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Published: February 27th 2008
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Nick at Taj Mahal
This is the standard Taj Mahal pose it seems.... After our 9 hour jeep drive and 15 hour train journey we finally arrived at our Hotel in Agra. 'Jimmy' is our driver for a few days, we aren't exactly sure of his real name so we use Jimmy. We checked into Hotel Plaza Delux at 4pm, it was very nice and even had a lift! Jimmy gave us a few hours rest before we headed off to the Red Fort. This was the first of our sights in Agra, it was massive, losts of tourists, first time we have seen so many. When getting out the car we got mobbed by about 6 people trying to sell us stuff, felt like celebs at a premier! The fort was really nice and we got some good pictures, mostly when Adam got photo happy with the monkeys, there was lots of them! We then headed back to the hotel and walked about Agra a bit, updated the blog and went for some tasty food at a local place called GMB, spicy burgers! Then went to sleep watching cricket (it was on about 10 of our 40 channels).
Next day we were up at 6am heading for the Taj Mahal first, we
Monkey on red Fort
This is only a tiny part of the Fort... had breakfast at the hotel, they didn't have much, just toast and jam again! Arrived at the Taj Mahal for 7am, it was pretty breathe taking. We spent a while walking around taking photos then headed out to meet Jimmy. He was a bit late and we eneded up talking to some locals, who for the first time didn't try to sell us much! We went back to the hotel to check out and then started our drive to Jaipur.
We stopped half way there to visit Fatimoor fort and mosque. Some random guy started chatting to us and had soon made himself our 'guide', this was something we had tried to avoid most places. He was actually quite good and took a photo of us both with silly hats on in the mosque, and then obviously took us to his mates rug of goods to try and sell us something, escaped with no purchase!
We then stopped at some services still onour journey to Jaipur, they were very nice and did a good club sandwich (trying to make Adam better). Our Driver had some comedy music on, we got Vengaboys and Backstreet boys most of the way, oddly
Camels
Hadn't came across these unitl Agra... not the first time we have heard someone play Vengabys here, get with the times! Sometime on this journey we got a flat tyre! The road here are terrible, Jimmy mst have done this before because it took himm about 2 minutes to change it! We then drove into Jaipur and stopped at another temple as we came in, we didn't stay at this one too long, all starting to look the same! We then went to our Hotel in Jaipur and did our usual walkabout to see where we were, stopped to buy some oranages from a street trader on the way.
Next morning we were up at 8am to meet Jimmy. We first went to Amber palace, where most people ride elephants up to it, but the queue was massive for this. We just drove up and spent some good time inside. When we left Jimmy had a plan, he took us to the elephant home (they are only aloud to do 4 rides per day before going back home). Here we got to see a baby elephant and touch him, then they took us out for a ride on one of the big ones, we went
Fatimoor Mosque
Setting the trends...everyone will have one soon! quite a way down the road before turning back to the elephant home. After this we went to Amber Fort, this was quite good, we definetly prefer the forts to mosques, they are much easier to walk around exploring, and no paying for someone to look after your shoes! here we saw the worlds biggest cannon on wheels, which apparently fires 50 miles. We then had a rest at the hotel before Jimmy took us to Old Jaipur and the City Palace. These places were nice and had some good museum and art galleries. We saw the worlds biggest silver pots here and took a photo of ourselves shining in them! After this Jimmy dropped us in the center of town so we could grab some food and try and swap our torn 500 rupee note for another at a bank. Both of these were easy, Mcdonalds and Royal Bank of India sorted us out. After thi we got a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel, haggled from 100r to 80r before we set off. Spent the rest of the evening chilling out and updating the blog for you.
Next is our Journey to Mumbai, a 18 hour train
Elephant ride
He went faster than you would think! journey this time, leaving at 2pm tomorrow. Only 3 days left in India once we get here so probably one more blogfrom here. Hope you all enjoy the photos, some good ones this time we think!
Thanks for all the emails, was good to hear from home!
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Adam Gibson and Nick Burke
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Fatai
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kool ... kool
kool kool.. seems like things aren't bad atall.. hope you're enjoying yourself as much as you wanted.. its your boi.. -bubbles-