My Trip to India: "You Say Fog, I Say Smog."

Toronto -> New Delhi -> Jodhpur -> Jaisalmer -> Udaipur ->Amritsar -> New Delhi -> Toronto.

For the past three weeks, I've spent my vacation in India, where I toured Rajasthan. This post is sort of long, but there was no way I could concise everything I saw and learned. If you want to skip to the highlight of the trip, it was the three days spent in Udaipur, where my family and I stayed at the beautiful world-renown Taj Lake Palace. The best thing about this trip was the opportunity it gave me to learn about Hinduism. I saw numerous Jain temples, learned how they pray, visited special religious sites, and listened to stories of their gods. You can't help but learn about Hinduism because Rajasthan is so vibrant with their history. The only dose of Sikhi that I got from this trip was when my family and I flew to Amritsar to begin the New Year at the Golden Temple.

Wednesday, December 20 - Saturday, December 23: New Delhi, India.
The 17 hour flight from Toronto to New Delhi is not that bad when you fly executive class. That was an experience in itself. The food is 10 times better than economy, the seats recline about 160 degrees, and you get your own personal tv that lets you choose from over 10 movies. As good as it was, I was grateful when the plane finally landed in New Delhi. We checked into the Shangri-La Hotel, which is a great place to stay because it’s in a central location, about 20 minutes from most shopping markets in the city. After that, we started off our trip like any other - by visiting Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. Historically, this gurdwara marks the place where Guru Har Krishan Sahib Jee helped cure many people suffering from smallpox. There is a well of water within the gurdwara that was given to the suffering people by Guru Har Krishan. This water is now revered as having healing properties, and is taken by Sikhs throughout the world back to their homes.

Our stay in New Delhi was mostly about shopping though. Actually, it was more my mom shopping and me trying to keep up! In between though, we visited family and Gurudwara Sisganj Sahib. This gurdwara marks the place where Guru Teg Bahadur Jee was beheaded. While we were here, they were changing the nishan sahib. I asked them how frequently they change it, and they replied that there was no set number of times. It is changed when it needs to be. In 2006, it was changed about five times. Anyone can have the seva of having it changed provided you make a charitable donation of Rs. 500. Other gurudwaras have a higher rate, like Bangla Sahib, which charges Rs. 1000. At the end of the changing, the old nishan sahib was ripped into saropa’s and given out to the small section of sangat that had stuck around. I got one too and it’s such a souvenir! You can see a video of the changing here. Thanks HennaSingh.com :P

Sunday, December 24: Jodhpur, India.
On Saturday night, we caught the overnight train from New Delhi to Jodhpur (the beginning of our Rajasthan tour). In Jodhpur, we stayed at the Taj Hari Mahal. I don’t really remember everything we saw, but the two most important tourist sites I remember were the Mehrangarh Fort and the Umaid Bhavan Palace. The fort is one of the largest in India, and at the opening gate, you can see imprints of cannon balls that had hit the fort during a fierce battle back in the day. The Umaid Bhavan Palace was gorgeous. Actually, half of the Palace was sold by the royal family to Taj Hotels (called the Taj Umaid Bhavan Palace) – so I suggest you stay there if you ever want to go. The other half of the palace has four of its rooms open to the public – the rest are occupied by the royal family. The palace was completed in 1943 under the command of Maharaja Umaid Singh and is now home to his grandson Maharaja Gaj Singh II.

It was impressive to see how the rich in India lived back in the 1900’s. The royal family had their palaces artistically built with carvings done right into the stone. They owned numerous Cadillac’s, which is surprising because this was a rich thing in the Western world and here it was in India! Overall, it was the royal family that had all the money and then would hire people to make airports, forts, and add bells and whistles to their ever growing palace. When the government stopped giving money to the royal families, the income and money was disappeared. And all those locals who were at the feet of the royal families are now serving the tourists instead, trying to generate the economy that was once so religiously churned by the royal families.

