Waiting for Afghans, Indian Road Trip
New Delhi, 6:30 a.m., another day at the Vishal Hotel in holding pattern,waiting the arrival of my 40 students and 8 counselors from Afghanistan so I can start my new camp. With me is my stalwart and dedicated assistant Santosh, Chynara and Batma, the dynamic mother and daughter teaching team from Kyrgyzstan and James and Patrick, two teachers from the US. There are delays because the kids don’t have passports yet and we don’t know when they will get them. After getting passports, they still need to get Indian visas, which can take a few days. Inside I am worrying and palnning all sorts of scenarios to ensure we have a successful program. I know we will, I just worry that by the time the kids get here there will only be two weeks left and not the planned four. With the precarious and unpredictable situation in Afghanistan these days, you never know when another bomb blast or attack in Kabul will delay passport processing or shut down the Indian embassy. But I can’t control that. Still we sit and wonder when they will come. We’ve all made predictions on the dates, the 4th, the 5th of October. They’ll get here when they get here. It’s not the first time I’m in this situation.
So what does one do with a staff of five? Sit around a hotel in Delhi? GO shopping everyday? Hell no, let’s take this show on the road! We did a little road trip down to Jaipur, the seat of the Maharajahs of Rajahstan and then over to the Taj Mahal and back to Delhi. Known as the Golden Triangle, it was a great little trip and helped bond us even more, always a good thing when working as a team.
On the way into Jaipur, we stopped at the Amber Fort, a beautifully preserved palace of the early Rajas. An ochre citadel that rises from the side of a hill overlooking Amer and Jaipur further down the valley, the Amber Fort offers great views and gives one a sense of the early days of India. Since our minibus couldn’t make it up the narrow cobblestoned streets to the fort, we had our choice of transport; a jeep or an elephant. The elephant was on a lunch break so we opted for the quicker mode of transportation. Swatting the souvenir and postcard sellers like flies, we made our way into the fort, walking through the courtyards and along the walls, looking down below at the lovely manicured garden and lake at its base.
After the Amber Fort, we made our way into Jaipur for a tour of the City Palace. We took our time at the Amber Fort so we didn’t have a lot of time at the City Palace, which was fine. We didn’t feel that we had to see everything at the palace, just get a feel for it. Still we had a tour guide to tell us what we were looking at. The looking part was easy, the listening required focus since our guides thick accent made it tricky to understand him. Nuresh was his name and he was a lovely guide. The City Palace is still the seat of the Maharajahs of Rajahstan and while they don’t wield power like they used to, they still uphold their titles and official seat of residence (like where else are they going to go?). Indira Gandhi took away a lot of their government stipends that they recieved and political clout when she was in power, yet the Rajahstani royalty seems to have held on quite well compared to others.
As the sun was setting over the Pink City (as Jaipur is called because all the buildings are painted pink), Nuresh walked us up to the Wind Palace alongside a busy thoroughfare, souvenir hawkers and people selling produce. By this time we were hot, a bit tired and ready for a cold drink, a shower, and a nice meal out. Given we hadn’t eaten any lunch, we were starving as well. We piled in our bus and made our way out of the center to a more suburban part of town to a lovely hotel on a quiet street with a lovely garden out back. An idyllic respite from our long day of traveling and touring. We ordered tons of snacks off the menu (all veg as we found out) and lounged in the garden, eating and drinking our tea and cold drinks. Unfortunately, India isn’t a place where you can get a cold beer or a glass of wine on every street corner. Most establishments don’t have alcohol at all, which can be a real let down when you are craving a cold beer. We somehow managed to get through the snacks beerless and dinner later that night although we were guaranteed the place had beer. We’re flexible, we settled for lime soda. I guess it is very expensive to have a liquor license and the majority of Indians going out to dinner don’t drink so it isn’t worth it for many establishments to have booze. The tandoori chicken tasted just fine with the lime soda.
The second day of our 2-day trip was spent traveling from Jaipur to the Taj Mahal. Traveling by road in India is interesting because they say it takes 3-4 hours when it really seems to be almost six. Eventhough it is a mere 200 kilometers, the road never seems to end. We managed to leave at 10 am and got to the Taj Mahal at 4. Of course we stopped for lunch (and cold beer!) but still it was an epic journey. Either the driver went at a glacial speed, which he didn’t or the kilometrage is all off. This was my third time at the Taj Mahal and while I wasn’t really looking forward to experiencing the full tourist exploitation experience, being at the Taj at the end of the day was quite lovely. The light of the day was really beautiful and made the trip there just magical. We had the obligatory tour guide who told me a few new facts about the Taj I didn’t know, like the four pillars he built leaning out so if there was an earthquake, the pillars wouldn’t fall on the Taj Mahal.
