The Golden Triangle (Day 5)

May 24th

City Visiting: Jaipur & Agra
Today's High: 106 degrees

Today did not start off well. At some point during the night I got sick. It was no fun and by the time our alarm when off for Jed to go pick up his new shirt we had made for him, I was not in the best shape. We knew this was a high possibility that we could/would get sick while we were there but it is no fun. So we were prepared with all kinds of medicines for just these issues. I didn't make it out of the room but Jed did run up and get his shirt and called Bhanu to let him know what was going on. He was super great about everything. When the bus left at 8am, we were on it. We were headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I was not going to let anything get in the way of getting there.

Most of the way to Agra, I just tried to sleep. I really wanted to learn all the information Bhanu was teaching us on our bus days and continue to watch the world from the window but I couldn't do it much.

milk truck

About half way to Agra, we stopped to check out Chand Baori, (a stepwell) in Abhaneri, a small village along our way. This place was really cool. In addition a place were everyone came to get water, this was a large social gathering place. This particular stepwell was 13 stories, 3,500 steps and approximately 100 feet deep. At the bottom, it was 5 to 6 degrees cooler so many would come to cool off in the heat of the day.

Cassandra, Adina, Jed & I

Beside Chand Baori there was Harshat Mata Temple. We spent some time walking around that area as well.

Inside the room behind Ciby & Jess is where the god is. You can kind of see her lurking back there.

Goats would wander all around the Temple

Our final stop in Abhaneri was at "restaurant"/tent for lunch. The food looks great and everyone said they loved it but I decided it was in everyone's best interest for me to pass on lunch.

Inside our lunch tent

Our lunch stop

The trip from Jaipur to Agra was about 146 miles and took us 4 hours of driving. The scenery never got old along the way.

We saw as many as 5 people in a motorcycle

We got to Agra in the late afternoon. It is a pretty small town, and we didn't have any activities the rest of the day. The hotel was really nice and had a pretty courtyard and pool. Many from our group spent the rest of the day either in the spa, getting massages or facials, and swimming. I took the time to try and sleep off whatever it was that I had and poor Jed just hung out in the room for a few hours while I slept.

Dinner was in the hotel that night so we meet up with the group for Jed to eat and then spent the rest of the evening at the pool with Ciby and Jess. We all called it a night pretty early since tomorrow was the big day that we had all been waiting for!!