India- Tourist week

Here’s a link to some pics from our Golden Triangle (Delhi/Agra/Jaipur) tour.

Our tourist week started off with one final breakfast at our little hotel in Anand, a meal that seemed unremarkable at the time, but would dramatically alter my vacation for the next day or so.

A bit of background. In big tourist hotels, food and beverages are prepared with bottled and/or purified water and safe to drink. In small, non-touristy places like where we stayed the first week, this is not the case. The guy who ran the restaurant knew limited English, but “very tasty” was high on his list of favorite phrases: “You try this, it’s very tasty!” Before long, we started referring to him as Very Tasty among ourselves. Being appreciative of both fine food and fine women, Very Tasty was quite fond of Rhonda, and was obviously crestfallen when we told him it was our last day. And then he poisoned me. Or perhaps my overactive appetite got the best of me. In any event, I was the only one at the table who ate a certain mysterious (and apparently water-based) green sauce…

Fast forward to half midnight on 1/9, when I awoke in a cold sweat and with an alarming set of feelings in my guts. A pattern of remarkable consistency emerged: puke 3 times every 2 hours. By the time I finished that part of the fun around 6:30 AM, my ribs were so sore I felt like I’d been beaten with a bag of oranges. Lessons learned:
1. Puking in a fancy hotel is no more fun than doing it at home.
2. Don’t screw with Very Tasty.

Ignoring common sense and against Rhonda’s better judgement, I gave the tourism thing a shot. I did manage to make it through a tour of the largest mosque in India and, but a bone-rattling rickshaw ride sent me whimpering back to bed at lunchtime. The girls had a busy afternoon, seeing an assortment of ruins, temples and India Gate, the national monument of India. It was a couple of days before I was back to normal, but I was able to recover enough by the next day to be a normal tourist again.

Our last 2 full days were spent in the cities of Agra and Jaipur. The highlight of the week was seeing the Taj Mahal. It was, quite simply, incredible. I’m afraid my pictures don’t do it justice. The Taj was completed around 1653 AD after 21 years of construction. It’s considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines Persian, Islamic and Indian elements.

See the pictures link at the top for more detailed views.

While not as spectacular as the Taj (what is?), nearby Agra fort was quite impressive. These old forts are really more like heavily fortified enclosed cities. The original fort was all red sandstone but Shah Jahan (the same emperor who built the Taj) had some of the structures destroyed, replacing them with more elaborately decorated white marble buildings.

Each monument, fort or temple we visited was special in its own way. I was continually amazed at how well preserved all of the decorative and architectural details are after several hundred years. A few snapshots:

There were a couple of minor annoyances (ask us about "India Standard Time"), but overall the trip was extremely enjoyable and rewarding. We got the best of both worlds with the family and tourist experiences.