India: trip highlights and lowlights

At the end of every trip, I like to do a highlights and lowlights summary. I have to say that India is up there with one of my favourite trips of all time (along with Vietnam, Italy, Greece and the former Yugoslavia). I would love to go back again, and take my time so that I can  really immerse myself in this crazy-amazing country. So without any further ado, here is my list:

Highlights

• The Golden Temple and eating at the communal kitchen at Amritsar – the power of volunteering on a massive scale
• My first authentic curry in Amritsar—it was a vegetable tikka masala and I still think it was the best curry of the trip and certainly the best curry of my entire life!
• My first autorickshaw ride – it was hair-raising, but it felt great to be right in amongst it
• The Pakistan-India border crossing ceremony – edgy and scary, then it was like being at an interactive theatre show
• My first overnight train trip… the sleeper carriages are something to behold
• The spice market in Old Delhi – a cacophony of crowds, colours and aromas
• The Taj Mahal – it was simply breathtaking
• Mahatma Gandhi’s house in Mumbai – humbling
• Seeing an elephant up close and personal at a spice farm outside Goa – what a happy elephant she was
• The photography exhibition outside my hotel room in Goa – a happy accident
• Playing Uno with the two lovely, young men on a train – they were just delightful
• The palace at Mysore – and I was pretty sick of palaces and forts by then 😉
• The night markets at Mysore – lively, colourful and friendly
• Seeing elephants and two Bengal tigers in Bandipur National Park – wow, just wow
• Eating fresh naan and tandoori chicken straight from the tandoor oven in Bandipur – best. tandoori. chicken. and. naan. ever!
• Sailing through the Kerala backwaters – this was such a relaxing way to spend the day
• The Trident hotel and its lovely pool and restaurant and staff in Kochin – despite issues with the room key, the staff were lovely and helpful and the hotel itself was beautiful
• Being greeted/escorted/helped to immigration at Kochin airport by the Cox & Kings representative – although on meeting me, he gave me his business card and asked me to help him find a job in Australia!

Lowlights:

• Being bumped from my flight from Delhi to Amritsar, and then having to pay another transfer fee because the driver came to the airport twice – yes I was compensated 3000 rupees, but that’s not the point!
• Being tricked into a tuk-tuk in Delhi while we were on our way to dinner – we were taken to a “government shopping mall”… I’m 99.9% sure there was some sort of kickback was involved
• Being charged an outrageous price for vodka by the hotel I stayed in Delhi – $60 for three shots of vodka? Outrageous, and I wasn’t aware until I paid my bill
• Getting scammed in Jaipur when buying alcohol – and it was completely unnecessary because I would have paid the extra 500 rupees!
• Thin, watery, tasteless Dahl at a restaurant in Agra – but the rice was nice, and there was free wi-fi – swings and roundabouts
• Two people with most unfortunate personalities on the tour – urgh. And they are the reason that I can never do another group tour – ever!
• All the rubbish lying around in the streets practically everywhere went – due to corruption, I later found out
• Being hassled ALL THE TIME by hawkers and vendors – actually, I was hassled considerably less than most of my group because I cultivated an expression that can best be described as bored indifference. Hawkers pretty much asked me once and then attacked more vulnerable prey 😉
• Being unable to run – not for personal safety reasons, but because the basic infrastructure (footpaths, decent roads, gyms that worked) weren’t there to support it
• Being stopped by security at Kochi airport as I was about to board just because my bag didn’t have a stamped security tag – ah, dude… I don’t know your security processes!