Incredible India - Part 1

 Me and T rocking our India flag pins in front of the India Gate

I have to start this post by saying that NONE of our pictures do India justice.  India really is a world of its own and I can't wait to go back there someday to see more of it!

When we started planning for India we debated back and forth a million times on whether we should just freestyle it like we've been doing or sign up for a package tour.  Normally we like to freestyle it, but something about doing that in India made us a bit nervous.  Throughout our trip we've met countless other backpackers who all said the same thing about India..."I LOVED India. Oh yeah, I got really sick, but still, I loved India.  How sick?  Oh, I thought I was going to die for about 4 days, but still...LOVE India."  We even met two British girls who got so sick they had to be put on IVs.

This scared us...so in the end we decided to do a private tour for our first 7 days with a company called Heritage India which included a driver, guide, and 4 star hotel accommodations.  It was out of our budget but figured it would save us a lot of hassle and help us ease into India.  In hindsight I have no regrets, but I'm also confident that T and I probably could have freestyled it too as long as we had a driver.

New Delhi, No Delhi Belly
Our first stop was New Delhi.  We were sheltered by a driver, a nice hotel, and tourist friendly restaurants so we didn't experience much of the chaos or Delhi belly people always talk about when describing Delhi.

Our first day we visited the Bahai House of Worship also known as the Lotus Temple.  I remembered Bahai because I grew up near a Bahai temple (in Wilmette, Illinois).  Turns out there are only 8 of them in the whole world! 

Bahai House of Worship aka Lotus Temple, New Delhi...Reminds me a lot of the Sydney Opera House

Indian tourists cooling off by the reflecting pool.

The next day we had a full day of sightseeing starting with the Qutb Minar, a huge tower made of sandstone that was built in the 12th century.

They used to let you take stairs up the tower but its now closed to the public due to a series of suicides and children falling. Yikes!

The detail is unbelievable...not too shabby for the 12th century!

Next we headed to the Tomb of Humayun (ruler in the 16th century) which was built by his widowed wife.

While walking around the tomb, I noticed a lot of stares...I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but then I realized people were snapping photos of me. Did I have something on my face?  Was I inadvertently flashing people?  I was so confused.  Then a group of little girls ran up to me and asked me to take a picture with them.  Did they think I was a k-pop star?  The next thing I know, grandmas are trying to shake my hand, women are bringing their babies to me, and I'm being swarmed.  I'm. not. kidding.  Turns out...they just haven't seen an East Asian person before. Interesting huh?  While we lived in Korea, T was the one who got all the attention for being white and here in India they were asking him to move out of the way so they could get a picture of me. hahaha.

Awwwwkward....

One of the many pics I took with random Indian families.  Some of them took pity on T and let him be in the picture.

We also visited the India Gate, the Parliament House, and the Birla Temple that day but I won't bore you with the details.

What I will tell you about though is is our Kashmir carpet buying adventure.  One of the disadvantages of having a guide in India is that they end up being enablers to people like me who have a tendency to impulse shop.  Our guide took us to a Kashmir carpet store.  We had no intention of buying a carpet.  I mean, we don't even have a home!  But really, it's like a spell comes over you once they roll out all these carpets and all of a sudden you NEED one.  They explain to you how handmade carpet weaving is a dying art because of the Kashmir conflict and blah blah blah.  Normal people who don't have a home wouldn't care that Kashmir carpet weaving is a dying art, but apparently Ted and I did.  So we bought one for our pretend living room.  Yes, it was a total impulse buy, but I justify it by knowing that we bought it for less than what we would have paid at ABC Carpet and Home...and its prettier than the ones they have there too so I'm happy. :)  Oh and the salesmen bought us pizza afterwards too.  Win Win.

Some more pictures of Delhi...

We took this pic during our rickshaw ride through Old Delhi..and electrical engineer's worst nightmare

Raj Ghat...memorial site of Gandhi

Jama Masjid which is the largest mosque in India.  It was built in 1600s by 6,000 workers over a period of 6 years.

So pretty.

Agra and the Taj Mahal luxury style

After Delhi we drove to Agra to see the main event.  The TAJ MAHAL!!! 

Driving in India is no joke.  Our driver was great and all, but you can't help but be nervous in a car in India....especially when you constantly see accidents like this. We saw at least 5 accidents like this or worse during our time in India.

