One Shli in a Pod: Jaipur, Agra, & Delhi pt 2

Day 3 of our tour, we got up before the sun to get ready. We were at the Taj Mahal for sunrise! Unfortunately, it was super cloudy, so although I took a LOT of pictures, there's no super cool sun-peeking-out-behind-the-Taj shots. :( Which I was really hoping for. But it was still so AWESOME!! I was seriously in awe the whole time, and it's still a little surreal that I've actually been to the Taj Mahal and walked inside and all around it. How many people can say that?! (Okay, probably a lot, but not many that I know.)

We were there for about 2 or so hours. They have professional photographers to get your pictures done with. We did a big group shot, and then I decided it was worth it to have some of just me done. However, I have yet to scan those in and upload them to my computer. But, some sweet old man came up to me and asked if he could take my picture for me. So I handed him my camera, thinking he would just take one or two for me. No. He walked me to several different places and took probably 50 pictures. Which was cool. After a while, though, I had to get back with the group (we were off to the side of the Taj, and not very many people were around at all. A little bit of a red flag to me....). I met up with Kylie, and we went inside. you have to wear shoe covers, and by this point it was starting to rain a little. I was thinking it would be bigger, and have more to explore. But it was just a circular room. Which was still cool...don't get me wrong. After walking out, we met up with a few others from our group and took a bunch of other awesome pictures. (Pictures will never do the Taj justice btw!) And then the rain really started to come down!! It was pouring and made it really had to walk in flip flops! We found cover, and tried waiting it out, but then it was time to gather at the meeting place. So we headed back in the rain. By the time we got back up to the entrance to the grounds, we were all soaked. Once we had everyone, we headed back to the bus to go back and eat breakfast and check out of our hotel. On our way, we saw monkeys on the side of the road. Like, almost close enough to touch. Being so excited about this, and somewhat forgetting the warnings from Benson and Suniel about staying away from them, we were all taking pictures when they started to hiss at us! Who knew monkeys hiss? And then they ran across the road and we moved on.

After breakfast and some time to change/dry off from all the rain, we loaded up the bus and headed to the Red Fort (aka Agra Fort). It's not far from the Taj, and is where what's-his-name that built the Taj was put in prison by his son after his wife died and he tried to spend all the money to build another one. The fort was an awesome place to explore. The rain had gone by then, and it was hot and humid. And very bright. But there was so many rooms to explore! I probably could have stayed there all day. But I could've stayed at the Taj all day, too.

This is the room he was imprisoned in. Yeah...not much of a prison.

After the fort, we loaded up and headed to Delhi, saying goodbye to Suniel. :( He was an awesome tour guide! Our last hotel wasn't as awesome as the first 2, but it was still pretty great. We got in late, but still went out for dinner and of course, we all had naan and butter chicken. :) I slept super well that night since we'd gotten up so early! And thankfully, we had a late start to our activities the next day. So I even got to sleep in.

Our last day, we went into Old Delhi. Wow! Delhi itself is just so different from the rest of India! A lot more westernized. But Old Delhi was an experience in and of itself. We rode a rickshaw into the city, as the streets aren't wide enough for normal vehicles. Uh...most frightening ride of my life! Kylie and I were a little scared for our lives. And our driver got lost. But, we finally made it to the street with the spice market! The shop was like a long, narrow hallway. And it smelled interesting. A mix of all the spices and whatever else was in the area. I was able to get some butter chicken masala, though! Now I just have to figure out how to make it..... The rickshaw ride back to where the bus was meeting us was....interesting. There was a major traffic jam as we were trying to get out. We even saw some lady arguing with another rickshaw driver, and she hit him with her umbrella. Yikes. Haha. We finally got to where we were going, though, and it was a little nice to get back on the bus. We went back into New Delhi, drove past Gandhi's grave, and some neat looking government buildings. Oh, and before we left the market, Benson took us up onto the roof of some place, and we got to look down into this mosque during prayer time. That was neat! After stopping for lunch, we went to this massive stone tower. It was pretty cool to see. There was also the beginnings of what was supposed to be a second, bigger tower.

Afterwards, it was time to say goodbye to the first round of airport goers. Man, that was hard!! Turns out when you spend so much quality time with people doing service, you truly come to love them, and it's hard to part ways. After they left, the rest of us went to visit a few temples. We were in one during prayer time; and they were praying to some guy that had died in like, 1960 something. Weird. But it was cool to see it. And all the people were looking at us like we were intruding or something. Pictures aren't allowed inside (go figure), but there was one where our tour guide told us we could take a picture but not beyond a certain point. So we did. After that, we took round 2 to the airport, and then Kylie, Maddy, Aliza, and I got to hang out at Benson's place since we didn't have to be to the airport until midnight. It was so hard to leave! But, I managed to sleep most of the way to Germany, and from there to San Fran. Jet lag was super hard to get over. Took me like, 3 weeks. Ugh. Hopefully it's not that bad for my next international trip.