India Study Abroad Journal Entry #3

Day 3: Delhi: A view from a window

Delhi was a whirlwind tour thanks to our lost day. We left Agra early in the AM for the long ride back to Delhi. It’s about 200km to Delhi (about 120 miles), and it just blows me away that it takes 5 hours to get between the two cities. It made me incredibly grateful for the Interstate system in the US. We hit Delhi, and for the first time we got a good look at Delhi. The whole city was under construction! Come to find out that the Commonwealth games are being held in India this fall, and apparently the Indian government has just realized (in JULY) that they need to get ready for it! Needless to say, the traffic was a disaster (as if it needed assistance in getting to be crazy?).

It took us at least an hour to navigate to the restaurant (Indian Chinese) we were going to for lunch once we hit Delhi. Our tour guide for Delhi met up with us at the restaurant and then joined us on the bus. It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get an opportunity to get out of the bus and explore Delhi, but at this point most of us had reached such a level of exhaustion that I don’t know if we actually would have been coherent enough to have been able to navigate through the crowds.

Oh lord, were there crowds! No matter which window you looked out there were people EVERYWHERE! Okay, obviously there are a lot of people in India, but seeing a number on paper and seeing the PEOPLE – it was unbelievable. There were people sleeping on sidewalks, on benches, on walls, under overpasses. There were people selling things at car windows, from stands, and from stores. There were ten people crammed into a 4 passenger car (that was to be my next lesson too; personal space – India style).

We drove by government buildings and historic buildings (none of which I can really remember beyond the Red Fort because it all went by so fast and my sleep deprived brain was not firing on all cylinders). Finally, we stopped at the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. This was the only place we got out of to explore, but stepping out of the bus reminded us of why we were so happy ON the bus! It was hot…still.

We all tried to dress relatively modestly because we knew we were visiting an active mosque. We all wore pants that covered our ankles and no one had anything low cut on for a top (though I really had no choice as to my attire as I only had 2 outfits because of the lack of luggage!). However, despite our best efforts we were still required to put on this nasty…kimono looking…robe…thing. Most of us tried to put out of our minds how many people had had their sweaty selves in it prior to us – and none of us wanted to ask when the last time it was washed was.

I thought the Jama Masjid was very cool. I got more of the awe factor with the Jama than I did the Taj. Maybe the Taj was just overwhelmed by how hot and humid it was – that the “awe factor” never quite had a chance to sink in. It was still very hot in Delhi, but it was nowhere near the smothering humidity that it had been when we visited the Taj. There were a bunch of people there, kids were playing in the fountain and agitating the birds that kept gathering inside, which made for some fun shots. I got really caught up in photography that I turned around to realize that everyone else had high-tailed it for the bus and a relief from the heat. I easily could have spent another hour there.

We drove through the markets, and I was so thankful that we weren’t going to try to navigate the sea of….heads….that I witnessed.

There was also something interesting that I noticed happening more frequently. We saw it a bit in Agra, but in Delhi it was definitely more prominent. We attracted stares everywhere we went. People waved to our bus from the side of the road, men blew kisses, children ran alongside our bus waving…it almost as if we were a group of celebrities and the entire country wanted us to wave back at them. It was sort of cute at first, and we waved back – and I definitely enjoyed having people WANTING me to take their picture (by the end of the trip there was a point where I wished I wasn’t white just for a moment so I could…blend...).

After the quick tour – which really felt like a “blink and you’ll miss it” experience, we got to go to another captured-audience sales pitch, where I left with a carpet (to put my nightstand on?). Then, FINALLY, we headed back to the hotel for a night’s sleep. My LUGGAGE AWAITED ME! As was the other 3 people who were sans-bags. We all said goodbye to Anurag who had been with us all weekend. He was a wonderful guide throughout the first few days and we were all very sad to say goodbye to him (some were even plotting kidnap and taking him to Hyderabad with us!). The next morning…another plane was awaiting us.

Oh. Yippie.

Photos (in random order because I have no clue what blogger is doing to me right now!)

India Trip - Video

I just bought ProShow Gold finally. A number of people at the Columbia Camera Club have it and enjoy it. I have to say I am pretty impressed with it. This is my first attempt at making a ProShow slideshow, so I know there are a few things I could have done differently. But here is my slideshow of photos of my trip to India.

View it larger HERE

India Study Abroad Journal Entry #2

Day 2: Agra

We got a wakeup call at Oh-God-Thirty in the morning to get ready to go down to breakfast. My roommate, Jennifer, and I headed downstairs about 6:30 and met up with Dr. Ratan. The breakfast was very Westernized but there was a southern Indian dish that was absolutely wonderful. It was so hard to not eat the fruit because it was so colorful and looked so good!

