Golden Triangle Tour-Delhi, Agra, Jaipur

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Well we are home at last !!! Our trip has been amazing but before we sign off we need to tell you a few things about our “Golden Triangle Tour”. (Sorry no computer to record there!)



First we found India a country of massive contrasts- real poverty with families living on rubbish dumps with any available material for roofs etc to very modern large houses. It is still very male dominated in some areas so Sally’s blonde hair caused quite a stir, especially when we stopped at traffic lights!!!!

We toured from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur and back. Our favourite place was Jaipur with its colourful shops and wide streets with camels, oxen and horses all travelling on the roads with the cars and bikes, even sometimes just nibbling food in the middle of the road!

We visited the Amber City with its 9 kilometre walls enclosing a fort and three palaces; the summer one made from white marble with a grass screen which even had dripping water to keep it cool, winter made from marble with thousands of mirror mosaics which would have reflected the light from the oil lamps and carpets and the monsoon palace made of limestone to draw out the humidity- clever !!! Well the king had so many wives each had to have separate rooms, but to stop jealousy they weren’t allowed into each other’s rooms and he even had a secret passage so they didn’t know who he was visiting !!

We loved Fatehpur Sikri which was a deserted town from the Mughal dynasty. This king had three wives one Hindu, one Christian and one Muslim and he built them each a palace each in the traditional style but with little reflections of the other two. There was even a swimming pool where the king would come to choose his lady and a massive courtyard with a huge board type game where the ladies would dance across according to the throw of the dice !!!

Another fascinating place was the Royal Observatory at Jaipur which has the largest sun dial in the world(90 ft) accurate to 2 seconds as well as loads of other astronomical devices for dates, times and horoscopes. These are used all the time eg when getting married couples would first plot their two horoscopes to find best date then plan from there unlike us , where booking the venue is our most important thing.

Of course we have to mention the Taj Mahal. It is so beautiful you cannot really believe you are standing there. It was built by Shah Jahan for his beloved wife when she died giving birth to her 14^th child- yes girls 14^th!!! It took 20,000 workers 17 years to complete and the marble was brought 180 miles by elephant because it reflected the light !! Love indeed!! All the marble is inlaid, no painting and he was going to build a matching black Taj over the river but one of his sons dethroned and imprisoned him so it was never built.

Thank you so much for reading our blogs. We hope they have given you a taste of our fantastic trip.



All we can say now is ….. what’s next??????

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