India Diaries: Middle India, In Search of Nothing

[OZDUCK]

Thanks for a very interesting TR. You certainly visited some fascinating places.

 

[stm1sydney]

Grat TR, thanks. So many interesting sights in India. We need to add Jhansi, Gwalior etc to our list!

 

[bPeteb]

After the fort, our next destination was the Rani Mahal (the queen’s palace), about 1.5 km away. We decided to walk, a choice that sits somewhere between courage and questionable judgment. I’ll let history decide, since history loves a good march and rarely mentions the part where you’re dodging scooters and negotiating for your life.

And walk we did, through narrow lanes jam packed with every kind of vehicle and pedestrian, all of them flowing forward by a shared agreement that gaps are not found, they are negotiated into existence. Traffic here doesn’t so much follow rules as practise a kind of collective improvisation, and we were right in the middle of it, doing our best impression of calm tourists with functioning survival instincts.

A perfect description of what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks

 

[SYD]

A perfect description of what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks

We’re currently living that dream at the
Moment.

Just when you think an area is less chaotic, central casting chucks in a swarm of peeps, bunches of Tuk Tuks, motorcycles carrying 3 or 4, SUVs wider than the lane they’re trying to drive down the wrong way and a few random dogs and cows…

At least the kids went back to school today…now they’re whizzing around on scooters wearing blazers!

 

[craven morehead]

Today we’re heading north for a short circuit through middle India, with a neat mix of forts, palace hotels, and temples. The kids are staying home, which means we’ll be travelling lighter, moving faster, and only negotiating with ourselves for once. This is either going to be wonderfully efficient, or we’ll discover that we were the ones who needed supervision all along.

The plan
Day 1 starts with HYD to DEL on Air India, followed by dinner with my sister and a night at the Taj Palace hotel.
Day 2 is an early morning run to Jhansi on the new Vande Bharat train, then a day exploring before checking into the Lemon Tree hotel.
Day 3 is Orchha, and then an evening train onward to Gwalior, where we’ll be staying at the Taj Usha Kiran Palace.
Days 4 and 5 are for exploring Gwalior, before we fly back Gwalior to Delhi to Hyderabad on IndiGo. We also get to try their new Stretch product on DEL to HYD.

Confession time: I have what I describe as “class envy” the inherent need to fly the highest class available, regardless of whether the flight is long enough to finish a movie. Our HYD to DEL flight was booked in premium economy, but the plan was always to upgrade to business if possible. Initially the upgrade cost was ₹12K per person, which the rational part of my brain refused to pay.

This morning (day of departure), the upgrade dropped to ₹6K per person, which I accepted immediately, with the calm restraint of someone making a deeply considered decision. Yes, it’s only domestic business. But it keeps the class envy at bay, and more importantly it prevents me from spending the rest of the flight doing mental math about “what if we had upgraded.”

The fun starts in a couple of hours when we head to the airport… to buy jackets. We are heading to north India in January with the serene confidence of people who have entirely forgotten that weather exists.

So before forts, palaces, and heroic history, we’ll be doing our first cultural activity of the trip: panic-shopping winterwear at airport prices, under fluorescent lighting, while insisting to each other that this was “the plan all along.”

Following along