Amber Fort with Amber and Sarah! |
Jantar Mantar |
City Palace |
The next morning we got on a train to Agra, where we got to see the pinnacle of India (at least for a tourist), the Taj Mahal. Actually seeing and going inside the Taj Mahal is a completely different experience than you would expect when planning a trip there or just looking at photos. Its crowded, like one would expect, but it was a different kind of crowd. People dress in their best clothes, I was handed babies (but that's because I am very pale and blonde), parents wanted their children to take photos with me, and helped fixed my sari. No photos were allowed inside the tomb, and the guards would literally smack phones to the ground if they saw you taking pictures (thus I did not take any inside). The whole experience was surreal. I had met up with my friend Alexis, and the appearance of a black girl and a white girl garnered quite a bit of attention (again kinda cool, kinda weird).
Immediately after the Taj we went to the Agra fort, before getting back on the train to go to Delhi. The Agra fort had a view of the Taj which was cool, but the fort itself was also really beautiful.
The train ride to Delhi was long but fun, and arriving late at night in Delhi we got to our hotel, and I talked to my parents for the first time since leaving. That phone call made all of the places I had been going and things I had been seeing feel real for the first time. And so after having a minor existential crisis about the life I was living, I got ready for the next day in Delhi.
We would only be spending the morning in Delhi and then flying back to Kochi in the afternoon, so we had a kind of expedited bus tour of the monuments around Delhi, then went on a Rickshaw ride, and got a little time to see Humayun's Tomb. Humayun's tomb, which is similar to the Taj Mahal but on a smaller scale, displays the same great Moghul architecture and design.
Arriving back in Kochi with one day left before moving onto the next country, my friend Mikayla and I decide to explore the town/city around the port. We hired a tuk-tuk driver named Harris who said he knew all the spots to go. Fully knowing that Harris was bringing us to an outlet where he’d be getting commission, we bought some scarves (while pricey, they are beautiful). We then saw a Jain temple, famous for its praying pigeons, and then we got henna done. The henna may have been the best part of this day. Harris explained that his wife did henna and they welcomed us into their home to get our henna done. We met his wife, his young son, ate some homemade chips and got to see how a part of India that was not a tourist attraction.
Talk to you later,
-Karin xx
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