Photo journal of India trip

Or, how I managed to turn a business trip into a third honeymoon

Long ago, I learned a trick that older keynote speakers use when being invited to these sorts of prestige talks: Take the business class plane ticket they offer and cash it into two economy seats for you and your spouse. The hosts actually save money that way, so they like it, and they don’t care you share your nice hotel room with your spouse. So, stretch the trip a bit, paying for any extra hotel nights, and see some sights with your spouse while there. After all, going all the way to New Delhi and NOT seeing the Taj Mahal is like a travel crime (and it really is that amazing live and up-close).

So, to wrap up my coverage of the India trip for the Global Business Summit, I want to share some of our many photos from the trip, which was educational beyond my expectations.

Air India jet at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Vonne and I drove to Chicago the day before and got a cheap-but-nice hotel (Westin) on Priceline near the airport. While a mild winter, we didn’t want to risk a connecting flight into O’Hare in February, nor did we want to get up in the middle of the night to drive five hours there. As it was, the lines were just long enough that, even thought we got there two hours in advance, they were boarding when we got to the gate.

At the New Delhi airport, I was heartened to see my favorite doughnuts. That was as close as I came to non-Indian food during the week. Indians are very serious about their cuisine: they eat Indian morning, noon, and night. For me, this was an adjustment but a delicious vegetarian one.

View from hotel room. We stayed at the Taj Palace hotel, a Tata company chain and the top 5-star hotel in the city. It’s where all the G20 leaders stayed last year.

Very nice room and I loved the giant bath. Very nice after 15-hour flight in economy.

Cool invite waiting for us both at front desk.

Truly weird speaker’s gift that seemed out of a Mission Impossible movie.

Cool keepsakes in the box.

Jama Masjid mosque of New Delhi, one of the biggest in India.

Alas, I couldn’t go up the left minaret because the ticket office was closed. I would have definitely tackled the 169-step climb. Vonne required to wear that covering, and both of us had to take off shoes, per custom.

Interior of mosque entrance.

Prayer rugs being laid by staff.

Heading to the famous Spice Market in Old Delhi.

The Spice Market, not so busy because early in day.

Classic store there.

Entrance to Mahatma Gandhi museum.

Just inside.

I always love the small things from their lives.

Monument out front commemorating his famous Salt March in 1930 ( a tactic later copied by Martin Luther King).

Approaching famous Humayun's Tomb, burial site of famous Mogul emperor

Picture out front.

Replica tomb, with real one located in basement below for safety, per the original design hundreds of years ago.

Super-cool banyan trees seen everywhere.

Smaller burial site on grounds. Sign said Barber Tomb, and I figured, gotta be someone named Barber. But it was actually his hair stylist who got his own mausoleum. It’s good to be the Mogul king!

The famous twins Vishal and Vilas who work the 7th floor lounge where we broke fast each morning. These guys were like the coolest servers I have ever met, and they get to work all the VIPs, so they love to tell stories about how the hotel hosts all these famous types from around the world. In their presence, you felt like the coolest VIP in the world. I wrote the hotel a letter on the way home praising them and others there to the hilt. They really were amazing.

At the Indira Gandhi museum, a personal hero of mine. This is the sari she wore on the way to prayers when she was assassinated by three of her guards in 1984.

Her preserved dressing room.

Her preserved library/office.

Clothes of her son and successor Rajiv who was assassinated after leaving office in the late 1980s. His plane was destroyed by a planted bomb.

The path Indira strode on the grounds to prayers when she was shot

The exact spot where she fell.

Pix from National Museum:

Buddha, obviously.

Pretty sure that’s Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, the God of Preservation.

Illustrated version of the Indian Constitution.

One example.

Then, the killer! There’s an exhibition of the 2001 International Fleet Review, which I attended (and gave a keynote) in Mumbai 23 years earlier. As I said to Vonne, it didn’t make me feel old whatsoever!

Ship model is of the vessel I rode on for the actual fleet review by the PM and President in Mumbai harbor. The map in the middle shows all the naval ships in three rows and also the route of the PM’s barge in its review.

Gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon.

One thing I noticed, and liked, about classical Indian art was that it was so easily transmuted into animation.

A special 270-degree immersive quasi-animated presentation of Ram’s wedding to Sita, a classic tale. My camera doesn’t do it justice because I’m shooting it from outside the entry to get a wide angle otherwise impossible to achieve.

The National Crafts Museum presenting all the folk art from around the subcontinent (roughly the size of Europe).

I loved this giant panel because, if you know how, you can visually track a complex story by moving your gaze from point to point in the narrative. You just have to know how to do that.

A 18th century hair dryer: you stand in the frame and the cranked air blower on top dries your hair.

Back in the hotel after hitting four museums on Sunday, we bump into a bride and her maid of honor in the hotel on their way to the wedding. They allowed the picture.

Our Taj Palace driver our entire four days of sightseeing (I missed 1.5 days of it being at the summit). Rajesh was a fountain of historical knowledge.

One of the gates to the Taj Mahal complex. A mere entryway.

Talib, our guide for the Taj, is a professional photographer on the side. You’re glimpsing the Taj Mahal, burial palace for Mogul emperor’s beloved wife, through the gate opening.

Going through the gate. It was a Monday, so not crowded!

Because of the story of the emperor and his beloved wife, the Taj is considered a deeply romantic place, meaning you’re supposed to shoot photos like this, and there are photogs all over the place hustling for business.

Copied off Talib’s phone, this shows the unbelievable amount of foundation for this marble palace, which is sitting on the edge of a sandy river basin. It is a marvel of engineering from 450 years ago.

Approaching it from its foundation level.

Talib working some camera magic.

The more standard shot everyone was getting.

More fabulous camera trickery from Talib, who clearly has mastered the art at the Taj.

After the Taj, we went to the marble showroom of one of the families of marble craftsmen who work on the Taj’s upkeep year-round. These men, there to demo the craft for visitors, are descendants of the original workers who built the Taj 450 years ago. The emperor gave the families eternal pensions so they would never leave the Taj and thus keep it up forever (something they’ve done without interruption except for when the Brits converted it into an English-only hotel for a few decades during the colonial period.). These craftsmen are expert at inlaying stones in the marble to create spectacular images. So we got an octagonal representation of the Taj as a memento. Expensive, but how many times do you visit the Taj Mahal with your spouse of 37 years?

View of the Taj from the enormous Red Fort built by the same Mogul emperor so he could always gaze upon his beloved’s grave.

Another cool staged Talib shot.

We spent our last day in India (Monday) traveling the 3.5 hours to the Taj in Agra, with about 6 hours in the complex (Taj and Red Fort), then back to New Delhi for dinner, then off to the airport around 11pm for the 230 am 15.5-hour flight to O’Hare, where we got our car and drove the five hours home. In all, about a 50-hour day but a magical one.

As far as Vonne was concerned, I had just pulled off a third honeymoon, and so all the effort to make it happen was well worth it. I have traveled most of the world (about 50 countries in all), almost always by myself, so it was so great to share this trip with Vonne.