Day 1 of Delhi, Agra, Jaipur tour!
Today (Saturday, October 5) was Day 1 of our 6-day trip to the Golden Triangle. This is our first time being tourists :-). It was a long, but wonderful day! It started at 4am, as we had to get our 4:30 ride to the Pune airport. It’s now after 10:30pm and I’m starting to draft this, though I’m sure I’ll finish it in the morning.
A lot of this post is text at the beginning, so I’ll start with some fun pictures!
us in a rickshaw! 
Acadia savoring kaju kutre – a favorite treat! 
fun landscaping at the Rail Museum 
Beautiful close up taken by Alex of flowers lining the walk at the Gandhi party!
The flight was fine. It was wild to see Pune without the roads jammed, horns honking, etc. The only people we saw up were the newspaper guys – several groups of them sorting and rolling the papers. There was a nearby chai man selling tea. The rest of the city was sleeping with dozens upon dozens of motor scooters, rickshaws, busses and cars parked alongside the roads. Despite the city being alive very late, and businesses being opened late, it is a city that does go to sleep.
The airport went smoothly. I’m still not used to there being a separate line and screening for men and women, so I often make that mistake -just getting in the first line I see. Oi.
One thing I love about India is how I find that my assumptions about the world are challenged. We’re at the airport, and I see people riding bicycles along a path that seems to cut right across the runway. And here I think that that would be absurd, but indeed that was the case! And then we saw two groups of people – I believe cadets, as the Air Force shares space with the airport as I understand – who are doing their morning exercises on the runways. They’re all in shorts, sneakers, orange shirts… I have no idea how they do this scheduling, but it apparently works….
We also had to walk a good 500 meters to get on to our plane. We thought our plane was late, as we didn’t see it pull up to our gate – gate 8. Well, who said a plane had to be at the gate that you are at?? Gate 8 was our building departure gate, and then we just walked on down somewhere past the building – and there was the plane. They had those wheeled-out stairs for us to climb up to get in. That worked.
But none of that is the highlight of the day!! The highlights were all in Delhi. Here’s the Delhi Airport.
We got to our Air B N B around 11:30 or so. We met the wife of our lovely host couple. They’re house is wonderful. They have 2 rooms they rent out, and we’re it. We had tea and biscuits, and then Nandera – a person who works for the hosts– showed us some of the shops on the street that is just around the corner from where the house is.
Elevator anyone? 
The main entrance – on floor 2 (=floor 3 for us)
There are delicious western treat shops, Indian sweet shops, plenty of snacks (pani puri!), and good restaurants – Punjabi, South Indian, etc. (And yes, even a Dominoes – they love their Dominoes here!) There’s also a temple and a flower shop, and some others.
Delicious South India treats at a restaurant! 
The line forming outside a temple to get a meal 
Flowers being sold next to the temple 
Beautiful Cakes at Maxim’s
We went from there to the metro. It wasn’t far, and it’s super clean and convenient. As we exited the metro, Parag said to Cadi – Cadi, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. I’ll tell you in a minute why. Ten steps later, Parag pointed up. Cadi had been carrying a bag that had some Indian sweets in it, and a monkey on a ledge was eying it!! They seem to even know the packaging…
The Monkeys outside the Metro!
Our first stop was the National Railway Station. India is amazing in that it was a bunch of little kingdoms that the British played against each other to a degree to get control, and then eventually, made them all into one country. There’s a great quote at the museum – I don’t recall the exact words, but it was something about how India has great diversity of language, culture, etc., and the railways united them and allowed them to blend together into a nation. The railroads in India really are quite remarkable. (We’ll be doing our first train ride on Monday from here to Agra!) A highlight of the Rail Museum was the full floor model trains that showed some key features of trains in India, but mostly just a cool, eclectic gathering of train stuff.
See the people in the back left to give you a sense of size! 
Near in the picture is someone’s vision of a “future” for the rail. In the back of te picture is an old railway station replica.
A low light of the museum was the hilarious mishap where we purchase tickets for the Toy Train ride rather than the Joy Train ride. The Toy train was not much of a train, and you actually sat ON the cars. The Joy train was a small scale replica. Ah, such is trying to work in another language and culture! (I should note that in Delhi, the people speak Hindi mostly. Parag knows Mahrati, but not Hindi. English works some times, but it’s definitely a disadvantage that none of us knows the local language!)
Oops – got tix for the wrong train!
From the Rail Museum, we took a rickshaw through the section of town with all the embassies – seeing Finland, Bhutan, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, the Vatican, and yes, the US Embassy. It was pretty cool. We also went by the Prime Minister’s house (their White House) and were impressed by that. The girls noted the gaurds standing about every 20 meters around the perimeter, with semi-automatic guns. Felt kind of crazy. We have that, but it’s not quite so blatant and visible in the US. That’s almost ironic, because we have way more in terms of guns in general – citizens and police here do not carry guns. Not allowed.
Our next stop was the National Museum. After a snack in their cafeteria of chole and other treats, we went in. A fun thing they do here is charge different prices for Indian citizens vs non-Indian citizens. Indian citizens were 20 rupees. You want to guess our admission charge? 650 rupees. Over 30 times the charge! We paid with a smile. Thank goodness the girls were free J. (Fear not – 650 rupees is still less than $10 – which is part of why they can and do have the different rates! 20 rupees is about 28 cents.)
Moghul Style Garden in the courtyard at the National Museum
Here’s the center garden, which Parag tells me is Moghul style. We saw pots, arrows, sculptures from over 2000 years ago. Such is the luck of a museum when it’s in a country that supported some of the first civilizations.
Our plan at that point was to walk to the metro and head home. We were unbelievably lucky to run across a huge festival to celebrate Gandhi’s 150th birthday!!!
His birthday was actually on Wednesday Oct 2 (the girls had no school), and in Delhi, they were doing a 5 day festival. (The festival also overlaps with Navratri – another celebration.) We tripped across the part that was like the Big E on steroids, meets the best markets you can imagine. Every state (all 28!) had multiple stalls with handicrafts from their region. Then there was a huge tent with dances from all the different regions, and drums, and bands, etc. It was quite amazing.
India Gate from afar 
Gandhi’s party as the sun goes down!
Tents from all the States!
We saw a person making bangles by hand. That was amazing. Alex and Cadi both brought a bangle that they saw made. I still don’t know what material the artisan used. Parag took a full video for those interested.
We chatted for a while with two people from Haryana who were incredible artisans with wood carvings.
It’s hard to see, but there’s an elephant INSDIE this intricate carving!
The dad, who it sounds like brought the craft to new heights, wasn’t there. If you’d like, check out this youtube video of his work.
Some of his pieces were amazing!
We were already exhausted, but as we tried to make ourselves go home, we tripped across a tent doing the dances of each region. We got to see Gujurat’s Garba and then one from Madya Pradesh. Beautiful and powerful. There were live drums and some other instruments accompanying them. (Terrible pic, but it gives you a little flavor!)
Finally, we got back on the Metro and headed home.
Thanks for reading! More soon… I hope!!!
Joshi-Staples Family India Adventure! 