Matt Fong’s Blog

My travels have taken me around the world, and I’ve seen many amazing places, but the Taj Mahal was magnificent. Before I went my expectations were low and I thought, oh…so…it’s a big building—big deal…but then you arrive and that initial glance blows mind. There’s little doubt why its considered one of the 7 wonders of the world. To enter the complex it costs foreigners a whopping 750 INR (for locals its 10 INR)–double pricing in India sucks but even worse they didn’t accept my Employment Visa as proof of residence in India (they did in Delhi) which in most countries qualifies you for resident pricing on the basis a big chunk of taxes is paid to the government via your employment. The Taj Mahal is best seen in the morning hours to avoid crowds and because the color of the marbles changes throughout the day.

Matt’s wonderful tip: Go to the Taj Mahal for sunrise and then check out the Taj Mahal from the other side of the river (free) during sunset.

Yet another Air Deccan flight took us to Delhi where we had just a few hours to explore the city. A pleasant spread-out city when compared to Mumbai/Bombay and I enjoyed the short site-seeing we accomplished…but in the afternoon it was off to catch a train to Agra.

We took a 3-hour bus ride to Patna where we caught an overnight train to New Jaipur in West Bengel. New Jaipur is the transfer point to the world-famous UNESCO toy train up the hill to Dajeeling—the Queen of Hill Stations as their motto goes. I unfortunately didn’t book a ticket in advance which I should have. If we had caught the train it would have been an 8 hour ride with switchbacks and zigzags up the hill. The total cost for the ticket was 120 Rupees (or $3)…so yah, it’s better to book the ticket than to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. The second option for travel up to Dajeeling is via suicide car/bus ride up the winding road with signs along the way that read “donate blood in blood bank, not on this road”. It can be done in 2 hours.

Dajeeling is a beautiful mountain town (about 4x better than Matheran) overlooking the Himalayans. Unfortunately though, during monsoon season the area remained relatively foggy with low visibility…but I saw pictures of what it’s suppose to look like on a clear day and the views were spectacular. Even on a foggy day though, the uniquely designed hillside town and small village-like atmosphere is well worth a visit.

After a night sleeping in Kolkata airport, we caught an express train from Howarth Station to Gaya Junction. Gaya junction is a 20 minute/100 Rupee rickshaw ride to Buddahgaya, the pilgrimage town where its believed Lord Buddha gained enlightenment while meditating under a tree. That tree still sits there and is the center for activity in this bustling tourist town. I tried my luck meditating under the tree, but I think I’m still a ways off from gaining enlightenment. Buddhists of all nationalities flock to the site but traveling with a Thai, it was clear that several Thai pilgrimage tours pass through the city weekly. It was nice being greeted with Sawasdee rather than the Konechwa. Thais apparently believe fallen leafs from the tree are considered good luck if they have them in their possession—we got 6! One word of caution though, there appears to be at least a few charity scams going around this town…so beware before donating to an unknown charity, I was almost fooled and I’ve heard almost every scam in the book.

It’s been a really, really, really hectic past few months, so these posts have come with some delay.

We flew to Kolkata on a redeye AirDeccan flight out of Mumbai. It was the first time I have flown AirDeccan and I can safely say it sets the standard for a no-frills airline. I ranted about AirAsia in a past post, but Air Deccan makes Air Asia seem like a luxury carrier. To start with, AirDeccan essentially reserves the right to cancel any flight for any reason it deems fit (including it not being booked to capacity) without any liability except the cost paid for the ticket. So AirDeccan sells tickets 6 months in advance but if on the day of departure overhead costs of operating the flight outweigh the income earned by paying flyers, management can simply cancel the flight…which it often does. A cursory glance at their live online flight status table clearly confirms that under “typical” operation at least 10% of their flights get canceled, and almost all are delayed. The result is passengers who are left stranded and frustrated. I consider us lucky, because of the 4 sectors we’ve flown with AirDeccan two were delayed 2+ hours, but luckily none were canceled. A canceled flight would have been disastrous because AirDeccan makes no assurances of proper transfers. So if you miss your connecting flight because their plane came in late, you’re stranded at your transfer point. One last rant, I’ve never seen so many seats crammed into an Airbus A-320 before. If you’re over 6 feet tall, good luck! To be fair though, AirDeccan tickets are often half the price of their nearest LLC competitor…which unfortunately for my travel stress level, keeps me as a repeat customer.