I'll be honest.... India was never on my list of places I wanted to visit in the world.
I'd heard nothing but negative things, and really never thought my going there was in the realm of possibility.
Fast forward to earlier this year, when two of my friends who had booked the Dubai trip with us went to lunch one day, then concocted the idea that we would be adding a trip to Mumbai to our itinerary. Now, we all had tap danced around the idea of seeing the pyramids, and ohhhed-and-awwed over the destinations that were so close to that part of the world, but after failed attempts to find cheap tickets and news of terror & bombings in certain countries, kind of pressed paused on the idea...
But back to their fateful lunch date... Over the course of their lunch, and a few dozen text messages later, they had found flights and came up with sites for us to see in India. I can't say that I was thrilled by the idea, but I kind of took a what the hell approach about things and half-heartedly agreed. And then plans changed, and instead of going to Mumbai, we were told that we would be going to New Delhi instead and then Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Ok....
It really took a lot out of me to make myself excited about this portion of our trip... And it was at this point that I stopped referring to things as a vacation, since it had lost the leisure time and had become a jam packed itinerary that came with a laundry list of items to accomplish before we would set foot in their country. We were now going on a trip..
More like an adventure.
Oh, India.... The ticket prices from Dubai to New Delhi were cheap, but we had to apply for tourist Visa and get approval prior to our arrival. Once all of that was accomplished, we were free and clear to journey to India.
Planning. I am a stickler for a plan, almost to a fault. I hate relinquishing control. I like to know the who, what, when, where and why's all the time. But one thing I learned over the course of this trip & planning process was that sometimes you have to let go and let things work out for themselves. Plans are one thing, but like life.. a lot of times things will not go according to plan.
Over what seemed like hours, we finally checked in and made it onto our IndiGo flight into New Delhi... Our flight was filled with coughing, sneezes, and a questionable spray of insecticide before we landed. I haven't grown a third eye yet, so I'm guessing the chemicals that were sprayed on us were harmless... But I digress.
After our
soul plane flight, we stood in the customs line & then were told that we needed to stand in another line for individuals entering the country with tourist visas. We waited, and waited, and waited..... And waited. The clerks were slow, rude, condescending and had no sense of urgency. We of course had train tickets for a departure time at 6:00 am... It was almost 5 am by this time..... and we waited. And finally after almost 2 hours of standing in line we were officially in a hurry, but in New Delhi!
Our first encounter with the locals began seconds later when we were bombrushed by 5 men assisting us with our luggage to catch a taxi to our hotel. They were abrasive as fuck, and one even refused to close the door until my friend tipped him. They charged us 90 rupees for a cab ride that literally took us less than one mile to our hotel.. At this point we were so annoyed that we let it ride, because why go to jail your first few hours in a foreign country? Moving along...
We were greeted at our hotel gates by bomb sniffing dogs, metal detectors and heavy security... We rushed to check in and were back out the door in less than an hour to make sure we made it before our train departed...
The ride to the train station was.... eye-opening. For a city with literally MILLIONS of people, the driving is downright horrifying. No lanes, just mass horror and confusion, a cluster of cars, bicycles, tuk tuks, cows, motorcycles and other unidentifiable objects driving as if they all had bumpers on them. Scary as fuck is literally the only way I can describe it.
After being paralyzed in fear on the ride to the train station, we were dropped off in the middle of mass confusion. Thousands of people. Literally thousands, all hurriedly trying to catch the train to Agra.. The train which we were told was cancelled. Yeah, despite the fact that we had purchased tickets in advance, the train was cancelled. We were then detoured to a building about three blocks away where we were told to discuss our situation with the Department of Tourism (or something like that) and attempt to get another means of getting to Agra.
Let's just say, had we stayed in that building any longer, we probably would have almost ended up in jail again for the second time....
Some way or another we ended up in a cab en route back to our hotel... As we were driving, two of my friends mentioned our situation to the cab driver, who in turn offered to take us in his car the 2 hours to Agra for $12,000 rupees.... Let's just say, my spirit was wearied by this whole ordeal. I did NOT want to pay this guy to take us, but everyone else was all for it (or atleast two out of the four of us were) so off we went to Agra....
Well, actually first we stopped off at the dudes house so he could pick up his paperwork....
Then, we stopped at the gas station where he asked us for $5000 of the $12,000 to purchase gas for the trip....
THEN, he pulled over on the side of the road to pay the "toll"...
By this point, my blood was already boiling...
