Spring Break Trip to India Part VI

Thursday was another travel day - it was time to complete the Golden Triangle.  We got up early, ate breakfast, packed, and climbed back into the van for a long day of driving.  We drove through the same area we'd gone through when we went to the Amber Fort and to the Elefantastic.  It was nice to drive through the hills.  The road from Jaipur to Delhi was much more crowded with trucks.

The fun of the day was that we had a lot of monkeys along the side of the road, which was a lot of fun to see through the windows.  The day itself was probably the hardest day of travel - it had just been a long week, and so we were ready to be done.  We had one more period of negotiating when the driver brought us to a roadside tourist trap place.  The girls weren't hungry.  We bought everyone a soda, but everyone (at the restaurant and the driver) was unhappy that we didn't want to spend enough money.

When we got into Delhi, the traffic was very bad.  It took us a long time to get to our hotel.  We drove past the airport, but it took us over an hour from there to where our hotel was.  We had to have someone come and help guide us to the hotel from the back way because of the traffic.

Our hotel was a small micro hotel, homestay place called "The Estate."  It was terrific.  The area was very nice - when we drove to the airport the next morning we discovered we were in an area with a bunch of embassies and residences and other nice homes.

While we checked in, we were given drinks, and sandwiches.  The girls went out and played in the backyard, which had a nice playground and a trampoline.  There were also nice areas for sitting, which Yulia and I took advantage of later in the evening.  The girls had a nice movie night as part of the stay.  At five, we had dinner - they arranged for us to eat early.  The food was superb.  We had a good experience with food throughout our trip, and this was no exception.

Relaxing after a long drive

Our villa. We were on the first floor, and the girls were on the second.

One of the best dinners we had in India. They kept bringing food until everybody was full.

The living room of our villa

It was really nice and peaceful even though we were in the middle of a city chaos

These tall walls with the vines really kept the noise down

We had planned to just spend a quiet night, which is what we did, and we loved it.

The Estate was also the only place on our trip that had great Internet service!

They came in to get our beds ready for the night and left this little gift for us. Apparently they sponsor a nonprofit organization called SShrishti that reaches out to children that come from the city's so many impoverished slums and gives them care and education. It also reaches out to women from the most impoverishing communities in Delhi and rural areas of India and gives them a chance to educate themselves so they can live a better life.

Friday morning we were up and packed and ate breakfast and were out the door by 8:15.  The drive to the airport was nice.  The taxi drivers (we took two) went on the back roads and we missed major traffic jams.  We had a good check in, but the passport and security lines were quite long.  We had about an hour and a half before boarding and Yulia went to a store to use up all of the Rupees we had left over - she bought Indian candy and treats to bring back to Kazakhstan with us.

Waiting for our ride to the airport. Taraz decided to get ready for Astana's weather well in advance! :)

Goodbye, Estate! We absolutely loved our stay here!

The flight from India to Almaty was pretty bumpy, but we made it okay.  When we landed in Almaty we learned that our flight had been delayed.  I had left a book in my seat, so being delayed made it possible to get it back.  The girls were pretty tired, but they entertained themselves by dancing, practicing figure skating moves, and in general just being kids.

Mimi spent probably good two hours coaching Nika on the proper figure skating technics.

They also entertained a few little kids. This little boy tried to copy them for quite some time. 

The kids did a bit of this too.

And then they lost their minds a bit... but hey, one more hour and us, the adults would be reaching the same state of mind!

We arrived in Astana at about 10:00, and once we finished getting our bags, we ran and just missed a bus, so we had to wait for the next one.  We were home by just after 11:00.  7 days worth of India. We were home, and happy.

And of course, Astana is greeting us back with this awesome weather. But we do love to be back!

******

India was a good experience.  We loved the things we saw.  We really had a great time.  However, we also were very stressed out by the constant negotiation, the crushing poverty, and the other difficulties we encountered.  We are glad we went, but are not sure if we'll plan on going back again.