India's Golden Triangle

We rise early to eat breakfast and be ready for a full day exploring Delhi. We eat our breakfast (a buffet with cold foods and some hot options) before we meet up at 8:45 with our guide, Isha and Ranjit to head out. Isha is an "experience guide" and is intending to show us the city in a more experiential way. She takes us first to see the Red Fort in Delhi, which is beautifully laid out with red sandstone. Many forts like this exist in India, monuments as they call them. Visiting these monuments is a must on at least some part of the trip, and Delhi was the best place for us given the short time schedule we were on. She shares with us the history of the fort. Including showing laminated drawings of how the fort looked originally as needed. After about an hour we then leave the fort and next drive to visit the module in Old Delhi. Here many Muslims come for prayers and it is still actively used today. You must enter barefoot and with arms and legs covered (as a woman), they let you rent a robe out front for this purpose. We see the mosque and take in the square. Sometimes prayer is held here which can be visited as well. Next, we board a Rickshaw at the bottom of the stairs to the mosque to experience the alleys of Old Delhi and see a lot of sights in a short amount of time. The rickshaw is bumpy, as expected, but we see many shopkeepers, some selling very nice saris and wedding attire, some trophies, and some jewelry. And other shops. Many shopkeepers are standing out in front watching us drive by. We see piles of garbage out front in some, and a man coming by with a head trolley to pick up the trash for the day.  They do this cleanup daily. After the 15 min Rickshaw ride, we walk down a wider shooting street and into an oil store. Here you can buy some of the world's most expensive oils in undiluted form. We then get to sit down and make our own scent to bring home with us. I end up making one that smells of lotus while my mother makes one of Jasmine. We get to write down our created name.  

Next, we get back in the car to head to the New Delhi part of the city. New Delhi was built by the British and while both are "Delhi", once this new section was built, the term "Old Delhi" started being used. Here we visit the Sikh Temple and Community Kitchen. We visit the Sikh community kitchen. Sikhs run and volunteer in this kitchen to feed up to 15,000 a day. The operation is run by what the Sikhs donate (for the food) and run entirely by volunteering. We sneak in back to see the kitchen workers preparing the meal, and the large vats of curried dahl they are cooking.  Next, we climb the stairs to enter an open-air Temple with heads covered. Live music is being played in the center of the room, not as a concert, but to create an atmosphere that lends itself to others praying.  Many people are offering prayers and bows to various items around the room. We walk through the room taking it in, then enter outside to view a courtyard where one could walk around and listen to the music for a solo meditation. Nearby we are able to buy a pudding, a sweet treat that many kids may like when they come to visit the temple. Next, we get back in the car and drive to a special visit, an Institute for the blind. Here the organization works to teach the skills of candle making, sewing, and massage to give skills to people who are blind. We sit down in a room where chairs await us for a foot and shoulder massage. My masseuse works very well and I am amazed by his ability. It is such a special treat after the day and I am grateful to have met them and seen the work this place is doing. 

Next, we go for a late lunch at the Imperial Hotel for lunch at the Spice Route, named by Conde Nast as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world. The design and decor alone inside are exceptional, with a well laid out architecture and structure to the restaurant to resemble the 9 stations of life. The meal is served in multiple courses and is exceptional in quality. 
This afternoon I meet up with another guide, Vashal, to go visit Humayun's tomb. This is a monument built by his late wife after he died. The mausoleum is impressive and was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Inside you see the tombs of himself, his wife, and her young baby, his three daughters, and his two favorite concubines, all laid out in different sections of the structure. The gardens outside are all designed with symmetry in mind. This evening we return to our hotel, tired from the day, for dinner in the hotel's restaurant.

Today we woke up early to experience the train to Agra. This allows us to spend only 90 minutes traveling in comfort instead of 3-4 hours in a car. We may our way through the crowded station to our platform and then hop on the car we are reserved in to take our seats. The car is very clean, with a nearby toilet, and we are offered a meal and tea during the short ride. We arrive in Agra where we meet up with our driver again and with another new guide, Sanjay. We head out for lunch first as we cannot check in to our rooms yet. I order the Biryani here, which is a rice and chicken dish.  