We loaded onto the bus to get our first introduction to Indian traffic. I don’t even know why they bother painting lines on the road, everyone kind of does what they want to anyway. There are no stop lights or signs, no

yield signs, and from what I apparently observed – no drivers licenses. It is so amazing how many people can balance on the back of a scooter or cram into one of the little 3 wheeled taxis.

Small cars are weaving in and out of traffic, people will just start walking across the street, with no care about oncoming traffic at all and animals will lie in the road and everyone will just go around them. I can’t imagine brakes last very long as you can never maintain a constant speed. What I was surprised about though, was that the roads seemed relatively well maintained (later to learn that this is in fact an anomaly).

I was totally transfixed on looking out the window. It was amazing to me how people were getting on at the sides of the highways. Women were carrying huge loads on their heads, men were using hand tools to till up the earth, children were playing at the side of the road (though we didn’t see many of them as school was still in session). Coca-Cola and Pepsi sure have advertising down to an art form in India. You can’t go a kilometer without seeing a Coke/Pepsi stand that is completely decked out in red/blue and slogans. The chairs and tables matched the color, the walls were completely covered – top to bottom, side to side – with slogans as well

(though Coke goes more over the top with it than Pepsi) I don’t

know if I can complain about billboards in America any more after seeing this. The other thing I noticed was the schools (colleges/universities) for things ranging from management to dentistry to engineering. The buildings were generally run down and letters were often missing from the signs, it would be condemned and yet there would be people wandering around outside them. I felt rather safe in our little bubble. We’d stop for traffic in towns and locals would hold things up to the bus windows asking for money and it made me grateful for the doors.

We arrived in Agra and checked in at the hotel and received an Indian greeting (placing a Bindi on our forehead) and had about an hour to relax before heading out to the Taj Mahal. Anurag introduced us to the guide for the Taj.

Arriving at the Taj we got our first introduction to the beggars on the street. It seemed as if we had barely put our feet down on terra-firma when we were swarmed by all the people we’d been watching out the bus window on the drive to Agra. They were shoving post cards, keychains, magnets, and other items that I generally refer as dust-collectors (in retrospect I should bought something of this nature as they turned out to be harder to come by in traditional stores that I would have thought, though I don’t think that was a particularly appropriate moment to do that). Our guide picked up our Taj survival kits (a bottle of water and booties) and we went inside.

I have to say, after years of marveling over photos of the Taj and the general build up to seeing the Taj – you forget to put into perspective that it is in fact – a tomb, a very large, elegant tomb, but a tomb none the less. It had rained for a minute earlier in the day and so now all of the marble was wet. And it was hot, so very hot. So, all that water was evaporating and it felt like a giant steam bath. This is not to say that the Taj wasn’t breathtaking. It was, and I can distinctly remember how amazing it looked as it peaked through the walkway when we approached. I really thought for a moment I was walking into a postcard. Our guide talked to us about the architecture and the history of the Taj (which is a beautiful love story if you discount the other wives that the Shah also had…she was his favorite). For all it is, it still is probably the most recognizable symbol of India (I couldn’t very well go to India and not go to Taj Mahal). I was a little disappointed to find out that we would not be coming back in the evening – I very much wanted to see it at night – but apparently it is not lit up at night?

Thanks to jet lag (something I’ve never experienced with domestic travels) the first few days were a bit of a blur. I remember being very tired and very hot. It almost makes me wish that we’d done the Taj at the end of the trip. We went inside the Taj – and oh good lord, if we thought it was hot and humid outside, it was nothing compared to the interior! Put a couple hundred sweaty, hot people, into a room with no air circulation to speak of, in a building made of marble – and you’ve got yourself a recipe for heat stroke. The tour guide insisted on talking – a lot – while we stood there melting. The Taj is wonderfully romantic from the outside – on the inside I was not quite as convinced that he loved her so much as he wanted her to burn in a fiery inferno.

This is where I first began to see signs of the luxuries I’d taken for granted in my years of traveling solo. Since I turned 18, I have been jet-setting around the US on my own, going at my own pace, doing what I want – and generally when I wanted. So, when my camera was demanding more photos of Times Square one evening – I ended up staying out there, because I could. It’s been so long since I’ve traveled with anyone else that I think I might have forgotten what it was like. Despite the fact that I was relatively certain that I was melting in the Indian heat, I really felt like I could have stayed there for a few more – millennia. There is so much photographic potential to the Taj (duh) and I know that I didn’t get near the opportunity to flesh it out as I really wanted to. But, as everyone else in the group wanted to go…it was time to (though my last shot of the Taj peeking around the building as we were leaving was my attempt to portray this feeling of being dragged away from something akin to a photographer’s Mecca).

The tour guide started explaining to us how the stones were inlayed into the marble, talked about the special properties of the marble, and then he took us to a building – that had air conditioning, water and – ended up being a death trap for Visa (and MasterCard).

