhere in India and that when she had booked the trip four months prior she had gotten the best that was available at the time. I personally would have been much happier if we had been told that the trip would be in sub-standard hotel rooms because of this issue, but didn't really receive that type of info until we were already in the country. After our time traveling around, however, I am convinced that a bit more research could have turned up rooms that would have been much more suitable to the amount of money we were paying.)
• We tried to go to a "sound and light" show that was being displayed in the city (according to the 2005 guide book our tour operator had) and when we arrived found out that the show hadn't been displayed for 3 years or so. Might have known that with a bit more recent guide book!
  
• We walked through some markets, had a few drinks (well others did ... I had a few sodas) and the strain of the trip started becoming evident on most all of the other members of our group!
  
• We returned to sleep in our dingy room and hoped to not catch any communicable diseases that may have been lurking between the bed sheets.

Day 7 - Delhi

• Moved to a new hotel which was a much nicer hotel and then went on a few tours.
• Somewhere around day 3 I contracted "Delhi Belly" and couldn't eat much throughout the trip. Around Day 7, the intestinal cramps got really, really bad and I was starting to lose weight from not eating and having most of my insides forcefully removed every time I stopped by a toilet!
• We went to see the world's largest Muslim Mosque, Jama Masjid, a Sikh temple and some other sites around the city before returning to the hotel.
• As a group we talked with our tour operator and told her how unhappy we all were with the way the trip had gone. We asked her to find out if we could receive any refund on the portion of the trip in Pushkar and let her know that if we could, we would like to cancel the last few days at the festival. She said she would let us know if there was any chance of canceling that portion of the trip. (By the end of the trip, I had never been informed what the outcome of that request was ... I had to ask our other companions to find out that she told them that refunds would not be made no matter what!)
  

Day 8 - Agra

• We hastened our trip to Agra because it was determined that our second day in the Agra, the Taj Mahal would be closed. Glad we found out before going since we were scheduled to see the Taj the second day in Agra instead of the first.
• We arrived and went pretty much straight to the Taj Mahal. It is an astounding sight to see and is quite beautiful. I was feeling so sick at this point and couldn't care any less about visiting India so one of the eight wonders of the world was nice to see ... but I wasn't as blown away as I thought I might be.
• We stopped at a marble factory on our way to our hotel (which was the first hotel that was booked that I felt lived up to the hype our operator presented before we signed on for the trip) and one of the tour members purchased a very nice marble table for the sum of $2k. They threw in some Masala Chai for us all so we were happy to drink tea and encourage our traveling companion to spend way too much money on a table for his home in Tahoe.
• Another member of the tour suggested we go to the "nice" restaurant attached to the hotel instead of eating at the buffet as we had been doing everywhere else. It looked like a lovely meal and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I had chicken broth and white rice ... and then got rid of it all quickly thereafter.

Day 9 - Agra / Jaipur

• We went to the Red Fort and then loaded into our van for a 5 hour drive to Jaipur. This was the fort that housed the Muhgal emperor Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, when his son overthrew him and placed him under house arrest until he died.
• We stopped en route at the Fatehpur Sikri. The palace that was to be the capital seat for the Emperor Akbar but was abandoned after too many problems with water arose at this site.
• We then drove-on to Jaipur and arrived at the hotel that would end up being the final hotel of our trip. The hotel in Jaipur was named the Naila Bagh Palace and was quite a lovely place. It didn't live up to the expectations set by our tour operator but was nice none-the-less. If you have proper expectations set, I would highly recommend this as a place to stay as the staff and owners are very, very nice and the hotel itself is the family home that has housed their family for the past 140 years. http://www.nailabaghpalace.com/
• We talked with our fellow travelers and they all decided that they would be leaving the organized trip early and not continuing on to the Pushkar Festival and Camel fair. That was going to leave DaLeiLei, myself, our tour operator and her ex-boyfriend who was planning to travel with our guide after the end of our trip.

Day 10 - Jaipur

• Went on a tour of the City Palace, the Observatory and the Amber fort. Also saw the Palace of Wind and the Water Palace in Jaipur from our tour van.
• The sites were somewhat interesting, the only problems for me was that it was hot and I was having worse and worse stomach problems at this point in the trip.
• That afternoon, we had lunch at a Jaipur restaurant and then skipped dinner that night.

Day 11 - Jaipur

• We spent the day shopping in Jaipur and then our companions and us went and had a beautiful lunch at the Hilton. It was another case of disappointment for us as we found the room rates quite reasonable and the hotel grounds miles above most of the places we stayed during the course of the trip.
• We talked further with our companions and Dana and I decided that we would be much happier leaving with the rest of the group and heading back to Delhi and then on to Bangkok for a little rest and relaxation after the trauma which was called India.
• We broke the news to our tour operator and one of our companions overheard our guide explaining to the hotel owners that all of the members of the tour were leaving because we were inexperienced travelers and it was just too much for us to travel so far from home. We surveyed our group and each of the 5 members who left Jaipur to return to Delhi had traveled through a minimum of 15 different countries around the world.

Day 12 - Jaipur / Delhi

• We said good-bye to our hosts at the hotel and to our tour operator who was heading on to Pushkar. We hopped in a private car that drove us to Delhi. We ate a fantastic dinner at the Imperial again and then drove to the airport for a 1 AM flight to Bangkok. Once in Thailand, our spirits lifted, our smiles grew and our adventures continued but in a much more positive light!

All in all, the best part of the trip were our traveling companions. We made some great friends and shared our woes and disappointments and swore that we would all travel again together to try and have a much better trip with fond memories to be shared in the future! Kim, Jessica, Pat, Dana and I all bonded quite a bit during this trip and when we have saved some money again, we're looking to take them all on a trip with us that doesn't have quite so many roaches!

I'll be posting about Thailand soon! Thanks for wading through such a long rant about India!