Taj Mahal, Elephant Rides, and Snake Charmers, oh my!

Another couple of the experiences that I found to be really interesting was visiting the Taj Mahal and riding the elephants. At the Taj Mahal, beyond just seeing the incredible beauty of the place and listening to the tour guide give a lot of interesting details (as well as him knowing how to speak Japanese!) interacting with the people around the Taj was a different experience.  First, even getting there we were riding the camel cart and the guy kept trying to stop to have us take pictures.  Danielle Dunne had to literally yell at him to get him to keep the cart moving to where we actually wanted to get off.  Then, after we were done at the Taj and walking around, our group some how or another had fallen behind the other group, and the tour guide was leading us through these back alleys to get us quickly back to where the other group was.  It was really scary to be led down these narrow streets where there were no street lights and all I could think of was the movie Taken, though I haven’t even seen it.  Usually I have a high sense of personal security (perhaps too high and I should be careful more often) but I was getting kind of freaked out and Professor Gupta kept saying it would be okay but I was still pretty scared.  We had to go down this dark staircase and all I could think was “Dear lord, where is this guy taking us?!?” and then I walked down the stairs and we were suddenly out on this busy street and everything was fine.  It was jarring to realize that we really could trust this guy and that he was leading us in the right direction.  In retrospect, it was a good experience to see the narrow streets and kind of realize the lack of infrastructure in that there were no street lights in the narrow, small side streets.  Also, I had no idea that in these old towns and cities there are probably tons of little pathways and staircases like that.  It’s like when we were biking and walking around in Old Delhi, finding all the little pathways to get around.  It was definitely cool to see and I’m kind of glad we went that way now!

Besides that, it was awesome to ride the elephants.  I’m not sure the last time I saw an elephant, if ever, and it was awesome.  They’re such cool creatures and their skin is surprisingly hairy.  And apparently they’re pretty hungry because that elephant was trying to eat everything.

Elephant

Getting on and off the elephant was a process, especially after it had just pooped and my shoe fell off.  It was so interesting to be in a country where you can rent elephants and just go to a park and ride them, or even around the neighborhood where Prof. Gupta’s family’s friend lived.  I can’t imagine you can rent even a commonplace animal like a horse and just ride it around a neighborhood in New York City.

Elephant making it's elephant noise

And not only did we see the one elephant we had rented going down the street from the park to the neighborhood, but there were also two more!  Prof. Gupta said they were probably for a wedding, but again, it’s just a totally different mindset in India where you can be driving down the street and then it’s like, oh hey, watch out for the elephant.  I guess it’s another form of one of those 23 or so types of transportation the presenter from PWC was talking about.

On the Elephant!

Riding the camels was pretty awesome too, though I had done it before.

Another interesting thing was seeing the snake charmer.  Granted, I suppose in the States there are street performers or carnival people or whatever who do stuff like that, but to see an actual snake charmer kind of making the snakes dance or at least sway was so cool.  That’s another thing about India I loved, that there were so many things like camels and elephants and snake charmers that seem so exotic to me coming from America but they’re kind of commonplace there.  It sort of gave the place a kind of magical quality in some ways, perhaps a surreal

Me and the Snakes

effect.

Overall though I was stunned by India.  I think coming from an American perspective where things are at most 400 years old (from the 1600′s), going to a country where culture and buildings and places could be thousands of years old is incredible.  But really, it was the people that we met who were so welcoming and excited to meet us.  I had such a great time there, experiencing so many new and different things, learning so much about the Indian business practices and environment, and getting to meet so many new and interesting people!  Hands down an amazing, incredible trip.

Baha’i Temple and LPU

Before going into the Baha’i temple, I want to say how awesome it was to go to the India Car Expo.  First, I love cars, and it was really interesting to see the different displays of cars and to actually see and sit inside the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car.  It was so cool!