Maybe the accidents are caused by the fact that animals don't have their own lane.

Back to Agra and the Taj Mahal.  I've been wanting to see the Taj forever.  Not only is it architecturally AMAZING, its also has an incredibly romantic story.  Anyway, we decided to go a bit overboard and booked a room at the Oberoi...hands down the nicest hotel we have ever been.

Drive in to the Oberoi property

View of the Taj from the hotel

T and I with our Bindi dots that the hotel gave us when we walked in

Our awesome room and inspiration for our future bedroom when we have a home

T enjoying free ice cream at the pool

View of the awesome pool and Taj in the background

After enjoying the luxury of our hotel for a few hours, our guide picked us up and we visited the Agra Fort.  It is also the place where Shah Jahan (the king who built the Taj) was put under house arrest by his son who overthrew him.  We were told by our guide that the main reason he was overthrown was because he wanted to build a 2nd Taj Mahal in black marble across from the Taj.  How awesome would that have been?  A black and white Taj Mahal!

Entrance to Agra Fort

Gorgeous arches

The view from where Shah Jahan was under house arrest.  He supposedly stared out to the Taj Mahal (his wife's tomb) everyday until he died.

And the main event....our pics from the Taj.  Pictures REALLY don't do it justice. It is just SOOOO massive and SOOOO pretty.

Getting excited to enter the Taj

The entrance itself is so pretty!

It does not underwhelm...

Doesn't it look like we're superimposed on a fake background?

Cheezy pics our guide took for us

Side view

Me and my bad ass shoe covers

Jaipur, the Pink City
After the Taj we drove to Jaipur which is known as the "Pink City" because they painted the city pink in in the late 19th century to honor Prince Albert who was visiting. (yeah, I don't really get it either, but that's what our guide told us.)  The entire city is literally a pinkish color. 

Elephant ride to Amer Fort

Massive fort where the king, family, and concubines lived

Our future home :)

Our next stop was Jantar Mantar which is a park with gigantic sun dials and astronomical tools.  As you can imagine this was SO up T's alley.

The accuracy of the dials is amazing.

Hmm. I don't have a watch, but good thing I'm standing next this giant sundial!

Relaxing in Udaipur

After a Jaipur we drove to Udaipur for our final 2 days of our private tour.  Udaipur is a city on a lake and fairly manageable for a Northern Indian city.  It was the first place in India since we arrived where we could walk around on our own without having a feeling of being trampled or hit by a car.  Northern India really tired us out so on our last day in Udaipur we spend the entire day by a pool where I cried my eyes out reading "The Fault In Our Stars". 

Jagdish Temple

the MOST awesome mustache I've ever seen

We also visited the Palace museum which had some interesting items...

T's dream toilet.

My dream chair...T could just wheel me around everywhere when I'm too tired to walk

The scale they used to weigh the king.  I find it cute that they weighed him like he was a bag of potatoes.

There was a ton more that we did in our first 10 days but it would take hours and thousands of pictures to recap...and I haven't even touched upon the food.  Unbelievable.  btw...did you guys know tikka masala is actually a dish from the UK and not India?  

Anyway, T's up next to blog about our time in Southern India which was even greater than Northern India.

Vietnam Part Deux - Sapa & Mt. Fansipan

We originally wanted to spend the last part of our time in SE Asia in Laos, but we decided against it because it would have been pretty expensive for us to get there for only 4 days, so we ended up with some extra time in Vietnam which was definitely not a bad thing.  With our extra four days or so, we decided to visit Sapa in the north to climb Mount Fansipan, the tallest mountain in Vietnam.

So we headed to Sapa by taking another overnight sleeper train from Hanoi but this time we rode in style aboard the Orient Express...

Okay, maybe it wasn't the Orient Express from the movies, but it was still the nicest sleeper train experience on our trip to date.  No monks to share the cabin with us this time though, instead we were with a nice Polish couple who even bought each of us a beer while on the train.  Go Poland!

We pulled in to Lao Cai before 6am and then took an hour bus ride to Sapa.  We were originally supposed to start the hike that morning, but we were so tired from the overnight train, that we decided to postpone it one day until we were more well rested.  Thank goodness we did too, because I don't think we would have made it if we hadn't had the extra day to recoup.

