A Listful Life: February 2013

C and I came home from India four weeks ago. I know it's taken awhile to get this post going, and I really have no excuse as to why. Honestly, C still lives in Dallas 4 days a week so my weeknights are pretty tame. At this point my excuse is just laziness. It's many hours of watching Dawson's Creek on Netflix instead of blogging. It's the hours I spent reading Breaking Dawn so I can officially rid myself of the Twilight saga. It's pinterest. Enough said.

During my freshman year of college, I made a list of places I wanted to visit in my lifetime. Shortly after that, I spent a semester studying abroad in Germany and had the opportunity to cross a lot of places off my list. Over the past few years, I've been able to cross off a few more through work and personal travel. However, the list has grown as C and I toss around our own travel ideas and goals. India has been on my list since day one, but I honestly never thought I would have the opportunity to go. We were so blessed to be presented with an opportunity this summer when our friends informed us they would be moving there for a work assignment. They were only staying for six months which left us limited dates to schedule it and a short planning time. However, after sleeping on it that night, C and I decided we would never have a chance like this again. We were going to India.

India was an experience different from any others I've had. There were some major cultural hurdles that we had to overcome to really enjoy our time in India. These started at the airport in Chicago. We quickly became frustrated over the lack of organization, lines, and general respect for others as we waited to get our tickets for the flight. At that moment, we knew we had to let go of all we are used to and just go with the flow if we were going to enjoy ourselves at all.

We were blessed to have our good friends there to greet us as we landed in Bangalore. They spent the next 5 or 6 days with us in Bangalore and Goa. Having them there for advice and general knowledge about getting around was a HUGE help. We were heading to Delhi on our own for the last four days and were a bit nervous, but thanks to them, Delhi was a breeze!

Our trip was short considering all we were trying to fit in, but we were definitely ready to get home by the end. We spent about a day and a half in Bangalore, which was a nice transition. Our friends have a driver so we were able to see Lal Bhag and the Bangalore Palace, have Mendhi done (after an hour or so of searching for a place) as well as eat some good food and catch up on some of our missed sleep.

From Bangalore we hopped a plane to Goa, a coastal beach area. We spent about four days in Goa, including New Years Eve and New Years Day. Our mornings were usually spent doing some sight seeing and then the afternoons were spent at the beach. One of my favorite things of the whole trip was the Spice Farm tour we went on while in Goa. Indian's believe heavily in the healing power of spices. We learned that pretty much any spice can cure anything if you eat it or rub it on your skin (in a downward direction-away from the heart) twice a day for 3 months. Truth.

From Goa we flew to Delhi (via a confusing stopover/hopover in Mumbai) and spent the next four days visiting Delhi and Agra. We arrived in Delhi late in the night and got up bright and early the next morning to meet our driver for our trip to the Taj Mahal. A coworker of mine helped book a driver for us to go there and back in the same day. It made for a long day, but we were glad we did it this way instead of spending the night in Agra. The Taj was as impressive to see as it looks in pictures. Our driver picked up a "tour guide" on the side of the road as we entered Agra (a sight that was a bit scary to us at first, but again, our mantra of "just go with it" kicked in). The tour guide was really nice and super informative, even if he was trying to screw me out of money and take me to stores/restaurants that paid him commission. He took a lot of pictures for us which meant C and I actually came home with a few pictures of both of us together!

We spent three days sight seeing in Delhi after the Agra trip. We probably could have fit it into two days, or tried to see more stuff, but it was nice not to feel rushed or have to get up too early. This was supposed to be a vacation after all....

Overall we really enjoyed ourselves. We had a lot of great food, and some OK food, but really nothing bad. We never got sick or had any issues with the food or water. We didn't ever really feel unsafe or insecure about our surroundings (okay, maybe for a few minutes in Old Delhi--it was kind of sketch.). We even rode a few rickshaws and lived to tell about it! While we don't have plans to go back anytime soon, or ever probably, we were glad we went and enjoyed all that we experienced.

Check out the pictures below of our trip. I tried to post one picture of each highlight or major site we saw during the trip.

Getting Mendhi in Bangalore