The Henke's go to India

On Sunday, January 30th we returned from a 5-day trip to India.  Our winter break at YMWA is at the true mid-point of the school year, so we had the last week of January and first week of February off.  Why India?  Starting from Jordan, we knew it would be much cheaper to get to many places in the world than it would be from the US.  Also, we figured it was much more likely that we will visit somewhere in Europe during the future than somewhere in Asia.  India seemed like a good pick: not too expensive to get to, cheap once reached, and full of fascinating things to do and see.  As such, we started planning a couple months ahead, saved up some money, and made our plans.  The only thing left was to wait, which we did until our break began.

We started out on Monday, January 24th, getting up early to finish our preparations.  At noon we were picked up and taken to the airport, leaving lots of time to kill before our flight at 5:30pm.  Being prepared for this, we started reading the books we brought for just this purpose.  Our flight departed on time, and we flew from Amman to Bahrain, where we had a short layover, and then on to Delhi.  When we booked our flights, we didn't realize we selected seats in front of the exit row and our seats wouldn't recline.  So, for our 6.5 hours of flight time we only got about 2 hours of sleep. 

We landed in Delhi at 4:30am, but our rental car was not scheduled until 7am, so once again we passed the time with our books.  Our car arrived a little late, and after some confusion, we found out that our driver didn't speak a word of English.  After being in Jordan for 6 months, we are kind of used to dealing with this, so we decided not to make a big deal of it and just make it work.  Luckily, he did understand the names of most places, so we managed to tell him the places we would like to go.  Our first stop in Delhi that morning was the Jama Masjid mosque, a large piece of Mughal architecture with 40-meter tall minarets that were reported to have an excellent view.  The structure itself was nice, but the admission prices went up, they required us to remove our shoes even though they were feeding the pigeons, and the morning smog limited our view.  Our next destination was to be the nearby Red Fort, but we learned that it was closed for preparations for the next day, which was a national holiday. 

Not to be deterred, we moved along to our next stop, Humayan’s Tomb.  The Humayan’s Tomb complex, with many large walls, wonderful buildings, and beautifully manicured lawns was peaceful and serene – just what we needed after our previous disappointments.  After that we made a trip to the National Museum, where we saw lots of great examples of Indian art and artifacts, dating from 2000BC up to the present.  It was now mid-afternoon, and we needed to be finished with the car, so we had our driver drop us off at the State Emporium shops, where we could do a bit of shopping without having to haggle.  When we started to walk around, we thought people were being so helpful, but in reality they were trying to rip off the tourists by leading them to overpriced shops where they would earn a commission.  Once we figured that out, we stopped accepting help from them and just relied on our maps. 

After we were finished shopping, we walked about 3 miles to the train station to catch our night train to Ramnagar.  Those 3 miles were some of the craziest miles we have ever walked!  We walked through the Old Delhi bazaar district, which was crammed full of thousands of people: people pushing their way through on foot, on bike, on bicycle-rickshaws, and on auto-rickshaws.  We alternated from cramming our way down the sidewalk to dodging rickshaws while we walked down the road, but after Amber got her foot run over by a cycle-rickshaw, we stuck to the sidewalk.  After about 45min of walking, through the narrow, crowded, and winding streets we finally made it to the train station.  Upon arrival we were in need of a restroom, but apparently India is not big on public restrooms.  At the train station, there were only restrooms available in the upper class lounge, which we were allowed into even though we did not have 1st class tickets.  Once we had relieved ourselves, we went in search of our train.  There is a shocking lack of information at the station, so we went to the manager and asked for assistance, eventually finding out where we needed to be.  Because we were trying to do this trip on a budget, I didn't book us in 1st class, which turned out to be a mistake.  In our sleeper cars, not only were we the only 2 white people, with Amber being one of the only girls, but we had no accommodations: no heat, no insulation, no blankets, no pillows.  Also, Indians must have bad nasal passages (possibly from all the pollution), because it seemed like 90% of the men on the train were snoring. Needles to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night either, and we started day 2 of our trip with only an hour or two of shut-eye.

