Tales from India: Swaminarayan Akshardam

Saturday was spent sleeping in a bit and recovering from the previous evenings festivities. Pssssshhhhh. I wish that had happened. Despite getting home late the evening before I was up at the crack of dawn. Sunita and I arranged for a driver to take me around the city on Saturday. With horrific traffic in India, me still tired from constantly being on the go since I arrived and the limited budget I put myself on I decided that I would only try to see the things that most interested me. I don't know if you've gotten a sense of what that would be so I'll tell you. My favorite things to see are markets (shopping, food, indoor, outdoor, you name it) and temples. Seriously, I can never see enough temples. Oh and waterfalls, of course, but that was a bit unlikely in the middle of New Delhi. If I'm wrong, someone should definitely tell me. My only regret about India is that I travelled alone. I think that's one place I would have enjoyed talking to someone about everything I saw. My super awesome driver bought all my entrance tickets for me so I wouldn't have to pay foreigner prices, but that also meant he couldn't/didn't want to accompany me. He was probably like, "bahhh, foreign red-headed woman. What are we going to talk about?" Helloooo, my dad is from Trinidad! The West Indies plays India in cricket all the time. Even though I think cricket is sooooper boring I have enough national pride to fake a conversation about cricket. 
The first place we visited was the Lotus Temple. All I remember is that it's a Baha'i temple and that it's shaped like a Lotus flower, hence the name. Dee dee dee.
Suffice to say that it is my fault for trying to write a blog post about visiting it 14 months after the fact and all I can remember is really liking it. I can't say much more than that. Ah well. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.
The Lotus Temple, located in New Delhi, India, is a Bahá'í House of Worship completed in 1986. Notable for its flowerlike shape, it serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent and has become a prominent attraction in the city. The Lotus Temple has won numerous architectural awards and been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.
Also, here's their website.

Here are some pictures!

Entrance

Pools of water on either side of the walkway to the entrance. It's beautiful and a great place for watching people make fools of themselves while taking photos.

As already stated.

Borrowed from Wikipedia. It's just a gorgeous piece of architecture and everything is more beautiful when it's lit up at night, isn't it? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/LotusDelhi.jpg

The next stop was India Gate. That might have actually been the first stop seeing as how Sunita lived about 5 minutes away from India Gate, but I'm not about to rewrite the blog to incorporate that one tiny detail. India Gate is great during the day and amazing at night when it's all lit up. The surrounding area is full of government buildings and the streets are wide and tree-lined. Not at all what I was expecting in New Delhi.  
As usual, pictures say it best. 

India Gate...at night.

The beautiful gates surrounding the presidential palace.

Some of those wide streets I mentioned earlier. 

India Gate...during the day! 

Me in front of India Gate. I'm beginning to hate these captions.

