City Visiting: Agra, Delhi
Today's High: 97 degrees
Today was the day we were all sad to see. By the end of the day, we will all be on separate planes heading back home to different parts of the world. Thankfully it was a later check out so instead of sleeping in, Jed and I got up and started to explore a little bit of Agra. Because we were a little under the weather and we had planned tours & meals since we had gotten to Agra, we never made it on the other side of the gates of the hotel so we decided to check it out.
As soon as we walked around the gates, there were 3 tuk-tuk drivers waiting for people to walk out of the hotel and use one of these to go anywhere in town. We didn't have much time and no real destination in mind so we really didn't need a driver. We just planned on wandering. Tuk-tuk drivers don't give up easily and he drove right beside us for about three blocks in the middle of the road on the wrong side of the road! He eventually realized that we were not interested but it was pretty crazy to see the length these guys will go to to get passengers.
Tuk-tuks
Not far from where the Tuk-tuk driver left us there was a very, very tiny strip of shops. It looked promising but nothing was actually opened. There was a McDonald's that we went to check out the menu just so we could see all the different things they serve in different countries. There was one person on the trip that did try it and he said the fries tasted the same.
We didn't wander far or for too long before we head to head back to catch the bus. I don't think either of us realized how small this town was. Since the Taj Mahal was located here we thought there were be a lot of tourist shops around but there definitely weren't, unless we needed to take the tuk tuk to that area.
We were not sure we would get a chance the rest of the day so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful courtyard at our hotel to do some new "family" pictures before we hopped on the bus for one more long drive.
One of the most memorable parts of our driving around was a particular family that we passed by in Agra. It was a small family with 3 or 4 small children running around. This family lived on the street and often times when we would drive by you would see the mom bathing one of the small children in muddy puddles. This wasn't an uncommon sight in any part of India that we had visited but what made this family different was they were "living" right by a street sign. On that street sign someone had tied a piece of fabric around one of the bars and created a swing. Every time we drove by that family one of the children was swinging in that swing. They looked so incredible happy. Those kids didn't care that they were covered in mud, living on a street on the side of a "main" road and had quite literally nothing. But that didn't matter to them, they had no idea there was anything else out there, they weren't missing anything. Those children were just so happy. I hope that image, thoughts and feelings that I felt & thought as we drove by will always stay with me. I hope that I can find happiness in whatever situation I find myself.
Our drive from Agra to Delhi was 145 miles and took us around 6 hours with one quick stop along the way.
Our pit stop
Jennifer, Fernando, Jed & I
Bhanu entertained us with his continuation of Mulla Nasruddin jokes which we all fell in love with. Not only were they pretty silly, funny jokes but his delivery of these jokes was great. These video (that are very shaky, we were on a moving bus) just don't do it justice.
As you can tell from the videos, our last leg of the trip was quite a bumpy ride. There was no main road to get from Agra to Delhi so we spent a lot of time drive in and out of tiny, tiny little villages. It felt like we were doing a little off-roading at times but seeing the landscape, people, animals, architecture from out the windows one last time was great.
Cow paddies used on roofs for cooling homes
We made it to Delhi around 5 or 6 that evening to get changed and showered at Double Tree by Hilton Gurgaon. We all took turns using a few rooms to get cleaned up before we had a farewell dinner and left for the airport.
It was so interesting how different our prospective had changed on Delhi from the first time we were here a few days ago to driving back in after being in Jaipur & Agra. Delhi felt pretty small and not very commercialized when we first got here but after traveling to other parts of India, Delhi felt like a huge metropolitan city.
Delhi from the hotel window
That night we all took over the hotel restaurant for our final buffet meal. We had a great time laughing, being silly, taking plenty of selfie's, swapping information and enjoying fun and different food.
We were all definitely sad to go and couldn't believe how quickly the time had flown by. India was a great country to go and explore and I am so so so thankful that we got the chance.
Throughout the trip Jed & I made a point to take selfie's with everyone on the tour with us. When we got back, Jed made this awesome selfie video for all of us to remember our time in India.
