India Part II- Royal Cities of Rajasthan

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Agra was our first stop in Rajhastan. There’s really not much to the place aside from, well, one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world—the Taj Mahal! Upon entering the Taj grounds, you’re ushered through the South Gate and this is where the famous image comes into view. It was truly the most beautiful, magnificent, and lovely man-made thing we had ever seen! And so we stayed for hours, loving every detail shared by our tour guide and learned all about the famous Indian icon. Apparently, the Taj was commissioned by a former ruler of Agra as a mausoleum to hold the remains of his beloved wife that died in childbirth. It took 22 years and 4 architects and TONS of precious marble, but it turned out to be a true “monument to love” as they now call it. We also enjoyed visiting the Agra Fort a few miles away where we were entertained by many animated monkeys roaming the grounds and took in a spectacular view of the Taj at sunset from the highest point at the fort.

Jaipur was our last stop in India and it turned out to be our favorite spot. It’s nicknamed “the pink city” as its many buildings and walls are colored orange-rose which look very pink under the sun. And it is one of the only planned cities in India, following a more or less grid pattern, which makes it easier to navigate than most Indian cities. We had a really nice time checking out tons of tourist attractions from the Palace of the Winds to the Floating Palace (on a lake) to 2 different forts offering gorgeous views to various temples (the monkey temple and marble temple among our favorites). Another reason why we enjoyed Jaipur so much was because after seriously roughing it for pretty much all of India, we ended up at a beautiful “heritage hotel” called Umaid Bhawan that had a great roof-top restaurant, a cozy little terrace, and hot water!! We ended up there after bumping into a hilarious American couple, Mack and Jack, that strongly recommended it and it turned out to be a truly lovely place to wrap up our Asia travels.

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Photos

Jaipur Fort
One of the famous forts in Jaipur had their own mini-great wall, stretching for about 30 miles around the mountain-side

Stone Inlay
One of the most impressive things about the Taj was all of the detailed stone inlay work, for which they used various semi-precious stones like jade and onyx

Indian Tourists
The Indians are incredibly proud of their most famous icon and the majority of tourists were Indians that also came to marvel

Monkeys at the Fort
The monkeys at Agra Fort were hilarious and loved the attention they got from the tourists

Taj from Agrat Fort
View from the Agra Fort, a few miles away

Jaipur Streets
Typical traffic jam in Jaipur, stuck behind a cow

Jaipur- Obama Lovers!
They looove Obama in India and one store-owner pulled out his wallet to prove it, where he had 3 laminated pictures of Obama, plus a US dollar bill with Obamas face pasted on top!