Between traveling and having spotty internet access the last few days I haven't really had the opportunity to update on my most recent travels. Frankly, it's a bit daunting approaching writing this new blog. I have so many experiences and thoughts to share that it would take many hours to process and write them all. Hopefully this will help to fill you in on the main highlights of the last week and a half.
Late on June 24th my friend Amanda came with me to the airport to pick up Rachel up and on the way, as we were sitting at red light in the back of a rickshaw, the car behind us kept honking and honking. While to a certain extent we've gotten used to the incessant honking on the Jaipur roads this seemed particularly insistent. When we turned around the 70 year-old man in the passenger seat waved and then blew us a kiss. Haha, I'm not sure what precisely went through his mind, but it remains one of the most hilarious moments of my time here. Not even a 10 minute drive to the airport is void of surprises. Seeing Rachel for the first time in arrivals was absolutely incredible. Her beautiful smile and open arms brought a peace (spelling intended) of home straight into the center of Jaipur.
Saturday June 25th: We were woken up at 6:30am by our driver to announce that he was at the house and ready to depart for Agra. Having heard nothing from the travel agency that we booked our trip through we assumed that the driver wouldn't be coming until at least 9am but we managed to to climb into the car around 7:30am and then headed off to Agra. It was great to catch up on the last month of our lives as the combination of finals and travels didn't allow for a lot of chat time. After arriving at our hotel and getting some lunch in Agra, we drove to the Red Fort where we caught our first glimpses of the Taj Mahal off in the distance. From there we drove to the Taj Mahal. In middle school I read an article about the Taj Mahal in one of my history books and resolved that one day I would go in person to see this beautiful monument. I had high expectations but even those were blown away. Beautiful, magnificent, pristine encapsulate only a part of it. While the Taj Mahal itself was beautiful, Rachel and I quickly became irritated by the aggressiveness of many of the people that we encountered. At both the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal we had many many guys flat-out leering at us, come up to ask asking to take a picture with us, or just conspicuously stealing a photo as we walked by. Also the hawkers as well as the auto rickshaw drivers were incredibly persistent, often following us for a quite a distance before leaving us alone. By the time we returned to our hotel, we decided that rather than venturing into this tourist trap of city, we went to the next door pizza hut (the guys working at Pizza Hut were some of the nicest and friendliest that we have met in India), bought a pizza and some drinks, came back to our hotel room and watched the new Karate Kid before falling asleep. It was good to just have some downtime/ American time to rejuvenate.
Sunday June 25th: We left Agra to go to the nearby fort the Fatehpur Sikri. This astounding Mughal fort is built primarily our of red sandstone and includes multiple palaces and a huge mosque on the outside. We had a great guide who filled us in on the fascinating history of the fort. This history itself made the fort so interesting we enjoyed our time here even more than at the Taj Mahal. When we arrived it was monsooning so hard that we still got soaked even with umbrellas, but the rain gave the red sandstone a particular beauty in itself. After spending most of the morning at the Fatehpur Sikri we left to go Ranthambore, a wildlife and nature reserve, in South East Rajasthan. We really enjoyed the 7 hour drive through the country but going through the mountain passes so shortly after such heavy rain was harrowing. The car at one point went through water almost reaching the bottom of our windows, but fortunately the engine didn't stall. Finally we arrived in Ranthambore, where we were the only people staying in the entire resort except for a very nice couple that we met from Seattle (woot, woot Seattle!). We spent the night writing postcards and expelling over 30 crickets from our room that had come to reside under our bed and dive bomb Rachel's head as we tried to write postcards.
Monday June 26th: After being assured multiple times that we had already paid for the safari (though it turns out we hadn't and were surprisingly charged 7000 rupees) Rachel and I woke up early in the morning to get in a jeep and head into the park. The monsoons led to both a positive and negative outcome for our trip: Negative- the tigers had gone up into the hills so we didn't get to see any Positive- the rains had made the park incredibly green and beautiful. So though we didn't see any lions we loved driving around and seeing many cool birds and took in the natural beauty of the park. After the safari we took a quick breakfast and then drove 5 hours to Pushkar. Unfortunately our travel agency last minute changed us to a resort that, though very nice, was 5 km outside of the city and there were no taxis or rickshaws available to us (and we would have to pay or driver extra to take us into the city) so we had to stay on the resort until the next morning. Oddly enough we were literally the only tourists there for several hours so anywhere we walked on the resort we had over 10 people staring at us the whole time (needless to say we decided to not go swimming in the outdoor pool).
