January 17, 2008 by Rick.

We managed to get some sort of weird seat sale on business class tickets from Bangkok to Delhi (a five hour flight) a few months ago when we looked into it. The economy tickets were the same price as usual, but the business class tickets were almost half of their regular price!. For only $25 more per person compared to an economy class ticket, we had a glimpse into a lifestyle that is regretful to even know about now… (I am a bit of a hic, for anyone new here.)

First we got to que jump the check-in and waited barely a couple minutes for one guy at the counter ahead of us. Sadly, the economy fare line was only about a dozen people and not the 40-50 people (90 minute wait) that we had sometimes encountered previously. It was still nice even just skipping a few people though. Then it was off through security and to our own (almost) private lounge. There were big comfy chairs, huge windows with a view of the tarmac, and power plugs galore to use! There were also a half dozen internet enabled computers (only one of which was being used). This was one lounge out of three available near different gates in the International terminal. About a half hour before our flight, Luke found the complimentary food and drink area (beers, pops, highballs) and we pigged out on a variety of snacks and deserts. This abundance of luxurious living was all before getting on the plane even!

Then we took our seats in row three! We watched as our delightful stewardess closed the curtains on the cattle packed back in economy class, looking forlornly at us before being cut off. We had super deluxe touch screens with all sorts of programming and games. Economy had only audio and dinky little shared ceiling screens (with common programming) every six seats or so, (I went and checked). Of all our flights so far (25) we had only had these super deluxe touch screens with customizable programming twice before in economy.

Before departure came the menu choices. It wasn’t a slap down of a tray of commonly heated food, no sir-ee! We had a five course dining experience where we had to choose between one of three items in most categories. Mmmmm, even after pigging out on the free goodies in the lounge I was salivating at the thought. I also kept the menu to mail home later as a souvineer. yeah, I’m a big hic, but I warned everyone of that before.

During the entire flight we had two stewardesses devoted to business class. That was only six rows of four seats, but just thirteen people! What a ratio! After a most relaxing plane ride, we disembarked before the curtains behind us were lifted and got on a tarmac bus to take us to the terminal. We got standing area near the door and were prepared to be crushed by the throng of people. Odly (to us) people stopped coming off the plane and the bus doors were closed after us thirteen snobs got on, and we went to the terminal in golden silence and comfort. This is a HUGE deal of course, not only for the uncrowded five minute bus ride, but to be first in line for immigration and passport control meant another 20-45 minute lineup was gone out the window.

Lastly, our bags were previously marked as “important!” and they were collected from the luggage conveyor and brought to a certain area. It had a sign requesting that Business & First Class passengers need not rub elbows with the riff-raff pushing and crowding around the turnstile. We need only wait there at the sign, away from the melee, and our bags would be fought for and courteously brought to us. What a way to go! I don’t know how I can ever go back to economy class again!!!

Posted in 2007-12 to 2008-01, Hong Kong & China | 1 Comment »

January 17, 2008 by Rick.

The night before, we went to see the “Red Fort” in Agra, (or Agra Fort as it is now called so as not to be confused with the “Red Fort” in Delhi). It was even larger and more spectacular than the Delhi one, with more areas open to the public. It was the main residence and ruling location for the King who built the Taj as a mausoleum for his favorite wife. This one had an “S” curve, three gated, upwards sloping entrance, which apparently had made attacks nearly impossible. The seventy foot walls probably helped with the “impenetrable” reputation it had as well. Just across a very wide (and currently dry) riverbed the Taj Mahal stood, even more majestic than all the pictures I had previously seen.

We had many early mornings in China, but still found it difficult rolling Luke out of bed (not to mention ourselves of course!) early enough to see sunrise at the Taj Mahal. We arrived a little after the sun had lit up the sky, but a half hour before it crested the buildings on the horizon. Quite a few tourists were crowded just inside the main gate getting early morning light pictures of the Taj Mahal in the reflection pool. This was a few hundred meters away from the actual Taj. It looked fairly close, but then we could see the little tiny people up on the base of the Taj who were incredibly small. That helped put the scale of the building into much better perspective. There were lots of “staff” (or so they said they were) around who were only too helpful in grabbing people and (almost forcibly) guiding them to various specific spots to get all types of “perfect” pictures of the Taj. A couple at different spots of the reflective pool, and a few to gain all manners of artistic perspectives of beautiful pictures.As soon as several outstanding shots were gained, the staff member would maintain a perfect smile while semi-demanding a tip. I only paid the first guy about $3 of the $6 he was asking and then kept only small bills (equivalent to about eighteen and thirty-five cents) in my shirt pocket for any future scoundrels. Any that greeted me after that first one were initially thanked by me and then warned very sternly that I was out of money! They would then only show one good spot, still ask for a small tip, and then wander off to find more lucrative tourists.