It continued to boil as he crept along the highway going well below the speed limit...
By the time we had been driving for two hours, my blood went from figuratively boiling to LITERALLY boiling, as his air conditioning stopped working.
We drove another hour in heat.... In India. In the summertime........
I'm pretty sure the cab driver knew we hated him almost as much as we hated each other in that moment.... Like, every ounce of my being wanted to ignite, or possibly murder everyone in the car and just get out and go home...but alas I couldn't do that. In the middle of nowhere in foreign country.
We rode along for another half hour, and finally saw a sign pointing in the direction of Agra.
Our cab driver of course, veers in the opposite direction......
That moment, would count as time number three we almost went to jail...
A short cut he said..
I truly was not prepared for the sights we saw. India is a third world country. From tent cities, to people brushing their teeth with water that had collected in the streets... We saw cows, monkeys, and dogs on every corner..sometimes it seems like there were more dogs than humans.... Just so primitive. **side note, despite how bad things looked to us, the people did not look unhappy. I'm not sure if I should attribute that to not realizing things were as bad as they seemed to us spoiled Americans, or maybe this was just our moment to experience true gratitude for the lives we had been given....
We finally saw a sign announcing our arrival in Agra, as our cab driver pulled over for a 4th time. This time, to get a part to fix his air condition. Seriously? Yes. In real life. He called one of his friends to come pick us up and take us the rest of the way. We went inside a nearby establishment to use the restrooms... which by the way consisted of a hole in ground that you squat over to handle your business... I can scratch that off my bucket list now.
Not sure if it was the hole in the ground situation that was our final straw, or what, but on the ride up to the Taj it was confirmed that we would need to find another way back to our hotel in New Delhi, or else we would encounter our next almost go to jail moment....
Our second driver pulled up to a long alley crowded with people and chaos & told us that we would need to walk the rest of the way to actually get to the Taj Mahal. We tipped him, despite his cries to keep our money and pay him later, and set off to the Taj Mahal....
We paid, were
thoroughly felt up searched by security, and then FINALLY laid our eyes on one of the most beautify structures in the entire world...
Taj Mahal was breathtaking. Truly a humbling experience. It's like all of the strife, trials and tribulations seemed minuscule in the midst of that moment.
We were literally at the Taj Mahal. We toured the entire structure, and took it all in......
It was hot, we were exhausted, we were hungry... but it was all worth it to be present in that moment.
And then we had to find our escape route, because yeah it was no way were were getting back in the car with that cab driver...
We took the East Gate exit and trekked about a mile through aggressive salesman who harassed the
fuck hell shit life out of us... unfortunately we in no mood for purchases by that time.
We found the meet up spot for the other driver we had arranged and were able to get food at a local hotel while we waited.
Then finally our air conditioned ride arrived and we were headed back to New Delhi.
I only remember half of the ride because by that time we were exhausted and slept the majority of the two hours back..
We got back to our hotel,
& were able to get our lives together for a bit,
then set out to do some shopping....
The hotel set us up with an adorable driver who entertained us as he chauffeured us around New Delhi.
We wanted to go shopping at the Dilli Haat outdoor market, but were first taken to a store by that same name, just as we were warned would happen on Trip Advisor, but fortunately they had good stuff so it wasn't a complete loss.
We then were taken to the actual Dilli Haat, and it was amazing. In retrospect, it worked out that we made it there late. It was closing time, so we missed out on a lot of the crowds and were able to catch some end of day about to close deals...
Our driver then took us to a few other temples, and shopping areas then took us to get food at Domino's pizza... Yes, that Domino's only the menu is extremely different.... Like imagine curry on a pizza, and no beef in sight kind of different... But we figured this option was better than us getting sick..
We made it back to our hotel and slept as if our lives depended on it, then were up to catch our early morning flight back to Dubai.
An action packed 24 hours in India, but enough lessons, beautiful sights and memories to last a life time.
I went to India, yall. Never in my wildest dreams would I have even remotely thought I would see the Taj Mahal in my life time.
We went through a lot to get there, but it was oh so worth it.
I could insert a million metaphors, and anecdotes on life here and they would all be true.
Sometimes it's not about plans going accordingly. Maybe the rough journey can make you appreciate your final destination even more. Maybe the moments where plans work, are the very ones that get taken for granted. Yes there were moments where I did not think we would ever make it. There were times in that hot car that all I could do was exhale to keep from losing it, but we made it. We came, we saw, and we conquered.
Taj Mahal, Agra, New Delhi. Check.
