Posts Tagged ‘ india ’

DELHI, MOTI MAHAL & GORDON RAMSAY

Final stop on our world tour of Nepal and India was Delhi.  In all honesty, neither of us were excited about going to Delhi, especially having witnessed the filth and stench of the other big cities we visited, including Kolkata, Jaipur and Agra.  Our only goals in Delhi were to visit the Red Fort and eat at a restaurant named Moti Mahal, as recommended by Gordon Ramsay and apparently the origins of famous UK curries such as Butter Chicken and Chicken Tikka Masala!  With these activities in mind, we booked accomodation at The Broadway Hotel located on the cusp of Old Delhi and New Delhi and just 5 minutes walk from the unimpressive Delhi Gate.

Hotel Broadway run special offers if you book online, we got a free bottle of Indian red wine, cookies, dinner and a free cycle rickshaw ride around the market in old Delhi and all for £80 a night.  We got all of these things, except the cycle rickshaw tour was a bit of a let down, basically they pay for the driver to drop you off qt the end of the road and you have to walk it from there, but they did offer to pay our return fare!  After a few weeks in India, you find yourself succumbing to the organised chaos, constant misunderstandings and realise that to enjoy yourself, you simply need to lower your expectations, or better yet, have none at all!  Moti Mahal is a good example of this.

Before our trip we watched Gordon Ramsays three part series of cooking in India and in part & he is taken to Moti Mahal by one of Indias top food critics.  Gordon praised the cooking and highly recommended you go there if in Delhi, so we did and despite the staff being nice, the food was mediocre and the restaurant itself falling apart with bits of the roof collapsing, dodgy toilets and it was a bit drab.  However, it wasnt the worst food weve eaten qnd probably worth visiting as its fairly cheap and very very famous!

The Red Fort is a must, but the Ghandi Memorial is somewhat understated with not much to see.  The old Delhi bazaar is definitely fun to walk around and there is a mass of everything you could ever need running along long streets and tucked into tiny backstreets and hidden alley ways, it is also just fun to watch the absolute craziness of everyday life there.

Moti Mahal, as recommended by Gordon Ramsay in "Gordon's Great Escape: India"

Links:

http://www.hotelbroadwaydelhi.com/

http://eoid.org/2007/04/07/the-original-moti-mahal/

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g304551-d785296-r94502588-Moti_Mahal-New_Delhi_National_Capital_Territory_of_Delhi.html

2012
03/03
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RAJASTHAN – REFRESHING UDAIPUR

Following our train ticket debacle, we flew from Jodhpur to Udaipur, the home of the famous Taj Palace, most recognised as octopussy’s residence in the James Bond film. The Taj sits prettily in Lake Pichola and can be viewed from the many rooftop restaurants in Udaipur.
We are staying at Chunda Palace, not so expensive and stunning. Our room has a jaquzzi bath, 4 poster bed and the facilities include beautiful palace lounge rooms, indoor hamam and outdoor swimming pool, worth every penny.
Food here is reasonably priced and the shopping pretty good. Nice drinking hang out is Pushkars, a hippie haunt, but extremely chilled out with only a few creepy wee Indians drinking there!
Today we had a home cooking lesson from Spice India and I’m looking forward to David replicating the dishes when we get home.
Udaipur is by far the nicest and most relaxing place in Rajasthan and I’d definitely recommend making here a major stop on your travels along with Jodhpur.

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http://www.chundapalace.com/

http://www.spicebox.co.in/cooking-class/

http://www.tajhotels.com/Luxury/Cities/About-Udaipur.html

2012
02/29
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INDIA – TAKING THE TRAIN

Taking the train in India is an institution in it’s own right and is a must do for travellers, if only once! Buying a ticket is a trial and it is advised to book tickets online as far in advance as possible. Try http://www.clear trip.com although even this website will have you scratching your head in confusion. Buying a train ticket is not as easy at it is in most other countries, NO, it is unnecessarily complicated and unclear whether you have bought the ticket when you think you have indeed “bought the ticket”!
Your online ticket needs to be confirmed and you can only do this at the ticket office in the station, thus you still have to join the tourist queue, which still has Indians trying to push in and rub up behind you. We decided to buy our tickets as we went, Big Mistake! India railways hold back tickets called Tatkal, which are kept for emergency tickets, usually for foreigners, come at an additional cost and are non refundable, and you STILL need to get them confirmed at the office on the day of travel! Then there are waiting list tickets, again, coming with the need to confirm. You are told the train is full, made to queue for hours, then told you need a paper copy of your passport and the original isn’t accepted, so you have to go to the conveniently placed copy shop next door, fork out more and then rejoin the queue.
Your other option is to pay high hotel commission fees to sort it out. We did this once and it was still a hassle getting tickets confirmed!
We bought tickets and travelled twice in 3rd AC class. The train journey itself is fairly comfortable and the train no where near full either times. It seems India’s bureaucracy once again gets in the way of good sense, making the simplest of tasks near impossible.

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2012
02/29
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INDIA – TAJ MAHAL

From Kolkata, we flew to Delhi and then drove to Agra to see the India’s most famous attraction – The Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan in memory of his 3rd and favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Made from glistening white marble, with semi precious stones inserted to form decorative panels throughout, the Taj Mahal definitely lives up to expectations.