Our guide was supposed to be provided, and while our driver (for the eight day circular tour out of Delhi to Agra and Jaipur) is great, the guides have been very poor so far. Just before leaving the hotel for the Red Fort, our guide changed. He knew very little about the fort and a pushy photographer was obviously (in Hindi) feeding him bits of info. This was after telling the “professional photographer” (as he kept on referring to himself as, it reminded me of Denzel’s experience in Man On Fire) many, many times that we didn’t want his amazing, photoshopped pics of us around the fort.

On the left side was a fairly large Muslim Mosque and on the right was a similar sized guest house house. Both of these were about three quarters of the height of the Taj, with about the same footprint as the Taj, (excluding the large 3m high plaza base all around the actual building that is). The two side buildings were a red stone, but with very similar exquisite craftsmanship in the hand carving and sculpting of the stone. All decorations in the three buildings were made purely from inlay of other types of stone, or precious and semi-precious jewels. Inlay means that the grooves are carved out of the larger marble and then precisely the same sized pieces of other stones & jewels are laid in to the grooves with a heated glue (from a top secret formula of course). The building(s) was (were all) spectacular by sheer size and logistics of moving such a massive amount of large pices of marble from a different area of the country a few hundred kilometers away. The artistry of all of the inlays, and piecing the marble (almost seamlessly) together however is just totally amazing! Along with the flowers, and general patterns were scribed text (in who knows what language?, arebic presumably) from the Koran.

We later went to a marble inlay factory and showroom, which had tonnes and tonnes of amazing pieces. There were tables which they insisted could withstand and pop spills or any winter temperatures that we could throw at it. The size was irrelevant to the price, everything was based on the quantity and difficulty of the inlay work. He showed me a small (football) sized elephant with to most exquisite and delicate inlay work all over the body. He said it took his master craftsman eleven months to make and was selling it for about $15,000, (and well worth it for the beauty and craftsmanship that went into it). This place also had inlaid designs on marble wine goblets which would have made an excellent addition to the Gauthier collection, but $300 was just a wee bit out of our reach (we still Love you guys though!). They also had some small (and not too heavy earrings that would have been nice to get for a friend in Smith who paid me some cash to buy his wife odd $5-$20 earrings from around the world on our travels. These ones were $85 though, but were probably the most unique ones I’d seen so far.

Posted in 2008-01 to 02, India | No Comments »

January 17, 2008 by Luke.

Today we were touring all after noon ( SO TIRING huh ) We visited the red fort, we took some pics of monkey’s. we actually spent most of are time at the red fort touring around the grounds we also saw some parliament buildings they were very boring except for one building with real gold for a roof top ( Alex actually pointed it out. ) We went to a lotus temple second (the parliament buildings were third.) We bought lunch and a elastic helicopter at the lotus temple

Today we went to the TAJ MAHAL we had a little trouble with are guide. our driver handed us to a guide That guide took us down a path to a gate then handed us to another guide and said, here is your guide THAT guide took us to another gate (if you looked through you could see the Taj Mahal) and left us when we asked him to come through he said, I can’t I don’ have the right papers to guide you. SO we ended up guiding are selves we got into the chamber (finally) and looked at The fake tombs I bet your wondering if I said that right YES fake tombs to make along story short (Alex did the long story) there are two tombs one is real one is fake The real one is under ground the fake one you can look at BUT not take pictures of. There are stairs going down at the entrance (there ARE blocked off). We also took a look at the reflective pool (it showed the reflection of the Taj Mahal.) It was rather disappointing we did not get to see it turn pink at sunrise P.S On the trip I have been counting dogs the entire trip number is 572 not including India the number for India is 427 ( that is in 5 days) the old record was Australia with 217.

Today we went on a tour to see tigers. We did not see any though (no one has seen one for months ) on the other hand we saw lots of deer we saw some deer the size of a caribou the men looked like they were caribou with there huge antler’s we also saw spotted deer they looked very much like bambi with the skinny legs . We also saw some Indian Gazelle there were only two one mother and one baby. At the start of the tour the guide asked me if I could come with him to get the tickets it turned out he wanted me to draw the route number out of the bag. He said that was a good route to take. In the end I thought he said that to make me feel good. P.S we are half way into the trip!!

Posted in 2008-01 to 02, India | 2 Comments »