With our daughter leaving for university next year, we decided to take our most recent trip to a place that she has been interested in traveling to for quite some time- India.
Day 1
After an overnight flight with an arrival at four in the morning, we napped at our hotel for several hours before heading out. Our first stop was the restaurant at our hotel where we ordered the vegetarian biryani, Dal Makhani and butter paneer with some garlic naan. And, of course, we couldn’t pass up the Gulab Jamun for dessert!
Our driver picked us up and took us to Qutub Minar and the remains of Old Delhi City where we saw some interesting structures.
The strangest moment of the afternoon was when several people asked us if they could take pictures with us and pointed us out to their kids. Apparently, many Indians take pride in having met Caucasian people.
After Qutub Minar, we went to Chhatarpur Mandir temple. We had to take our shoes off a distance from the temple and walk around the whole complex, which was large, barefoot. We also had to walk down a street barefoot to another part of the complex. Inside the complex, we found many decorated deity statues everywhere, flowers and food, and tons of people. It was quite busy! We went into one room with two deity shrines and a man said a prayer and put a bindi, the colored dot, on our foreheads.
After visiting this temple, we went to the Lotus Temple and walked around the garden area surrounding it.
Our driver took us to a shopping center where the rugmakers showed us a demonstration of how they make knotted rugs. They were a bit pushy about wanting us to buy something, but the demonstration was enough for us.
After returning to our hotel, we wandered around the adjoining mall complex which was huge. It even had an outdoor market and festival area which was fun. We went to a restaurant in the mall where we had Chai Masala tea, lassi, Sev Makhana and Nadru chaat, Aloo tikki chaat, onion and potato stuffed Kulcha, Makki di roti with Sarson ka Saag and vegetarian kofta. Some more Gulab Jamun and Kulfi for dessert was a good end to the day.
Day 2
Our day started with an Indian breakfast buffet in the hotel.
After eating a ton, our first stop of the day was Humayun’s Tomb. We walked into the tomb building, which was a precursor to the Taj Mahal, and several other buildings in the complex.
Then we went to the India Gate where more people wanted to take pictures with us. There was also a guy there selling ear cleanings. He had Q-Tips and a cloth-so weird! Along the drive through the city, we also saw men getting shaves and haircuts in barber chairs on the side of the road.
After this stop, we went to Shri Laxmi Narayan Temple where we were barefoot again. The temple was pretty quiet, and we were able to walk around looking at various deity statues. The kids pointed out how strange it was to see swastikas on many walls. They were actually a religious symbol that was taken by Hitler and used in his purposes.
We had lunch at a really nice restaurant where we had Dahi kebab, Tandoori Aloo and Mushroom Galoueti kebab as well as Shahi paneer and Gulab Jamun. It was all really good!
After lunch, we went to Gurudwara Sri Bangla Sahib which is a Sikh temple that is the nucleus of Sikhism. We were barefoot again, but this time we had to walk through a foot bath. We sat and listened to a sung prayer and some instrumental music in a lavish room with a large chandelier called Darbar Hall where the guru is. As we left that area, we walked by a booth where they were giving out a mushy, oily food to eat. They just put it in your hands with theirs. Then our driver, who went in with us, took us back into the kitchens where the temple serves food to those who need/want it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as part of their religious practices. While we walked through, they were making naan and curry. We talked briefly with a representative of the religion.
For dinner, we had Palak Patta ki chaat (fried spinach leaves), paneer tikka Lababdar and Tiffin paneer with paratha. It was good. For dessert we decided to try paan which was a spice mixture stuffed into some leaves. It was certainly an interesting flavor experience.
Day 3
Our day began with another buffet breakfast before we headed to Old Delhi where we took a bicycle rickshaw around the area. It was definitely dirtier, messier and more chaotic than what we had seen so far. Our rickshaw driver pointed out several sites along the way such as a Ghandi monument and a temple before stopping at the spice area. Before going into the spice building, we saw some monkeys walking along the building facade.
We walked up the stairs of the spice building and immediately began coughing and choking form the chili powder floating in the air. Upstairs, there were many stalls and people moving around spices. Interestingly, there was also a bunch of men showering out in the open (with underwear) and men lying on beds in the stalls along the walls. There were also more monkeys. As we were walking around, we were thinking about how easily Covid had probably spread in that environment. We went down to the street and into a spice and tea shop, a jewelry shop and a pashmina shop.
