Vacation to NIndia(In Progress)

We(3nath, Dheeraj, Venki, Gulli, Kishore, Suneel, Bhuvanesh) were on a ever waiting long trip to NIndia trip. In the complete tour we missed Mani who is generally termed as gang leader due to very bad malaria. I actually insisted to take him with us but the worst things he was suffering was heavy cold in the evenings and the other is throat infection. But many of us only adviced me to not to take the risk as the places we planned to cover were indeed very very cold. But we certainly missed him throughout the tour.

I started this blog not to let our exprience get lost with time. Will be completely progressively.
22ndDecember'07(Travel to Delhi)
We had our train Samparkranthi Express from Secunderabad railway station on 22nd 8:45Am. Actually Kishore and Dheeraj reached Hyd from Chennai and Banglore just an hour before the train timing to Delhi. Venki received both of them from there arrival points. This made venki very busy and so he was a bit late finally to start to the station. The luggage was very heavy totally. So we hired 3autos to reach station. We finally boarded train successfully. As the tickets were booked on first class (b'coz some of the friends were not happy when i was planning to book tickets in 3tier A/C as the december month will be very cold that too in north india) the washrooms and the compartment was very clean and tidy....but O.K. we adjusted :) As the berths/seats we got were not continuous, we had some tough time convincing the people in one cabin to take our seats in the same compartment.

Finally we managed to accumulate 5 seats in the one cabin except one couple who were not willing to move as they were insisting to have their heavy luggage(really heavy luggage and i am sure they must be coming from some long trip or other country) with them and also they dont want to move to another cabin as they have settled down completely now. Actually they were abt to get down at bhopal which might reach at night 11:00pm. Anyways we finally managed to squeeze into the same cabin. As we settled down we started to have fun striking sattires at each other. By afternoon we had played some rounds of cards. Franckly speaking that was the main fun we had in our complete tour. Each one of us were very hungry and so we had and early lunch. Our lunch included chapathis(my mom prepared as she was in hyd for my b'day which was on 8thDec') and the side dish(yerra karam ;)) was from Venki's mama home. Gulli and venki had more chapathis than everyone else and we just left 4-5 chapathis left for the evening snacks. After having lunch all of us were on their own fun. Laptop, MP3 players, chit chat...having a quick nap....it was all fun and i was particularly excited abt the next 8 days tour. In the evening we again had some gud fun with cards fooling venki and others with JKalavar ;)

In the evening we managed to get food...managed?? why?? B'coz we didn't order the food to the canteen in the train. We thought we can get better food from the stations. But we couldn't find any proper stations or proper food and so we managed the food distributor in the train to get atleast 2 meals and a chapathi parcel. We had to adjust with the food provided and the left over chapathis in the afternoon helped us a bit.

Everyone argued over the berth places and i managed to get a lower berth but didnt get an MP3 player and i forgot my ipod at home. So except venki everyone took their berths. Donno problem with venki. But actually he was the one who was there with full preparation with some hot clothes i.e. gloves, mufflar, huge jacket. So he was busy unpacking his bag and finding them in the chaos. And he took his berth in the next cabin cause one of our seats were left there. But by morning he was in our cabin only, reason was after the couple(in our cabin) left the train in bhopal he came back to our cabin and also he was not getting sleep in the train...dats very bad.


