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Friday 6 November 2009
India Blog - Delhi Belly Edition
Day 2 in India started even earlier than Day 1. We were up, dressed and out of the hotel by 5.15am to catch the train from Delhi to Agra for a full day’s site seeing with the highlight being the wonderful Taj Mahal.
We arrived at the very busy train station, no problem and boarded the train, it was actually a very civilized train journey as we had joked about whether or not we would be sitting on the roof for the 2 hour journey!
It was also quite an eye-opening journey down to Agra. We passed by many of the slums, similar to those we had seen on Slumdog Millionaire. It was very sad to see that people actually do live in these conditions, on top of rubbish dumps, with no clean water, nothing more than a cardboard box as a house and then the toilets…….well, they were just non existent – people taking Number 1s and 2s in the streets or just next to their cardboard box! Very sad.
When we arrived in Agra, we were met at the station by hundreds of taxi and rickshaw drivers all fighting for our business. They even had police with wooden battens to keep the drivers back until we had passed a certain area. We had planned to hire a rickshaw driver for the day, but a taxi driver ended up winning our business by hassling very well and dropping his prices for us. He offered us air conditioning and he actually spoke pretty good English.
He suggested we head to the Taj 1st as it was perfect time of day, before the heat and before the crowds! We took his advice and off we went. Once we got there and saw it, it was amazing, as it’s something you have seen in photos, movies or in books, but to see it in person was fantastic and beautiful! We took lots of photos (including the standard one of “picking up the Taj”). Then we took a tour around the tomb inside the center of the Taj (which took 21 years to build), it was a very peaceful place and after the tour we actually just laid on the marble flooring and chilled for about an hour!
After the Taj we visited Agra Fort, a few shops (where the driver was on commission – quite annoying)! We then visited the baby Taj (another tomb, which the original Taj was based on), and then back to watch the sunset over the Taj whilst enjoying a beer or two.
At 7pm we headed back to the train station. We were exhausted from a full day of sight seeing, and the stomach was starting to feel a little dodgy, (now for the messy bit)! I hope you’re not eating!
About 30 minutes into the journey I was sweating and had Goosebumps all over and needed to go to the bathroom. HOWEVER, those who haven’t been to India before will not fully appreciate the meaning of ‘Indian bathroom’ (especially on a train)! To put in bluntly……..A Hole in the Floor, where you are supposed to squat and hover whilst pooping. Bearing in mind this was a bumpy moving train, you can imagine that not everyone was quite so accurate and there was poop all over the place (not even to mention the smell)!! Well, anything that I had eaten the last 2 days just bounced and I was instantly sick.
Feeling surprisingly better, I headed back to the seats. Another 30 minutes had passed and ‘that feeling’ arrived again. However, this time I had to go (nr 2). So I braced myself knowing it wasn’t going to be pretty, started to crouch down only to realize the door wouldn’t lock properly, so I’m squatting over this hole in the ground, balancing on one leg, whilst holding the door shut with my other leg – I wont go into too much more detail but wow, I was in a bad place right there and then!! (Sorry of this is Too Much Information)!!! I’m sure you can all picture the image!
After the horrifics of the train, we finally got back to the hotel. By then both of us were affected and we were taking it in turns to run to and from the hotel bathroom (where we had an actual toilet) for the rest of the night. Sunday was a complete right off, we only left the room, to go to an Irish bar, to watch the Manchester Derby (Awesome Match)! But we couldn’t even stomach water or plain fries!
On Monday we were unable to leave the room until we had to check out, and we went straight to the airport and managed to get an early flight back to Dubai!
We didn’t eat anything between Saturday night and Tuesday night, it was a very unpleasant illness and we have no idea what caused it as we were trying so hard to be careful with what we ate! We can 100% say we experienced the true meaning of Delhi Belly.
To sum up our short trip:
The poverty in India is on a massive scale, from the thousands of people homeless and the children begging in Delhi to the Slums on the outskirts of the cities. It made us realize how lucky we are but also how we take things like clean water and a roof over our head for granted! We had chosen India as we wanted to experience the different culture and see the sites, which we can definitely say we saw.
Despite the illness, it was a very enjoyable trip, amazing to see the Taj and tick it off the list.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2291001&id=6402232&l=ffbba30598
Would be great to hear from you all and let us know how you getting on.
