September 2016 –
Right after our trip to Yangshuo, I happily & luckily got to accompany Mark on a business trip to Pune, India.
India is such a vibrant and diverse country with some of the best food in the world. And let's not forget yummy masala chai (spice tea)! And while I'm at it I should I also mention that all the people we've either met in India or Indians living outside their country are a very kind, friendly, and welcoming people.
Business class??? Really? We found great ticket prices flying on China Eastern. The only downside- transiting through Shanghai airport even though the flight from Beijing to Delhi, India is listed as one flight…when in fact it's two separate flights…having you run across the terminal to catch the next flight. China, you really need to work on your international transits and transit times.
We arrived very VERY early in Delhi. We went straight to the hotel for a few hours of rest.
Check out these beautiful swords (? Is that what you call these??) in the hotel elevator:
Through the Delhi hotel we hired a car to take us to Agra. The ride to Agra is more than three hours. We stopped briefly to get snacks and drinks. Want to get a sandwich at Subway? Here are your options:
We had to pick up a bag of these Magic Masala potato chips (IMO- very yummy with just a kick):
Image from the road to Agra:
Soooo….what's in Agra???
Only one of the most beautiful buildings in the world….Here's a peak:
The Taj Mahal!!!!
Here is some information on the Taj Mahal.
I nearly cried when I saw this beautiful sight. This place has been on my bucket list since as long as I can remember and I can't believe we got to see it!
Knowing that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience we hired a guide AND a photographer. The photographer followed us for most of our visit and had us pose in various locations. I think the last time Mark and I had a photography session was at our wedding. HA! It was a pretty funny experience but certainly worth it!
Our guide told us that the bench in the below photo was the same on that Princess Diana sat on. Oooo!!! I got to sit on the same bench as British royalty! LOL
The photographer had us pose for lots of photos…. awwww….this would have been a perfect wedding photo. 🙂
Our guide, Sonny:
Beautiful inlaid semi-precious stones and white marble. No machines…all done by hand.
Check out these gorgeous hand carvings.
This at the back side of the Taj Mahal:
I highly recommend reading up the Taj Mahal and how it was built.
Seeing the Taj Mahal was quite an emotional experience – so beautiful…and I thought I'd never get a chance to see it…yet here I was, standing in front of it.
Ah, let me tell you a short story about an irritating experience we had while on this leg of our journey. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with India. Just the horrible timing of our trip. We'd learned that our USA bank was trying to issue us new debit cards with chips. Well, those cards never arrived. We called the bank to make sure that they would keep our old debit cards functional. HA! We tried getting out cash while in Agra….and it wouldn't work, wouldn't work, wouldn't work. We stopped at a cafe — Sheroes (it's a cafe staffed by women who were victims of acid attacks). Mark spent a horribly LONG time on the phone with our bank only to learn that we were given false information – they'd already closed our account along with our debit cards. Well, CRAP. Most places don't accept credit cards for payment – we NEED cash. So after even more time wasted on the phone we finally came up with another option. Whew. Dear bank, we really didn't need that extra stress. Get your information straight. Leaving travelers stranded because you gave false information is scary and dangerous.
After we finally got the banking situation straightened out we made two stops. First at an artisan specializing in marble inlaid with semi precious stones. Exquisite!
The marble is actually nearly white but it's been painted a brown tone so that you can see the carved design. The design is carefully chiseled out and the semi precious stones are all cut and shaped by hand. They're custom fitted and glued in place with a special secret glue.
Lunch? Definitely delicious Indian cuisine! It was so difficult deciding on just a few dishes….so we ended up ordering more than we could possibly eat and sampling it all. Yummy!!!!
Now we're off to see another artisan. This one deals with handmade woven rugs.
Here are two men working together on this rug. I can't properly remember all the details about making rugs but I can say it was quite mesmerizing and magical.
The owner of this shop told us that many families around Agra and surrounding area make rugs for him to sell. The rugs are made of various kinds of wool and silk.
We looked at countless rugs…each unique, beautiful, and handmade. This red one – this is the one we hand carried back home. I LOVE it. Handmade in Agra.
And now it's time to head back to Delhi. Such a bummer – we missed a chance getting to see this fabulous place (Agra Fort):
We just ran out of time and we've got a three hour drive back to Delhi. If we hadn't wasted hours on the phone with our US bank we might have had time to see Agra Fort. Oh well.
We saw these yellow and green tuk tuks for hire everywhere:
We saw lots of brightly colored and painted trucks throughout our trip in India:
Must have been rush hour traffic….leaving Agra and we saw lots of trucks, vans, tuk tuks loaded to the gills with people. Some even hanging on the sides of the moving vehicles!
It's late…and we made it back to our hotel in Delhi. Tomorrow morning we've booked a car to visit various sights in Delhi before flying to Pune in the evening.