Full Day in Old Delhi

Hello World,

 

Just got back from a full day tour - Lakshmi Narayan Mandir Temple, Red Fort, Chandni Chowk, Jami Masjiid Mosque and an amazing baazar! Very excited about our tour and gift purchases;) And we're getting quite good at bargaining over here if I must say so myself...

 

For anyone going to India, we highly recommend the Laksmi Narayan Mandir Temple over the Jami Masjiid Mosque.  It was breathtakingly beautiful and it was free.  Pictures were not allowed, so the above picture was 'borrowed' from the web (more pics here).

 

We'll hopefully post some new pictures soon.  If we can't they probably won't be posted for a bit, since we have no idea what the internet situation will be in our new cities.

bye! vicky

Out and About in New Delhi

Hey Folks,

We traveled around New Delhi today (Delhi is divided into old Delhi and New Delhi). In New Delhi we visited their government's center (President house and Congress), the India Gate national monument, National Zoological Park and Humayan's Tomb. We also bought a few gifts.

The highlight of the day of the day was definitely our productivity. Who would have thunk that we could do so much? It has been pretty difficult to adjust to this new time zone, but we are slowly working in the right direction. Yesterday we slept till 4pm, today until 12 noon. Tomorrow: 9am? We can only hope. Tamu (that's me) also loved seeing Humayan's Tomb, which was apparently the architectural inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Of course the Taj improved the original design, but it was great to get a taste of what's to come. And Vicky was flabbergasted when she saw the Zoo's rhinoceroses. As she put it... "it was like staring at real live dinosaurs!" Very cool. Especially since her burst of excitement was only seconds after she questioned the very reason for zoos.

That's all for now. We'll check in later. Peace and love - Tamu

We Made If Safely to Asia

Tamu asleep at hotel

Hey All,

After a very long flight, we finally made it far east to south Asia.  Aaah feels good to not be traveling on a plane ;).

The weather here is pretty warm and the people here are very kind.  Our first impressions are that this part of India is safe and fairly easy to get around.  Right now, our hotel is located right on the line of New Delhi and Old Delhi.  It's great because it's in the center of all the activity and we get to be among a lot of locals and a good amount of tourists as well.  We've met people traveling from all parts of the world, China, Germany, Spain and more.  It felt good to know that we are not alone in seeing the beauties of India for the first time.  In fact, there are more hotels on this one road, than we could count.  It took a couple of loops of the street just to find which one was ours.  I would guess that there are about 40.

The Hotel Delhi City Centre is nice.  And we have the Western accouterments that we are used to: flat screen cable tv, wi-fi, a mini fridge.  Not bad for $40 a night.  But it did take us a while to get the wi-fi working.  This may have been because we kept falling asleep and missing the hotel's calls.  We needed an access card from them to log into their network.  But we slept until 4pm Delhi time (6am Boston time).  That is definitely something we'll have to work on tomorrow.

Now that we are up, it is time to explore!  Post back soon...

Flying Across the World

Howdy Folks,

We flew across the world today, crossing timezones and hopping boarders while trying to reach India.  The flight out of Boston was a little more turbulent than we'd have liked, but it didn't bother us at all because we were flying in Business Class.  That's right! Anyone smell a free upgrade?  I do.  Business class is great.  We had an amazing three course meal, individual TVs with video on demand, free magazines/newspapers, automatically adjustable seats (with built in massage modes, and did I mention leg room?  It was unbelievable.  And because of it, we giddy like little school children.  Fun stuff.

We were scheduled to transfer in Frankfurt, Germany, however, because of weather conditions, we had to first land in Munich.  Luckily for us, we were both in the upgraded seats and had a 6 hour layover.  So while we waited for the Frankfurt airport to open, we were more than happy to put our chairs into 'bed mode' and take a nap.  We arrived in Frankfurt with plenty of time to make the next flight.

The next leg of the flight was to our final destination: Delhi, India.  This time we were in regular economy class, but it was still nice and we had our first taste of authentic Indian food.  Delicious!  Not as good as our previous 3 course meal... but definitely got us excited for the cuisine ahead.  In fact, we asked for (and received) seconds.  We finally landed into Delhi's beautiful airport at 2am local time.  Customs, etc was pretty quick and after prepaying our taxi fare we were out to the street in a run down, black and orange.  But it had character and our driver was great; weaving in and out of danger with ease on roads where the painted lanes are just suggestions and roaming animals may decide to cross at any moment.

That is all for now.  Its off to the hotel.

Hours Away From Travel!!

 

We are so excited for our trip!!!  Just a few hours away, we are finalizing our last bit of packing and combing through our to-do lists. (Yes there are multiple lists tehehe)  There seems to be so much prep to do just in order to leave. Thank you to you all who have helped us think of everything and are wishing us safe travels!

Praise the Lord for what will be a beautiful opportunity to experience a drastically different culture and population.  It is so exciting that we have the ability to travel and increase our list of adventures!  Who better to do it with then my husband, who is not only my best friend, but my travel buddy. We'll be finally going on our honeymoon beginning today, in India and will both vacation and work while there.  We'll be traveling to New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, then back to New Delhi, Agra for the second part of the trip which will take place in Delhi, Agra, Bangalore and Mumbai.

We'll keep you up to-date on all of our happenings up until we return in January. 

Peace and Love!

We're going to India!

We're flying out tomorrow. So excited. Can't wait for our honeymoon to begin! Wohoo! We'll keep you posted on all the happenings.