India- New Delhi & Goa

INDIA- A COUNTRY LIKE NO OTHER 

INDIA. All you have read about it is true- yes, it’s dirty, yes, people are poor, yes, most of the households do not have running water. But still – this is one of the richest countries in terms of culture and heritage. And of course one of the richest in things you can see there.

Lili’s 5 good-to-know tips when travelling to India:

This time I have more than 5 tips (I told you India is different):

• Do not trust anyone. Check the info on the Internet and do not listen to anyone. Even police officers or fake employees will try to cheat you.
• Take some food with you. Unless you are staying in a resort, it is quite difficult to find where to buy food. There is plenty of food on the streets, but I cannot guarantee its quality is good.
• Avoid eating “fresh” food- i.e. salads, even fruits can cause stomach disorder.
• India is quite safe place for tourists. Do not be afraid to walk around (of course try to stick to central areas).
• Uber is a better option for transportation in comparison to local tuk-tuks. It is faster, there is air-conditioning in most of the cars and it is not so dirty. Of course plan some time in advance as nothing is very reliable in India.
• Plan more time for everything- they are in general slow and it might take more time than usual to do whatever you can think of.
• Locals really like taking selfies. And especially with foreigners. If you happen to have blond hair, you will feel like a celebrity.
• Every subway station in India’s capital New Delhi has security gates- yes, like the ones you see at the airport. In rush hours it really takes a lot of time to enter.
• Travelling by train can be very nice experience. It is not only the one you have seen in movies with hundreds of people hanging from the wagons. In order to be on the safe side, just book the highest possible class.
• Check the weather before planning your vacation. Goa (the beach location) is definitely not the best choice in the period April- October. The hotels are simply closed and you will be the only visitor.

Actually I do not know where to start the story from. Maybe let’s fix the right expectations – we were not looking for some extreme experience in India. This country popped-up on the list as I was looking for a summer vacation place.  It is not an easy task to find an exotic destination for a summer holiday (especially if you want to spend only 10 days for it). In the southern hemisphere it is winter, there are hurricanes in the Caribbean and most of the destinations are too far to fly to just for 10 days.

While looking at the countries on the map and trying to find where to fly to (literally), I spotted India. It has never been on my travel list, but I remembered that a colleague of mine went for a beach vacation there and she had quite positive feedback. I checked the flights and as it is relatively close to Europe (the direct flight from Vienna to New Delhi takes just 6.5 hours), they were not that expensive. In that very moment it was decided – we go to India for our beach summer holiday. Of course going to India and not seeing Taj Mahal is like going to Rome without seeing the Pope. So we decided that we will do a quick travel around the county the first 4 days and then we will relax on the beach. Said- done.

Our final destination was Goa and in the meantime we visited Agra (because of Taj Mahal) and Jaipur. If you plan exploring, there are many more things you can see and do there. We will dedicate this part to our overall impression from India and we will describe New Delhi and Goa in detail. Agra and Jaipur will follow in a different article.

Transportation

We tried almost all means of transportation in India- flights, train, car, tuk-tuk, Uber. It is all safe, most is comfortable and cheap.

• Taxi. Starting from our landing at New Delhi airport. We had  arranged a taxi from the hotel and this is the wisest thing you can do. The transfers are quite cheap and it is important that the hotel transfer knows where to drive you to.

• Train

When saying a “train in India”, everyone think about the scenes we have all seen in “the Slumdog millionaire” movie. Yes, majority of trains are like these. However there are others, for tourists like us. We were quite skeptical when buying the tickets online prior to our trip, but in the end it turned out to be one of the best train rides we had ever had. We took the highest possible class (it costed 20 Eur from New Delhi to Agra where Taj Mahal is).

It was much faster than the car (2 vs 4 hours), there were phone chargers in the train and they served us food 5 times (I’m not exaggerating). I think I have never eaten that much (I don’t know why I felt obliged to eat everything). And on top, it was very delicious. It was a 5-star ride!

• Minibus

We hired this transfer at the hotel in Agra to Jaipur which was our next stop. We had only one day in Agra and we did not have much time to go there and bargain for a different transfer. It took us around 4.5 hours to get to Jaipur and the cost for the whole transfer was 70 EUR. The best thing was that we could decide when we leave and as we had also one day in Jaipur, we left at 4:30 in the morning. Later I will tell a story about these early rides.

In Jaipur we wandered a lot in the town and we used both tuk-tuks, but also decided to try Uber. The surprise was that Uber was much cheaper, you do not have to bargain for the price and it is much more comfortable. The tuk-tuk of course is more fun, but maybe from time to time it is better to feel some comfort.

