We started New Years Eve day with an early morning trip to the Amber Fort in Jaipur.

 The fort is the center of the old town of Jaipur or the Pink City. Everything in the old city is terracotta pink in color. The city walls ramble over the steep hills for miles resembling the Great Wall in China. City architectural codes maintain the natural terracotta color and the huge Fort and emperor’s palaces are all UNESCO Heritage Sites. All were built in the 17th Century.

The British basically left Rajasthan alone during their occupancy. Rajasthan contained 59. kingdoms. It still does but all titular. India is a democracy as of 1947 when the Brits pulled out. The current King of Jaipur is a 17 year old college student living in his 49 room Palace in center of town.

The afternoon was spent exploring the areas around the palaces and Jaipur Museum.

First, I haven’t figured out the proper formatting of text and pictures on this site. They will be continue to be jumbled. My apologies.

After a 4 hour drive from Delhi we arrived at our hotel in Agra. We drove on a new 6 lane toll expressway. Very nice road. We checked into a really old and funky hotel which is in a 120 year old building. Beautiful architecture resembling Raffles in Singapore with wide tiled outdoor hallways and arched columns.  Large room with 4 poster canopy bed. Shower in old free standing claw foot cast iron tub. Furniture is all antique with tapestry upholstery.

After check in we drove to The Taj Mahal. Took 22 years to build by Muslim King to memorialize his wife who died at childbirth. The Taj Mahal was never a residence. As astonishingly beautiful as expected. The photo of mom sitting on the marble bench is called the Diana Bench. Princess Diana sat at this same spot for her now famous photo. We spent over two hours exploring the interior and grounds.

The kings lived within Agra Fort. A massive complex which housed several palaces and the king’s army. Today, 25% is opened to the public (palaces) while the rest still houses India’s army. The complex is surrounded by double moats.

Agra is a small town compared to Delhi (4 million to 24 million). Much more rural with a lot of cows roaming around. Never saw a cow in Delhi. A truer sense of India. Few cars and tons of motorcycles and tuk tuks for getting around. Delhi is all cars and few motorcycles. Loving it all. A real cultural experience.

Tomorrow morning we are off on a 6 hour drive through the countryside (no expressway) to Jaipur. Our driver, Vinod, is from Nepal and is quite a character. I ride in the front with him while on the road and in the back with mom when a guide is along with us. We pick up a different guide in each city for the day. I was bitching to Vinod about the Delhi hotel charging 300 rupes ($5 USD) for a domestic Kingfisher beer. When he picked us up this AM he presented us with a 4 pack of Kingfisher beer for only 400 rupes. Unfortunately for us he bought extra strong 8% Kingfisher.

Old Delhi is the old walled city surrounded by New Delhi. Delhi has 3 UNESCO Heritage Sites all within 2 miles of each other. They are ruins of primarily Muslim mosques. Interestingly, the succession of these sights architecturally were the forerunners of the Taj Mahal, dome wise. All sights were interesting to see. This was the first time we have heard the loud blasting of the “call to prayer” each at 1 & 4 PM. Guess they do it 5 times a day.

The highlight of the day for us was walking the streets of Old Delhi. Shoulder to shoulder with the masses was a real energy charge. We ran across the larges

On the Streets of Old Delhi

t mosque in Asia which covered at least 3 city blocks. The streets around the mosque were covered with shops catering to the sale of halal Muslim food products. Poultry killed while you wait and stripped and prepared to halal requirements.

All in all an A+ day of experiences. Tomorrow we head out to Agra and the Taj Mahal.