Today was the day we have all been waiting for. We rushed through breakfast and quickly made our way to the bus. The Taj Mahal was just down the road from our hotel so it took us no time before we were unloading our large 40 person bus into 3 smaller shuttles to get us up to the gate.
Once we made it to the stop off for the smaller shuttles, we then had to walk the next few blocks full of little shops and hawkers galore. We couldn't bring anything into the Taj Mahal except our camera and a bottle of water so there was no need to do any shopping until we got done.
on the smaller shuttle
Seth, Jed & I
Security wasn't too bad, pretty much the standard pat down and checking of possessions, and we were one step closer. Before getting to the actual Taj Mahal, there is a very large entryway structure called the Main Gate. It is very beautiful and does a great job of hiding the Taj Mahal and building excitement and suspense. Bhanu knew that he would never get all of us to pay attention once we walked through the Main Gate so he did a lot of his explaining before we got through.
The Main Gate
Ciby, Jed & I in front of the Main Gate
Once we finally got to walk through the Main Gate, it was truly breath taking to see this phenomenal structure. Words can not describe all the feelings and thoughts that came rushing to my head as I just stood there (with my jaw on the ground, I am sure) just taking in the fact that I was actually here, looking at something so magnificent that I never actually thought I would ever see any other way then in a book or on the internet. It took me a few minutes to get myself together and then the flurry of people, photo ops and crazy kicked in.
Olli, Denise, Jed & I
Bhanu did pull us over to the side before he let us all go to explain a little about the Taj Mahal. They say the Taj is "the ultimate expression of love". The main white marble structure is actually a mausoleum for Arjumano Banu Begum (or Mumtaz Mahal), she was the third wife of Emperor Shah Jahan.
Some of the other structures that help make The Taj spectacular are the minarets. The minarets are the four large pillar structures that surround the mausoleum. I think the most fascinating part about these minarets is that they all lean a few degrees away from the mausoleum so in the event of an earthquake or something causing them to topple, they will topple away from the mausoleum to ensure no damage to anything.
As you are looking at the Taj, to the left is a mosque and to the right is the Mihman Khana (or Assembly Hall). We spent some time walking around & in the mosque but the Mihman is still in use to this day so we could only walk around the building and take tons of pictures.There was also a museum on the grounds that we didn't have enough time to walk through.
mosque
Assembly Hall
Assembly Hall
The other incredibly impressive part of the grounds were just the gardens. The beautiful green grass areas, the walk ways and the fountains were so amazing to just walk through and sit on a bench and enjoy the entire experience.
The trip to The Taj wasn't with out a few hiccups and hilarious stories, of course. Pretty quickly after we got in, Bhanu had a photographer that took a group pictures for us and then offered to take individual pictures afterwards. We did stick around to have it done but we didn't like all the "traditional" positions he was having people sit and stand so we were a little more ourselves and he wasn't so sure what to do with us.
Our attempt at "serious"
Gate 1 Group Photo
As we were walking away from that we were sucked into having a photo guide. This is a guy that took us around to show us the "best spots" to take pictures. He did have some great spots but we couldn't lose the guy. After about 20-30 minutes of our 2 hour free time eaten up we went our separate ways and he was not very happy with us at the end. And half way through our time with our photo guide tour, the nice big camera battery died. We knew it was coming because I realized one of the first days in India that I had forgotten the charger and there is no Wal-mart or Best Buy in India where you can just go buy a new one so we were up a creek. Thankfully we traveled with two cameras so all was not lost but it was a bummer that we couldn't use that second, nicer, fancier camera.
The hilarious part of being at The Taj were the people. People were fascinated with people that were not Indian. They wanted to take pictures with you. Not just you and that person, but you and that person and there ENTIRE family. Oh it was so fun and so funny. Everyone was very nice, very respectful and it was such a cool experience that really made the trip that much more incredible. The best was when there were a group of 20 - 30 guys that all wanted to take a picture with Jed and I. I had to turn the camera on them and take a selfie of as many of them as we could all fit in the frame.
Our trip to the Taj absolutely exceeded all of our expectations and was 100% worth the trip to India. I think this day will always feel like a dream, just like it did as we were walking around trying to take it all in.