New Delhi

We had two days in New Delhi- just enough to adapt to the surrounding. We landed early in the morning (we took an extremely convenient direct flight from Vienna to New Delhi) and we went straight to the hotel to check in. For the 10 days of our trip we stayed in 4 hotels in total. Maybe with the only exception of one, we were lucky with the rest and quite satisfied (having in mind that we paid 180 Eur in total- yes, I really mean 180, I did not miss one “0” in the end- it was expected that some of the hotels will be a fail).

That is why I will mention just those that I was really satisfied with. The hotel in New Delhi was located intentionally close to the Main Train station from where our train to Agra was departing. The hotel name is The Prime Balaji Delux. The best thing is that it has a rooftop terrace where you can order food and drinks- it is really an oasis in the not-so-pleasant area around the train station.

What to do in New Delhi in two days?

While passing through the town when arriving and seeing the area where the hotel was, we were not very optimistic. Somehow very fast you have to switch to the different reality. The hotel gives certain safety feeling as it is like a small oasis among the tough reality. The positive thing was that it was located near the train station (which was our goal- we had an early train to Agra on the next day).

• Jama Masjid Mosque

Although we read that it is not advisable to walk on foot through the city, we decided to do exactly this. Maybe we should have not – it is very dirty, unpleasant and simply not worth. I would really advise you to take a tuk-tuk from one place to the other. Every palace, sightseeing place we have seen in India is like a small island among the poverty around.

The mosque is extremely well maintained and it has nothing to do with the smell, the cable jungle which is outside its walls. Although we were having our scarves with us in order to cover our shoulders, they insisted that we wear the clothes they provide. No need to say that we did not feel very comfortable about this (I’m sure they are not washing these clothes for each visitor; and if even if they wash them, I do not want to think about the water and where they are drying them), but we at least chose the most stylish ones :).

Another thing to have in mind is to take a small bag for your shoes, unless you want to leave them and maybe not find them later (yes, it is not rare that someone steals the shoes of the visitors). It was a bit uncomfortable to walk barefoot (thinking about all the dirt), but we had to quickly adapt to it. The mosque is really beautiful. You can spend there some time and admire the calmness away from the city hubbub.

• The Red Fort

The entrance fee is not expensive- something like 3-5 Eur.

This was really an amazing place to visit. Not very crowded, just the local visitors are very curious and they want to take photos with you. The place was a the main residence for some of the Indian Emperors up until the 18th century and nowadays it hosts a couple of museums.

Most are really humble, but those that are brave enough give others power and you might end up staying for 10 mins while strangers are queuing to take pics with you.

The complex is quite big, so you might spend some time there. One of its buildings has the name little Taj Mahal as it resembles the architecture of the original.

• The India Gate

It was originally called the India War Memorial and it is a war memorial of all British-Indian soldiers who died in the period of WWI (between 1914-1921).

It reminds a bit of Arc de Triumph in France and most probably its design was inspired by it. On the opposite side of the Gate is the Rashtrapati Bhavan Presidential Residence which was previously called  “Viceroy’s House”. It is the official home of the president located at the Western end of Rajpath district. We didn’t visit it due to time limitations, but the remarkable 340-room main building is maybe worth a visit.

• The Lotus Temple

This is (after the Red Fort) my favorite attraction in New Delhi. Located a bit away from the rest of the sightseeing locations (you can get a subway and then walk 10 mins to it), the temple consists of one main building surrounded by nicely maintained gardens. Here like in all other attractions the difference between what is inside and outside is significant.

The walk from the metro station to the temple park guides you through a very dirty and not nice looking area. It is unbelievable what you see afterwards in the park. The Lotus Temple is a Bahá’í House of Worship (for those of you who are not aware like I was not, Bahá’í is a religion which admits the necessity of all religions and the unity and equality of people). Because of this fact and like all Bahá’í Houses of Worship, the Lotus Temple is open to all, regardless of religion or any other qualification.

In general the inside part of the Temple is nothing special, I would say that the marvel walls and its shape are what makes it special for us, the tourists. We visited the temple just before its closing times, so it was very calm and not crowded. Of course you should have in mind that once it gets dark, the area around the temple park is not the most pleasant one to walk.

Hmmm, nothing else I can recommend actually. It really takes a lot of time to get from one place to the other, so this is all we could do in 2 days. Although it is safe to walk on foot through the city, we did it and it was not dangerous. If you want to really feel the atmosphere and how people are living, just leave yourself some time and wander through the streets. You will see many things you have never even thought about.