We stopped down a small street to look at some colorful doorways where a noble family had lived.
Next, we went to Jama Masjid, a large mosque. There were so many people there asking us to take pictures with them.
After some crazy traffic of cars and rickshaws everywhere, we made our way to the Red Fort where we were asked for more pictures, and when we started taking one, two more families joined the group. One woman even gave her baby to our daughter to hold in the photo.
We were driven to Rajghat, a garden where Ghandi was cremated, but it was closed for a VIP so we couldn’t go in. Then, it was off to lunch where we had pea Palou rice, kofta and Pinda Channa with butter naan and a chicken curry. We couldn’t resist some more Gulab Jamun and Kulfi for dessert. They also gave us some paan before leaving.
Our last stop of the day was Akshardham Temple which was huge. It was a really pretty building that was surrounded by a whole complex. Inside the temple there were many marble carvings and around the whole perimeter there was an elephant plinth which was really pretty. Unfortunately, cameras and phones were not allowed in the complex at all.
We decided to have dinner at the hotel buffet. We had lots of paneer and an interesting sugary dessert called Angoori Petha.
We had a nice day, but a couple of not so nice things did stand out- we saw toddlers being taught how to beg for money by some men at the mosque; we saw a small baby climbing a fence; we saw an eight- to nine-month-old baby sitting on the side of the road without any pants and all muddy. There are definitely people living in India in very low economic situations.
Day 4
Today for breakfast we tried Chole Bature, idly, poori, a breakfast sandwich and kulcha. We sat is a huge traffic jam on our way to Lodhi Garden. Everyone was knotted up in the jam, and our driver actually hit another car.
At the garden, we enjoyed walking around and seeing several old tombs, lots of plants and several animals. We really enjoyed the Indian palm squirrels which we had seen at many places, the kites (birds) which fly around everywhere there, and the Indian small mongoose.
After the garden, we went to Purana Quila which are the remains of a fort type complex with several buildings belonging to Humayun including a mosque where he fell down the stairs and later died.
We went to lunch at a place that looked a bit questionable, but our driver assured us was fine. The food was good. We had mushroom masala, kofta, korma and yellow dal with vegetable Palou rice and butter naan.
After lunch, our driver dropped us at a very busy street with the words-just watch out and be careful- in order for us to go to the mosque Dargah Nizamuddin Aulia. The street was small and chaotic, and lots of people were yelling things at us, mostly trying to get us to pay them to watch our shoes (you have to take your shoes off to enter the mosque). We walked through the maze of entry halls and into the main courtyard of the mosque which was also packed and chaotic. It was just too much, so we came back out and were promptly accosted by beggars. Overall, it was not a very pleasant experience.
After this, we decided to just go back to the hotel and walk around the mall a bit. We went to the happy hour at the hotel where we had a few drinks including a very strange masala lemonade. After this, it was time for dinner. We tried several types of chaat and some kulcha along with some Indian drinks- lassi, Ganne ka Ras (sugarcane, ginger, mint and black salt) and Masala Kokum (chaat masala and mint). They were pretty good.
Day 5
Today we were picked up early to make the three-hour drive to Agra. There wasn’t a lot to see along the way- mustard green farming, huge (and I mean huge) apartment complexes outside of Delhi, and some monkeys on top of the toll booth.
In Agra, we found tiny, dirty looking streets and the chaos of people and vehicles everywhere. But we made our way to the main attraction- the Taj Mahal. It was really beautiful, but not exactly what we had expected. First, it was inside large gates in the midst of the city. Second, on one side was a mosque and, on the other side, a fake mosque to maintain symmetry. Our guide insisted on taking all kinds of crazy photos of us which we refer to as our Indian photo shoot as taking these elaborate, staged photos seems to be a pastime of many Indian people.
Once we went inside, we were able to see the really cool stones inlaid in the marble carving on all the walls. The building and all angles and placement have perfect symmetry which was pretty impressive for its time.
After the Taj Mahal, we took a rickshaw to Agra Fort (I swear we almost died with all the other rickshaws and cars speeding around us as well as the kids trying to run alongside the rickshaw to ask us to buy things). The fort was cool with its red sandstone buildings and white palace inside. We saw the areas where visitors were received, where visitors were entertained, the queen’s bedroom, the king’s room and the pavilions for the daughters which had great views of the Taj Mahal. We also saw the area where the king was placed on house arrest by his son.
