We were delighted to welcome our first visitors to India last week — my parents! Since all of us are working full-time, we had to jam a month’s worth of fun into a 10 day trip. Thankfully my parents have the energy of 20-somethings – it was me sneaking in daily naps! :) Get a load of this crazy schedule…
They arrived on a Saturday morning at 1 AM. Nick brought them home for an hour to shower and repack their suitcase because we were off by 4 AM for our 5:45 AM flight to Jaipur! But we weren’t there yet…next we boarded a van for the 4 hour drive to Pushkar, home of the infamous Camel Fair!
We were all exhausted but headed out with our guide in the late afternoon to see Pushkar city. We saw the one and only temple for Brahma IN THE WORLD and the holy lake where people make annual pilgrimages to (which is what eventually brought about the camel fair’s inception).
The next morning (Day 2 of travel) we got our camel on. We did our first camel cart ride at the hotel as a warm-up. SO FUN! I got some grief for being the only one not to go atop the camel but my bottom was still aching from the ride I took in Egypt in March… :) The cart suited me just fine. We then did a longer second ride around the fair in Pushkar city.
Our kiddo could not get enough of the camels. She just loved them to pieces.
It was on day 2 of travel that we noticed Nia scratching her head on a regular basis. We thought this might have something to do with the red bug bites she had on the back of her neck. And then we found the little black bugs in her hair. But not too many. Just a few. At first I thought it was fleas from the camels, but nope, we had our first-ever case of lice. It was a strange presentation though, no nits or white stuff on the scalp, just these big black louse bugs. (Shudder) I start scratching my head just typing this. Ugghhh. So gross. Maybe I should be grateful we’re only getting our first case at 8 though. But still… DISGUSTING.
So that definitely added a fun new element to the trip but we soldiered on. Every day was 3-4 hours of driving to a new city (in retrospect, not a good idea – too much movement). Day 2 we did camels in the morning then drove to Jaipur all afternoon and settled into our new hotel.
The morning of Day 3 we hit Jaipur hard, as we only had 5 hours there to explore. We started at the uber-famous Hawa Mahal. This building was an extension of the royal palace. It’s 953 windows allowed royal ladies who could not go outside the home to be able to watch any processions and activities on the street without being seen.
Second stop was this amazing stepwell. These ingenious water reservoirs acted as both a natural-cooling reservoirs and community gathering spaces. The steps made it accessible to enter no matter how full the well was. Neat, huh?
Next stop was the Amber Fort, which sits just outside of Jaipur City. Construction of the Fort was started by Raja Man Singh in the year 1592 and completed by Sawai Jai Singh in the 18th Century. This meant that there was an old and a new part of the palace. Here is a picture of the courtyard built in the 18th century.
After taking in Jaipur’s sights, we drove 4 hours to get to Agra for the next day’s visit to the Taj Mahal. The pollution can be quite bad in Agra, which can at times prevent you from getting clear pictures of the structure. Because of this, our guide suggested that we leave the hotel at 5:30 AM so that we could enter at 6 AM when it opened.
We entered the compound bleary-eyed at 6 AM and meandered through the compound’s perimeter gardens. We eventually came to a large gate which gave way to the stunning Taj Mahal shrouded in a morning mist. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of something being so over-hyped that the actual encounter ends up being a huge let down. Happily, the Taj Mahal delivered. It was just as majestic in person as it was in all the photos I had seen. Well worth the visit, despite the chaos of getting there.
To give you a little background information, the Taj Mahal was started in 1632 and completed 22 years later in 1653. Shah Jahan, the 5th Mughal emperor, built the structure as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died at age 40 giving birth to their 14th child. 20,000 laborers were used to construct the structure. The foundation of the building was red sandstone and the veneer is white marble that was mined in nearby Rajasthan and carried to Agra with 1000+ elephants! 28 different precious stones were set into the marble facade.
5 years after the completion of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan fell sick. His 4 sons fought among themselves to become his successor. The victorious one, Aurangzeb, then put his father under house arrest in Agra Fort (shown below) until his death 8 years later. Despite these crappy circumstances, Shah Jahan was at least fortunate to be able to gaze across the Yamuna river at the beautiful Taj Mahal and mourn his wife. He was later entombed in the Taj Mahal as well.
We wrapped up our tour of Agra on the morning of Day 4 and then proceeded to drive 3.5 hours to Delhi to board our flight. We got home just after 8 PM and promptly began our first of several lice treatments! Good times, huh? We were originally supposed to spend our 5th day in Delhi but cancelled that do to the atrocious AQI readings they had been having lately. Was probably a good call, and it gave us a little more time to explore Mumbai.
Hopefully I’ll have another post for you in the next few days about my parents’ remaining 4 days.
In the meantime, feel free to check out the full photo gallery HERE.
If you’re more of a video type of person, then check out these fun 1 minute snapshots Nick made with his new toy…
Ciao for now!
