India’s Golden Triangle
Impressions of India
Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan, Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in the capital territory of Delhi
On my way to spend two months in Malaysia, I stopped in India starting at Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, to explore the Golden Triangle. The city attracted me for its history and architecture: hilltop forts, temples, and palaces, as well as its street food and textiles. This newsletter, as always, is mainly for those who’ve never been. It’s also for the budget traveller.
Recently, I attended an author talk on a book entitled, The Downfall of India’s Princely States, in which the British are seen as unfairly deserting the Indian nobility they’d previously supported before partition. The princes lost their wealth almost overnight and many turned their palaces into magnificent hotels to make ends meet. The author asked for a show of hands on who’d been to India. Almost all hands were raised, the same number as in answer to the question about who’d stayed at a palace whilst there. I was in the minority, not by necessity, but by choice. You may share a similar mindset of preferring not to flaunt our Western affluence in nations where the vast majority of the population is dirt poor. Although you can stay anywhere from a palace like the Rambagh, Jaipur, and experience majestic luxury at a discounted rate of around AU$800-$1,000 per night, to a dirt cheap hotel with bad reviews for $27 or a half decent inexpensive hotel for around $45 per night, I stayed a week in a well-run, very popular and beautifully laid out hostel called Moustache Jaipur – that I highly recommend. My budget double room with private bathroom and breakfast was AUD$60 (booked November 2023 directly by email). The dorm beds are $14, while the super deluxe king rooms with sunken bath are a little over AU$100 p/n). The 24-hour, friendly staff look after their guests attentively, and will organise tours if asked. The rooms are clean and air-conditioned, and there’s an excellent restaurant on the roof with a small wading pool in which to cool off after a day of sightseeing. A lovely indoor-outdoor area with cushions and low tables for breakfasts, drinks and conversations with fellow travellers completes the scene.
(Returning one afternoon after an all-day outing and needing a short rest on my bed, I had the unsettling feeling of being watched. I looked up to see six pigeons standing at attention on the air conditioner under the ceiling. I reported the trespass, and the cleaner came with a broom, knocked on the wall twice and all six darted out in single file: obviously a well-rehearsed routine as they knew exactly when to lift their wings to pass through the narrow opening in the window. I was politely asked, ‘Please don’t leave your window open or every pigeon in Jaipur will pay us a visit.’)
Images below: Moustache Jaipur: the board above reception suggesting things to do and places to see; the rooftop wading pool with lots of seating for evening drinks; restaurant with a delicious menu, and the breakfast room; a city gate; 3 images of Amer Fort, and the ruins next door; Jal Mahal, the water palace loved by photographers; women shopping in Badi Chaupar market street; detailed view of the intricate window frames of Hawa Mahal in rose-tinted sandstone; horses and camels used for transport among hundreds of tuk-tuks, and all those cows!
On my first day, I found Ali, a friendly tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) driver at the front door and decided to book him for the duration of my stay. Racing around this ancient city in such an open vehicle connects you more to the place than being cocooned in an air-conditioned sedan. You share the smells around you – from perfumes and spices, to cow dung and gasoline. The heat that is a daily reality for locals also envelops you as you make eye contact and frequently exchange smiles. This way, you really feel part of the organised bedlam that is urban India with all its colour, crowds, frenetic activity, and insane traffic.
In the evening, I joined a walking street food tour and tasted the most popular, delicious Rajasthan dishes, stopping at a dozen outdoor hawkers. The evening ended at an indoor restaurant for dessert.
Images below: Ali, my tuk-tuk driver negotiating the traffic; 2 images of the street food tour I took; the sugarcane juice vendor’s machine, and images of beautiful Royal Gaitore outside Jaipur
Ali drove me through the tidy and not so tidy streets of of Jaipur, and along popular shopping streets, where I was mesmerised by all the women shoppers in their colorful saris. We drove through the pink gate of the New Colony and into the old town, Badi Chaupar, where we explored rose-tinted Hawa Mahal. The Ram Niwas Garden was a delight to visit as it also houses the Albert Hall Museum with its interesting historical artifacts, well-worth an hour of your time.
The City Palace is a fusion of Mughal and Rajput architecture and has a small museum displaying regal outfits of days gone by. The relatively young head of the Jaipur royal family, the Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh resides in the private quarters of the palace with his family. The day I visited there were dozens of huge elephant sculptures, covered in black drapes that would be revealed at a wedding scheduled for later that week.
The next day, I found the Amer Fort at Devisinghpura to be a larger-than-expected, striking fortification that houses a museum. It’s ‘patrolled’ by gigantic elephants with their uniformed riders (who may, or may not, be trained mahouts). Although they offer rides for tourists, I saw no passengers on any of the elephants. Perhaps the word has spread that you cause these majestic, gentle creatures much pain when sitting on their spine.
Dozens of guides offer their services at the entrance and there’s no shortage of vendors trying very energetically to sell souvenirs to visitors.
There are other, smaller architectural gems in this area, just ask your driver. A few kilometers away, I stopped to photograph the Jal Mahal from across the lake. It’s an enchanting water palace commenced in 1699. Unfortunately, there’s no public access.
One of my favourite sites is Royal Gaitore because the design is light and delicate with every surface covered in beautiful marble carvings.
Your driver will take you to various artisans or any type of shop you need, just ask. Mine took me to a textile manufacturer where visitors can make small block prints on cotton.
Images below: The City Palace: guards, shrouded elephants, clothing exhibits in the Palace Museum; block printing, Albert Hall Museum, a water reservoir; typical street scenes where cows meander between shops and mingle with local shoppers, much like tourists.
