TRAVEL BLOG THURSDAYS - INDIA
HOLI, NAAN, & HENNA || NEW DELHI, AGRA, JAIPUR, VRINDAVAN & MATHURA || NORTHERN INDIA || INDIA || MARCH 2016
India was probably my favorite international food experience so far. New Orleans is my favorite food experience over all.
Side note: Whenever I decide to do a New Orleans blog post, it’ll most likely consist of my list of “must try’s” and a bunch of pictures because I’ve been too many times to get it all in one post.
Back on track…
The Flight:
We gotta start with the flights – “Imma let you finish but Emirates has the best airline food of all time! *Kanye voice* They typically have food options from the country you are going to. So, on the leg to Dubai, there was traditional Middle Eastern food and on the leg to New Delhi there was traditional Indian food.
New Delhi, Delhi, India:
The first night we arrived in India, we stayed at a hostel in New Delhi, The Madpackers Hostel, which was super chill and super helpful for planning out day to day trips. Plus, they had free breakfast consisting of toast, aloo paninis, chickpea salad, fresh fruit, and piping hot chai tea! To be honest, we mostly just winged this experience. We knew where we wanted to go and had our flights booked to and from India but everything in between there was kind of on a whim.
A friend of a friend living in the city was kind enough to show us around while we were in New Delhi. The first night we went to a relatively fancy restaurant and had Butter Chicken plus accompaniments. We ate A LOT of Butter Chicken on this trip because it was someone’s favorite.
Throughout our time in New Delhi we tried various types of street foods; my favorite being a vegetarian place in Old Delhi near Fatehpuri Masjid (mosque); Kake Di Hatti. We took a rickshaw to get there and sat upstairs. If I could eat like that every day, I’d be vegan and that is saying A LOT because I LOVE pork and seafood. “Swine is fine!” :) The naan was huge and so flavorful like the daal fry we share as well as everything else we stuffed our faces with that afternoon.
We saw all the must-see monuments and structures and rode tuk-tuks and rickshaws to get around. This is the cheapest, most efficient form of transportation due to the traffic. Walking obviously was a large part of our journey. Uber, which we took to and from the airport was also pretty reasonable and we took the metro when going long distances within the city.
We experienced the hustle and bustle of New Delhi with people, dogs, cows, monkeys, tuk-tuks, cars, rickshaws, elephants, the smell of petrol and spices in the markets, and colorful sarees and buildings.
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
To get from New Delhi to Jaipur we took the train and hung out in the economy sleeper car.
Once we got to Jaipur, we saw and toured the Pink City in Surajpole, the City Palace of Jaipur in Nahari Ka Naka, went to the ancient Galtaji Temple (Monkey Temple), and fed the monkeys, and checked out a fabric making factory.
We learned how to make chapati. When we purchased our sarees for our trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal, the guys working there were nice enough to share the lunch their moms made with us. It was delicious and we broke bread (“naan”) family style.
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
The lady in the hotel room across from us helped us put our sarees on with large safety pins I still use today. We forgot the tutorial we were given at the shop. But she was nice enough to help us because the struggle was real that day!
We did the touristy thing and took pictures in front of the Taj Mahal and learned about the history of its construction. One thing that kept happening throughout the entire trip was the locals and a few other tourists wanting to take pictures with us; someone even went as far as handing me their 6-month-old baby to take a picture with. I’m not exactly sure why but we obliged most of the time.
HOLI – Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India and Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India
The whole reason we traveled to India in March was to participate in and play Holi with the locals in the place it originated. Let me tell you, this is like nothing I’d ever seen or experienced before.
We left Agra and went back to our hotel in Vrindavan. The two cities are only an hour and a half away from each other so we made a day trip. Vrindavan is the place where Krishna grew up and the origin place of Holi festival.
Let’s back track a bit…
The journey to Vrindavan was an interesting one. We took another economy sleeper car and weren’t sure exactly where to get off because there were no announcements. Luckily, the family across from us saw that we didn’t know what was going on so they let us know when we’d reached our stop. Along the trip we got to see the countryside, and the scenery went from more city to rural. It was all beautiful in its own way.
