Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kXAULK3NdFbU7peZ7
This is most likely going to be my last trip within India for at least a year (but you never know! – Corona has basically made me shelve plans for China this spring).
Started off with a quick few days in the state of Odisha with my mom. Then went to Calcutta on my own, before heading to the Himalayan hill station of Darjeeling.
Odisha
Odisha was, for lack of a better word, decent. The Konark Sun Temple was super unique – I haven’t seen any temples that were designed like this. I particularly liked the massive, intricately carved and detailed chariot wheels. There were at least 20 of these wheels all along the base walls of the primary temple complex. Overall, I didn’t think it was quite as cool as some of the temple highlights of South India, but I’m definitely still glad I went to Konark.
After Konark, we went to Puri, which has the famous Puri Jagannath temple. It’s one of the Char Dham, which are four holy temples in India, one in each the northern, southern, eastern, and western tips of India. This one is in the east, while I went to Rameswaram with my mom in the south. The other two are in the Himalayas in Badrinath (north), and Dwarka (west). I should have known after Rameswaram, but I swear I feel less holy after going to any moderately hyped up religious site (Varanasi, Rameswaram, and now Puri). Unfortunately no photos were allowed, but the temple idols were incredibly cool (Google it! Puri Jagannath idol), and in a weird way reminded me of the Southpark animation style. The state of Odisha is known for their numerous tribes, and I think that you can definitely see the tribal influence in the temple idols that are present in this region.
Our last stop in Odisha was the temple town of Bhubaneswar. There were like 5-6 temples that we saw over the course of the day here (all of course over 1000 years old because it’s India). I’m not quite sure if it was necessarily temple fatigue, but while I found these interesting, I wasn’t enthralled by them the way I was previously for other temples. However, I’d be willing to bet that rather than fatigue, it’s just the fact that I find the temple architecture of south India (particularly Tamil-style!) to be way more interesting than the Kalinga style of Odisha. A lot of the temple design here actually reminded me of Buddhist stupas, and that sort of makes sense even from a personal interest standpoint as I find Buddhist architecture to be the least interesting of all the major religions (except for the mountains! Tibetan Buddhist architecture is the bomb dot com).
Calcutta
Calcutta, or Kolkota as it is now known, most likely got its’ name from Kali Ghat, where Kali is a Hindu goddess that is very popular in this region of India and Ghat is “path that leads down to a river” in Hindi. Calcutta was founded by the British, and I have to say that the level of colonial architecture here surpasses that of any other place I have been to, whether it was Singapore, Yangon, Sri Lanka, or Mumbai. This does make sense as Calcutta was the capital of the British Raj, which was unimaginably wealthy. The sightseeing highlight of Calcutta was probably the Victoria Memorial, which is this magnificent building that with a quick glance wouldn’t look out of place in London. However, a deeper look does clearly show the Indian influence of the design.
One quirk of Calcutta was that this was the first place in India where I did not see the ubiquitous auto rickshaw. Instead, the city was filled with these old school yellow cabs (I believe the model is an Ambassador, which is an old Indian car brand), which honestly sort of reminded me of those photos you see of the old cars in Havana. But it was really nice to just walk around the Esplanade neighborhood, taking in all the colonial buildings (which varied from being in a ruined state to being perfectly maintained), all while being surrounded by the classic chaos of India. I’m really going to miss the chaos of India.
The food in Calcutta was, while not as amazing as Delhi or Amritsar, beyond stellar (I’d place it in the same tier as Mumbai, Goa, Varanasi, and Tamil Nadu). Their sweets were fantastic (again, probably second to Amritsar here), and I went to a place called Nizam’s which is the alleged inventor of the katti roll. The katti roll is a popular street food item across India, and I got a double egg double mutton katti roll, which is basically this large roti rolled up and stuffed with two fried eggs, a ton of mutton, onions, and chillies (this was the cherry on top! Nice and spicy). On a very basic level, it’s like an Indian burrito or Indian kebab. At the risk of making a sacrilegious statement, the katti roll at Nizam’s put any European kebab I have ever had to shame.
Darjeeling
After Calcutta, I flew to Siliguri, where I spent the night before taking a toy train ride to Darjeeling. At first I was curious as to why it’s called a toy train, but it quite literally looks like a train that you see in an amusement park. Except these bad boys go up an elevation of ~2200 meters over 80km…it’s honestly quite the impressive technical marvel. The train ride was supposed to take 7 (!!!) hours, but with my luck, it wound up taking 11 hours as the engine blew out and we were stranded for 3-4 hours while waiting for a replacement. It was still an incredibly unique experience, and I think the coolest part was actually all the little kids who would wave to you in the train as you slowly chugged on by, cutting right through small towns on the way up the hills. I was listening to The Kinks on a loop for much of this train ride due to the Wes Anderson film The Darjeeling Limited, which heavily featured that band.
Darjeeling is supposed to have a view of Mount Kanchenjunga, which is the 3rd tallest mountain in the world and located in the Indian state of Sikkim. However, my shitty mountain luck continued, as it was too cloudy to even see the mountain ranges (I did briefly catch a glimpse of a mountain peak, not sure which one, before the clouds covered it up again) – continuing the trend from my Nepal trek and not seeing Mt. Kilimanjaro due to the clouds from Amboseli.
