Jaipur & Agra Weekend Trip

Since I never take my laptop with me on weekend excursions outside of Delhi, here are some photos from my trip to Jaipur, Fatehpur Sikri, and Agra with the descriptions of the more memorable moments of the trip.

Our little group getting ready to head out to Jaipur for the weekend. The drive was about 5-6 hours, but we shared a lot of laughs talking about most random and hilarious topics you can imagine. We rented that car behind us for the weekend, and our driver, Sodhi, took us around to the different sites.

We stayed at the Pearl Palace Hotel, which ended up being beyond awesome. We had really low expectations, but we really loved what we got for the amount of money we paid (about 20$ each for two nights). This is a shot of all of us having dinner at the rooftop restaurant at Pearl Palace. I had the best vegetarian burger of my life that night.

Our hotel in Jaipur was super fancy...and it was listed under "budget" options, so I can't imagine what a normal priced hotel looked like...when we saw that we had our own veranda, we just had to stay two nights.

Checking in takes a lot longer in India, but I thought we all handled it like rock stars. The government is really particular about keeping track of foreigners in India, so every time you leave one city and check in to a location in another, you have to register using your passport. Very very particular.

Five of us shared this awesome suite: two double beds and a mobile twin size bed that they added for us. It was sooooo awesome though....we had a little living room, two flat screen tvs, a veranda, and fridge stocked with chocolate and soda...I really loved it. Great quality.

Our cute living room in Jaipur. We were shocked when they opened the main door to this room -- stunned...we were expecting a whole in the wall.

Bathroom in Jaipur -- there was a switch label "music" next to the light switch, and it actually played music if you turned it on while you were in the bathroom.

Hawa Mahal: Our first stop on Saturday. Wives living in the royal house under "purdah" used the windows to peak into life in the marketplace of the city because they were not supposed to leave the palace.

Amber Fort: This was our next stop, and the longest visit of the day. Most tourists ride up to Amber Fort on elephants, so it's gotten really expensive to do so over the years. It's about 1000 rupees to ride up for two people, which is a little more than I was willing to pay. We spent just under two hours there, and we got bombarded by very aggressive street merchants. 

Even though I wasn't able to get my ride on the elephant, I was just as happy about taking a picture by them...which is really why I even wanted to ride them in the first place.

It got too hot to keep my hair down, an everyday occurrence for me here in India.

Inside the fort

Jal Mahal: We then passed by the water palace to take a few pictures before stopping for lunch.

City Palace: Really great architecture here, and some cool history too. Spent about an hour here with a tour guide.

Cool colors at City Palace

Monkey Temple: This was our last stop on Saturday, and probably a favorite. We took a ton of cool pictures, and saw a LOT of monkeys. They were all around us, it was honestly a little eerie since I am not a fan of monkeys..but it was a cool visit. Plus, the temple was so cool.

This was a very rare opportunity in which I was able to record, by photo, one of the scarier experiences of my life. Now, yes, I'm smiling in this picture, but I'm actually very terrified. This picture was taken by a "monk" at the temple at an instance in which I wandered away from the group by myself, for the first time. I quickly got bored of taking pictures of the monkeys, so I began climbing a long staircase up to the top of the temple. I wasn't really sure of what I would find up there, but I was hoping it'd be a great view of the entire temple below me. Once I reached the top, I was directed by a group of kids to a particular section of the temple. Once there, the kids disappeared, a monk invited me to remove my shoes and enter. I didn't particularly care to enter, since I just wanted to get the picture of the entire temple, but I thought it'd be rude to decline, so I obliged. He took me inside this small congested room that had a few idols from Hindu mythology. Behind me, he bolted the gate/door shut...and I began panicking inside...realizing the predicament I had gotten myself into. A married woman...alone...in a foreign country...with a man..inside a bolted room at the top of the temple...without anyone's knowledge of where I'd run off to. If they were still at the bottom of the hill, my friends would have never heard me scream. My palms began sweating. He proceeded to tell me a story about the Gods displayed in the temple, but I was so freaked by this point that I wasn't listening. After a long 5 or 10 minutes, He coerced me into giving a donation before letting me out of the room and returning my shoes to me...so I didn't feel bad about lying that I only had 100 rupees on me ($2). Even though I survived, unharmed, it was an extremely creepy experience. He insisted on taking a picture of me before allowing me to leave.

We left very early on Sunday morning (5am) to begin the long ride to Fatehpur Sikri and Agra. We spent most of our time visiting the Mosque, which was a really cool experience all in all, in spite of a misunderstanding with our guide at the beginning of the visit.

I had to cover my head inside the mosque, and I got to take a picture next to the prettiest honeycomb window I have ever seen.

The mosque from the outside. Beautiful.

We finally made it to the Taj Mahal at around mid-day, which was a really surreal experience since I've always wanted to visit it. One of my more amazing moments on this weekend trip was getting the "Indian" price for a ticket to enter the Taj, which is 20 rupees, instead of the 750 rupees that foreigners are expected to pay. Thank you Joyce for being Indian...and it's a really rewarding moment to be brown.

Me and Joyce, my CCS roommate and alter ego.

We thought we'd join the rest of the Indians by walking around barefoot instead of wearing the shoe-covers we got at the ticket counter...and that lasted about 10 seconds after we stepped on the boiling-hot ground.

 

Group picture before heading back to Delhi