Tom and I made it to Delhi on the 9th after an incredibly long bus journey (about 10 hours). The bus ride down from Shimla to Chandigarh was very winding and vomit inducing for the Indians on the bus. In the future when a bus provides barf bags I will consider myself warned. I always feel a bit bad ass, though, when the locals are puking and I'm not.
Anyway. We made it to my friend's house in Delhi and headed for the Bangladesh embassy the next morning. After dropping off Tom's visa application we headed out on the town. Finally in Delhi I found all of the harassment I'd been missing in India. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly impressed and by early afternoon had already reached the end of my rope. So what did we do? We headed for the mall. Yup, the mall. Where we contemplated seeing a movie (but didn't) and contemplated eating Cinnabons (and did).
The next day my new travel partner, E, came into town. We all stayed one more night in Delhi and the next morning Tom flew back to Bangladesh with his brand new shiny visa. E and I packed up our stuff and headed to the New Delhi train station to try and buy tickets to Agra for an evening train and to store our bags while we checked out the Red Fort in Delhi. We arrived around 2 and barely managed to sort everything out in time for our 5:30 train. And we never got to see the Red Fort. It was a horrible, horrible Delhi day. After waiting in many fruitless lines that never moved or were the wrong ones, and trying to avoid all of the obnoxious touts who sometimes physically tried to stop you from entering somewhere in an attempt to rip you off, and just being led on a wild goose chase in general, we finally managed to wait in the right line to book a ticket on the right train at 5:00. We quickly shoved some food down and then sat on our three hour train to Agra.
Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. I still can't really believe that I got to see it! We woke up at 5:30am this morning to get breakfast and then wait in line for tickets so we could get in at dawn when it's least crowded. It did not disappoint. The crowds were minimal at first and getting to watch the mist slowly fade away as the sun rose was pretty awesome. We spent three hours in there and took obnoxious amounts of photos. We packed in a full day of sightseeing with the Agra Fort (also pretty awesome) and the Baby Taj (amazing detail!). We're exhausted now and are looking forward to a full night's sleep in our really ghetto and cold hotel room. We're moving on tomorrow. Pictures to come when I get back home.
Anyway. We made it to my friend's house in Delhi and headed for the Bangladesh embassy the next morning. After dropping off Tom's visa application we headed out on the town. Finally in Delhi I found all of the harassment I'd been missing in India. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly impressed and by early afternoon had already reached the end of my rope. So what did we do? We headed for the mall. Yup, the mall. Where we contemplated seeing a movie (but didn't) and contemplated eating Cinnabons (and did).
The next day my new travel partner, E, came into town. We all stayed one more night in Delhi and the next morning Tom flew back to Bangladesh with his brand new shiny visa. E and I packed up our stuff and headed to the New Delhi train station to try and buy tickets to Agra for an evening train and to store our bags while we checked out the Red Fort in Delhi. We arrived around 2 and barely managed to sort everything out in time for our 5:30 train. And we never got to see the Red Fort. It was a horrible, horrible Delhi day. After waiting in many fruitless lines that never moved or were the wrong ones, and trying to avoid all of the obnoxious touts who sometimes physically tried to stop you from entering somewhere in an attempt to rip you off, and just being led on a wild goose chase in general, we finally managed to wait in the right line to book a ticket on the right train at 5:00. We quickly shoved some food down and then sat on our three hour train to Agra.
Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. I still can't really believe that I got to see it! We woke up at 5:30am this morning to get breakfast and then wait in line for tickets so we could get in at dawn when it's least crowded. It did not disappoint. The crowds were minimal at first and getting to watch the mist slowly fade away as the sun rose was pretty awesome. We spent three hours in there and took obnoxious amounts of photos. We packed in a full day of sightseeing with the Agra Fort (also pretty awesome) and the Baby Taj (amazing detail!). We're exhausted now and are looking forward to a full night's sleep in our really ghetto and cold hotel room. We're moving on tomorrow. Pictures to come when I get back home.
Great, sounds like the good old taj didn't fail and you're having a good time. I'm eating your peanut butter as a midnight snack. Perfect, thanks. Have fun!
ReplyDeletecan't wait to see pics Julia! sounds like you have lots of stories to share! enjoy the rest of your time in India.
ReplyDeleteThanks, mee. Who are you?
ReplyDelete