After that we went to my new second favorite place in all of India. The first being the Taj Mahal, of course, despite the heat and crowds. Swaminarayan Akshardam. Words do not do this place justice, but unfortunately cameras aren't allowed inside so I don't have any of my own photos in order to tell the tale. So I borrowed some photos. First a little bit about my experience. If it weren't for a fact that this place was so beautiful and I loved it so much I would have hated my time in India due to my experience there. I was stared at constantly. Constantly. It wasn't "ooooh, who's that girl?" It was more of "ewwww, who's that girl?" Well, maybe not ewww, but they weren't friendly or polite stares. First of all, I was alone and maybe that's worthy of negative attention. It might have been due to the fact that I had to wrap my favorite purple Cambodian scarf around my waist because my yellow shorts (see above picture) was considered too short to enter the temple. Maybe it was unfashionable to wear my scarf like that?  However there were other foreigners there who had to wear scarves wrapped around their waists as well, so that couldn't be it. Maybe purple and green are offensive colours? Was it my red hair and sunglasses? Maybe. Maybe not, because Indian girls are all about colouring their hair these days. I made sure to make a count and I was not alone. At two corners of the temple you can pay to have your picture taken. When I stood in line waiting to have my picture taken there were no crowds to be seen anywhere, except for the group taking their picture and the 3 or 4 people in line. However, when I got up in front of the camera, people magically appeared and they stood there and stared, even though they weren't waiting in line. I'm sure you're thinking I'm complaining about nothing, but to this day it makes me mad, that feeling of being judged and measured and found guilty of something. I don't think I'll go back to India unless I'm with a group. Sorry, that was a lot of negative energy. Here's some positive feelings to try and balance it.
Now, what could possibly make me love this place so much despite feeling so angry while I was there? Honestly, all I had to do was look around me at the architecture and design of the temple and it was all washed away. One part of the temple is dedicated to elephants and there are over 148 statues of elephants. As an elephant lover I found it all quite amazing. After awhile I found a quiet area and rested there and it was the most peace I'd felt since arriving in India. I sometimes think back on that time whenever I feel the calm slipping away and I desperately want to hold on to it. Here are some pictures that will hopefully help explain why. The first two are my own that I took from a moving car, hence the not so good quality. Pictures 4, 5 and 6 are from a site I liked the best called Air Piano. They provide 360 degree aerial panorama shots of different sites around there. It's like you're really there! ::gasp:: Make sure to take the aerial tour because it's ridiculously cool and they have wonderful music to accompany it. It's like being in India.
Pictures 7 and 8 must have been taken by someone who smuggled a camera inside because I don't know how they got shots like those. I found it on a random website called Skyscrapercity.com, but they're attributed to a Flickr user. Thanks so much to whoever that is that broke the rules. Normally, I'm not a fan of rule breakers, but in this case I am.
Also, here's their website and what Air Piano has to say about it.
It was opened in 2005. The construction took over 5 years and involved 7000 artisans and 3000 construction workers from all over India. Their combined efforts gave birth to a building 42 meters high, 94 meters wide, and 106 meters  long. The structure of Akshardham consists of 234 pillars, 9 shiny domes, 20 four-sided towers, and over 20 thousand figurines depicting themes from Indian mythology. There are over 148 statues of an elephant alone!

Swaminarayan Akshardam Temple from afar. This is a super zoomed in shot.

Curious because the Petronas Towers in Malaysia are also closed on Mondays.

At night. Le duh. http://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/travel/an-epitome-of-grandeur-swaminarayan-akshardham-temple-delhi

The reason I loved this place so much. The entire outside of the temple/inside wall around the courtyard has various depictions of elephants in various aspects of their lives. It's so enchanting!

Aerial shot of the grounds. They form the shape of a lotus flower.

Another outside view of the intricate carvings.

Akshardam elephants.

Akshardam from a distance, but still within the limits of the gates.

Last, but not least was my visit to Dili Haat, an open air market that features a variety of sellers from all regions of India. It was definitely beautiful and I went a bit crazy with the jewelry buying while I was there, but I remember it being so hot that I thought I was going to faint. My friend G recommended it to me and I would recommend visiting it as well. Even though I didn't find anything that appealed to me within my price range for souvenirs it's still a gorgeous place to visit. I only have a few pictures from the inside. For once I wasn't too concerned with taking pictures of everything because I was afraid if I fainted my camera would fall from my hands and break. I do wish I had taken a video of the group of people in picture 3 because they were making lovely music. (Note to self: use other adjectives besides awesome and lovely.)

Add caption

The main entrance.

Dudes making music.

http://know.burrp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/dilli-haat-shopping.jpg

http://know.burrp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Delhi-Haat1.jpg

I was reading an article called "10 Things Not To Do In Delhi" and I had to post the link because I definitely did #4, but that's due to me being confident in general I think. I also did #6, but I wouldn't put it on the list. In fact, I'd say DO IT! It's so much fun.

I just I should also mention that I sort of visited Qutb Minar, but I didn't want to pay the exorbitant entrance fee, or at least a fee I thought was exorbitant, so we sort of drove past it on our way home and I popped out in the parking lot and took a picture and then hopped back into the car.

Hmmm, I guess I should also mention that the super awesome Tanushi and Tanay took me out to dinner that evening.

Calamari, my favorite.

Don't tell Tanay you're about to take his picture or else...

The super cute and spicy Tanushi

Super shady alley way we had to walk down to get to our restaurant. I guess you could call it a hole-in-the-wall.