Monday, December 25 – Wednesday, December 27: Jaisalmer, India.
Jaisalmer is a five hour drive from Jodhpur. We stayed at the Royal Moolsager Tents. I wish I had a link to provide the residence information, but I don’t because the tents were recently built and have not been marketed as well as some of the hotels in the city. The Moolsager tents are located right in the desert of Jaisalmer. When I say tent, I don’t mean sleeping on the ground in sleeping bags and hiking 500 meters to a rundown bathroom. I mean these tents were Royal. They were huge and came with a king size bed, a dresser, and a full-fledge state-of-the-art bathroom. My family was the only occupants at that time, so we basically had the entire service staff at our command. They only made the food that we asked for (and it was DELICIOUS). Sometimes it got annoying having someone at the heel of your foot every single time, but I can’t complain. The site-seeing in Jaisalmer – I don’t really remember. We saw some Rani palace and then some Raja palace and then we did some shopping. One night we hiked camels up the Sand Dunes to watch the sunset. That was actually the whole reason of visiting Jaisalmer. People around the world come here just to go to these sand dunes and watch the sun set. It was fun.

Wednesday, December 27 – Saturday, December 30: Udaipur, India.
We drove from Jaisalmer to Udaipur over two days. On our way, we stopped in a village to visit the Ranakpur Jain Temple. This temple has 1444 pillars within it and from any pillar, you can see a murti. There is one particular pillar that was built on a slant on purpose to symbolize imperfection. Nothing can be perfect, except God. The entire temple is made of marble, except the top, which is plaster. It is the only Jain temple that has a statue showing the full body of Bhairav. Usually, a statue of Bhairav will show only the head to the waist. Here, you can see the full body.

If I thought the Royal Moolsager Tents were luxurious, I had no idea what was in store when we reached Udaipur. The only thing famous about Udaipur is the Lake Palace. This grand palace was built on Lake Pichola out of white marble. It was built in 1746 by Maharana Jagat Singh II. Like all the palaces in this blog, the Lake Palace was also sold, again to the Taj Hotels. The suites where the king and queen used to reside go for higher rates than the other general rooms. Typically, reservation at this hotel is impossible, most rooms are booked years in advance. However, we were able to get two rooms three weeks before the start of our trip. It was expensive but worth it. So worth it that we didn’t even LEAVE the palace. It is also suggested the Lake palace is visited during the winter season because otherwise, the lake dries up and suddenly the lake palace isn’t a “lake” palace.

Taj Lake Palace is one of the most gorgeous hotels I have ever stayed at (and I’ve stayed at a lot). Our two rooms came complete with a terrace and a HUGE flat screen tv. Aside from that, looking out our windows, we had a complete view of the lake. It was heaven, it was gorgeous, and this is one place I would most certainly spend all my money at.

Saturday, December 30 – Monday, January 1, 2007: Amritsar, India.
What better place to bring in the new year than at the Golden Temple. This is by far my most favourite gurudwara in the world. The hotel we stayed at was Hotel Hari Darshan which is like 30 seconds from the main gate of the temple. It’s so close you can hear the kirtan right into your hotel room.

At the gurdwara, the wait in line to pay respects was anywhere from 45 min – 1 hour and 15 min. For the most part, I would get shoved so much that it would cause me to retreat to the second floor of the gurudwara and wait around until I would find a place to sit. I didn’t want to sit outside – I was very stubborn about that. Come all this way just to sit outside? I don’t think so. I am happy to say I got a seat inside every single time I went. The last day was the real blessing, where I actually got to sit on the first floor. Mind you – I was sitting in the mens section behind the kirtanees, but my dad was there with me so it seemed to be alright – none of the authority people were said anything. I got up soon enough because we had a flight to catch but it was a perfect way to end the trip.