Tata Nanos

So, after the India Car Expo I was exhausted.  We were supposed to go to this temple, and I was kind of dreading it because I wanted to go back to the hotel.  However, once we were there it was breathtaking and completely worth it.  The temple itself was impressive from far away, a giant lotus flower.  The gardens around the temple were also beautiful, nicely landscaped, one could definitely spend an afternoon just wandering around.  However, we all got in line to enter the temple and dropped our shoes off.  We had an introduction from a guide telling us to maintain utter silence, and then we walked in.  The inside was gorgeous.  I’ve never been to any religious place like that before.  I’ve been inside beautiful churches, synagogues and mosques but this place was so…clean looking.  Since my family’s Buddhist, I can go to those other places of worship and appreciate them for their beauty, but I always feel out of place because I don’t ascribe to those faiths.  It only holds an aesthetic appeal, nothing deeper.  Going into this temple though was such a different experience because it was so simple and beautiful.  There was clean marble everywhere and benches made out of marble and wood in an amphitheater style around a small dial that wasn’t raised above the rest of the floor with just a small clear podium and flowers on it.  There were no paintings on the walls that showed images of any deity or any unfamiliar altars or chanting,  it was just simple peaceful.  I wished I could have spent hours there.  It was the one place of worship that I’ve been to where I felt like I could relax and feel at ease instead of feeling like I really wasn’t supposed to be there (even if the church/mosque/temple/whatever was open to visitors).  The particular form of Buddhism my family practices doesn’t have temples (though we do have community centers) so it was an incredible feeling to be in this large gorgeous temple and feel at home.  I also think it’s interesting that the Baha’i people build these temples around the world for anyone to come, it’s not just for them.  As stated on their website,

“Indeed, all Houses of Worship are open to people of every religion. There are no sermons, rituals or clergy.”

Anyways, so on Sunday we left for our epic journey to Lovely Professional University.  I was excited to finally meet my ebuddy, we had talked a lot on Gchat (the chat feature on Gmail) and gotten to know each other a bit.  When we finally arrived late at night, I was excited to see her but also nervous because I knew that I looked awful in my bus attire and was kind of worried that I would pronounce her name wrong (all silly things, of course).  But then we had dinner and talked and the bonfire started and we all were dancing.  Ashmeet, my ebuddy, was showing me how Indians danced and I was trying to keep up but I was so unaccustomed to all the hand movements!  She was so cute though because she kept making sure I had plenty to eat and had everything I needed.  It was my second experience with Indian hospitality and again I was surprised with how attentive Indians are.  The next day we talked and hung out most of the day, and it was funny when we had the tour of the campus because she told me about the “Farewell Point” or something like that, where couples have to say goodbye because it’s near the entrance of the girls dorms and the boys aren’t allowed there.  Which is interesting because at an American college you become so accustomed to being able to see whoever you want at any time, whether they’re a boy or girl, but at LPU the girls have to be in their dorms by 6 pm!  Me and Caroline were talking about this after her ebuddy told her and to both of us it was so shocking and downright crazy.  But to them its the way things work.

Then, later on on Monday when we went to the Hindu temple Ashmeet was really great in explaining to me what all the gods were (or the different representations of one god) and what you had to do.  She had even been to the real place the fake shrine was modeled after because her boyfriend is Hindu and she went with him (she is a Sikh).  She kept saying how crazy but cool it was that I was at the temple with her.

Me and Ashmeet

The best part was when we went to the restaurant place for dinner and she was so excited to take pictures of me with every single display of traditional Indian activities.  Literally, I have like 15 pictures of me posing with the mannequins.  Not only did I have to be next to them, I had to pose in the picture like I was taking part in the activity.  I thought it was a little ridiculous, but she had so much fun and was so excited I couldn’t help but let her keep snapping away.