Then we go next to see the Taj Mahal from the opposite side of the river. The Taj Mahal's design was borrowed from Humayun's tomb in Delhi. But Shah Jahan, as he was building it to be his wife's mausoleum, made adjustments to give it a more feminine look, including lightening it to white marble. Here lies first his wife, and then later himself as his plans to build an identical one for himself across the river could not be completed before his son killed him. 

This spot allows some impressive views, and even though the monsoon rains are pouring, we enjoy seeing the building from such a magnificent vantage. Typically you would try to visit from this angle at sunset, but as the clouds are not cooperating we decide to get it over with quickly so we can just relax until dinner that evening. 

On the way back, we stop at an artisans workshop where we get to see how the stonework is done, as we watch an artisan sitting at his wheel and sanding down the stones to set in marble. We learn all about white marble and its special properties, and how incredibly hard it is to chisel out to lay the stones in. They use Lapine, onyx, cornelian (also known as firestone), malachite, and turquoise. mother of pearl, and jasper for the inlaid gems. The Taj Mahal has over 2,000,000 stones on it for the intricate work. These artisans get in on Fridays to restore any pieces that need it to keep the Taj Mahal looking amazing.  Next, we are shown a showroom with pieces for sale that you can carry with you on the plane or have shipped back to your home. 
We return to the ITC Mughal for dinner in one of their restaurants this evening. They offer a great restaurant where you can watch the cooks at work. The Kastoori chicken kebabs here are amazing, and they coat it in egg and then grilled it to provide a crispy outside coating to the meat. 
 

This morning we enjoy breakfast in the hotel. The spread is impressive. And comprises two rooms almost anything you could want, including an omelets-making station. We eat and then meet to go and visit the Taj Mahal from the inside. We arrive around 9 AM, and hop on a golf cart to carry us the rest of the way to the main entrance. Again we must go through security (they really searched our bags here, they were not kidding about it). You cannot bring any sharp objects, food, or other items in. They confiscate a protein bar I forgot I had in my purse. 
Next, we walk on through the south gate towards the Taj Mahal. The peripheral buildings themselves are an impressive site. The writing around the archways is an ancient prayer, but what is amazing is that the writing was made bigger the higher up you went so that from the ground, the writing would all appear to be the same size to the viewer. We pass through the building to stand overlooking the Taj Mahal as it reflects in the pool in front of it. There are many people here, trying g to take a picture. We have come early in the day and are told this is not that bad of a crowd size, and that by noon or later it is so packed here. We walk up to the Taj Mahal, get footies on the bottoms of our feet, and then walk through the building. The stairs to get up to the temple are steep, but a railing is provided. We walk around up too before entering the bulking inside to view his wife's resting place (well really she's down below, and this is just a replica of what lies beneath the floor now), and his eventual resting place. This spot (with his tomb off to one side) is the only way in which the symmetry of the architecture is ignored. We walk around inside, listen to our names being echoed by a gentleman offering to chat it, and see how the marble is translucent and the cornelian gems are like fire under a flashlight. It is a very impressive central dome, the site of which is so breathtaking the pictures do not do it justice. 

Normally we would next go visit the Fort in this area, which is one of the most impressive. But as we are needing to get on to the next place, we decide to go now. We say goodbye to Sanjay and continue on our way. This will be a 5-6 hour drive or so.  We stop halfway for lunch at s lovely restaurant and gift shop and continue on. We arrive in the afternoon and after visiting a few hotels we check in at Khem Villas, a very nicely landscaped property with canvas walled tents on platforms and thatched roof villas and cottages. We sit around the pond area and enjoy a drink while chatting with the naturalist guide about the wildlife on the property, as well as spy out some planets and stars through his birding scope. After dinner, we turn in for the night as we have an early AM wake-up for a safari drive to hopefully spot a tiger. 

