Our Second Vacation - Jaipur

When Dave's sister, Beth, first decided to come to India to visit, she told us that there were two things she wanted to do. The first was to see the Taj Mahal, which we eventually did in Agra. The second was to ride an elephant. We decided to tackle this one on the next leg of our tour in Jaipur. One of the high points of Jaipur is the Amber Fort and one of the best ways to get there is via elephant.

After we made it up the hill, and Beth's driver finally let her off of the elephant, she got a little closer to the trunk.

The Amber Fort is another beautiful palace. This time we were in Rajasthan, one of the states of India. The rulers of Jaipur still own this palace and it is in excellent shape.

On the way back, we were able to see some of the more traditional forms of travel in this region. They had stopped by the side of the road as we had, so it was easy to snap a quick picture.

Another event in Jaipur was the Mhendi designs that Beth and Beth had drawn on their hands. We found some guys along the side of the road that were decorating people with henna, so we worked out a two for one deal.

The last big thing that we saw in the city of Jaipur was the Jantar Mantar. This is essentially a giant collection of astronomical instruments. The big staircase that Beth is taking a picture of below is actually part of a giant sundial. There were many different instruments that were used to predict the angle of the sun in the sky, the rise of stars, and many other facts used to determine horoscopes.

The big event for our night in Jaipur was actually about 20 kilometers south of town. We had a taxi pick us up to take us to Chokhi Dhani, a local Rajasthani tourist village. They had a large meal and a village full of performers. Beth and Beth both got pulled on stage to dance, but Dave adamently refused. There were also camel rides, tightrope walkers, elephant rides, museums, and many other attractions.

Chokhi Dhani was fun, but it was mostly an attraction for Indian tourists. There was nothing written in English anywhere and we were the only westerners there that night. We felt a bit uncomfortable, but had a great time together. It had been a full day, so we slept well that night in preparation for our trip to Rajaji National Park the next day.

Dave and Beth

Our Second Vacation - Taj Mahal

Perhaps the most famous building in the country, and certainly one of the most famous buildings in the world, is the Taj Mahal in Agra. We had visited the Taj during our quarter break, but one can not expect a visitor to come all the way to India without wanting to stop at the Taj. We decided to make it a new experience for both us and Beth by going to see it at sunrise. We made sure to book a hotel very close to the Taj and we got up well before dawn so that we could stand in line and wait for the gates to open at 7:00. As we stood and waited with a couple dozen other westerners, we started to notice that it was very foggy. All the guide books assured us that sunrise was the prime time to see the Taj, so we were not too worried. When we finally made it through the security checkpoint, we were greeted with views of the great building such as this:

and this:

In fact, Beth Ann now has the distinction of having been inside the Taj Mahal before she even saw it. We walked around the grounds a bit and strained to see some birds here and there. As you can see from the picture below, Beth and Beth were both very disappointed.

Rather than mope around the garden all day, we made the trek back to our hotel without having fully appreciated the Taj (checkout time was 10:00 at our hotel, so we had some motivation to get moving). Thankfully, our hotel had a very nice rooftop restaurant overlooking the Taj, so we were able to watch the fog slowly clear. We even took a nice group picture from there before sending Beth Ann back in to get some more traditional pictures while we waited outside and did some shopping.

We also had time that day to stop by the Agra Fort. This was similar to the Red Fort that we saw in Delhi, but it is in slightly better shape.

After this full day of sightseeing, we piled onto a train in Agra to make our way to Jaipur. This was a sleeper train because it was going past Jaipur through the wee hours of the morning, so we even got a bit of sleep.

Luckily we woke up before our stop!

Dave and Beth

Our Second Vacation - Fatehpur Sikri

After a quick two hour train ride from the New Delhi railway station, we found ourselves in Agra. This city is most famous for the Taj Mahal, but we decided to hold that off until the next day. First, we went to Fatehpur Sikri which is about an hour from Agra. This is another Mughal city, that we had been to during the first semester of the school year. We wanted Beth to be able to see it, so we went back again. It is a beautiful place with lots of very interesting architecture.

There is also a mosque near the city that we went to visit.

One of the most interesting features of the mosque were the giant beehives attached to the ceiling. This was in an alcove above the door into the prayer hall.

From Fatehpur Sikri we went to Akbar's tomb. This was another place that we visited on our last trip to Agra, but we wanted Beth to be able to see that, as well. Below you can see a slight reversal of roles. Ordinarily, Beth Ellen would provide the commentary and guidebook information while Beth Ann would snap pictures of...well...everything. Here Dave caught a picture of them doing the opposite outside of Akbar's beautifully decorated tomb.

Inside, the tomb was ornately decorated. Akbar designed it himself before he died, so he was able to make sure that everything was top of the line.

The grounds of the tomb were filled with animals. There were blackbuck deer grazing on the lawns and purple sunbirds in the bushes.

There was also a grey langur monkey sitting on the terrace near the tomb. Beth and Beth decided to get their picture taken with it. If you look closely at the photograph below, you'll see that Beth Ellen has her mouth firmly shut while Beth Ann has a nice toothy grin showing. Apparently we forgot to inform Beth that monkeys see bared teeth as a sign of aggression. Luckily, the mother monkey was not too threatened by these two and she walked away uneventfully to nurse somewhere else.

It was another full day of sightseeing in India. We were looking forward to visiting the beautiful Taj Mahal early the next morning to see the sun rise over the white marble dome.

Dave and Beth

Our Second Vacation - Delhi

After a thoroughly refreshing Christmas vacation, we've now made our way back to Mussoorie. We spent about three weeks back in the United States splitting our time between Chicago and Berrien County. We saw lots of family and friends and ate lots of wonderful American food. But this blog is about our adventures in India, so we are making a post about our second big Indian vacation. This was the first time that we actually did the planning and execution of the trip ourselves, so it was a bit of a milestone for us.

Just to make things a bit more confusing, we decided to take Dave's sister, Beth, along on this trip with us. We left Chicago on the same day. Beth's flight left a few hours after ours, but she made it to Delhi a few hours before us because she had a direct flight and avoided London and Bahrain. We all found our way, safe and sound, to the Ajanta Hotel.

After a few minutes of sleep, we went out to see some of the sights of Delhi during the day. We started in Old Delhi and first hit the Jama Masjid, or Friday Mosque. This was built by the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal and is one of the largest mosques in Asia.

From there, we moved down Chandni Chowk, the main thoroughfare of Old Delhi and visited the Red Fort. This is actually a large palatial walled city built by the Mughal emperors. The Muslim Mughal empire controlled northern India for quite a while, so they had time to erect a very expansive collection of buildings. The gate shown below is where Indian independence was declared in 1947.

Dave's sister Beth took a great deal of pictures. Below, you can see her in the standard pose that she struck while in India.

After the Red Fort, our taxi driver took us to Raj Ghat. This is a memorial to Mohandas Ghandi, the father of independent India. It is actually the spot where his body was cremated after his assassination and it is marked by a large marble platform and an eternal flame.

We went from Raj Ghat to Connaught Place with the intention of doing some shopping, but we couldn't find the things that we were looking for. Instead of taking our taxi back to the hotel, we hired an autorickshaw. It was a tight squeeze for the three of us, but it gave us a nice, up-close view of the traffic.

The next morning, we were catching a train to take us to Agra and the Taj Mahal, so we needed to get a good night's sleep.

Dave and Beth