We got a demonstration of marble work, and then a nice sales pitch, followed by a guy laying

on the pressure to buy something. I folded like a cheap suit. I wish I’d seen it as a sign of my upcoming spiral into a complete lack of monetary restraint that I was going to develop on this trip. Miriam had a theory – as I was the only first time International traveler in the group – that she later shared with me. Because everything was so new – things to purchase – I felt the need to buy everything, where as other people who had experienced something similar before – didn’t feel that need. I don’t know if that’s true of if I was just recklessly irresponsible with my money, but it makes me feel better so I’m going to go with

that. So, sometime in September, a marble nightstand should be arriving for me. My friend Jennifer gave me a dope slap when I told her this, I suppose I need it (fat lot of good it did me post-purchase though – where was my keeper when I was sitting there getting sweet talked into this purchase!) This was not the last of our high pressure – captured audience – sales pitches we would see either (and I would fold for every.single.one).

That evening we had dinner on the rooftop of our hotel and I escaped to do some night photography. At one point I hit the button to take a shot, and there was a loud bang, and the power grid went completely out.

Welcome to India.

India Study Abroad Journal Entry #1

As I had to do a journal for my class, I figured I would post it here, along with pictures, so family/friends could read it...or it could float aimlessly in cyberspace...whatever. First entry is wordy as there were few photos I took during the whole - traveling to India...experience.

India Study Abroad Trip Journal

Day 1+: Travel

I came to discover that I was the only one on this trip that has not traveled outside the United States (my brief trip to Canada does not count as I was only there for a convention and it was an awful experience that I’d almost rather forget). I can’t say I was really all that scared. I thought I would be. I was a little bit apprehensive, but I also know that I tend to be rather flexible when I travel and that I was with a lot of well traveled people – including our professor who is from the country – so I didn’t really have a reason to be scared about the trip. What I really was feeling was that everything was sort of surreal. I don’t know if I actually really believed I was going to be going to India. I worked so hard to save the money for the trip – and it just kept feeling like it would never get here. So, riding on the bus I kept having to tell myself that I was actually going to go to India.

Of course, that was before we arrived at the airport and found out our flight was cancelled. It was almost as if the Gods were just messing around with my head. Perhaps I had imagined the whole thing and wasn’t actually supposed to be going to India. It sure felt like I’d spent a fortune on this trip, and saved spending money (or rather cleared room on my visa), but maybe I’d been mistaken?

Anyway, Dr. Ratan had British Airways arrange a hotel for us to stay in for the night as there were no more flights out the rest of the day. The travel agency rebooked us for the next afternoon. The poor counter agent who was helping us with the hotel said it was his third day on the job (poor guy!). We headed over to the Westin near the airport and went downstairs for dinner and drinks. The airline had given us vouchers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Of course it would have been nice if the amount was enough to COVER dinner! The voucher was $19 the cheapest dish was $20. So, even with the voucher dinner cost me $16.00. Breakfast cost me $3 and luckily I was able to get a lunch that the voucher covered. How cheap.

For the price that the Westin charges people to stay there the service was awful. Dinner took 3 hours, not because we’re talking a lot (which we were) but because we had a very absent waitress. Our checks sat on the table for about 20 minutes, and then she ran off with our credit cards and didn’t come back for about 30 minutes. When she brought the cards back we noticed she hadn’t applied the voucher, so I had to run upstairs and grab my roommate’s card so she could fix her charge as well.

Jennifer and I went downstairs for breakfast and got very similar service. I’m convinced that the only reason I was able to order breakfast was because I shouted it at her before she could walk away. We went down about 9 and back up to our room about 11, we eventually had to walk up to the hostess and hand our check and credit cards because we HAD to get back upstairs. Lunch was a similar situation. It was crazy. I will never stay/eat there again.

We headed to the airport for a Delta flight to Newark (where we’d transfer to London, then Delhi). Dr. Ratan said she’d been told that because we were going internationally we wouldn’t have to pay the baggage fee. She went up to the counter to get that taken care of and mine was the first bag we checked in. The Delta lady just kept interrupting Dr. Ratan as she tried to explain what’s going on. Then she asked ‘what flight are you connecting to’? so Dr. Ratan told her the flight number that we were getting on in London. At no point did she ever ask what our FINAL destination was, or clarify that it was our last destination. We were under the assumption that our bags were getting tagged to Newark and we’d pick them up and recheck them. She never explained that she was tagging it to LONDON. We just thought she needed to know our connecting flight for the computer to remove the luggage fee. It wasn’t until my bag had gone on the conveyor belt and I looked at the bag claim check and noticed it was tagged for London.