From Jaipur, you can easily take the train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the other splendid palaces, mausoleums and monuments. I did a 2-day return trip: 5-hours each way: seat there, sleeper back. The train on the return leg was 4 hours late and someone else was sleeping in my bunk. Many people book a tour company with air-conditioned buses to explore the Golden Triangle ;-) but I wonder whether they share my very visceral memories of India.
To visit the Taj Mahal, it’s best to beat the crowds and line up before sunrise having first bought your ticket/s online. One slight problem is that the Taj Mahal can be shrouded in mist until the sun chases this away, so you’re forced to wait with your camera for that perfect shot. One of many treasured experiences was people wanting to take photos with me, adults and children alike. This allowed me to chat and connect – even if only for a few minutes. Sitting on a bench waiting for the mist to clear, half a dozen women dressed in saris or kurtas sat with me for a chat. One woman thought I looked cold and gave me her shawl. There are many inexpensive guesthouses within walking distance. I chose the absolute least expensive because it was closest to the gate, got what I’d paid for, but with the unexpected bonus of watching a dozen cheeky monkeys scampering over Agra’s rooftops while I drank coffee on the breakfast terrace after my return from Taj Mahal.
A charming driver called Saleem collected me mid-morning to explore the sites in the images below. The highlight for him was to introduce me to his ‘hood,’ Raja Ki Mandi, one of the busiest and most crowded shopping markets in Agra where I communed with cows, dodged motorbikes and was surprised that mules make deliveries between stores unattended. “They know the way there and back.” I had a lovely time photographing street scenes and the bustling life of Agra. Saleem was an interesting guide, illiterate, but sharp as a tack when it came to numbers and arithmetic. His family had been shopkeepers here for generations. I was very impressed when he proved to me that he knew by heart almost every nation area code on the planet.
He introduced me to an artist in stone inlay carving who carves out intricate designs in marble and then fills the recess with semi-precious stone cut to half-millimetre precision. The time and effort that went into even the smallest objects was astonishing.
In the early evening, Saleem drove me to the busy railway station and sat ‘minding’ me until the scheduled arrival of my train. We said farewell, however, the train was delayed, so I sat alone for 4-hours surrounded by men sitting on bags and cardboard boxes before arriving back in Jaipur at 1:00 am. The way food was sold by a young man sitting on the floor of the platform shovelling dahl from a plastic bucket into metal cups had me chastising myself for my first-world preciousness while thanking the universe for the chocolate bars available at the only kiosk still open late.
Images below: Beautiful gardens; arriving at dawn before the crowds; same path an hour later; romantic setting for wedding photos; the obligatory selfie to prove I was there; a friendly chat; one of Agra’s oldest mosques; the Itmad-ud-Daula tomb at Moti Bagh x 3; Agra Fort/Anguri Bagh/Jahangir Palace at Rakabganji x4; young ladies eager to have a photo with a stranger; a group of school kids practising social skills in English; Islamic heritage tomb Chini Ka Rauza at Katra Wazir Khan; typical street scenes in the old town with mules on auto-pilot and coming face-to-face with a cow observing that I was ‘new in town;’ waiting at the station at night to return to Jaipy
The Monday morning flight to Delhi had been booked for 7:00 am but a message arrived to say it had been rescheduled to 8:30 pm: ‘Sorry for any inconvenience caused.’ It was easy, however, to book on another airline as internal flights are very cheap. The Moustache staff had booked a limo and driver to collect me at Delhi airport for an all-day tour. The first thing I learn from the driver is that most of the major sites in Delhi are closed on Mondays. As a solo traveller with leanings toward a Buddhist mindset, I take all these ‘irregularities’ in my stride, but I’ve found that when travelling with a companion, there’s always the chance they’ll have a ‘melt down,’ another advantage of going solo. The pollution that week was registering 500+ and so the government had closed all schools. I was grateful for the limo’s AC and its filtered air.
Despite three of the places below being shut, in ‘New’ Delhi I saw mausoleums, palaces, mosques, Hindu temples, gardens and boutiques. We stopped for lunch at an upmarket restaurant frequented by expats. This area contrasts sharply with ‘Old’ Delhi with its insanely busy markets and traffic congestion - an area that was recommended to me as ‘the real India that I must experience.’ (So I did, on a rickshaw in a late afternoon traffic jam. It was exhausting – mainly due an attack of asthma.)
Images below: the Lotus Temple (a Bahá’i house of worship); two lovely girls; Laxminarayan Hindu Temple; Gurudwara Bangla Sahib (a Sikh house of worship).
Early afternoon saw me at the most fascinating place I’d visit in Delhi: Emperor Humayun’s Tomb. The great Mughal’s tomb was commissioned in 1558 and is set in acres of gardens that feature dozens of intricately decorated buildings and monuments. This was the first garden-tomb on the Indian sub-continent and the first built of red sandstone. It’s listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. The main tomb houses not only the remains of the emperor, but also those of family members and successive emperors. It was situated on the banks of the Yamuna River to be close to the mausoleum of the much revered Sufi Saint of Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya.
Images below: scenes around Humayun’s garden-tomb complex
While farewelling Delhi on my way to Malaysia, I wondered when I’d be back. It was certainly a colourful experience and taught me a lot about getting on with life by making do with what’s available. This is, in fact, an Indian tradition called jugaad which is seen as providing a model for ‘thinking outside the square’ to solve problems, and as such the concept of jugaad has been incorporated into modern management and leadership training courses.
An acquaintance who regularly spends much time in India, told me that most people don’t return to large Indian cities after their first visit, but instead head out for the India that nourishes the soul in places that are peaceful, green and beautiful, surrounded by nature.
I’m happy to have experienced the Golden Triangle, but will also seek natural beauty on my next visit to India. (PS: I just found an article online by fabhotels.com called 30 beautiful Places in India that you should explore...’ I found it to be a good introduction into looking beyond urban tourist destinations if you’re planning a trip.