Agra is the town that houses the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. Shah Jahan’s son overthrew him, it is said due to his taste for beautiful things and spending money building intricate structures. Shah Jahan was imprisoned for years and could only admire the Taj Mahal from a window in the fort. These, along with Fatehpur Sikri, a deserted royal city 50 kilometres outside of Agra are all this town has to offer. Stunning as these are, Agra itself if a bit of a sesspit, with rubbish strewn everywhere. There are many hotels, but our experience was fairly negative. We first tried the Hotel Amar, who effectively wasted our time saying they had a room available, it was off the street and had a double bed, all of which was lies. We then tried the park plaza, who were also full, but arranged a room at the Jaypee Palace, a beautiful 5 star hotel kilometres outside of Agra’s dirty centre with 1 star service! The hotel itself and rooms are stunning, but the staff useless. It seems Jaypee’s idea of service is hiring a load of good looking, smartly dressed people to stand around all over the hotel saying hello and Namaste to guests, try to do anything like extend your stay, pay your bill or get advice and you’ll be struggling and frustrated as well as feeling ripped off!

We left Agra by train, travelling 3rd AC class, squeezing into our upper bunks in the carriage. Not as bad as you’d think though. We arrived in Jaipur on time to face the craziness of another Indian city!

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http://www.jaypeehotels.com/jp-page.php?id=jpWelcome

2012
02/27
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INDIA – JAIPUR TO JODHPUR

We are now in Jodhpur, the “blue city” which is by far my favourite place in India so far. Much smaller than the other places we have visited, Jodhpur packs a punch with its magnificent fort rising above all else. The restaurants and hotels have made great use of the sight and built rooftop restaurants, which are characteristic and very nice to sit and enjoy a beer in. Last night we checked out Indique, recommended by the Lonely Planet. Food was OK, but view over Jodhpur and the fort was well worth the visit.

Yesterday we tried out the Flying Fox, which is made up of 6 zip lines from the fort across Bastions, lakes and the Blue City. It was a bit hot, but lots of fun.

To get here, we took the train from Jaipur, again, 3rd class AC. Train journeys themselves are not so bad, but buying a ticket is highly frustrating and an experience that will leave you choosing to fly the next part of your trip!

Jaipur was my least favourite place. The sights were OK. the fort and palace were worth the trip, but the city itself is absolutely filthy and the people not very nice at all and only out to make money and rip you off. In my opinion, if you want to enjoy your trip to India, miss out Jaipur!!

In 30 minutes, we are flying to Udaipur for 3 days to hopefully relax before heading home to the real world.

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2012
02/27
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INDIA – KOLKATA

Apologies for delayed post. Since arriving in India we have either been engrossed in wedding preparation, events, parties, travelling, sightseeing or simply not had access to the Internet.

Following our tour of Nepal, we flew to Kolkata for our friend’s, Christian and Diplina’s wedding. Although not completely traditional, the wedding followed a number of specifically Bengali rituals and traditions. For me, it was quite hard to follow, but I tried my best! Aside from that, the food was amazing, the hospitality second to none and we were made to feel very welcome.

Upon arrival, we were provided Sari’s with matching jewellery and the boys traditional Indian wedding outfits. The first part of the celebrations included henna for the women, mine is still fairly dark after a week! Then there was dancing, which I have realised follows no specific rules, much like everything else in India! The finale though was a surprise boat trip down the Ganges, where again, we ate amazing food, danced and saw temples and festivities on the banks of the Ganges.

Kolkata itself is not much to look at, the Victoria memorial is certainly worth a visit and walking through the streets, soaking in the atmosphere is interesting, but in our experience, it is the kindness and cheer of the Bengali people that will be remembered most!

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2012
02/24
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MERDE VOYAGE!

Finally arrived in Delhi after a bit of a shambolic journey! After a serious lack of zzzzzzs the night before our departure, we were up and on the go at 3am Saturday morning, arriving at Edinburgh airport at about 4.20am, only to find out that our flight to Amsterdam had been cancelled due to heavy snow. For once the problem was at our destination and not due to Edinburgh’s typically crap weather.
We were guided towards the KLM service desk. Now, it’s not often you’ll hear me commend customer service, or very much else for that matter, but I have to say that I was impressed at how KLM handled the issue. We were put on a BMI flight to heathrow, business class, then onto British Airways from there to Delhi.
First impressions, Delhi airport seemed fairly modern and organised. This was to be tested, as was our patience and calm natures! We had planned to collect our bags and check into the airport transit hotel. Instead, we found we would have to go through immigration to collect our bags, meaning we would have entered India and faced the prospect of not being able to get back in in 10 days time to attend our friends wedding Kolkata. If you enter India and then leave, you can’t enter again for 60 days. Unfortunately not many of the airport staff understand this, nor understand the consequences their poor knowledge. We were given lots of conflicting advice, but finally managed to negotiate BA forwarding our bags to Kathmandu and allowing us to check-in to the hotel.
We have just finished our complimentary breakfast, discovered our flight to Kathmandu is delayed by an hour and are hoping and praying our bags end up in the same place we do!

2012
02/07
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INTRODUCTION

As I’m sure you are all aware, we leave on Saturday for a month of travel across Nepal and India.  We have set up this blog so you can follow our travels, view our pictures and keep in touch.

We leave at 6am and fly to Delhi where we will stay in the Eaton Smart Transit hotel seeing as we are not allowed to enter India or we get a two month ban before we can enter again.  12.30pm the following day, it’s back on a plane for an hour and half and we will then begin the first leg of our trip, Nepal.

Only 4 days to go and ALOT to do.  Feel free to subscribe to this blog by email by clicking follow in the right hand corner below.

2012
01/30
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