Archive for the ‘France’ Category
Delhi – Agra – Jaipur
I just arrived in Paris after an 8 and a half hour flight from Delhi. I’ve got much of a day here before flying to Athens this afternoon. I arrived in Delhi late on Monday night and hired a driver early on Tuesday to take me along the Golden Triangle route which covers the cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Normally, tours cover the Golden Triangle in 5-7 days, but since I only had three, my driver Kala took me to see the highlights. It’s remarkable how much I saw in the three cities in just a few days. It was a 4-5 hour drive between each of the cities and we spent a night in Agra where the Taj Mahal is and then a night in Jaipur which is also known as the Pink City since most of the buildings are covered with pink stucco. Kala was a great guide. He knew what places were worth going to, where the best food was and where the nicest places were to stay.
The Taj Mahal was incredibly beautiful. I didn’t realize it was symmetrical not only horizontally but also diagonally so it looks exactly the same from all four sides. The drive between the cities can only be described as chaotic. I couldn’t get over how many people there were everywhere. Animals, people, cars, buses, trucks, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes all sharing the same road going at different speeds. I felt safe with Kala though who seemed to know how to maneuver the roads with skill. At one point at a railroad crossing, people didn’t want to wait for the train and started to turn the rickshaws and bikes on their sides to pass through, the last person crossing the tracks just seconds before the train passed.
During the road trip I visited ancient temples, palaces, forts and an observatory. One of my favorite spots was the Monkey Temple in Jaipur which was just that, a large temple complex with hundreds of monkeys everywhere. I can only think of the little bit of India I saw as a preview of a very large country, a place now high on the list of places I’d like to return to.
