Even The Best Laid Plans

Laurie and I arrived in New Delhi last week around 1:30 AM on Thursday morning, May 25th. We pre-booked a room at Villa 33, a guesthouse in the Hauz Khas area of the city. The area has a somewhat laid back, upscale vibe with good restaurants nearby and lots of green space. Our guesthouse arranged a driver to greet us at the airport which is a great idea, not only because it’s the middle of the night, but the scams at the airport here are notorious. Drivers will tell you that the road to your hotel is closed, or the hotel burned down, or will simply bring you somewhere else where they get a commission. We settled in for a few days exploring the area and visiting some old haunts like Pahar Gang Bazaar, where we stayed on our first few trips here 16 years ago. You can still get a budget room at the Hare Krishna Guest House for about $12 a night! The city seems very familiar, noticeably cleaner, less polluted and less traffic than all of our previous trips here.

In the Green Park area we had some awesome food, took strolls through the Rose Garden (a great shortcut to Haus Has Village), saw a colony of giant bats (flying fox variety – 3 foot wingspan), and talked with many locals – probably my favorite thing about India – the people. After 3 days we were ready to move on to the anticipated highlight of this trip – Rishikesh and the 11 day tour to the north for Char Dham Yatra – an adventure to the seasonal shrines high in the Himalayas.

We landed at the Dehradun airport (it’s really in Jolly Grant) and bargained for a cab to Rishikesh. We were thrown off by the taxi drivers reluctance to offer to take us to our destination. The drivers all seemed to be on the same page, they offered to bring us only as far as the Rishikesh bus stand, not the extra 1 mile to the main road at Kailash Gate. We had no idea why but took their offer of a ride to the bus stand, it would get us pretty close to our destination. Arriving at the bus stand we hired an tuktuk (that’s the green and yellow contraption in the photo above) and the driver insisted on a price 500% higher than usual, still only about $3. The tuktuk driver maneuvered us down narrow alleys, stuck with dozens of other tuktuks, cramped into places that seemed impossible to navigate. All the while we wondered why we weren’t on the main road. This went on for a long time and it was super hot. Finally the driver made it to the main road and it was now clear why no one wanted to take us. The road was standstill traffic. Loud, dusty, hot and not moving. We jumped out as we were now familiar with where we were and tipped the driver quite a bit for his trouble. We walked about 3 minutes to our Airbnb, Harihar Niwas Home Stay, a place we’ve stayed at before, sometimes for a month at a time. This time we booked the apartment for only 3 days as we planned to head north soon to do Char Dham Yatra in the mountains.

After we unpacked we headed out for a stroll along the Ganga, the holiest of rivers in India. We walked up to Ram Jhula where a friend of ours owns a small restaurant. The area was crazy busy, like 10 times more crowded than we ever seen it in our 16 years of traveling here. The main road was still jammed with traffic, loud as ever, and it seemed like it wasn’t moving at all, like thousands and thousands of people all had the same idea we had, to head north for Char Dham Yatra. And this is the only road, the gateway to the mountains. It’s 2 lanes wide, one in each direction. We visited with our friend, had a bite, and headed back to our guesthouse for the night. As we tried to unwind in this massively crowded town, the gateway to the Himalayas, we started to rethink our plans.

By morning, Laurie and I both agreed that trying to go north would be futile and decided to move on. This would leave us with an extra 2 weeks to spend somewhere else further into the trip. We began to contact all our friends here to make arrangements to visit them asap. We shared many meals, caught up on what everyone was up to, and even had some tasty sweets like ghee ladoos, mohan thal and sugar-free burfi from Rajasthani Sweets Mishthan Bhandar, in our opinion one of the best places to eat in India.

On Wednesday we flew to Kolkata (Calcutta) to spend 3 nights at The Oberoi Grand. It’s our first time in this city. The place has a pool, a bathtub in our room, and breakfast is included. The staff are super professional and the hotel houses “The best Thai restaurant” in India. The food was great. The traffic in Kolkata moves along quickly and it’s less crowded than Rishikesh.

The next morning we made our way to the Kali Ghat Mandir where we were quickly attached by a few touts that “guided” us through the temple. No charge for watching our shoes (you have to make your way barefoot) and only 100 rupees for the offering of flowers, coconut, etc. But a few minutes later inside the temple our “guide” asked us to cough up thousands of rupees for a “special blessing”. We politely declined. Outside the temple as we retrieved our shoes and paid the 100 rupees for the offering, our guide wanted a tip, which we promptly provided. He refused the tip saying it was too little. I tripled the tip and he was still obstinate, but took it as I started to walk away. After the temple we headed to The Indian Museum, the largest in India, where we took in the vast collection of skulls, bones, taxidermy, fossils, fabrics, statues, insects, fish, snakes, artwork and even a mummy (sorry, no mummy photos were allowed).

Friday we made our way to the Mullick Ghat Market – (Asia’s largest?) flower market. It was hot and humid, over 100′ F, with a feels like temp of 109′. The market was packed and a sight to behold. We wandered through for a while and headed to the river where we visited with some folks who were doing a photo shoot. Next we headed across the street to the Mahadeva Mandir, a small local temple, where we bought chai for a group of women outside.

Our last night at the Oberoi we decided to try their world class Thai restaurant. It did not disappoint. The 2 dishes we tried were fantastic, the best food we’ve had in a really long time. The desserts were great as well. Laurie had an ice cream sandwich, a club sandwich-like treat that has been on the menu at the Oberoi for over 15 years. I went for the sugar-free chocolate ice cream which was equally as great as the rest of the meal.

Saturday morning we headed to the airport for a short flight, and a long drive north to Darjeeling, where we’ll spend the long weekend at a tea estate. Our plan is to do some hiking, catch up on work, and decide how we’ll spend those extra 2 weeks of travel since we didn’t stay in Rishikesh or do the Char Dham Yatra.