Holland's Visit India November 19-28 2010

So it's about time to post about my parents visiting India, and get rid of the previews. We took so many pictures that the only way to do this blog was through collage pictures. I hope you can click on the picture to blow it up bigger. I tried to not add too many pictures per collage, but some of them I just couldn't help.

My parents arrived on the night of the 18th morning of the 19th. After a long flight and lots of travel, they finally arrived and got to our house by 4 a.m. When they got to the airport, Vijay gave them a big Indian welcome.

The morning of the 19th we let my parents sleep in and then around noon Alan took Ellie, Jake and my Dad golfing. Jake said that Ellie's caddy reminded him of Happy Gilmore's caddy. After golfing they stopped at the corner bakery for some cold drinks. 

Mom and I went shopping on Commercial Street while they golfed. We had "fun" bartering for skirts, shawls and other souvenirs.  We attempted to go Go-Karting that night, but after riding the Rickshaw out there, Mom and I found out it was closed for some grand opening of a club.

Sunday morning we all piled into our Innova and headed off to church. On the way home we again found a camel on the side of the road. Vijay stopped to ask if we could ride it. You think we would have learned after what happened to Tracy and Katie while they were here. This time the saddle thing looked like it was attached better, and Jake was feeling brave! Jake and Ethan ended up having a great ride around the block. Annie screamed when we put her on for a picture, and Mom and Dad were not about to attempt the ride. I don't blame them at all.

Sunday afternoon began our "Amazing Race" around India.

First we went to the ISCON temple. We didn't all fit into our Innova very well as we went to church so Alan, Jake and Ethan decided to ride a rickshaw to the temple.

After the temple we ran to the mall to eat a little bit of KFC and Taco Bell before boarding the train.

We boarded the night train to Hampi. I think Jake's face tells his true feelings about the train. He acted like the train didn't bother him at all. Once I got home and downloaded our video, I found the truth.

This is where we took too many pictures. I cut out a TON of pictures, but there is still to many. While we were in Hampi we walked to many old ruin temple sites, ate at the Mango Tree restaurant, rode in the Coracle boats, and were blessed by Laxmi the Elephant.

We also fed bananas to the monkeys, goats, cows, elephant and small children.

After touring all day we went to the hotel to take a shower and get ready to get back on the train to come back to Bangalore. I think Jake was a little bored while we were at the hotel, but quickly entertained himself with the squirrels that were outside the window.

We arrived back in Bangalore on Tuesday morning and relaxed a little at the house. Dad and Jake wanted to go shopping on Commercial street for some souvenirs and Jake wanted a hand tailored suit so they took a rickshaw to go shopping.

Vijay invited us over to his house for an Indian meal of Chicken Biriyani, Eggplant, Curd, and his new specialty (ever since we introduced it) beef, all served on a Banana Leaf. He was so excited to have us over for dinner, and really happy when Jake wanted seconds. Jake also took one for the team when Vijay served up some Pon at the end. Dad chickened out (Jake took one for the team), and Mom curtiously took hers to go, but Alan, Jake and I couldn't really get out of it.

Wednesday we boarded the plane to head up North. My parents and Jake were on a separate airplane from our family. When we arrived in Delhi we realized that our plane arrived at the Domestic Airport, but my parents plane arrived in the International Airport. Once we figured out that we were in separate airports it made it a little easier to find each other.

Once we were altogether we started our "5" hour drive to Jaipur. The drive ended up taking about 7 hours instead of the average 5. When we arrived in Jaipur we were too late to go to the Amber Fort as planned. Instead we headed over to a textile factory and found out how they make the famous rugs and printed material. They let Ethan tie a few knots in the rug, and let the kids each stamp a piece of material to show how they make the printing. Then we headed to our hotel.

Our hotel in Jaipur was the Heritage Hotel. It was a nice place to stay that had been very decorated. Mom and Dad's room had millions of tiny mirrors that decorated the walls and ceiling. Jake slept in the room with Maddie and Ethan. We had originally planned on our kids having one room, and Jake sleeping with Mom and Dad but when we got to the hotel our rooms were not close to each other so I didn't want the kids by themselves. Thanks Jake for being willing to stay in with the kids.

The next morning we went to the Amber Fort and rode elephants up to the top. Once we were finished at the top of the Fort we decided to ride the "Jeep" back to the bottom. I'm pretty sure Indiana Jones rode in this jeep, but I don't think he had 15 people in the jeep with him. 

We also toured around Jaipur seeing the different places that the Maharaja made to have his wives be able to see the city without being seen. From Jaipur we traveled on to Ranthambore National Park.

We stayed at the Tiger's Den Resort in Ranthambore.  We had a morning Safari and saw a few animals. We were told that this would be the best place to see Tigers, unfortunately the only ones we saw were in the pictures at the hotel. One exciting thing that happened on the Safari was when the Safari bus got stuck in the mud. Annie had fallen asleep in my arms so when they emptied the Canter Annie and I got to stay on while they pushed it out.

From Ranthambore we traveled to Agra to finish off the trip. It was great to see the Taj Mahal. While we were leaving the Taj we ran into Elder Beihner and his family. It is certainly a small world when it comes to the church. They were actually on the same flight as Mom, Dad and Jake heading back to SL.

After seeing the Taj we had to hurry off to Delhi so Mom, Dad and Jake could catch their flight back to Salt Lake. On the way to Delhi we stopped at McDonalds. As we got out of the van we were touring in there was a group of little kids that were begging for money and food. After we finished eating Jake bought each of them an ice cream cone and gave them the left over food from my kids meals. They were very excited to get it.  On the way back to Delhi Mom decided that she would really like to take some Maharaja hats back home. The shop that we stopped in was only selling them for 3000 rupees a piece. Dad came out to me and told me to go in and see how well I could barter. I had to show him my skills, and I think I did pretty well when we ended up paying 500 rupees a piece.

That night we had dinner at the hotel Alan and I stayed at. We didn't worry too much about which hotel we picked to stay in in Delhi because Mom and Dad weren't staying with us. This is the one thing that I regret about the whole trip. The room we stayed in wasn't the greatest, and the restaurant wasn't good at all. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that this is where Mom ended up getting sick. 

All in all we had a great time having family come and visit us again! We can't wait now for the next vacationers to come! Anyone who wants to come is definately welcome!