23rdDecember'07(Travel to Agra)
The next morning as usual venki was late to wake up. Everyone was allset to land in delhi. But the train(INDIAN TRAIN) was late by an hour or so. Meanwhile i contacted the guy who was ready to pick us up at the Nizamuddin railway station. So we packed up all our luggage and complete compartment was empty as that was the last station. In that hour we had a round of cards and the had a simple photo session :) in the compartment. Then we had a round of cards game...sattires...counters etc. etc. Meanwhile the guy called Jithender(travel agency guy) who was waiting for us to pick us up contacted me and i informed him that we will be 2 hrs late. As we are nearing Delhi we saw the Agra station and there was a stop in the station too. Some one there told us that was an unofficial stop and will not be listed in the list of stations in the train schedule. If known, we would have booked the tickets till agra only, 'coz our schedule was to reach delhi and travel to agra. This mistake costed us 4 hrs. So, as we reached delhi some hijra got into the train and asked for alms. Infact it was not asking, it was demanding. We pretended to not to notice.
The whole cabin was blocked with luggage as we were using the luggage as a platform to play the cards. The guys at the front part of the cabing i.e. venki, kishore etc. was caught. The hijras were touching :) them and asking for money. We guys i.e. me, gulli and suneel were in safer position nearer to the windows. We gave some money i.e. around 50-60 rupess..GOD! dats toomuch and got rid of them. So we reached delhi. We had some bad time to get hold of Jithender. As he told us a restaurant name and asked us to stand before that. But the issue is there was a restaurant with that name both outside the station and on the first platform. So finally we got out of the station....talked to him clearly abt the journey, plan, schedule. By that time, we didnt realize that driver called "Anil" would be very helpful. The i paid jithender the remaining balance amount and started directly to Agra.

We got in the vehicle i.e. CHEVROLET TAVERA which hold very new look. Adjusted our luggage, choose our places and venki got into the conductor position as that seat can serve him/his size better.

After starting towards Agra, i had a chat with anil. He suggested to visit Mathura on the way to agra. Mathura is just 55km from Agra. So we reached Mathura by afternoon. Had our bath and had darshan which was a bit hasty. We started to Agra immediatel without even having lunch to visit TajMahal in the moonlight(as the day was fulll moon). So we directly went to tajmahal without evening checkin to hotel. But by the time we reached tajmahal it was 6:30PM and we thought we can manage to have the entrance. But the parking lot was very far from the actual tajmahal gateway. By the time we took the entrance tickets and entered tajmahal it was 6:45PM. The security personel was already asking the visitors to leave the place as the closing time is 7:00PM. So we didnt notice each other and headed(franckly ran towards taj mahal to atleast has a glance at it in the full moon light). But venky was using the handy cam and so was caught by the security as the videography is not permitted in and around the taj mahal premises. Then i talked to security and some how managed to get rid of the issue. The first glance of the TajMahal in the full moonlight was outstanding. The cool breeze and the slight fog and TajMahal...wow its fabulous. We(3nath, Gulli, Bhuvanesh) were left as a group and we managed to go together near to the taj mahal. The sight of Yamuna river in the moonlight...man!! no way i can express the feeling. We tried to have gud photos...but as the flash range is just 10ft. only the we were getting captured and the background was black. Anyways the first view of the Taj in the moonlight was fabulous.

Then we headed to our hotel. Actually we headed to search our hotel as it was already 8PM and finally we reached our hotel. Instead of checkin to the hotel and go for dinner, we first opted to go for dinner as we all were hungry as we didnt have lunch in the afternoon. Finally, we found a restaurant called TARA or Nakshthra....star hotel ;)....the stars were related to the cost and not the food and ambience :). We had our dinner and reached the hotel. In a small talk with Anil i came to know that Agra and Jaipur are very costly compared to chandigarh and delhi. We made a schedule with Anil that we will visit TajMahal again in the morning.

Once we checked in to hotel, i was very happy that the rooms and reception was very nice and very good more than my expectations. We had some good time at hotel room also. Venki was so troublesome that he was not at all leaving to his room. Finally me n dheeraj managed to throw him out :). As we planned to visit TajMahal again we have to wake up early in the morning i.e. not at 4AM or 5AM :), its around 6AM, B'coz the taj mahal opens at 9:00AM. So we have to reach there by that time. So dats the eod.

24December'07(Agra)
The day started at 5:00AM actually. As we were distributed in two different rooms. We woke up and started to get ready. Our goal was to reach taj mahal by 8:30AM. B'Coz dats the opening time for taj mahal. we, our room mates(3nath, Dru, Bhuvanesh, Kishore) got ready. Venki in between cause some annoyance. But dru after getting ready had some photo session even in the hotel room :).

