If you ever read the book Eat, Pray, Love you know that one, it’s a shitty book, and two, that lots of people seem to head to India for some romantic moment of enlightenment. I’m here to tell you that idea is bullshit. Don’t go to India in the hopes of “finding yourself” or “moments of zen” because you will be stressed, agitated and wanting to punch the author of Eat, Pray, Love right in her lying face.

India is great, in small, non-big-city doses (which we learned the hard way). But overall…India is intense, man. I type that as I sit in my total happy place on a beach in Southern India. But it took a while to get here. Two weeks to be exact.

Our trip to India was like most of our travels lately, a little bit planning, a lot just going with the flow. We came to India to crash the romantic honeymoon of two of our dear friends. They did all the planning, and we joined in on the fun. Just think of it as a little bit of four play.

We arrived in Delhi after a short flight from Kathmandu, but not before I was patted down a total of 6 times before boarding the flight. My husband doesn’t even feel me up that much in a day. So thanks, Nepal. Next time I’ll have you buy me a drink first.

And, also, thanks Nepal for helping us prepare for the shitshow of Delhi. I’m here to tell you it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and it’s all because of you.

The pollution though is no joke. What you can maybe try and convince yourself is just fog, is actually something like 20 times over the 0h-shit-this-is-really-bad pollution limit. Breathe that fact in for a moment.

Once we landed we realized that India was in the middle of a money crisis. Which we heard about prior, but sorta chose to ignore because we figured it didn’t really have anything to do with us. Fools. Long story short, India got rid of 80% of their cash currency because things are like corrupt and shit and they want people to switch to a cashless system. So everyone had to go to banks to switch out the old notes for new notes before they expired.

Luckily for us we missed the worst of it, which we were told involved waiting in line at the ATM for 1-2 hours. However, the first week or so we were only able to get out one 2000 rupee note a day, which equals about $30. That is, when we could find an ATM that actually had money in it…

During my first few days,  I thought “I don’t get it”…why does everyone seem to think India is so great? There’s a romanticization with it. People seem to ignore the pollution, the trash, the aggressiveness, and instead talk about how “endearing” it all is. Well, it’s not. Especially in the bigger cities. My India recommendation for you is to NOT do big cities. Simply land in them and then fly to the beach. You’ll be much happier with your life.

But of course, no visit to India is complete without a trip to the Taj Mahal. Which is the definition of crowds. We had been warned. And the warnings were totally valid. We hired a car with our honeymooning friends and made the 4-hour drive to Agra to hit up the Taj and see some other old friends (small world).

If you go to the Taj, get a guide. There are plenty milling around. It will save you time and anxiety. Because, when you arrive, you’ll notice there are thousands of Indians waiting in line. But, because you are a foreign tourist, you get to pretty much cut past them all. Which we wouldn’t have known, because let’s be honest, it seems like a dick thing to do. But we did it. Foreigners go right up the middle and get semi-stank eyes (from little kids wearing fedoras) along the way.

Once inside the grounds you feel a little less claustrophobic. A little. But everyone is stopping to take the same pics. Which I get, because it’s beautiful. It honestly looked like a damn painting.

After you push past the selfie sticks, you have more room to breathe and move about. And then it hits you. I’m at the motherfuckin’ Taj. The crowds can definitely suck it, but the building is dope.

As you make your way through the grounds, you slowly realize that the first line you skipped right over was nothing. The line to get into the actual mausoleum is wrapped around the damn building…on two levels.

But guess what? We didn’t have to wait in that line either. Awkward. Following our guide, and avoiding eye contact, we made our way to the front and inside the building. Which, to be honest, was totally underwhelming. Super-crowded and dark, with people shoving to get a look at god-knows-what is not my idea of fun. I would’ve rather spent time outside on a bench just looking at the Taj. But we did get the pic that everyone’s tour guide seems to take of them…

Back to far away viewpoints, please.

After about an hour and a half, I was over the people. Glad I saw the Taj. Is it mind-blowing? No. Is it worth the visit? Yes.

We spent the night in Agra since it’s quite a ways from Delhi. The next day before we drove back, we visited the one other attraction that people come to Agra for, the Agra Fort. We woke up to typical winter weather. Fog. Or is it pollution? Maybe a little bit of both? We could barely see 20 feet ahead of us, which made for an interesting fort visit. I imagine on a clear day, it would be amazing. So here’s one inside shot.

Back in Delhi, we picked one tourist attraction to visit, because we couldn’t really be bothered with the traffic. So off to Humayun’s Tomb we went.

A way smaller crowd and just as cool, in my opinion.

After Delhi, we all flew to Udaipur for New Year’s Eve. It was WAY better than Delhi and helped me change my Debbie-Downer attitude about India. Our hotel was set on a beautiful lake (and had a rooftop bar) and the city barely had any air pollution.