So instead on that first day we rested up for a bit, and explored the town.  Sapa was great.  The best thing for me was the weather.  Since it was up in the mountains, the weather was much cooler than the rest of Vietnam.  We went from nineties and humid in Hanoi, to a very comfortable mid-70's during the day and actually getting quite chilly at night in Sapa.  

We made our way to a park situated above town that was quite beautiful and had some great views of the town below...

View of park from lookout with Sapa in the distance.

Sapa from above with Mount Fansipan in the background (I think).

The park also had a statue for each of the animals of the Chinese zodiac which Sharon and I had some fun with as you can see below:

Me and Scooby flipping the bird.

Me riding my Zodiac sign.

Here I am doing my best Peter Griffin impression.

Sharon and Tom.  Not sure where Jerry is.

Sharon riding her zodiac animal.

We got up early the next day for our big two day hike up to the top of Mount Fansipan.  We had read that it was a bit of a challenge, but it proved way more difficult than we expected.

Our two guides were two very young Hmong girls from a local village named Zu who was 16 and Zi who was 18.  They were very nice, but not the best guides as they kept on getting too far in front of us.

Sharon with our two guides Zi (left) and Zu.

Within five minutes of starting the hike, both Sharon and I were already out of breath, even though the hiking wasn't initially that hard.  What was killing us was the altitude which at the start of the hike was already over 1800m (~6000ft).  Once we caught our breath, the first two hours of the hike were pretty standard which took us to the first camp where we had some fried egg sandwiches with tomato for lunch.  This camp was at ~2100m (~7000ft).

Sharon & me with Fansipan in the background before the real pain began.

After lunch, the real fun began.  It was basically non-stop climbing for four hours to get to the next camp at ~2800m (9200ft).  Here are some pics to give you an idea of what it was like:

Sharon climbing one of the many ladders on the trek.

This looked even more treacherous in person.

I would describe the hike as more mountain climbing than hiking.  By the time we got to our camp for the night, we were exhausted.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized very quickly that a good night's sleep was not in our future.  First off, the temperature quickly dropped to no more than 10 degrees C (or 50 degrees F).  Secondly, we would be sleeping in a metal shack with no door, on a wooden floor with about 15 other people.  And third, we were only given a thin sleeping bag to keep us warm through the night.  Needless to say, we did not sleep well.  However, the one saving grace we did get was that they boiled some drinking water for us to drink the next day, which we poured into our water bottles and used as a source of warmth that night.

Sharon in front of the metal shack we would be sleeping in that night.

Another group having dinner in the shack.

Our sleeping arrangements for the night.

A not too happy Sharon all tucked in for the night.

The next morning we woke up at 4am to have a quick breakfast and then we start the final leg to the top of the mountain right around 5am.  It took around 2 hours to climb the remaining 300m (~1000 feet) to the top.  It took so long because you initially climb to a false peak at around 2900m, and then you have to climb back down to 2700m before climbing the last 500m to the top.  The climbing was extremely difficult.  Not only was it extremely steep and treacherous, the ground was quite wet and slippery as well.  The only way we managed our way was by using the surrounding bamboo trees as hand holds.  Many a bamboo tree saved us that day.

Sharon & I at the peak of Mount Fansipan.

The Mount Fansipan peak at 3,143m (10,312ft).

We finally made it to the peak at around 7am that morning and enjoyed it up there for about 10 minutes before starting the our way back down the mountain.  The climb down was as bad as the climb up, if not worse.  By the time we reached the bottom 8 hours later, both Sharon and I could barely walk.  When we got back to the hotel, all we had time for was a quick shower and some dinner before we had to head to the train station for our overnight train back to Hanoi.  By the time we reached Hanoi, I could barely get off the train my legs were so sore.

We spent one more night in Hanoi before flying back to Bangkok for our last two nights in SE Asia.  We tried to visit the royal palace in Bangkok again while we were there, but it was again closed for some special ceremony.  Lucky us, the palace is closed pretty much only twice a year, and we managed to be visiting Bangkok at both of these times.

We both loved our time in SE Asia, and were very sad to be leaving it, but we were also very excited for our upcoming time in India which Sharon will begin filling you in on next.  FYI, my legs were still sore when we arrived in India.  Damn you Fansipan!