Then as usual we were late due to bhu's long bath :) or something else. The taj mahal was opened and closed again for cleaning purpose. So we had some 30-40 minutes time to luk around. So as we already hired a camel cart from the parking place to taj mahal, we were riding on it. The camel vala stopped near a shopping complex where agras handicraft or handloom works were possible. The camel vala as per rules has to stop there for 15 mins. though the tourists wants to shop or not(which is abs. bull shit reason). So having no options we have to go around the shopping complex though it is small. The first shop of the complex was a handloom store to which we were personally invited to visit :) by the gate keeper of the shop. We just went in to do some timepass. But finally we are forced by nobody to buy some sarees to our family members. This is so unfortunate. With absolutely no idea abt wats the quality and the worth of the sarees we totally did a shopping for 10-15K which is absolutely absurd.

Then we were not dare enough to enter anyother shop and directly started to the gateway of taj mahal where we already found a pretty lenghty que. So immediately we rushed to lock our belogings at the locker keeping only digi cams with us.

After passing over the vigilance check we had a 5-10 mins walk to the entrance of the actual mahal. The view of the white taj mahal through the actual fort(i term it as compound wall :)) was spectacular. There we had a photo session each snap consisting of 3 in YUVA style. Very funny rite. Had a gud time there :). Our venki alias venkateshwarlu was busy videographing the entire fort.

As soon as we entered the actual scope of Taj Mahal, it was really fantastic and worthful to be called as one of the 7 seven wonders of the world. The slight fog made it more romantic. Wasting no time we immediately rushed towards the taj. The more closer we move towards taj, the more attractive and huge it became. The people were luked little infront of the taj when we actually reached the foot of it. We need to actually climb 2 floors to be there in the lanai of the taj. I captured few pics which actually shows the "Sikhar" of the taj tomb and some pics which explains the maintainance of taj.The pics actually showcases the optical zoom of my Canon SX100IS cam. The sikhar of the tomb luked like a sikhar of an hindu temple rather than a muslim mosque. I tried to analyze the mail which i got a few months back which argues that the Taj Mahal is a Sivalayam rather than a mosque or graveholder for a moment. Then after couple of pics we climbed the floors to reach the taj foot.

The floor was so cool and smooth that we thought of sitting rite there for a while. The saddest part is while actually entering the taj building, we are not supposed to use the cams. There was a very fantastic piece of art work in the marble stones around the corpse of the Begum. There were actually two corpse, one of Begum and one of shahjahan which was made after his death. But, our spy cam captured couple of pics inside the building too but a bit blurred. Inspite of being warned once not to use the cam in the building we pictured the second pic where even our gulli(photo picchodu) wants to pose before the corpse :).

After coming out of the building we noticed one guide explaining about the beauty of the work on the taj walls to an tourist party. We immediatley became a part of the party for a while to grab the info. The walls of the taj were so gracefully engraved that it seems like a fitting one on one which was actually a synchronous work. Then only i realized that, that was reason why shah jahan smeared of the hands of the workers who worked on it.

After that we had some nice time there on the lanai of the taj which was very cool and smooth. We sat exactly backside of the taj where we can view the River Yamuna. We came to know that there was another construction which is called the Black Taj Mahal on the other side of River Yamuna. But the the construction was not complete. we tried to zoom in to capture the sculpture but cudnt do that.

After a long photo session of individuals in different pose and different styles we moved on. When i call it long, it was really very long which spans to 1-1.5 hrs. Ridiculous rite?After that as we went out the taj fort, we were looking for some tiffin center to have some tiffin. But our venki sir, being a shoes collector(yes he is, he has a range of shoes) took us to an shoe shop which was told the cheap and best shop. Not only he, we all purchase each a pair of shoes willingly or unwillingly. Then after this shopping we moved on to the parking lot where our driver was furiously waiting for us as it was already late and we have to move on. He expressed his concern that due to the delay at taj we may miss some places planned for the day. Everyone blamed the other for the delay. Due to this delay we missed the Agra Fort. Only couple of pics of agra fort were captured from tavera to just remind us that we missed it due to our photo session. The tavera ran towards jaipur and all ended up tired lying there in their places.

25December'07(Pushkar & Jaipur)

26December'07(Delhi)

27December'07(Chandigarh)

28December'07(Shimla)

29December'07(Chandigarh)

30December'07(Travel back to Hyderabad)