Speak soon
Much Love
M & E
xxx
We arrived at the very busy train station, no problem and boarded the train, it was actually a very civilized train journey as we had joked about whether or not we would be sitting on the roof for the 2 hour journey!
It was also quite an eye-opening journey down to Agra. We passed by many of the slums, similar to those we had seen on Slumdog Millionaire. It was very sad to see that people actually do live in these conditions, on top of rubbish dumps, with no clean water, nothing more than a cardboard box as a house and then the toilets…….well, they were just non existent – people taking Number 1s and 2s in the streets or just next to their cardboard box! Very sad.
When we arrived in Agra, we were met at the station by hundreds of taxi and rickshaw drivers all fighting for our business. They even had police with wooden battens to keep the drivers back until we had passed a certain area. We had planned to hire a rickshaw driver for the day, but a taxi driver ended up winning our business by hassling very well and dropping his prices for us. He offered us air conditioning and he actually spoke pretty good English.
He suggested we head to the Taj 1st as it was perfect time of day, before the heat and before the crowds! We took his advice and off we went. Once we got there and saw it, it was amazing, as it’s something you have seen in photos, movies or in books, but to see it in person was fantastic and beautiful! We took lots of photos (including the standard one of “picking up the Taj”). Then we took a tour around the tomb inside the center of the Taj (which took 21 years to build), it was a very peaceful place and after the tour we actually just laid on the marble flooring and chilled for about an hour!
After the Taj we visited Agra Fort, a few shops (where the driver was on commission – quite annoying)! We then visited the baby Taj (another tomb, which the original Taj was based on), and then back to watch the sunset over the Taj whilst enjoying a beer or two.
At 7pm we headed back to the train station. We were exhausted from a full day of sight seeing, and the stomach was starting to feel a little dodgy, (now for the messy bit)! I hope you’re not eating!
About 30 minutes into the journey I was sweating and had Goosebumps all over and needed to go to the bathroom. HOWEVER, those who haven’t been to India before will not fully appreciate the meaning of ‘Indian bathroom’ (especially on a train)! To put in bluntly……..A Hole in the Floor, where you are supposed to squat and hover whilst pooping. Bearing in mind this was a bumpy moving train, you can imagine that not everyone was quite so accurate and there was poop all over the place (not even to mention the smell)!! Well, anything that I had eaten the last 2 days just bounced and I was instantly sick.
Feeling surprisingly better, I headed back to the seats. Another 30 minutes had passed and ‘that feeling’ arrived again. However, this time I had to go (nr 2). So I braced myself knowing it wasn’t going to be pretty, started to crouch down only to realize the door wouldn’t lock properly, so I’m squatting over this hole in the ground, balancing on one leg, whilst holding the door shut with my other leg – I wont go into too much more detail but wow, I was in a bad place right there and then!! (Sorry of this is Too Much Information)!!! I’m sure you can all picture the image!
After the horrifics of the train, we finally got back to the hotel. By then both of us were affected and we were taking it in turns to run to and from the hotel bathroom (where we had an actual toilet) for the rest of the night. Sunday was a complete right off, we only left the room, to go to an Irish bar, to watch the Manchester Derby (Awesome Match)! But we couldn’t even stomach water or plain fries!
On Monday we were unable to leave the room until we had to check out, and we went straight to the airport and managed to get an early flight back to Dubai!
We didn’t eat anything between Saturday night and Tuesday night, it was a very unpleasant illness and we have no idea what caused it as we were trying so hard to be careful with what we ate! We can 100% say we experienced the true meaning of Delhi Belly.
To sum up our short trip:
The poverty in India is on a massive scale, from the thousands of people homeless and the children begging in Delhi to the Slums on the outskirts of the cities. It made us realize how lucky we are but also how we take things like clean water and a roof over our head for granted! We had chosen India as we wanted to experience the different culture and see the sites, which we can definitely say we saw.
Despite the illness, it was a very enjoyable trip, amazing to see the Taj and tick it off the list.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2291001&id=6402232&l=ffbba30598
Would be great to hear from you all and let us know how you getting on.
Speak soon
Much Love
M & E
xxx
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