There is no easy way to start on our India trip, but to say that it was a blast. The most common question that we got asked before we went was “Why India”? India is not at the top of most peoples to do list, but it should be. It is a country filled with wonderful people, beautiful places, yet extreme poverty. The US has roughly 323 million people, and India has 1.3 billion, and is a 1/3 of the size. I intend to write about our trip in 2 sections.

The trip started with a 5:30 AM rush at our house trying to scrape frozen chicken poop out of the coop before we left. We had a nice girl watching our chickens, and wanted to leave things in proper order for her to take care of them. She was our chicken tender, no pun intended. We wandered around the yard with headlamps and spatulas ready to do work. We were a bit rushed as we were winding down from the holiday season.  After we took care of our chicken business, we took a car to Atlanta, and flew from there to Delhi.

Twenty one hours later, we finally wandered into Delhi at 1 AM with a hoard of taxis tempting to take us wherever we wanted to go. At that point, we just wanted to get to our hotel and survive the taxi ride. I was in no mood to negotiate rates.  Of course the driver spoke no English, but we ended up safe and sound at our location. India was the only country where I tipped taxi drivers because they did not kill us. Their driving is absolutely insane, and is competition with the drivers of Vietnam. Delhi is one of those cities that does not seem to sleep, and there are always people out on the streets jamming out to music and doing things they probably should not be doing. We got to the room and took a sigh of relief; we had made it. The first morning, we arose to a multitude of noises in the streets, and peered out our balcony to see an array of goats, dogs, cows, street vendors, beggars, and motorbikes. We always like to stay where the action is, and we definitely found the place! We met the “owner” of our guesthouse, who of course offered us breakfast at his rooftop restaurant. There, he let us enjoy our breakfast overlooking the city while offering his tour guide services, which we knew he was going to push. We agreed to a price of $130 for a private driver for 3 days, who would take us wherever we wanted around Delhi. He would also take us to the Taj Mahal, 3 hours away, spend the night in town, and then bring us back to Delhi. Everyone seems to be a tour guide, but Mr. Habib turned out to be an alright guy. He did do everything he said he would do, and we arrived back in Delhi safe and sound. Come to find out, he was not technically the owner of the guesthouse, so he was skimming money from them with his tour guide services. That is a whole other story in and of itself. Our driver was Pintu, and he was a swell guy, who was from Varanasi. Pintu lives in Delhi most of the year in a room with 5 other men, and pays $75 a month for his bed. He funnels all his money back home to where his family lives. Some of the drivers that we met make 250 rupees a day, which is only about $4. Whenever we could not find Pintu….all the Indians look the same, we would cry out “Pintu, where are you.”

We toured all the major sights in Delhi for the first day, and Pintu took us to one of his favorite restaurants where we ate curry until we couldn’t stomach it any more. India is about 97% vegetarian, and the only meat we could find was chicken and mutton. So we lived off of peas, cauliflower, potatoes, naan, and thali. We were drowning in curry every day, and it was actually pretty nice. The smog in Delhi was a bit overbearing, and in some places you could only see 20-50 yards. This is due to crop burning in the surrounding cities, and tends to last much of the winter. After touring Delhi, Pintu drove us to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Agra. They were both wonderful, and interesting in the own respects. All of the Indians wanted to take photos with Morgan and me everywhere we went. We were like movie stars to them. I bet we took 30-40 selfies with groups of girls, guys, and families. India markets “selfie” products like we market I- phones. Billboards are blanketed with advertisements for the “best selfie tools on the market.”

We also found that guys and girls ran in groups, and they did not tend to hang out together. Married couples would be together with their children, but you would see groups of 10-15 guys and 10-15 girls, but never together. It was a bit odd, but India does have a culture of arranged marriages.

Our next stop after Agra was to the town of Leh, high up in the Himalayan mountain range.  Leh is nestled between China and Pakistan in the northern most strip of India known as Kashmir. We took a flight there, and arrived to a sunny, clear day in the mountains. All of the airports that we flew into were commercial/ military airports, so there was a large military presence in Leh. The US has TSA agents and police in our airports. In India, these same tasks are run by the military. The armed guard with an AK-47 is the one who checks your passport, gives you a security stamp, and lets you onto the plane. India had the most security checkpoints of any country we have been to, which is actually kind of comforting. At some airports, we had to go through 5-10 checkpoints to board the plane.

Leh was beautiful, but we did arrive at 12,000 feet above sea level. As soon as I got off the plane, I was immediately nauseous, and had to spend the entire day in bed due to altitude sickness. Morgan and I both got sick from some bad chicken we ate, so I had a double whammy. It took me a day to get over my sickness, but was finally able to get out and venture around. Morgan and I took a private car to see Buddhist monasteries and palaces across the region, and took in the mountain air. Leh is huge tourist destination in the summer where people come from all over the world to trek in the mountain ranges. Some compare it to Switzerland, but at a fraction of the cost to visit. During the winter though, these hikes are restricted due to snow and ice. If we were to go back to India, Kashmir would be the region we would come back to for summer trekking. It was a relief to relax in the mountains away from the bustle of the larger cities we had just visited. We stayed in a great homestay where we ate breakfast and dinner every day. From Leh, we took another plane flight to the bustling, Hindu mecca of Varanasi.

The next post will cover our trip from Varanasi -Jaisalmer-Jodhpur-Delhi.