I have to say though that I found a lot of the sevadars at the Golden Temple somewhat rude. I suppose that comes after having thousands of tourists in your face asking you the same questions over and over again. Like when I was asking about taking Amrit, the guy was barking in my face, giving me really abrupt answers, and spoke really impatiently. I’m sure if it wasn’t at the gurdwara, he would’ve said “Get lost.” Then when was at the front taking matha and moving out of harm’s way towards the exit, a couple in front me had parshaad in their hands that they had forgotten to give at the front. They were already out the exit before they realized it. As they tried to re-enter the gurdwara, the sevadar barked in their face, telling them to move along and get out of the way. The exit was for exit only. That makes sense but it was so mean the way he yelled at them. And the couple understood, but the parshaad? So they asked the sevadar to give it for them, since he was so close. But that too, apparently, was an extraordinary request since the sevadar yelled at them even louder, telling them he wasn’t going to do their work for them. It’s weird. I’ve been taught never to raise my voice in Guru ji’s presence – and here was an amritdhari sevadar teaching me how. Well done.

You’d think New Years at the Golden Temple would be something special. Not really. I asked one of the sevadars what the gurdwara had planned for new years. He said nothing. He said the gurdwara will close, like usual, at 10pm and reopen at 3am. So no overnight simran, no jaikaras, nothing. Hmph. All this way, specifically planned our trip to celebrate New Years at the Golden Temple, and these people were doing nothing? Even Scarborough Gurdwara is better than this, I thought. Anyways, I stayed until the end of evening diwan until they kicked me out. By the time I reached my hotel room, it was 11pm and since there was nothing else to do, I slept.

Wrong decision.

Apparently, the local sangat comes into the temple at quarter to twelve. There are so many people that everyone lines up around the Temple and when the clock strikes midnight, everyone yells out jaikaras. I missed it because I’m a tourist and these things aren’t advertised! Well I’m advertising it now and for anyone else who plans to spend new years at the golden temple – that’s what they do! It isn’t planned, it just happens! It’s a traditional thing the tourists have come up with since the Akal Takht clearly doesn’t plan anything.

Monday, January 1: Amritsar Airport, India.
Happy New Year? Ha, not so happy let me tell you. You say fog, I say smog. No matter which way you slice it, it leads to the same outcome – cancelled flights. What a letdown! People were screaming, asking for their money back, tourists were wondering what they were supposed to do.

We decided to wait it out. And good decision too because Jet Airways finally arranged a coach bus to take everyone to Delhi. That was an 11 hour trip…so I decided it was time for me to charge my iPod. I needed a computer and the only one around was my dad’s laptop. Unless….I wandered over to the Singapore Airlines counter that had a laptop propped up. The USB cable was in my hand. I looked around, no one would mind, would they? I quickly stuck the cable into the slot and acted nonchalant. I’ll charge it just a little, I thought. By that time, the manager or someone came out of the Singapore Airlines office and asked what the hell I was doing with the company laptop. I said I needed to charge my iPod, was that okay? The guy seemed relieved and told me to go ahead. Score! My sister came over and plugged her iPod in. Then we charged our cell phones using Singapore Airlines’ charger. It was great. We made friends with the airline staff, who bought us coffee and gave us a huge bottle of Evian for the bus ride home. I love Singapore Airlines.

Tuesday, January 2 – Thursday, January 4: New Delhi, India
The final days were spent in New Delhi, this time at The Oberoi Hotel. We changed hotels because Shangri-La was a little bit too commercial for us. The Oberoi is the oldest hotel in Delhi and it had a warmer feel to it. Besides relaxing in the hotel, we did more shopping, ate more Nirula’s, and visited family again.

All in all, the trip was a good time, really adventurous and so much fun. I hope I get to travel India again, it’s most definitely a good place to spend your money, and the history teaches you can not be learned elsewhere.

And pictures are up on facebook.

For a different view, visit my sister's blog. Her style of writing is much better than mine and her posts highlight the important parts of our trip.