India. Lasting Impressions.

Today is Mahatma Ghandi's birthday which is celebrated as a national holiday. It's also my last day in India.

It's been an incredible 5 days in India! There's not a whole lot you can learn about a country in such a short time but I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience what I did. I still have a lot of photos and text to post up - especially of all the sites I visited but I will leave that task for when I get home. For this posting, I wanted to share a few images and thoughts of my short time in India.

Agra. Sikandra.

Sikandra is the burial place of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. It was built by Akbar himself during this lifetime.

It's bright and early on October 1st and I'm well rested and ready to go!

Fathepur Sikri.

At Fathepur Sikri, the 5 story Panch Mahal in the background.

It's mid afternoon on September 30th. So far, I've spent the day visiting the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and shopping. I'm getting tired, I'm quickly beginning to reach sensory overload and am ready to call it a day......

The Incomparable Agra Fort.

Me, sitting on the steps of the Hall of Public Audience at Agra Fort.

You go to the Taj Mahal. You "ooh" and you "ahh" and you say to yourself that you've never seen as anything as beautiful as this building standing before you. Then you remind yourself of the romantic tale - the one of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who emptied the coffers of the country to build this great monument in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal - and your heart melts.

The World's Jewel Box. The Taj Mahal

Surely, there can never be a more memorable experience than waking up and seeing the Taj Mahal before breakfast!

Delhi. Culture - Heritage and Pop.

Performers at Dilli Haat Bazaar, Delhi, India.

Yesterday, my day started at 8:30am and I didn't get back to my hotel room until almost 10pm. It was go, go, go - no time even to recover from jet lag. So by the time I got back to my room, I had just enough energy to take a shower, find my pj's and get into bed. I slept well that night :-)

Day 1. More of Delhi.

Aren't I the fashion queen? No,I've not joined the Hare Krishna! You'll need to read on if you're curious about why I'm dressed this way.....and what happened to my shoes?

Day 1. Delhi, India.

Me, standing in front of Humayun's Tomb, Delhi, India

Before I left for this trip, I had arranged to go on a tour of the city - covering all the major highlights, including Humayun's Tomb. The plan was for me to meet with the tour guide at 9am in the lobby of the hotel. Well, my watch was incorrectly set an hour behind and the guide was 20 minutes early so my 1st day in India started off with a mad dash out of bed, in/out of the bathroom and down to the lobby. No time even for quick breakfast! There, the guide introduced himself as ??? - with his multi-syllable name masked by a thick Indian accent, I, for the life of me could not catch his name so he told me to just call him "J", which I gratefully did for the rest of the day.

I'm off to India, Nepal & Tibet!!

Today's the day!

I was up late last night doing last minute stuff for the trip and was physically exhausted by time I fell into bed.....but as so often happens with me, I just couldn't turn my brain off - half filled with excited thoughts of the trip and half worried that I forgotten to do something or pack something.

Eventually, I drifted off and then awoke well before the alarm clock went off thanks to a small battalion of helicopters hovering above the Beltway which is just a stone's throw away from my house. I found out later on on the morning news that there was a 4 or 5 car pile up and all lanes were blocked but one so I presume the copters were hovering overhead to get a good vantage point to report on the accident. Whatever the case, the whirring of the rotor blades was not the way I wanted to woken up!

T minus 5 and counting.

I leave in just a little over 5 days and I'm pretty much set to go.

My final week of preparation began with packing my backpack this past weekend. I had to do it 3 times to get it packed the way I wanted to.

The good news is that I got all my stuff packed in crammed in and there was A LOT of stuff - more clothes, medicine and food than I've lugged along on my previous trips. Not to mention a winter weight sleeping bag, down vest and other "acoutrements" for trekking through Tibet.

Prayer Wheels and Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.

Prayer Wheels. They're an integral element of practicing Tibetan Bhuddism and before I join the pilgrims in circumambulating the monasteries, I thought I ought to know what they represent so that I can more fully appreciate the experience.