Mr. & Mrs. Chanez, Jed & I (they took the trip for their 50th anniversary!)
Canzina, Laurelyn, Jed & I
Hailey, Brian, Jed & I
The two hours of free time at the Taj was over in no time and we were headed back our the Main Gate and heading back to our bus where again, we were met with plenty of hawkers trying to sell us all things Taj Mahal. After a little "shopping" from our bus seats, we were headed to our next stop for the day. After seeing the Taj Mahal, they wanted to give us a closer look at how it was really made so they took us to a marble factory.
We had the chance to learn a little about how the Taj Mahal was built and all the work and detail that went into making it all. There were demonstrations and of course a chance to buy very expensive marble everything. We walked through the shops and continued to talk about where we had just come from and what we just saw. The marble factory wasn't all that impressive but it didn't matter, we were still on Cloud 9 and we had fun clowning around as we waited for everyone to finish shopping.
After the marble factory, we headed back to the hotel to hang out a little before our afternoon tour. This was about the time that Jed started to get sick. We laid low for a little while and relaxed for about 30 minutes in the pool. Neither of us were feeling like food was a good idea so we snacked a little before hoping back onto the bus for the afternoon tour. By this point in the vacation, we weren't the only ones that were starting to feel the affects of the food, heat, dehydration & lack of sleep. So we were a few people down for the tour.
Our first stop on our afternoon tour was Agra Fort. This fort was full of courtyards, gardens, huge open area rooms and beautiful architecture and details. With each fort comes new stories, new history and different views of the surrounding areas.
There were a ton of bats in the fort
One of the interesting stories about this fort was this fort at one time belonged to Emperor Shah Jahan (the guy that built the Taj). At the end of his life it has been said that his son, Aurangzeb, took over as Emperor and held his father as a prisoner in part of the fort that over looked the Taj.
As we were exploring this area of the fort, a monkey came running in and cause a huge scene. It startled quite a few but it was pretty funny watching this monkey go a little bonkers.
From this fort there were impressive views of the Taj Mahal. That building never got old to just look at and take one million pictures of.
Our final stop was at the tomb of Itmad ud Daulah, also known as the Baby Taj. The Baby Taj is set right on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was wild to ride over the river and see all the kids playing and bathing in the river right along with all the livestock that come here to keep cool in the heat and all the piles of garbage that get thrown into the river.
There was a large gate as we approached the tomb and an adorable group of school children that were there on what we could only assume to be a field trip and they were all so excited to see us. They all walked around practicing their English saying, "Hello, what is your name?" and shaking our hands. It was just too cute.
Baby Taj was super cute and we enjoyed wanting around the beautiful gardens and around the detailed building. We watched as more wild monkeys and there babies played in the grass and trees. Jed and I wandered around the grounds to a structure right on the Yamuna River, it didn't take us long over there to get crept out and quickly find a different area to explore.
This was the only place we went that we ran into people that were not awesome. A few of us had some issues with 3 teenage boys that wanted their pictures taken with just females and tried to get handsy. It was disappointing but we weren't going to let that small hiccup ruin the excursion.
After our afternoon tour it was time to head back to the hotel for a quick break from the heat and get ready to head out for our Bollywood dinner.
Dinner tonight was in a local restaurant. They gave us the back room where we had music, crazy lights and a Bollywood dancer with dinner. She did a great job and it was so fun to watch and to listen to the music.
By far the most exciting part of the evening was get henna tattoos. It was that last thing that a lot of us wanted to do before we left India and we were all over the moon to get them. Even Jed got in on the action!
Jed and I both decided to try to start eating again and we were not disappointed in the amazing food. It was all so good! We ended the evening with a small fireworks display which was just perfect.
After the evening of dinner, dancing, henna and fireworks, we made our way back to the bus and the hotel. But before we all headed back to our rooms to pack all of our stuff up, Fernando, Ciby, Jess, Cassandra, Jed & I spent some time in the hotel bar laughing, talking and learning so much from Bhanu. We were all so glad to have that time. Learning about people, cultures and life is just so fascinating to me and one of the things I absolutely love about traveling.
