The Golden Triangle (Day 7)

May 26th

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.