Teresa and Paul's World Tour - 2011

Just one parting thought as we move on from India... For all the chaos and mayhem that Teresa and I experienced while traveling in India, one thing did shine through on a number of occasions to make the trip constantly rewarding... the color in the people, places, and food. While the bigger cities can be more than a little grey, and the traffic a little loud and maddening, the women especially always somehow manage to inject a splash of life and color wherever they appear. We're not sure how they stayed so clean and vibrate, and full of life, but we're very glad the did.

Teresa and I had been in India for about 2 weeks when we made our way from Agra to Jaipur. By that time the sensory overload was beginning to wear more than a little on us both. We had enjoyed seeing the Taj Mahal, but we happy about leaving Agra behind us. And then there was the train ride from Agra to Jaipur. We were very proud that we had managed to negotiate the train system relatively well from Delhi to Agra, but the trip to Jaipur was going to be 4 hours long (instead of 1.5 hrs) and it would be a night time train (instead of daylight), and the train wasn't scheduled to arrive in Jaipur until mid-night. I'm not ashamed to say, that in hindsight, we had bitten off more than we could chew. In theory it was simple... arrive at the station, wait about 30 mins, board the train, read and play cards for a couple of hours, and then be picked up at the Jaipur station by a car from our hotel... easy. Well unfortunately the practice was nothing like the theory. First, the train was ...

Leaving crazy Delhi and it's constant drone of blaring horns with people in your face hawking something was a welcome relief.  We were happy that we were headed to a smaller town where we thought things would be a bit more tranquil and slow. And we were looking forward to seeing the Mausoleum that a broken hearted king built for his love. The train ride from Delhi to Agra was quite good.  We ended up chatting with two gentlemen during the two hour trip (one of whom was making a 30 hour   train trip with his family to Chennai!).  They asked us about our impressions of India, which is a common question you are asked while traveling throughout the country.  We also talked about the level of corruption that exists in India and we assured them that although it doesn't seem as though the US has as much obvious corruption as India, there are many back room deals being made between the politicians and businesses.  And one of the gentlemen asked me what I though...

Some of you might remember that I spent a few months living and working in India back in 2004 (mostly in New Delhi, with short side trips to Agra, Jaipur, and Katmandu). So while this trip would bring me back to a few of my favorite places (eg. Taj Mahal, and Amber Fort), I was also looking forward to sharing new experiences with Teresa, and I was intrigued to see how I would feel being back. Because Teresa and I arrived at Delhi International airport at about 3am the roads on the way to our first hotel were pretty quite, and the temperature was pretty bearable, certainly not how I remember mega-metropolis that is New Delhi. The taxi driver, however, wasn't very pleased that we had had the commonsense to pre-pay the cab fare to the hotel (something we'd read about online), so he wasn't going to be able to charge us his normal 'tourist rate'... that was a little more like the India I remember. Once we eventually ventured out in to the city during the day (after a cou...

We've been able to relax for a few days at the Delhi Hyatt (thanks to Paul's many stays at the Hyatt up in Cambridge!), so we've had some time to take a deep breath and revisit our experiences and observations from the Turkey trip.   The overall experience was unexpectedly wonderful.   Unexpected, because we had no idea that Turkey 's countryside would be so beautiful.  I highly recommend a road trip through Turkey .  It's much like the little towns and villages that you would see in Switzerland , with the snow capped mountains in the background and each town dotted with a mosque instead of a chapel.  Then there were the gorgeous and abundant wild flowers in the fields and the sides of the highway.  And, the people in the country side are friendly and sweet and offer to sit and have tea with you often.  Cappadocia   was a contrast of green, lush countryside and other-worldly fairy chimneys for which they are famous.  Add to tha...