We wake at 5:30 for a quick coffee and to get ready by 6:15 when the vehicles come to pick us up. We head out in an open-air Jeep for the park which is a 15 min drive away. We enter Gate 1 into the park. The rains have washed out so much, and a lot of the roads are not driveable so only certain zones are open. We drive along the road (as you are not allowed to go off-road) hoping to spot signs of life. About an hour into the drive we have still not spotted much, it has been bumpy, and some spots are hard to pass, as we are working our way further into the forest. We arrive at a lake area where we spot our first signs of life some birds as well as a crocodile lounging in the lake. We continue on for a bit before having to turn around due to the road being washed out. Tigers live in specific territories and make their area with urine scents. We have given up on spotting Nali, but head to another area of Sultan and hope to spot her instead. As we continue along, we spot many other types of wildlife here: peacocks, both males with beautiful feathers and the females with their babies, deer (which are quite a bit larger than deer in the Rockies), two mongoose, and other birds as well such as egrets and parakeets. We round our final curve before the end and see at the end a troop of monkeys. They are sitting all around us in the branches just watching us as intently as we watch them. 

We head back to Khem Villas, along the bumpy road and back through the stone structure that looks like an old forgotten castle gate at the entry to the park. We did not get to spot a Tiger, likely due to the rains still, but perhaps we can return another time. We return to shower and eat a better breakfast and then head out to Jaipur, a 3-hour drive this afternoon. 
This evening we head to the Amer Fort for a special dinner arranged for us in a fine dining restaurant near the roof. The fort was built in 967 before Jaipur even existed and now sits atop the hilltop, shining like a mammoth protector over the city. The restaurant here serves different authentic Indian foods on a large platter to give you a great variety. After enjoying the restaurant. We walk around the fort a bit in the lights, admiring the handiwork of the huge structure. 

Today we spend the morning at leisure, which was so nice. The pool at Samode Haveli is so nice and inviting, but unfortunately, I don't wake up in time to even take a dip! We enjoy a very late breakfast in the open-air restaurant and admire a puppeteer putting on a show with his handmade dolls of Mangowood.

Next, we head to visit the City Palace and the observatory next door. The palace is still actively used today by the king's family. When British rule took over, many maharajas decided to cooperate and were able to keep loving their palaces. The royal family still lives there today. We go inside to spy out a few rooms still open to the public: the silver room (or reflecting room), the gold room, and the cloud room across from the temple he had built.  Next, we walk over to the observatory and learn about the great lengths he went to in order to learn about cosmology from all over the world. So much so that the world's largest sundial is built here, accurately down to every 2 mins of Tom during daylight hours. 

After the City Palace, we then travel to Dera Mandawa, a local aristocratic home for Mr. Durga Singh, who now operates the property as half residence, and half guesthouse for tourists. He shares with us the story of his great-grandfather and his coming to participate in court for the Maharaja and choosing to stay and build this great Haveli. He invites us to come to learn to cook some authentic Indian recipes, and shows us how a few dishes are completed, including paneer, chicken garam masala, and rice. We watch him roast chicken over a fire started by cow dung, and over a low-load fire on the coals. After some time interacting and learning from him, we return back to our hotel where we head in for massages from the local hotel staff, and then call it a day. 

The next day we leave earlier to catch our flight down to Mumbai. We see the high-rise buildings of the city, fisherman's villages, statues, and old buildings. We get out for lunch at Cafe Leopold, the first cafe and renowned site for the terror attack in 2008. We visit the public laundry, which is a massive operation for doing the laundry for many city residents. We also explore the Gateway of India, Gandhi's museum, and the Victoria railway. We also visit the hallways of the Taj Palace Hotel. This hotel was built in 1903 as India's first luxury hotel that WOULD accept whatever poor may want to enter. We drive into the city to get a quick feel for the city before transferring to the Trident hotel for a brief stay before heading to the airport around 11. Here we rest up, enjoy dinner at the hotel, and sleep a bit before packing it all up to head to the airport.