Un petit post pour les frenchies...
En fait nous voila en Inde depuis 6 jours maintenant (5 pour le sac de Kelly qui s est attarde en Italie...). Apres les premieres fayeurs de l arrivee dans le premier Hotel, de nuit avec Brouillard dans le quartier le plus typique de Delhi tout se passe gentiment. Il ne faut s etonner de rien ( voir les anecdotes in English). Nous sommes maintenant a Varanasi, ville sainte des Hindouistes qui viennent se purifier dans les eaux limpides du Gange au milieu des vaches sacrees et des crazy monkeys !
A bientot
Yannick
Hello everyone !
We are here in Varanasi. What a trip it has been so far, there have been many surprises...
We arrived to Delhi late Sat night, my luggage did not. Our driver was waiting for us, even
after an extended wait trying to locate my luggage. There was so much fog you could not see more than a few meters.
The hotel had all our train tickets, no problem there. The bad news is that the hotel was filthy and we spent
awhile trying to get clean(er) sheets. That night we slept in our clothes but the good news is that we did not
wake up covered in bedbug bites! The next am we ventured out into Delhi, it is absolutly crazy, you cqnnot go more than a foot
without getting hassled. We found a new hotel costing 10 times the first one but in the end it was so worth it.
The train trip to Agra was an adventure to say the least. We almost missed it as they changed the track number.
Arriving to our seats we found 2 guys there already and after a few minutes of discussion they vacated our places,
taking their rifles with them! We spent the next 3 hours watching these 4 guys with big guns play cards
on a makeshift table using their guns with their prisoner, who was the designated score keeper!
We arrived to Agra safely only to find the hotel had our room, but not our requested room with hot water!
We would have to use bucket hot water... It was late but they brought us dinner to our room, which turned into
a candlelight dinner as we soon lost power!
We were up early to see the Taj Mahal which is beyond magnificient! We then hired a car to tour
Fathpur Sikri, Agra Fort and teh baby Taj. It was a great day, I will leave the discussion of the roads and
driving for another day. ..
The night train from Agra got us to Varanasi at 12:30 pm instead of 8:30. Our hotel picked us up which was wonderful
as Varanasi is crazy and we could never find it on our own. This is a great hotel and we have a balcony with view of the Ganges and
all of the happenings going on. There are cows and monkeys everywhere, and there are signs every where saying to beware of
the crazy monkeys!
India has been a learning experience, we are having many laughs and the Indian people are wonderful. We look forward to more
surprises !
Namaste,
Kelly
Namaste ! Welcome to the Curry Chronicles ! This is Kelly and Yannick's blog for our much awaited trip to India. We are currently 2 days from departure. I want to think that we are well prepared after endless hours of research but I have a strong feeling one cannot be fully prepared for the wonders that India holds. We have had the recommended shots, procured malaria meds along with 2 grocery bags of other stuff for all that may ail us, conquered the Indian Embassy to secure our tourist visas, broken in our walking shoes, read the warnings of trouble making monkeys, and watched Gandhi.
We decided to reserve hotel and trains in advance as it is the busy tourist season. We arrive late Dec 24 after an early morning flight on Alitalia; Paris - Milan - Delhi. Our hotel in Delhi is sending a driver to extract us from the chaos that is the Delhi airport. Our plan (which may change as we go) is to spend the first 2 nights in Delhi. We are then off to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. After one night in Agra we are off on the night train to spend 2 nights in Varanasi, the holiest city in India. Hindu beliefs state that if one dies and is cremated in Varanasi, you go directly to heaven thus breaking out of the reincarnation cycle. We hope we will not have to test this theory!
After Varanasi we head out on another night train to spend New Year's in Jaipur. After a very busy first week in India we hope to slow down a bit by spending 3 days at Ranthambhore National Parc in a tented camp. Here we will take several safaris with hopes of encountering the very elusive Tiger. Sadly due to poaching, the number of tigers has greatly diminished, but if we are so lucky to even catch a glimpse of one it will be a very special lifelong memory.
Our next stop, Udaipur, will be another night train adventure. This is where we chose our 'splurge' hotel, a 17th century converted haveli (ancestral home) for 3 nights. We have reserved a lake facing room and recent reports indicate that after a long drought, Lake Picola is full to the brim and absolutely stunning once again.
If all goes according to plan, we will hire a driver to take us to Jodhpur. We hope to stop along the way to see the Jain temple at Ranakpur. We have 2 nights in Jodhpur after which we will likely hire another driver to get us to Jaisalmer. Jaisalmer is a desert town about 100 km from the Pakistan border. This is an excellent base for a camel safari, if one is so inclined. We may settle on a sunset/dinner trip as time and comfort is somewhat limited.
One more grueling 19 hour train ride(when all goes well) from Jaisalmer and we arrive back in Delhi. We spend one final night and all of the last day before our 2:50 am Jan 16 departure back to Paris. We hope to take a few minutes while we are in India to write an update and maybe uploaded a few photos, so please, stop back and leave us a message !
We wish for everyone a wonderful holiday season and look forward to hearing from you!
Kelly and Yannick