The lady was SO RUDE then when we brought it up to her. She told Dr. Ratan “I’m not psychic” (really she said that!) “You need to TELL ME these things! I don’t know your itinerary”. I’m surprised Dr. Ratan kept calm. She looked at me and said “There’s nothing I can do. You’ll have to get your bag in London.” (side note we had an HOUR layover in London…yea right!). I couldn’t believe just how hostile she was, when it was HER that screwed up! How can we be expected to know the protocol? It was her job to verify with us, to LISTEN to Dr. Ratan when she was trying to explain that we were going on to Delhi. Luckily I looked at my bag claim checked or everyone else would have been in the same situation. We found a supervisor and she claimed she fixed it. Then we headed through security.

The flight was horrid as well. We were in the back of the plane and it was ridiculously loud. I had brought ear plugs luckily so I was able to use that, but even with the ear plugs I could still hear the noise. I don’t know how everyone else’s ears weren’t completely damaged. Delta is completely irresponsible for not providing ear plugs for those in the back or something. There is no reason that we should have had to be subjected to that amount of noise! I’ve sat on engines before and never had it THAT loud! The flight was also ridiculously cold. I ended up with my sweater on and was still shivering.

Arriving in Newark we were more than ready to get off the plane. We made our way down to check in at British Airways and I went ahead and double checked on my bag, only to find out that there were NO NOTES on my bag claim number indicating that it was fixed! He told me that when they received luggage from Delta that they’d pull my bag aside and retag the bag to Delhi and then call me at the gate to give me the new receipt. IF they received it from Delta of course. I waited until the final boarding call to load the plane. The guy who checked me in came up and told me that they had NOT received ANY luggage from Delta. So I boarded and informed the group that as of right now, no one had luggage, but that of course it could change before the flight left. At that point there was nothing left to do. I was very grateful that I had moved a change of clothes into my camera bag so I at least I had one extra set of clothes to wear (we had anticipated some of us being without luggage because of the fast change over in London).

We arrived in London and got in line for security in Heathrow (didn’t realize we’d have to go back through security!). Our flight was at 10:10, last call was at 9:50, we were still in security at 9:30! If you think American TSA is slow – try London and they don’t even make you take your shoes off! Dr. Ratan pulled aside an agent and showed our boarding pass to her and pleaded with her. She took pity and jumped us to the front – and we were apologizing to everyone as we were flying through the security check. We get out and come to realize we had to take a TRAIN to B terminal and it said that “estimated time: 15 minutes”. When I say we RAN across Heathrow – I mean it literally. All 10 of us, carrying our luggage (and my camera bag weighs a good 30 pounds!), were running all across Heathrow. I was blown away by the size of the airport standing in line for security. RUNNING through it affirmed to me how BIG of an airport it is. We came running up to the gate as they announced last call and the first people to get there were telling them that there were 10 of us. Dr. Ratan did a head count on the plane! We were all sweating and panting and begging for water.

We’d gotten upgraded (probably because all 10 of us would not have fit into the STUFFED coach section) to World class+ (its like 2^nd class) so the seats were much bigger on the flight to Delhi which was so nice. But the flight to India was brutal. It was so long and at that point we were all exhausted from all the problems that had arisen in the journey. Most of us passed out on the flight.

We arrived in India about 11:00 at night (local time) which was about 1:30 back home so we were all very awake. We went through customs. I was standing in line and realized I needed to go to the toilet. So I ran over to the bathroom and got into the stall and looked down to find a porcelain hole in the ground. I was really shocked. I had sort of expected to encounter this

situation, but it was still completely different being faced with it. I started laughing and looked to see that at least they were providing toilet paper. So I took position and wondered if there was some sort of picture guide as to how to hold yourself over this…hole? I’d never been camping before so I wasn’t exactly sure on how to stand so that I could avoid getting what I was wearing wet. At least men get to AIM! After a bit of a struggle I was able to figure something out and went and scrubbed my hands!

We got through customs really easily. I was surprised how easy Indian customs were. They asked me “What are you doing?” and “When are you leaving” glanced at my landing card and then stamped my passport. I was so excited when he stamped my passport. I had never really used my passport since I got it when I was sixteen. Hopefully, it will be the first of many stamps in my passport!

We met up with Dr. Ratan at baggage claim to find out that she’d been told that some of our luggage had actually made the trip! Obviously, mine was the exception because of Delta’s screw up. Only 3 bags (other than mine) did not make it with us! I was blown away that ANYONE’s bags made it – especially with that quick change in London! Despite my initial bad feelings about B.A they really saved themselves. The service was wonderful on the flight, and I was so impressed that they were able to get ANYONE’s bags to them. The ones who were without bags were told it would be on the 1^st flight arriving in the morning and delivered to our hotel. It took us about 2 hours to actually get out of the airport because of the mix up with the bags and then a couple of us bought Indian SIM cards. We met up with the representative of the travel company, Anurag, and he took us to the hotel where I finally went to bed about 3/330 in the morning.

Our arrival in Delhi, exhausted from the long...adventurous flight.