Coming up: Sunday and the wedding!

Tales from India: A most beautiful sangeet.

I love writing my blog, but after reading oodles and oodles of some really well written and well designed travel blogs (The Lazy Travellers!!!) I've decided that I can't really consider what I do to be a travel blog. I wish I could say that it is my heart and soul on paper because it sounds more romantic. However, it's not even paper, so what can I call it? I think it's my heart and soul available for all to see! In this age of over connectivity that is kind of true, isn't it? I'm not going to complain though because it is precisely why I've felt this sudden surge of productivity (procrastination be damned!)

My Instagram account boasts that 'I love food. And travelling. And eating food while travelling', but I realise I've been devoting a bit too much time and space to posting pictures of food, although when is that ever a bad thing? Recently I started posting more of my travel pictures. The response has been overwhelming. Especially when two friends (shout out to TK and Nisha for giving my self-confidence a major boost!) came out of the woodwork to tell me that they've been reading my blog and that I need to continue it. (Just as an aside, I only procrastinate when it comes to fun activities for myself. Work and school never suffer. Only the things that give me personal satisfaction suffer for some odd reason. (::hint hint:: to any potential employers who might be reading this.))

So where was I? Ahh, yes. I left off after my trip to Agra to see the most magnificent Taj Mahal. Seriously, go see it! Heck, go to India only to see it.
That brings us to Friday. Friday night was the sangeet. If you don't know what a sangeet is feel free to check out my first blog post on India. Friday morning into early afternoon was S's mehndi session. I hired a taxi, gave him her address and was off. S, if you're reading these posts, I have to say that your family is just the loveliest. You know I already adore your mom and dad and your extended family is just as wonderful.
We spent the afternoon getting our mehndi done, oohing and ahhing at each other's mehndi designs, me wondering how S was going to go to the bathroom, singing songs (the others, not me) and trying to understand what people were saying (me, since I don't speak Hindi, le duh.) I had both the palms and back of my left hand designed, but I left the right one unadorned because once you've got mehndi on you can't touch anything (wet, dry or otherwise) until it dries and is hard enough to flake off. This way the henna has soaked into your skin deep enough to stain it. Ta daaaa....mehndi! When S left to go to the salon I went back home to Sunita's and then we went back to Lajput Nagar to pick up my sari's and get any other odds and ends I deemed necessary. Let's just say it's a good thing I put myself on a budget because I could have easily gone crazy. The shopaholic in me is always begging to be free.

The rest of day went off without a hitch until it came time to go to the sangeet. It was held at a place called The Panchshila Rendezvous. Sunita lent me the services of her driver (yep, I'm fancy!) for the evening, which was awesome. I gave him the address and he said, "hmmmm, I think I know where this is." So off we went. Place number 1 was not correct. It was a gym. Place number 2 was not correct. It was a parking lot. With no buildings in sight. However, as they say, the third time is the charm. I arrived about an hour late (or on time if you take into account IST, Indian Standard Time.) S and V hadn't arrived so I sought out A, S's only other friend from the States at the wedding. A was doing a semester abroad in India at the time for his MBA program so we quickly found each other and were like "gaaaah, another American! Whew." I'm all for travelling, discovering new cultures and of course new foods and meeting new people, but sometimes, just sometimes, a small taste of home can make you feel at ease, even if it's in the form of a stranger you've just met. Amit and I quickly bonded and hit up all the food servers passing out hors d'oeuvres. Those poor servers never saw us coming. I had such an amazing time. S's mom danced in honor of her only daughter and S sang a very moving and beautiful love song for V. I danced until my feet hurt, ate until I thought I was going to give birth to my food baby, Sebastian, and laughed until I thought my cheeks would crack. I know that I had a very idealised vision in my head of what a wedding in India was going to be like, but honestly it was like being with family back home. There weren't many difference. This further serves my theory that all people are alike. As long as the basic beliefs about taking care of family and having food and shelter to keep them warm and safe are there, who cares about how you do it. Also, no one there realised that I wasn't of direct Indian descent unless I mentioned it so if anyone calls me a fake Indian again I'll punch them in the babymaker.