Ashmeet told me to hold the pot

Then,  after

Ashmeet told me to hold the string

we had gotten back and had another bonfire and dance party, me and Ashmeet went back to our rooms and then showed each other pictures of our families, boyfriends, home, etc. She kept saying all my family members were pretty or handsome, even the ones that were not so pretty or handsome.  I was really struck by Ashmeet because compared to some of the other ebuddies people had, she seemed to defy some of the stereotypes that Americans have of Indians.  For example, she’s a Sikh and her boyfriend’s a Hindu and they still plan on getting married, and when I asked her if that would be a big deal she seemed to be shocked that I would ask, in the sense that of course it wouldn’t be a big deal.  Marrying across different religions in the States is still kind of an issue, so I was surprised when she said it wasn’t a big deal for her and her boyfriend.  Also, the whole arranged marriage concept is kind of strange to me and I wasn’t sure if all or most Indian marriages were arranged, so I was surprised to find that hers wasn’t.  Also she seemed pretty independent in general.  One thing I kind of felt bad about was that she seemed so excited to be hanging out with an American in India, while I didn’t have that same thrill because there are tons of Indians in America.  It was exciting though to be part of such an exciting experience for her.  I mean trust me, I was still excited too!  Overall though meeting her was such a great experience, besides being interesting and informative, she was such a sweetheart and so nice.  As she said, “We will be life-long friends Alexa!”

Arriving in India

To be honest, I thought perhaps I would be more shocked when I landed in India, but I was surprised with how relaxed I was.   The airport wasn’t lavish but it wasn’t “hodunk” either, and the bus was pretty old but I had seen old buses before.  Then again, perhaps the exhaustion of flying for over 14 hours had numbed me to any shocks to my conscious.  Regardless, it was exciting to be in a new place, discovering a new country.

The next day when we had left to go out and explore the city I kept finding parallels between India (specifically what I was seeing in New Delhi) and places I had traveled before, mainly Greece and Cairo.  Cairo was a pretty run down third-world city in some places where buildings were actually crumbling, though there were definitely nice European-esque squares.  Having seen the poverty, dirt and garbage, and really old cars there I had prepared myself for the same type of situation in India, and was surprised to find India to be a little bit nicer.  This is especially true of the vehicles people drove, almost all the cars were new in Delhi whereas in Cairo they were all from the 1970′s or 1980′s.  Even as I found similarities between New Delhi and Cairo, I was finding similarities between New Delhi and Thessaloniki, in Greece.  There was one building on our walk around the block near our hotel the first morning that reminded me a lot of the style of some of the buildings in Greece, and all of the Greek buildings have balconies just like in Delhi (I think it’s a warm weather thing, also consistent with the lack of clothes dryers).

A Building in Delhi similar to Greek Buildings

Also, the Rajiv Chowk circle/square thing reminds me a lot of Aristotelous plaza in Thessaloniki which has a semi-circle (and interestingly enough a market attached).  And Greece has a ton of stray dogs so I thought nothing of the ones in Delhi, though in Greece there are hardly two stray dogs that look alike, but in Delhi most of the stray dogs seemed to be of one breed, which makes sense.

Stray Dogs in the Rajiv Chowk Park

I even found the Sikh temple we visited to be similar to mosques I’ve visited in Turkey and Egypt, though I realized later on in the trip Hindu temples are completely different than any place of worship I’ve been to before.  The carpeted floors, covering your head, the chanting guy were all very similar to mosques.

Sikh Temple

Anyways, so it was sort of fascinating for me to walk around Delhi in the morning and see these similarities.  It sort of opened my eyes to how much I’ve traveled if I’ve come to India, a place everyone says is very different than the USA, and still see the similarities between it and other places I’ve gone.  And also how comfortable I’ve become with traveling and getting used to new and different things.  Eating our first real Indian meal at the restaurant after the American Center was much different than the Indian food I’ve had at restaurants in the States, and I was kind of confused how all the bread and little pots of different things worked (in fact, later on in the trip my Indian ebuddy explained in depth what everything was used for) but it was still pretty delicious and surprisingly filling.

Then, after coming to the hotel that night and having the reception with the bindis and leis was incredible!  It was so nice to be welcomed like that and everyone from the hotel looked so excited.  This was my first introduction to Indian hospitality, which goes above and beyond what Americans consider hospitable, and I think Americans are pretty nice!  It was just nice to feel like they were excited and honored to have us there, a lot of times as a traveler you can feel unappreciated because everyone tries to take advantage or make fun of the tourist.  Granted, it was our hotel and they probably just wanted to put on a good show (or Prof. Gupta told them to) but hey, I’ll take it!

Caroline and I love Paneer

My love affair with paneer also started after I tried it for the first time that night.  So good, I wish I had some right now!

Overall though it was cool to see even within the first couple days the similarities between different places I’ve been in the world and a place I thought would be totally different.