India - The Golden Triangle

At the end of October Rob and I travelled to India. The sole purpose of this trip was to see the Taj Mahal, which is in Agra but in addition we visited Delhi and Jaipur too.

Driving into Delhi from the airport we found familiarity in travelling on the left hand side of the road with three lanes clearly marked. However, the cars were five abreast, some cars were heading towards us on our side of the road and every driver had their hand firmly planted on the horn. We were shocked by the sheer number of cars, motorbikes, tuk tuks and other three wheeled vehicles, not to mention carts pulled by oxen.

Throughout the trip we had our own driver, Gurmit and guides in each place. We stayed in Oberoi hotels and only ate vegetarian food in the hotels. We are not particularly brave travellers! We booked through Abercrombie & Kent who were great.

We were surprised by how much we enjoyed Delhi. The poverty was not as apparent as we feared and we understand the Government has worked hard to clean up the city. The highlights included Qutub Minar (a tall column), Humayun's Tomb, the Red Fort, Gandhi's memorial and taking a rickshaw ride. We also visited the Jama Masjid mosque and a Sikh temple. We stayed in Delhi for two nights before driving 3 hours to Agra.

I have blogged separately on the Taj Mahal as it stood apart from everything else we saw. There was another Red Fort in Agra and a further tomb, Itmad-Ud-Daulah, which would have been beautiful in its own right but lost its significance when compared to the Taj Mahal.

After two nights we travelled 4 hours to Jaipur with a stop for another fort, Fatehpur Sikri, which in all honesty we would have gladly skipped. We were in Jaipur, the pink city, for Diwali. Unlike Christmas in the UK, the decorations go up only the day before, creating a real sense of excitement. As with everything in India, this created a bizarre contrast. The streets were strewn with rubbish but had pretty fairy lights hanging. There is great poverty but everyone finds the money to buy sugar cane and flower garlands to adorn the shrines in their homes for the gods and to purchase clay pots with candles that must be placed in every corner of every room in the house.

On Diwali we went to the markets in Jaipur. The colours were wonderful whilst the hustle and bustle beat anything you will see on Christmas Eve. Fireworks were being sold everywhere (not sure about the quality!) and people were buying boxes of Indian sweets. We went to the most famous sweet shop, LMB, and bought our driver a box of his favourite sweets. The shop was heaving with Diwali shoppers and was more crowded that an underground train in rush hour. The cashier had to sit on top of the till collecting money from every direction.

Back in the hotel we joined in the Diwali celebrations. We took part in the Hindu service (Aarti) in the hotel's temple then watched in horror as the sari clad hotel staff ignored all health and safety when lighting fireworks and sparklers. Thankfully their saris did not catch fire but there were a few near misses. Following this we launched wish lanterns before having a special Diwali dinner with entertainers and traditional street food.

In Jaipur we also saw the Amber Fort, which we reached by elephant, the Maharaja's palace, the palace of the winds and the observatory. We really enjoyed our three night stay in Jaipur, which was made more special by being there for Diwali.

We drove back 5 hours from Jaipur to Delhi spending the afternoon and evening in the hotel before heading back to London. We did enjoy our trip but feel we have seen enough of India and have no plans to return.