One of the main things on our to-do list was a safari at the Corbett Tiger Reserve, and we made our way to the ticket office in Ramnagar at about 6am, only to find out that all morning safaris were booked.  We could, however, still take an afternoon safari if we returned at 8am to book it.  So from 6:30 to 8:00 we found a place to eat breakfast, and ate with a friendly young British couple we had met at the train station.  At 8am, we booked our safari, but had to go back into town to blow some time because our safari guide wouldn’t pick us up until noon.  So, we had lots of time to wander around the town of Ramnagar.  A note on walking in India: everywhere you go, there are people (mostly children) begging, and here was no exception.  There were 2 little girls that followed us down the street for some time.  One even laid her head on Darren’s leg, begging for money.  We didn't want to give them money because we didn't know what they would do with it, so instead we bought them some food.  When noon rolled around, we made our way to the meeting point for the safari.  Our time slot was from 1pm to 5pm.  It was so beautiful inside the park, which is in the foothills of the Himalayas, and peaceful – so peaceful that Amber started to nod off a few times.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any tigers; however, we did see lots of monkeys and two different types of deer.  Once our safari was over and we found somewhere to eat dinner, we made our way back to the train station to catch our train back to Delhi.  The overnight train ride was the same as before; except that we were so tired we were able to sleep for about half the ride, or 3 hours.

Once back in Delhi, we went to the other train station to get our train to Agra.  This time we booked in 1st class, and it was amazing!  We were given food and water, and the car was comfortably heated.  Amber was asleep within 10 minutes, and had to be woken up when they brought the food around.  What a great train ride!  We arrived in Agra around 8:30am, and we were greeted by some local Church brethren (which we had contacted previously) holding up a sign with our names on it.  They acquired a rental car for us (which was a much better price than the one we rented in Delhi) and we all went to the Taj Mahal and then the Agra Fort together.  The Taj was by far the most beautiful building we have ever seen.  No matter how many pictures you have seen of it, they just don't do it justice – absolutely immense yet intricately detailed.  After we were finished, we went to our hotel room (that's right, we got a room), where we slept for 10 hours straight, not waking up once.  Sleep is such a beautiful thing! 

On Friday, day 4, we stayed in our room till after noon, and then went out to meet more of the local brethren. We were able to meet most of them on Friday, as well as spending all day Sabbath with them.  Darren was surprised to be asked to give a message at services, but guest speakers and live messages are in short supply.  He was not prepared to do so, as only so much fits into a backpack (the only baggage we had) and a heavy bible and bulky notebook did not fit.  Fortunately, he was able to borrow a bible and use the internet to retrieve some of his notes, which enabled him to give a short message on service (made longer by translation into Hindi) based on a sermonette he had given back in the States. After services, we enjoyed a wonderful home-cooked lunch and fresh baked bread, called chapati.  We stayed there and visited for several hours before we had to catch our train back to Delhi.  Before we left, we gave them Amber’s old digital camera as a gift, and in return they gave her a traditional dress, called a sari.  The ladies had fun dressing her up in it, and she enjoyed it too. The brethren in Agra hosted us graciously, touched us with their humility, and impressed us with their zeal.  We will certainly cherish our time spent with them, and we recommend any of the brethren traveling to India to visit with them, if at all possible.

We caught our train at 8:30pm, and arrived back in Delhi around 10:30.  Once there, we found a taxi to take us to the airport, where we would catch our flight at 5:30am back to Amman.  As opposed to our flights there, our flights back were spectacular.  For our flight from Delhi to Bahrain we were bumped up to 1st class because they over-booked.  Also, our flight from Bahrain to Amman was only half full, so we got to move back to a row with no one in front or behind us.  Since we’ve been back in Amman, we’ve done a lot of sleeping. It took us about two days to fully recuperate. 

India is a country of contrasts, as was our trip there.  We are definitely glad we went.

For more photos, visit our India Photo Gallery at yearoftheh.blogspot.com

~Darren and Amber Henke