By 6 pm when the sunset was giving off its lovely gold and orange colors, we piled in the minibus for the 5 hour trek back to Delhi. We got back to our lovely Vishal Hotel around 2 am and plopped into bed. I got workd that the kids’ passports would be ready the following day and my counselors were on their way. That was news to make me smile as I dozed off to sleep.
So what does one do with a staff of five? Sit around a hotel in Delhi? GO shopping everyday? Hell no, let’s take this show on the road! We did a little road trip down to Jaipur, the seat of the Maharajahs of Rajahstan and then over to the Taj Mahal and back to Delhi. Known as the Golden Triangle, it was a great little trip and helped bond us even more, always a good thing when working as a team.
On the way into Jaipur, we stopped at the Amber Fort, a beautifully preserved palace of the early Rajas. An ochre citadel that rises from the side of a hill overlooking Amer and Jaipur further down the valley, the Amber Fort offers great views and gives one a sense of the early days of India. Since our minibus couldn’t make it up the narrow cobblestoned streets to the fort, we had our choice of transport; a jeep or an elephant. The elephant was on a lunch break so we opted for the quicker mode of transportation. Swatting the souvenir and postcard sellers like flies, we made our way into the fort, walking through the courtyards and along the walls, looking down below at the lovely manicured garden and lake at its base.
After the Amber Fort, we made our way into Jaipur for a tour of the City Palace. We took our time at the Amber Fort so we didn’t have a lot of time at the City Palace, which was fine. We didn’t feel that we had to see everything at the palace, just get a feel for it. Still we had a tour guide to tell us what we were looking at. The looking part was easy, the listening required focus since our guides thick accent made it tricky to understand him. Nuresh was his name and he was a lovely guide. The City Palace is still the seat of the Maharajahs of Rajahstan and while they don’t wield power like they used to, they still uphold their titles and official seat of residence (like where else are they going to go?). Indira Gandhi took away a lot of their government stipends that they recieved and political clout when she was in power, yet the Rajahstani royalty seems to have held on quite well compared to others.
As the sun was setting over the Pink City (as Jaipur is called because all the buildings are painted pink), Nuresh walked us up to the Wind Palace alongside a busy thoroughfare, souvenir hawkers and people selling produce. By this time we were hot, a bit tired and ready for a cold drink, a shower, and a nice meal out. Given we hadn’t eaten any lunch, we were starving as well. We piled in our bus and made our way out of the center to a more suburban part of town to a lovely hotel on a quiet street with a lovely garden out back. An idyllic respite from our long day of traveling and touring. We ordered tons of snacks off the menu (all veg as we found out) and lounged in the garden, eating and drinking our tea and cold drinks. Unfortunately, India isn’t a place where you can get a cold beer or a glass of wine on every street corner. Most establishments don’t have alcohol at all, which can be a real let down when you are craving a cold beer. We somehow managed to get through the snacks beerless and dinner later that night although we were guaranteed the place had beer. We’re flexible, we settled for lime soda. I guess it is very expensive to have a liquor license and the majority of Indians going out to dinner don’t drink so it isn’t worth it for many establishments to have booze. The tandoori chicken tasted just fine with the lime soda.
The second day of our 2-day trip was spent traveling from Jaipur to the Taj Mahal. Traveling by road in India is interesting because they say it takes 3-4 hours when it really seems to be almost six. Eventhough it is a mere 200 kilometers, the road never seems to end. We managed to leave at 10 am and got to the Taj Mahal at 4. Of course we stopped for lunch (and cold beer!) but still it was an epic journey. Either the driver went at a glacial speed, which he didn’t or the kilometrage is all off. This was my third time at the Taj Mahal and while I wasn’t really looking forward to experiencing the full tourist exploitation experience, being at the Taj at the end of the day was quite lovely. The light of the day was really beautiful and made the trip there just magical. We had the obligatory tour guide who told me a few new facts about the Taj I didn’t know, like the four pillars he built leaning out so if there was an earthquake, the pillars wouldn’t fall on the Taj Mahal.
By 6 pm when the sunset was giving off its lovely gold and orange colors, we piled in the minibus for the 5 hour trek back to Delhi. We got back to our lovely Vishal Hotel around 2 am and plopped into bed. I got workd that the kids’ passports would be ready the following day and my counselors were on their way. That was news to make me smile as I dozed off to sleep.
posted by Tom T at 6:36 PM
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