As usual, I'd rather express myself through pictures, but sometimes words are necessary. Thanks for suffering through the words!

S's mehndi

Ba-bling! 

Me and S. It is terribly hot in India. How anyone manages to look polished is beyond me.

This is where we 'oooohed and ahhhhed.'

My mehndi in its unhardened state.

General merrymaking

Now are you saying you wouldn't hit that?

Left to right: A, V, S and moi

S's awesome and most welcoming family.

S's song

Aunty S getting her groove on.

This picture epitomizes the happy slightly wacky couple.

Action shot!

Shhhhh, because I almost stole her away.

My mehndi the day after.

Tales from India: The Road to Agra

Day two was replete with the obligatory visit to the Taj Mahal. At least, that's how I initially felt. I know, deep down, that the Taj Mahal is a one of the wonders of the world (not technically)  and as such it must not be left off any lists. It is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is number 252 on the list. For those of you that don't know, in order for a place to be listed as a World Heritage Site it has to be of special physical or cultural significance and it is chosen and maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. By the by, that's all from their website. I may be a fount of useless trivia, but I'm really not that eloquent. The ability to properly define a word still eludes me. I'm all "uhhhh, it does this and ummm, this is an example of it, blah blah blah." That doesn't lead back to my original point but I'll find it. I wasn't super excited to go to the Taj Mahal, but all those feelings changed after seeing it. Pictures do not do it justice. It is absolutely marvelous and it definitely stunned me into silence after my first glimpse. Absolutely amazing.

I did some research into travel and tour companies before I left Vietnam and narrowed it down to two places. They all offered the same things: A/C car, pick up and drop off, tour guide, tolls, parking, taxes, gas (diesel)etc. In the end I chose the tour service that came to the apartment to speak to Sunita because she was quite worried about me wandering off by myself. After seeing the recent news coming out of India about treatment of females, and by that I mean the rape and torture of a 5-year old girl and the earlier story of the girl who was gang raped on a bus and later died from her injuries at a hospital in Singapore. Ugh, I'm so mad just thinking about this but I do not want my blog post to be a commentary about the sad state of women's rights in India and the Indian governments inability to effectively run its state. I'll leave that to the people who can better argue against it.

In any case, Sunita was duly worried about me travelling by myself so I asked representatives from the tour companies to visit the apartment and speak with her the first day I got there. Shailendar from Vaibhav Tourism Services, Ltd was able to make the visit. After taking his cell phone number, the driver's cell phone number, the license plate number, the address of the agency in Delhi, the address of the agency in Agra and the tour guide's name and phone number she felt secure in letting me go.  I love her for being thorough and concerned.

I left pretty early the next day, slept most of the 4 hour drive to Agra, shopped at bit during the stopover we made, regretted that I bought a few pieces of clothing (darn my shopaholic tendencies), took countless pictures of the beautifully decorated trucks on the road and visited a Mother Laxshmi shrine on the way there. I really wish we could have visited Mathura, birth place of Lord Krishna, but I was asleep as we passed it on the way going and we didn't have enough time on the way back. It was too far off the highway we were on and we would have been extremely late getting back. I didn't fancy being with an unknown man at night on a highway in India.

There's nothing to see in Agra. In fact, when we finally got there I thought it was like every other trash filled, smog riddled, hawker infested town we'd passed on the way there. You can't see the Taj Mahal from the road. You do pass Agra Fort on the way in, but I don't have memories of being very impressed with the view from the road.

We picked up my guide, a very nice man named Hassan, and headed up to the Taj Mahal. His English was impeccable as opposed to my severely limited Hindi and he was very knowledgeable. He did give me his contact information before I left because I said I wanted to share it on my blog but I, of course, was the ultimate numpty and lost it. I sincerely regret it because he was fantastic and very pleasant. I normally despise tour guides because I really, really, really hate the endless chattering. Our tour guide in Cambodia drove me up the wall so I opted for a tuk tuk by myself and left the fam to suffer with him. Sowwie! Hassan was the opposite of that. I've included a picture of him in the post so you can print it out and show it to the tour agency to request that specific tour guide. I'm serious! He was great! He took pictures of me (not in a creepy way) and made me pose (I promise not in a creepy way), which absolutely made my heart soar. It's the kind of thing I do for others, so they ALWAYS have great photos of themselves and I'm like "was I even there?" He even made me do the obligatory tourist shot at the Taj. During our tour he asked me if I spoke Hindi and I told him that I understood a very limited amount. He responded by saying, in Hindi, that I was a very beautiful woman. I could have thanked him in Hindi, but I chickened out and just said 'thank you' in
English.

