Georgie and I flew to Mumbai from Trivandrum together, but we were on a different flight from Mumbai to Delhi so I waited an hour for her in the terminal. We had called a hotel a couple days earlier so we knew where we were going once we left the airport. The hotel was in the Paharganj area of New Delhi, right by the railway station.
The next morning, we went to the railway station to book our ticket to Agra. Luckily Georgie knew where to go because there were so many men offering to sell us tickets which were at a much higher rate. We found the tourist office upstairs and bought our ticket to leave that afternoon. We decided to take a rickshaw to see the Red Fort, but since it was a Monday it was closed. We walked around Old Delhi for a while, then we headed back to the train station to make our way to Agra.
After a 3 hour train ride we arrived in Agra. It took a while to find a hotel because some were full and others were asking for a higher price than what was listed in Lonely Planet. Finally we found Sheela Hotel, which was a beautiful enclosed space with a restaurant and garden...and it was minutes from the East gate of the Taj. We woke up at sunrise to visit the Taj since we figured there would be less people and it wouldn't be so hot. When we arrived, we were approached by a man who showed us his card and offered to give us a tour of the Taj. Immediately the scene from Slumdog Millionaire flashed to my mind, but we agreed once he lowered the price from 600 to 200 rupees. I'm really happy we got a guide because we learned a lot about the history of the Taj, and he also knew all the best spots to take the quintessential Taj Mahal photos. The Taj took 20 000 men 22 ears to build. It is made of 42 semiprecious stones and stainless marble that changes colour in the sunlight. The Taj is perfectly symmetrical, including two red buildings on each side which are a guesthouse and a mosque. The coffins of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal are below, but replicas are in the main room directly above. The Maharaja's coffin is larger because Islam states that the man's coffin should be larger. There is a red semiprecious stone inlaid in the marble that looks like fire when a light is shone directly onto it. I couldn't get over how large the Taj was. It always looked much smaller in pictures, but in person it was really overwhelming.
In the afternoon, we took a rickshaw to see Himad-Ud-Daulah, or the Baby Taj. My uncle travels to India every couple of years and this is his favourite building. We were the only tourists, which was a nice change from the Taj. It was much smaller, but still perfectly symmetrical and really beautiful. We checked out of the hotel and took the bus to Jaipur. I shared my seat with a little girl for part of the trip.
When the bus dropped us off in Jaipur we had no idea where we were. We were harassed by a group of rickshaw drivers. After walking a bit and losing most of them, we started to negotiate with one driver. We asked him how much it would cost to get to the hotel and he said we could pay what we like. We said we would like to pay 20 rupees and he agreed. The driver ended up stopping every 5 minutes to ask for directions, even though he said he knew where our hotel was. This has been happening a lot...drivers will pretend to know where to go in order to get our business, but then they will waste our time by getting lost and asking for directions. Once we finally got to he hotel and paid him, he asked for more since it had taken longer. We refused, and he waited outside our hotel for a while before leaving.
The next day we went to visit the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal. After a bit of shopping we went to visit the monkey temple, which was a little disappointing since there were only about 5 monkeys there.
In the evening, we went to Choki Dhani which was a decorated village restaurant 15 km outside of Jaipur. There were elephant and camel rides, dancers, tightrope walkers, magicians, henna artists, etc. It was a little cheesy but it was really beautiful and relaxing. We had a great thali and then headed back to the hotel for the evening.
Georgie and I walked to the train station the next morning at 4:30am to catch our train to Delhi. We arrived in Delhi at 10am and I checked into a single room at a hotel since Georgie's flight was that night and mine was the next morning. Georgie had really bad Delhi belly so we decided to take it easy and just visit Humayun's tomb. It was a beautiful place to walk around and explore. The tomb was a mixture of marble and sandstone. After, we went to Bengali Sweet House so Georgie could bring home sweets for her parents. For dinner we went to a revolving restaurant which had a great view of the city.
That night, I said goodbye to Georgie and then the next morning I took my flight back to Kochi. I had such a great time exploring other parts of India, but I'm very happy to be back at the school with the kids!
No comments:
Post a Comment