We spent four nights here and really enjoyed every minute of it. New Year’s Eve was a blast, I even managed to stay up past midnight (2:30am to be exact).

We found great, cheap rooftop restaurants that just-so-happened to play Octopussy (it was filmed in Udaipur). We even spiced things up and took our first cooking class of our travels.

It was tons of fun, but our honeymooning friends both got sick midway through and had to leave to have a romantic date with their toilet. Welcome to India, where they refill bottled water bottles with dodgy tap water to save a few rupees.

Craig and I managed to not get sick (score!) and made some delicious curries with our funny instructor, Sunny.

We hit up the City Palace which was definitely  just meh. It had some cool rooms and all, but you spend most of your time in tiny stairwells moving between them. Panic. Room.

From Udaipur, we decided to head North. Because…why not? We hired a car to drive us up to Jodhpur (aka The Blue City). Right when we got in the car, and casually looked for the seat belts, the driver informed us “oh, I don’t have those. But don’t worry, I’m a very safe driver.” Awesome. I kept repeating that statement to myself 3 hours into the trip as he passed cars on blind corners.

Along the drive, we stopped at a fort that would make the Agra Fort blush. Kumbhalgarh meant business.

And unlike most things in India, it had zero crowds.

And had killer views…which I’m sure they killed people from, but whatevs.

 

From the fort, we made our way to the Jain temple which in my opinion is the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Did you hear that, Taj? The Jain temple is a breathtaking, stop-you-in-your-tracks structure. It is composed of over 1,440 uniquely carved columns.

Mind. Blown.

The detailing was out of this world. It made the Taj look like a basic bitch.

 

Even the “baby temple” was amazing…

The Jains believe in non-violence (which I totally support). They are against animal cruelty which is why you can’t bring any leather inside the temple. They had a pretty substantial list of rules outside of the temple. Note rule 11.

Following our Jain’s addiction, we headed to our final destination: Jodhpur. But first our Vin-Diesel driver stopped and treated us to the “best masala tea”…and he was right.

So, I’m just going to come right out and say it. I hated Jodhpur. It was my least favorite place that I’ve visited. EVER. It was more of a clusterfuck than Delhi and Kathmandu, combined. It was loud, congested, polluted and just…ugh. The Blue City totally blew it in my eyes.

We checked into our guest house (which was adorable, but loud) and pretty much only ventured outside to eat.

The guest house had a cute rooftop (that served shitty food) and we would just order a beer and escape from the noise.

We found a few good restaurants and a few, ok, one, cool photo-worthy thing.

On our last day, we thought we should check out the one thing people talk up. You guessed it…a fort.

The fort was pretty much the only thing Jodhpur had going for it. I wish I could’ve stayed here for 3 nights.

The fort also had some great views of the “blue city” which as it turns out isn’t as blue as I thought it would be. This is the bluest bit, after some light Photoshop (it’s not really that blue):

Other than that…Jodhpur, I hope to never see you again. Which I won’t. Because I’m totally breaking up with you.

From Jodhpur our plan was to Goa to Goa. But first, plane delay. It was honestly the first time I thought we were going to miss our flight. The Jodhpur Airport was similar to Jodhpur the city, shitty and crammed.

Our plane to Mumbai was delayed over 2 hours and we only had 1.5 a hour layover before our connecting flight to Goa. I’m not good at math, but that seems tight. But you know what? We made it. The plane to Goa was also delayed and they took us off the plane from Jodhpur, right onto a bus on the tarmac and zipped us over to our connecting plane, and we boarded through the back. VIP style.

We arrived at our accommodation pretty late, but I just knew…I loved Goa. Like the gross, I-wanna-smother-you-with-kisses kinda love. It changed my whole opinion on India. The people are nice/calmer here. The vibe is chill. The weather is amazing.

We loved Goa (specifically Agonda Beach) so much that we decided to scrap our plans of heading south to do house boat stuff, and just became the ultimate beach bums for the next 12 days. We stayed for six nights at the amazing Jojolopa Resort.

We originally only had three nights booked, but we extended that shit. Because, look how pretty…

Not to mention the staff was amazing (and fully supported our drinking habits)…

After six amazing nights, we wandered down the beach and just went into whatever bungalow rocked our boat and inquired about rooms. Because we were at the end of high season, many of them had cheap, beachfront bungalows just waiting for us. Which brought us to Madhu for three nights…

And then Sand Sapphire…

All three of our beach bungalow babies treated us right. We loved them all for different reasons.

Oh, Goa. Why you got to be so beautiful?

Now, here we are. On one of our last nights in Goa (and India for that matter), and I find myself not wanting to say goodbye just quite yet. Although I will. But only to you, Goa. And whatever you do, don’t tell the others. I don’t want our love to make them jealous.

Vietnam, we’re coming for you. Get excited and make sure the vegetarian pho is ready for me.