Simply put, a prayer wheel is a device for spreading spiritual blessings and well being. Rolls of thin white paper, imprinted with the mantra (prayer) "Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum", in ancient Indian or Tibetan script, are carefully wrapped and placed inside the wheel and then the opening of the wheel sealed. Typically, the mantra is also inscribed onto the exterior surface of the wheel.

How many रुपया for a dollar?

It's time for me to buy some currency for the trip - specifically, Indian rupees and Chinese yuan. Nepalese rupees are not available outside of Nepal. As usual, I was curious about the different currencies so more reading.

Indian Rupee.
As of the date of this posting, the exchange rate (according to xe.com) is 40.6 Indian rupees to one US dollar.

The Indian rupee is divided into 100 paise (singular paisa). The ISO 4217 code is INR. Locally, the abbreviations Rs and Rp are frequently used. Banknotes worth Rs. 5, Rs. 10, Rs. 20, Rs. 50, Rs. 100, Rs. 500, Rs. 1000 are currently in circulation.

All notes are issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The current series, which began in 1996, is called the Mahatma Gandhi series and can be easily identified as the obverse face of each note has a watermark image of Mahatma Ghandi and differing images on the reverse.

Queue? What queue?

Today, I went to the Indian consulate to pick up my passport and visa.

Flashback to two days ago.

Nepal. The Hindu Festival of Dashain.

Image of of the Hindu goddess, Durga, shown riding her tiger and attacking the demon Mahishasura

I'll start by saying that I don't know anything about Hinduism except that it embraces more gods and goddesses than I can remember the names of!

Itinerary. Agra, India.

No offense to people who live in Agra, but as far as I can tell, the only reason to go there is to visit the incomparable Taj Mahal. The Taj was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in loving memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to his 14th child. Construction on the Taj began in 1632 and was completed in approximately 1648 and I read somewhere that it took 20,000 laborers to complete the job. There's lots of facts that one can read up on about the Taj (the architecture, the precious jewels embedded in its walls, etc) but at some level, I don't really care about the facts. To me, the image and story behind it are enough - in my eyes it's the world's most beautiful mausoleum in the world and for my heart, it was built by a man in tribute of woman that he loved so deeply that he wanted her to be remembered for eternity. Could there be a more romantic tribute?

In planning my trip to Agra, I read that it's best to see the Taj either in the early morning or late afternoon because visiting during mid-day a) can be unbearably hot and b) with the bright sun shining, the monument just looks like a big, white marble building - apparently, not resulting in the impressive vision that visitors are expecting to see.

Planning is so much easier when you have help....

After I settled on my itinerary for Delhi, I decided to see if there were any India based travel agencies offering city tours that would cover the sights (major tourist spots) that I was interested in seeing. Google "Delhi City Tour" and you'll get a slew of hits. I pored over one tour company website after another and finally found the one that offered an itinerary that appealed to me. More importantly, from what I can tell, it is a reputable agency that has been in business for 20 years.

New Delhi, India. Itinerary.

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi, India

New Delhi, India is my first stop after a grueling 18 hour trans-Atlantic, trans-continental flight. I've only planned for two full days in town and there's lots to see. To plan my simple itinerary, I used a few references including the official tourism website of the Indian Government as well as Frommer's and wikitravel websites. In Delhi, the tourist information office is located at 88 Janpath - near Connaught Place. Once in Delhi, I will go there to get additional information.

The packing list. India, Nepal & Tibet.

I must admit, I've never worried about running out of suitcase or backpack space - I've always been a very light traveller but not so this time. I'm actually wondering whether or not I'll be able to fit everything into my backpack. So what's different about this trip from the others?

More shots.

Although I had gotten a slew of vaccinations for my trip to Peru last year, I decided to check International SOS to see if I needed any additional vaccinations and sure enough, I did. I'm missing Hepatitis B. So today, at lunchtime, I went to a nearby travel clinic and got my first of three shots for Hep B - another stamp in my vaccination booklet. I'm going back next Thursday and two Thursdays after that for the remaining two shots.

The waiting begins.

Last night, I reserved my spot on the Tibet tour but won't receive confirmation until early August. This means I won't be able to finalize the arrangements for the other parts of my trip (through India and Nepal), buy airline tickets or get my travel visas until then. Ugh.