As we want to dedicate proper space to Agra and Jaipur which were the highlights of this trip, we will create a separate post for them. In order to finish the story, we will say a few words about Goa which was our final stop- the beach destination.

Goa

Goa is India’s resort for foreigners. Just kidding, it is not designed for foreigners only, but it is totally different reality. Nothing similar to what we have seen before that in New Delhi, Jaipur or Agra. We even found some stores. For the previous one week we haven’t seen a single store in the cities we visited. It was much cleaner, there were decent (for Indian standards) restaurants to have a meal at. It simply looked a nice place to have a relaxing holiday.

NB! I have to mention one learning which by the way can be quite useful (just recently a colleague of mine was telling me she is going to Goa in the same period and she had no idea about what I explained to her later- I wish there was someone advising us before we went there). After the poverty experience in the New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, we were ready to go to a nice resort and we were looking forward to it.

We had booked a nice hotel at the beach. Romantic cottages with bed cover, right under the palms on the beach. We had checked all social media channels and the place had amazing pictures and very positive reviews. So, it was promising. We arrived late in the evening as the place is around 1.5 hours away from Goa airport.

The first bad thing was that we had arranged a transfer a lot in advance, clarifying that we are 6 people and we need a bigger van. When we arrived, we just saw a normal car waiting for us. Of course we had to negotiate a different vehicle and in this resort they treat you like a tourist. You pay a lot more than what you get. When we arrived at the hotel, they gave us “better” rooms which were not the cottages, but in the main two-storey building (afterwards we were thankful for this). We had dinner- thankfully they prepared some meal for us. Otherwise we had to walk in the dark (and there seemed to be nothing nearby).

The reality actually hit us in the morning- we thought that we were in a different hotel than the one we booked. There was not a single trace from the beautifully looking photos on IG. There maybe was a swing there, maybe an umbrella, but there was nothing left. It looked as if there was a hurricane and it had destroyed everything. And this was not the situation with our hotel only- basically 80% of the hotels were not in operation.

The monsoon season had just ended and the hotels were getting ready for the high season from Nov to Feb. So theoretically our hotel shouldn’t even work at this time. During the whole 6-days stay it was like a construction site- they were getting ready for the season and restoring what the ocean had taken. The locals said that the ocean destroys the hotels on the beach almost every season and they have to rebuild them again.

The funniest thing was that what we paid for accommodation almost twice more than the prices in high season. As we had plenty of time, we decided to check out of curiosity how much one night during high season costs. This was already too much. We survived the dirty towels, the noise and flying dust from the workers polishing a wooden table a few metres away from us in the restaurant while we were eating. We even had to pay more than the price in high season in Nov-Feb. The cherry of the cake was the fact that the last night a couple from our crew had a mouse in their room.  When I informed the reception the next day, they just told us that they know about the mouse and that it comes from time to time :). Besides just laughing, we couldn’t do anything else.

What we have to admit is that the food and the team in the restaurant were really good. Everything that we ate was not only very cheap, but also extremely delicious. And none of us had any food poisoning during our stay.

So, as a summary we must say that you have to carefully check the weather forecast before planning your trip. Just for the curious ones, our hotel was called Lamore Cottages

Having said the things above, all we could do the rest of our stay was full relaxation. We took long walks at the amazing beach, we were reading books or sunbathing. We were basically alone in almost the whole resort. This is creepy from one side, but on the other gave us possibility to really relax. At night there was low tide and the beach was becoming almost 1 km wide. What we loved about Goa are the sunsets– one of the most amazing ones we have seen in our whole life.

In our first post for Bali we talked about riding elephants and how we would never do it again. One of the ladies within our crew eagerly wanted to go and have the possibility to touch them. This was her dream.

So, we went together. The place was about 1-1.5 hours away from the resort. The elephants in Bali live like kings compared to the conditions we saw in India. Of course we didn’t ride the elephants, but those of us who did it, feel very sorry now. This was actually very sad. But what can we expect in a country where people are living in misery. It cannot be that they treat the animals better…

India is not only its capital. We are sure you are curies to read more about one of the 7 wonders- Taj Mahal. Do not miss the next part of our Indian adventure then. We will also tell what we saw during our early morning rides from one city to the other :).

This is India. It has so many things to offer. The rest of the Indian adventures and two of the most amazing places we have visited, you can read in the second post for India- Agra & Jaipur. More inspirations for long haul trips you can find in the section for long haul trips.