It's really late and I need to sleep. I'll post the rest of my trip within a couple days!
Late on June 24th my friend Amanda came with me to the airport to pick up Rachel up and on the way, as we were sitting at red light in the back of a rickshaw, the car behind us kept honking and honking. While to a certain extent we've gotten used to the incessant honking on the Jaipur roads this seemed particularly insistent. When we turned around the 70 year-old man in the passenger seat waved and then blew us a kiss. Haha, I'm not sure what precisely went through his mind, but it remains one of the most hilarious moments of my time here. Not even a 10 minute drive to the airport is void of surprises. Seeing Rachel for the first time in arrivals was absolutely incredible. Her beautiful smile and open arms brought a peace (spelling intended) of home straight into the center of Jaipur.
Saturday June 25th: We were woken up at 6:30am by our driver to announce that he was at the house and ready to depart for Agra. Having heard nothing from the travel agency that we booked our trip through we assumed that the driver wouldn't be coming until at least 9am but we managed to to climb into the car around 7:30am and then headed off to Agra. It was great to catch up on the last month of our lives as the combination of finals and travels didn't allow for a lot of chat time. After arriving at our hotel and getting some lunch in Agra, we drove to the Red Fort where we caught our first glimpses of the Taj Mahal off in the distance. From there we drove to the Taj Mahal. In middle school I read an article about the Taj Mahal in one of my history books and resolved that one day I would go in person to see this beautiful monument. I had high expectations but even those were blown away. Beautiful, magnificent, pristine encapsulate only a part of it. While the Taj Mahal itself was beautiful, Rachel and I quickly became irritated by the aggressiveness of many of the people that we encountered. At both the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal we had many many guys flat-out leering at us, come up to ask asking to take a picture with us, or just conspicuously stealing a photo as we walked by. Also the hawkers as well as the auto rickshaw drivers were incredibly persistent, often following us for a quite a distance before leaving us alone. By the time we returned to our hotel, we decided that rather than venturing into this tourist trap of city, we went to the next door pizza hut (the guys working at Pizza Hut were some of the nicest and friendliest that we have met in India), bought a pizza and some drinks, came back to our hotel room and watched the new Karate Kid before falling asleep. It was good to just have some downtime/ American time to rejuvenate.
Sunday June 25th: We left Agra to go to the nearby fort the Fatehpur Sikri. This astounding Mughal fort is built primarily our of red sandstone and includes multiple palaces and a huge mosque on the outside. We had a great guide who filled us in on the fascinating history of the fort. This history itself made the fort so interesting we enjoyed our time here even more than at the Taj Mahal. When we arrived it was monsooning so hard that we still got soaked even with umbrellas, but the rain gave the red sandstone a particular beauty in itself. After spending most of the morning at the Fatehpur Sikri we left to go Ranthambore, a wildlife and nature reserve, in South East Rajasthan. We really enjoyed the 7 hour drive through the country but going through the mountain passes so shortly after such heavy rain was harrowing. The car at one point went through water almost reaching the bottom of our windows, but fortunately the engine didn't stall. Finally we arrived in Ranthambore, where we were the only people staying in the entire resort except for a very nice couple that we met from Seattle (woot, woot Seattle!). We spent the night writing postcards and expelling over 30 crickets from our room that had come to reside under our bed and dive bomb Rachel's head as we tried to write postcards.
Monday June 26th: After being assured multiple times that we had already paid for the safari (though it turns out we hadn't and were surprisingly charged 7000 rupees) Rachel and I woke up early in the morning to get in a jeep and head into the park. The monsoons led to both a positive and negative outcome for our trip: Negative- the tigers had gone up into the hills so we didn't get to see any Positive- the rains had made the park incredibly green and beautiful. So though we didn't see any lions we loved driving around and seeing many cool birds and took in the natural beauty of the park. After the safari we took a quick breakfast and then drove 5 hours to Pushkar. Unfortunately our travel agency last minute changed us to a resort that, though very nice, was 5 km outside of the city and there were no taxis or rickshaws available to us (and we would have to pay or driver extra to take us into the city) so we had to stay on the resort until the next morning. Oddly enough we were literally the only tourists there for several hours so anywhere we walked on the resort we had over 10 people staring at us the whole time (needless to say we decided to not go swimming in the outdoor pool).
It's really late and I need to sleep. I'll post the rest of my trip within a couple days!
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