Indya in India
India, India, India. Where do I start? I have been wanting to visit my namesake for quite some time and finally had the chance to in May of 2016 for my #yearof30. Oh and just because I know someone will ask, I am named after a character from the 80’s cast of The Guiding Light. My mom loved the show and named me after one of the cast members, changing the “i” to a “y”.
My trip to India was the second leg of a two week trip to Asia starting in Thailand with a very close friend of mine. Our birthday’s are two weeks apart and we’re the same sign with similar personalities so we decided to take this trip to mark our 30th year.
We flew to Chennai from Phuket by way of Bankok, located on the Bay of Bengal in Eastern India, which is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. It’s also the hair capital of the world with the best unprocessed, human hair offered as sacrifice to the Gods at the various temples around the country, and because I wanted to start a hair company, this was the place to come.
My good friend Vanessa and I visiting a hair factory.
India was so hot, like extremely hot that being outdoors was a bit unbearable. If you plan on going, especially to the southern region, it’s best to go between November and February during the winter season. We traveled there during the first week of May and the temperature was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit everyday. For a plus size traveler, that’s not especially fun having sweat drip down every crevice….Lol
With only a short 5-day stay, we had to make every minute count. On day three, We took a short flight from Chennai to New Dehli on Air IndiGo Airlines (India’s equivalent of JetBlue) where we met our tour operator that drove us from the airport in Dheli to Agra where we visited the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort and enjoyed a delicious Indian lunch. Two years later and I am still raving about this food. The garlic naan was to die for.
The best naan in the world in my opinion.
It was interesting learning the history of the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. The intricacies and detail carved into the marble is a marvel indeed that pictures and videos just cannot capture. The beauty and sacredness of the sight was quickly overshadowed by the amount of stares and pointing and unwanted picture taking I received. Who knew that my black skin and twisted hairstyle would make such a statement. Most women looked in awe wondering how I got my hair to twist how it was and some even tried their best to interpret that they thought it was pretty.
Where it got uncomfortable for me was the men getting incredibly close, pulling their buddies to look and point and take pictures of me (without my consent). Did I think they were being racist? Absolutely not. Just overly curious. Being born and raised in New York City with parents from the West Indies, I am always around people of different races, culture and backgrounds. I can imagine that the Indian people are not used to seeing black people in India. Apart from that, everyone we encountered were extremely nice (except for the first hotel in which we stayed but that’s for another blog post).
Selfie with the homie Taj
Me taking a picture of the man taking a picture of me 🤷🏽♀️
Overall, I had a great time in India. I wish we had more time to visit temples and journey to other parts of the north but luckily we have a 10 year multiple entry visa so I will most certainly be back to explore other regions like Goa, Mumbai, Jaipur and Rajasthan.
Check out my India vlog on YouTube for behind the scenes on my time there!