We also didn’t have a place to stay once we got there and since we were going during Holi, to a rural area, most of the hotel rooms were booked. We ended up having to stay in a hotel that was crappy but mad expensive! I’m totally fine sleeping anywhere but the fact that it was more expensive than anywhere we’d stayed, that was way nicer in the country, made me a bit upset. But it’s our fault for waiting until the literal last minute. We were on the train, trying to find service, using T-Mobile free international data, in rural India, to book our room, while on the way to our destination, in the middle of the night. Hint: These are the types of details you leave out when telling your parents, the story of your travels.
We finally got to our hotel room, which we ended up having to share with the geckos, after finding a tuk-tuk driver that wasn’t charging an arm and a leg to get to our destination. We piled into the tuk-tuk that was already filled to capacity but ya know, lap it up, hang on tight, and don’t drop anything. *shrugs*
We already purchased our colors in Jaipur so we were all set for the festivities. We got up early. I tied my hair up because “edges” and the color stains bad, especially if it gets wet. Let’s just say I had a pink neck for a few days and only just got a majority of the color off before returning to work. You get questions when you go into work with a pink neck.
We low key tagged along with a tour group (we stayed a few paces back so it didn’t seem like we were following them) and went to Vishram Ghat & Dwarkadesh Temple to see where everyone prayed and spent time on the Holy Yamuna River before the festivities started.
While leaving the temple, we got a few nice people who wanted to play and they gently put color on us, as we did them. After that, it was balls to the wall; literally!
I mean color being hurled at us, at cows, at everyone, water hoses, crowds of men lit off Bhang lassi, throwing color everywhere. Don’t drink the Bhang lassi if you ain’t ‘ bout that life!
It got hard to see at one point so I grabbed my two travel buddies and we were escorted back to our hotel gates by the police because it was getting quite dangerous. After we sat down for a bit on the hotel steps, we decided to take a tuk-tuk, still drenched in color, and stained, scarf half off, to Mathura, the place where Krishna was born, to see what Holi was like there. Folks hurled color into the vehicle and we went from a bright pink to a green color and more color got in my eyes *ouch*! Overall, however, it was an experience I am happy to say I had.
Side Note: As a recommendation, I would say, especially for women, it would be safe, when playing Holi in India, to play with a friend’s family or at a planned event or to go with a group of guys. Normally, I’m all “women can do anything” but in this case, speaking from experience, it’s just safer to do in the ways I suggested, not because women can’t do anything but because of the nature of the danger and intense grope-age coming from the large crowd of people; no one should be intentionally temporarily blinded by colored powder shoved into your eyes while simultaneously being hosed down with water and unwillingly and constantly groped, while trying to walk down the street, EVER! But if you’re adventurous then I’d say, “do you; be safe though”. If someone were to ask me “but did you die?” I would say “no, not this time”.
Back on track....
Holi was the most colorful live action thing I’d seen in my whole life up until that point. I think Disney’s Aladdin The Musical on Broadway was probably the only thing just as colorful and sparkly.
So, while in Vrindavan, after showering, with little success to remove color, we went to a restaurant (Dosa Plaza) at Divinity hotel next door, and tried Masala Dosa for the first time. If you’re staying in that area, stay there! We literally ate there every meal after the first time for the remainder of our stay! It was so good!! And the concierge at the hotel is the one who hooked us up with a ride back to New Delhi.
New Delhi, Delhi, India
To get back to New Delhi, we rented a taxi and got to see the highways and side streets on the way back to the city, which looked completely different than the train ride there.
We spent more time in New Delhi with our friend of a friend and of course ate more food; barbecue this time, also poppin’! On the last day, I got henna, as I do in every country I go to that has it.
India was the most flavorful, colorful, sensory overload-iest place I’ve ever been to in my travels and I hope to make it back one day; primarily to check out the southern portion of the country. You kind of had to be there but I hope this post gives you a glimpse of the amazing-ness I got to experience March 2016.
Thanks for reading all these words!
Eat dosa! Love ya!
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