After walking around in midday heat in India during the month of July for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours, I was exhausted, dehydrated and  in severe danger of passing out. What prompted me to do that? I love the heat but only if I'm sitting on a beach in front of beautiful clear water and white sands. Not while I'm in the middle of crowds (have I ever mentioned that I hate crowds?) who smell and are continuously hawking up something or the other. Not that I didn't smell, but I understand the power of deodorant, so I smelled less. Hassan quickly found me a large bottle of water and a shady spot and we sat there chatting for a while until he said that my face no longer looked like a cherry. We found my driver, dropped Hassan at his agency, did a shady transaction in which I had to pay for half my tour at the agency in Agra but since their credit card machine wasn't working we had to go to a textile factory to use theirs. Nothing untoward happened on my credit card, but it was shady because that's what tour guides do. For example, in Bangkok they tell you that a certain tourist location is closed and then recommend another one that will give them a percentage if tourists show up. In India, they take you to tourist sites that 'you should really visit', but it's just showrooms. In Jaipur, I was taken to a gem factory. Yeahhhh, right! Didn't they see what I was wearing? They thought I could afford gems?! 

We headed back to Delhi; the driver battled traffic and I battled drooling while falling asleep. Terrible habit that happens when I'm beyond exhausted and I can't control my body anymore. I managed to stay awake and take some pictures, but the motion of a moving car always puts me to sleep. I felt terrible because I really wanted to talk to my driver. I hate situations where I feel like I'm so privileged. I mean, I am compared to most people in the countries I've visited of late, but I hate flaunting it. My driver kept fielding calls from his kids who live up north on the Haryana/Punjab border. He lives in New Delhi which is in the state of Haryana, but down south on the Uttar Pradesh border, which is where the Taj Mahal is located. He got to see his family every couple of months. I felt bad for him, but in reality you do what you have to in order to support your family. He was a really nice guy who obviously cared about his family. I really love meeting family oriented fathers. It makes me happy. I think I gave him a tip that was almost equivalent to the price of the day trip. Of course, I'm incredibly jaded and wonder if it wasn't all a story. However, I'm sure the part about him being ridiculously poor is true and I hope he appreciated it.

I made it back in time to eat, shower, make small talk with the family and then fall into a deep sleep. After a really shaky phone call home. It's amazing what the power of an iPod touch, decent WiFi, and a Google Voice account can do. I'm seriously in love with Google and am going to promote the heck out of it right now. Tip: If you get a Google Voice number before you leave home and download the Talkatone app (or whatever free app that works with Google Voice that catches your fancy) you can call home for free. Especially if home is in the same country as your local number. I have a DC number and called my family in VA and NY, for freeeeeee. Forget Skype! Oh and this is of course if you didn't get a fancy, internet ready phone that uses a SIM card.

Day 3: Coming soon!
In the meanwhile, enjoy these pictures!

My first glimpse of the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal. Duh.

A not creepy pose.

Obligatory tourist pose.

You have to either cover your shoes or take them off to enter the Taj Mahal. Since I like having skin on the soles of my feet I opted for the booties.

I think you can begin to get a sense of how red my face was. Also, another non-creepy pose.

Hassan! Ask for him. Seriously.

Indian traffic. It was everywhere at all times.

Truck!

Another truck. I was obsessed with these trucks, I tell you.

Mother Lakshmi statue.

Another truck!

Child playing on a tractor.

Dare I say it again? Truck!

Oh and I think this is a picture of a truck.

I should probably mention that I'm not posting this because I get anything kind of compensation from it. Rather, they were quite helpful and if I can help anyone else who is looking for a tour company the so be it.