Regardless, Darjeeling was a really unique experience. The food was interesting – a lot of bakeries that had stuffed pastries, and not your typical Bengali (Darjeeling is in the state of West Bengal) or even Nepali/Tibetan food. The English hill station architecture was very cool, and the views of the tea plantations and the hills were quite stunning – it was like a cooler version of central Sri Lanka. Another weird comparison for me was that it was like a more British colonial Kathmandu. One minor disappointment of Darjeeling was the lack of Nepali or Tibetan Buddhist architecture…there were a couple of monasteries but it was nothing like Nepal, let alone Ladakh.
At my hostel, I befriended this one kid my age who was a French guy who worked at a French logistics company in Delhi, and he was previously posted in the Congo for a few years before this. Sounds like the French equivalent of a CIA asset (“Logistics” while working in the Congo and then Delhi is fishy…reminds me of a friend in Chicago who allegedly worked for Nokia but would always travel to third world countries for work, so I joked that he was in the arms industry), but whatever he was pretty cool.
One interesting cultural thing I have noticed about backpackers (or really, about people outside of my social bubble of Manhasset/Northwestern/Yuppie Chicago), is the prevalence of smoking cigarettes. Almost no one from my high school smokes cigs (weed is another story), and the same is true about people I interacted with in Northwestern (except for international kids) and in Chicago. However, seemingly over half the people I meet while backpacking heavily smoke cigarettes, and the same was actually true in Burning Man as well.
In terms of hill stations/mountain scenery, I think I would place Darjeeling firmly on par with Kathmandu, slightly above Pokhara, and well below Ladakh. It was definitely nice to spend a few days here, and honestly it didn’t really even feel like India at all (in a good way! unlike Goa).
Overall, I think what I’ll miss the most about India is the food, the tea (not a huge tea fan in general – even the much hyped Darjeeling tea was underwhelming for me, but the tea in the rest of India is amazing. Tea with either cardamom and/or ginger is the only type I can drink now, with lemongrass being the secret additional ingredient to put it over the top), the chaos of the streets (Europe is going to be so sterile after this), the people (all my relatives who were beyond helpful), and of course the history and architecture. I’ve spent over 4 months in India and there’s still a ton that I want to see over the next few years – a tiger safari in Madhya Pradesh, the step wells, temples, Islamic archiecture, lion safaris, and salt plains of Gujurat, the former mountain kingdom of Sikkim, the backwaters and hills of Kerala, additional ancient temples in both Tamil Nadu (Kanchipuram, Kodambakam, really any given village) and Karnataka (Hoysala temples, Badami, Pattadakal), the hill stations and Himalayan scenery of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Could easily spend another 1-2 months in India to catch everything, and I’m sure there’s far more that I haven’t even listed! It’s really incredible just how diverse this place is.
If I had to rank everything (because honestly, I’ve been doing this in my head the entire trip)…Tier 1 would be all time great travel location (to use a Bill Simmons analogy – if aliens were to visit Earth, where would you tell them to go?), Tier 2 would be fantastic and worth a trip no matter where in the world you are, Tier 3 would be good if you’re already in the area, Tier 4 would be “eh” but still some redeeming qualities so not necessarily negative, and Tier 5 would be avoid at all costs. Luckily, I think the only Tier 5 place I have ever been to in my life is Varanasi.
Tier 1: Ladakh, Delhi, Agra
Tier 2: Jaipur, Udaipur, Hampi, Madurai/Chettinad/Thanjavur/Trichy, Mumbai, Ellora Caves
Tier 3: Khajuraho, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bangalore, Chennai, Mahabalipuram, Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Konark Sun Temple, Calcutta, Darjeeling
Tier 4: Rameswaram, Goa, Puri
Tier 5: Varanasi
Obviously I think most places will be in Tier 3…if I was a bit more harsh I could definitely shift a few down to Tier 4 but for me Tier 4 is basically “mediocre but has some redeeming quality” while Tier 5 is “this place will take years out of your life”. In terms of my retirement so far, I think I’d place Cambodia in Tier 1 (obviously), Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Myanmar in Tier 2, and everywhere else bar Bangkok (Nanjing, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur) in Tier 3 with Bangkok in Tier 4.
In terms of all my travels, the only other Tier 1 would be Kenya and Saint Petersburg/Moscow/Suzdal from Russia (would say Vladimir and Volgograd are Tier 3). Tier 2 would be places like London, Paris, and Cairo/Luxor (Aswan in Tier 3), Tier 3 places like Mexico City and Munich, and Tier 4 somewhere like Cape Town and Amsterdam (Delft, which we did as a day trip from Amsterdam, would be Tier 3 for me).
I do think that food and social experiences weirdly don’t play too big of a role here. Like Mexico City had bomb food and I had so much fun there, while for example Cairo and Luxor had mediocre food and I only met one person (who is awesome! and not just saying that because he reads this. But he’s living the life I want to live when I am his age) that I am still in touch with. I think one big thing I’ve learned about myself on this trip so far is that I have the tourist tastes of an old white British man, since I seem to see them especially in the places that I enjoy the most (exception being Ladakh). Like them, I’m also a history nerd so I’m drawn to similar sites, though my reasoning probably isn’t the longing of an empire long gone. But I guess it’s inline with the fact that I am retired now so it makes sense.
My mom flies back out home to NY soon, but I’ll be seeing her, my dad and sister in the South of France next week before jetting back to Indonesia.