Weekend Trip to New Delhi and Agra

Friday was a holiday in India so we weren't posted anywhere and so we decided to use this extra day to take a trip to New Delhi so we could visit Agra and the taj mahal. Friday we drove to Aurangabad and then flew to New Delhi where our hotel picked us up at the airport and we checked in and went right to bed since we had to get up early to drive to Agra to see the taj mahal. Our hotel was really nice and the beds were soo comfortable that we didn't want to get up the next day, but we did. It was about a 3-4 hour bus ride to Agra where we picked up our tour guide and headed to the taj mahal.

The taj mahal was amazing-all of the intricate details are so awesome to see. I am still amazed that people 400 years ago were able to do all of it by hand. I can't even imagine building something like that today with the technology that we had. Our tour guide was very good and told us the history of the taj mahal and also helped direct us to where we needed to go since there were so many people there. We joked that it would stink to have been the 1st or 2nd wife since he didn't build anything for them. I am very glad that we decided to take a weekend trip to see the taj mahal even if it was a little crammed in because it is truly that amazing and now I can say that I've seen one of the 7 wonders of the world. (Along with being able to say that I've seen one of the 7 natural wonders of the world when I went to Victoria Falls on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border).

After the taj mahal we visited a marble museum shop place where they showed us how they would have inlaid all of the stones into the marble and then had a shop for us to buy things if we wanted. We also went to a couple more touristy shops and bought some souvenirs to take back with us. Most of the shops we went to didn't do too much bartering so that was a little disappointing to us since we were hoping to do more of that.

We visited the Agra Fort where the family lived and also where the king was imprisoned by his son where there is also a view of the taj mahal. The fort was really neat and since it was made of the red marble there were paintings on some of the walls since the stones don't work to inlay on it. After the fort we headed back to New Delhi, which took some time since the roads were really crowded in Agra.

Sunday morning we slept in a little and had breakfast at our hotel which was amazing. I ate a waffle, omelet, and had some yogurt. It was so nice to have a waffle since I've been craving one for awhile. After checking out of our hotel we road a rickshaw to a downtown area of New Delhi and walked around a bit looking for some shops. Then we had some locals help us out and tell us where to go to buy handicrafts and also insisted that it wasn't safe for us to walk there, but that we needed to take a rickshaw so we did as we were told. We were glad that we listened to their advice since it would have been a long walk and we probably wouldn't have found the shop. We bought some more souvenirs here and then headed back to Cannaught Place and walked around and went into a few stores before we ate lunch at McDonalds. I had fries, a mcchicken, and a mcflurry and it was wonderful to have that little taste of America. Then we headed on the metro and went to the airport where we flew back.

It was a quick little trip to the city, but I really enjoyed it and am glad that we decided to go. It was really nice to be in a city again and have so much happening around. I think I could have spent at least a week in New Delhi looking at all of the sites to see and wandering around. Maybe someday I'll go back and really enjoy more of the city. I took quite a few pictures while there and have posted some of them to facebook, but I'll post a few more here. If you'd like to see even more let me know sometime and I can show them to you!

Eating out before we got on the plane

Riding the bus from the plane to the airport

Entrance to the taj mahal

Taj mahal

Our tour guide Raj

Agra Fort

Riding the metro back to the airport