Our final stop of the day was Baby Taj which was built before the Taj Mahal. It had some cool artwork and ceiling designs. And the fun part was that there were monkeys everywhere running around, hanging from trees, jumping on bushes and playing. While we were taking some photos, we could feel them running behind us.
We had lunch at a hotel buffet. The food was alright, and they had some decent desserts like Churma and Rasgulla.
After a three-and-a-half-hour drive back, we got some dinner of chaat, tikka paneer, paneer Makhani, dhal Makhani and Laccha paratha. For dessert we tried the Rasmali.
Day 6
Our final day in India was a long drive to Jaipur (a little over four hours). We first stopped at a stepwell and then went to Amer Fort where the Maharaja resided. We saw the reception and proclamation area where the Maharaja made decisions. We also saw the inner courtyard and an area with many tiny mirrors that they used as a heating system as well as other areas in the complex including the apartments for the many wives.
After the fort, we stopped for a photo at the Water Palace, the Maharaja’s summer home.
We had a lunch which sadly wasn’t very good and then onto the City Palace where we saw Jantar Mantar, the astronomical observatory.
We walked around the City Palace looking at some of the buildings and a museum with clothing from the Maharaja. We saw the reception area and the entertainment courtyard which had different doors for each season (for example, the peacock door is for autumn and the lotus is for summer).
Our final stop was a quick one outside of the Wind Palace which was a pretty cool looking building.
We had a very long drive home with a lot of traffic in Delhi meaning we sat in the city for about two hours. We grabbed a quick dinner at the hotel buffet and headed to bed as our flight was very early.
Day 7
Today we were heading home, or so we thought. Due to a very late departure from India, we missed our connecting flight in Istanbul by about 20 minutes. We spent quite a while in various lines at the airport where no one really seemed to care about the large number of people needing assistance. When we finally got things sorted, we had a one-hour drive from the airport to our hotel. There wasn’t much to see for a long time, but as we approached the city, we could see a lot of buildings on water.
We checked into the hotel and had a snack of a local beer and local cheese before deciding to make the most of our misfortune and heading out with a driver that the hotel had arranged in order to see some of the city. While the driver spoke basically no English, we were assured that he understood where he was taking us, and it would be no problem. The drive into the city took another hour, but we enjoyed looking at all the buildings and the parks along the water. We could also see the old city wall that was built by Constantinople.
This is where things started to get weird. The driver took us to a shop where they said that they would send a teenage boy with us to the monuments, and then we would come back and see the rugs that they make. We told them that we didn’t want to shop, and that we did not request a guide, but they assured us it was just part of the deal with the driver. The boy did take us to Hagia Sophia which is a mosque built in 500 by Constantinople. It was really pretty inside with old mosaics and ceiling decorations.
Our next stop was the Blue Mosque which was also very pretty with its pastel-colored inside. It was built in the 1600s. The area around it on the outside was nice too with a park type feel.
We walked back to the store where, true to their word, they wanted to show us rugs. The carpets were pretty, but we told them we weren’t buying. They gave us some different flavored teas (mango, apple, pomegranate and berry) as well as some really good Turkish delight.
Then, the driver took us to see Grana tower and bridge and had us go down to the waterfront area. There were some really nice views and an amazing moon. The Blue Mosque all lit up was quite beautiful. Our driver suggested we eat at a restaurant there, which I believe was just a scam. The food was ridiculously expensive and not very good. We basically ate vegetables, hummus and some bulgar and feta salad. We also had some baklava and a really awful kunefe for dessert.
We informed our driver that we wanted to go back to the hotel, but he started taking us the wrong direction. He asked if we wanted to go somewhere else and when we said no, he wouldn’t listen. We eventually had to contact the hotel and ask them to call him. At first, they told us it was fine, and we could just go where he was taking us, but we insisted we wanted to come back, and finally it was sorted, and we turned around- a bit unnerving and frustrating.
Ahead of us was a very short night of sleep before trying again to get home, and our impression of Istanbul was not so great, so we were just ready to get going. While we decided that we probably wouldn’t come back to Turkey any time soon, we did enjoy the trip and getting to experience something very different. More parts of the world seen; more memories made – it was a good time!
My So Called Dutch Life 
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